Hawaii-We're Here!

We're here! We left PDX at 10:15, arrived on Maui five hours later. Then, we caught our connecting flight to Honolulu an hour after that. Seeing the beautiful waters of Hawaii from the air for the first time was a thrill. Although, it was cloudy and gray when we arrived, it was beautifully warm and the skies did brighten up a bit before long. We got our rental car and drove to our hotel in Waikiki. It definitely is the big city around here. This place is hoppin'! It took us almost an hour in traffic just to go about seven miles. Looking forward to seeing some countryside, even though it's always fun people watching too.


We got situated in our hotel, and both decided that we were starving, so we headed out the door and found, of all things, Planet Hollywood. Hey, we were hungry and it was close by! We'll do the more traditional food...maybe tomorrow!


After dinner, we walked another block to....the beach of Waikiki! Woohoo! The sand is very tannish-brown. Not like our gray-brown that we have on our Oregon beaches. Very pretty. A little coarser than ours too. Not soft at all.


We ended our long day watching our first sunset on the island of Oahu. Walking back to the hotel, we discovered a Cheesecake Factory and guess what they had?! A 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cheesecake! It was just meant to be! Sorry, I'm too tired to download the picture that I just took of the cheesecake. You'll just have to use your imagination!



Aloha for today!

Packing

Packing for a trip is always exciting to me. It's just one of those last things that you've got to do leading up to the big day that makes it more real. Because we've been planning our trip to Hawaii for so long, it seems wierd that it's actually only three days before we leave. Since this is a longer-than-usual trip for us and because of where we are going, we're packing differently. In the last week, I think we've made four trips to the store just trying to think of all we need to pack. And, as usual, we probably won't need half of what we think we will need...but that's OK. We can always bring it all back with us.

Ultrasounds

Ultrasounds are amazing! To be able to see that little baby growing inside, wiggling around. It is so cool. Friday morning, Brittany, Rile' and I joined Andy and Kelly at the clinic for an ultrasound appointment. When we got there, the doctor ended up being in surgery for an hour, so we drove to Denny's and had a yummy breakfast first. It was fun to see Rile watching baby Harlow moving around. She acted shy, but was almost always smiling. Afterwards, we drove to see the baby's nursery in the works. Someday, I'm going to have bedroom furniture as nice! :-)

Dean and Lorraine

Our friends, Dean and Lorraine Marsh are moving to La Pine. They will be missed! They moved here right after we did and have been a wonderful part of our church family every since. Saturday evening, they took all the Elders (and wives) on a little hike to their favorite spot on the river. We had a great time of visiting and enjoying the beautiful setting. We wish them God's best in this new adventure!

Friesen Reunion

It has been a very busy weekend! Sunday afternoon, Lamar's brother, Mahlon and Darlene, along with their daughter, Melissa and her husband, Todd came for a special visit. Mahlon will be turning 60 tomorrow, so we decided to mark the occasion by inviting family over for a birthday potluck.


So, aunts, uncles and cousins came from near and far. We had the Friesens, of course, to represent Mahlon's side and then we also had the Scofields and Moores to represent Darlene's family.



For some of us, it has been years since we've seen each other, so it was really nice to visit with everyone!

Hunter Turns Two!

Saturday was Hunter's Birthday. We all went over to their house to celebrate. He had a Carnival Themed Birthday party with lots of happy kids bouncing around the yard going from this toy to that carnival game to munching on their "carnival" wiener wraps and fries to....well, I'll just say they were all VERY busy! It was great.

Stanton Picnic '09

Sunday afternoon, we met my side of the family at Grant Park in NE Portland. On the way there, I scrunched myself between two car seats. Rile' and Hunter thought it was great to have Nana so close by! There was no way that I could REALLY fit between the two seats in our Corolla, so I basically leaned forward the whole way from St. Helens to Portland. Actually, it was pretty comfortable, considering!
Now, getting out was a different story. I thought I was going to be stuck in the backseat, but I managed to gracefully (NOT!) twist my body in an unnatural way to get out. I should have had Brittany take a picture so you could really appreciate what I'm talking about. I'm really surprised that I landed on my feet getting out of the car.

Anyway, the numbers were small at our picnic, but we had a wonderfully great time visiting with family including cousins, Beverly and Debbie. Daughters of my dad's oldest brother, Ernie,we haven't seen them in nine years. It was good to have them there along with everyone else!



We made sure we were close to the restrooms and close to the playground. The park had a great play structure and they both played hard! Needless to say, the ride home was very quiet. :-)

Next Sunday, Lamar's brother, Mahlon and his wife, Darlene are coming up from California. Their daughter, Melissa and her husband, Todd are driving down from the WA/Canada border to meet them here. We decided to make it a family reunion/get-together too. It's going to be at our place and we're really looking forward to it!
So, I guess this is the month for family!