Interisland Weekend Hop

A few weeks ago we went to Oahu for the weekend for Ali Garcia's wedding.  It was kind of a last minute decision since we weren't planning on going, but Deina flew in since she was one of the bridesmaids, and then my mom decided last minute she would come for it.  Sooo, we decided we would fly over to see everyone.

We flew in Friday late afternoon and Deina and my mom picked us up from the airport. I had to leave straight from work, and since it was the first Friday of the month, I was wearing a bright blue t-shirt with yellow stars and the word STRIVE (think of a camp counselor t-shirt and thats what I looked like).  We had originally thought we would have time to go get ready for the reception, but ended up having to go straight, so we changed in the Hale Koa parking structure (I know, we are totally classy).  The reception was beautiful and Ali looked beautiful!  Of course, Aunty Lisa went all out and the food was amazing! 

 

Ali and Uncle Dave did a surprise choreographed daddy-daughter dance and it was sooo funny and cute!  They did dances to songs through the decades and ended it with Beyonce's 'Put a Ring on It'.  All of the speeches by David and Nathaniel's brothers were hilarious and touching all at the same time...the Japanese toast was hilarious and the guy totally spilled his drink on David (he was very energetic).  Then to top it all off, during their slide show, the alarms went off!  Of course, no one moved, but it was a false alarm.  Also, small world...one of the guys on our table knew Kai since they went to the same CrossFit Certification back in 2009!  The guy's wife had been Ali's cheerleading coach!

Most of the people left, but there was a DJ (The Uale boys), so we danced to the electric slide, and some other jams.  Oh, and Mata, who I haven't seen in YEARS, was there since her husband was DJing.  She looked sooo good and has the cutest baby!  Even my mamma was getting down on the dancefloor :)

On our way out, Kai and mom were posing with the ice sculpture :)

That night we stayed at Aunty Lisa's apartment since Deina's sister in law Stacey and her husband were staying at my dad's apartment.

 

We brought my mom a shirt from our gym and I made her try it on...my mom is soooo skinny!  I don't know what she has been doing, but I think it is safe to say she is the skinniest out of all of us!  Hopefully I look like that when I am 60!

Saturday we went shopping and then headed out to Kailua to see Joelle and the kids.  We swam and then Kai was knocked out!  On a side note, I lost to Cady at a swimming contest 3X!  And the sad part is that I was actually trying :)  I'm just taking comfort in the fact that she is the fastest swimmer in her class!

We went and ate Korean food that night with Aunty Nadine & Uncle Clayton, and then headed back to the apartment since Stacey and Henry flew out earlier in the day.  We hit up Pearlridge and got some boba, then Cinnabon, and then Coldstone to top it off!

My mom flew out early in the morning on Sunday, so we dropped her off at the airport at 5:30am, and then went back to sleep.  We ended up going to the single's ward since the time worked best for us.  Kind of funny since we had a pregnant girl, and a married couple which must have looked so funny!  Oh well.

That night, we  had dinner with Uncle Glen, Jodi (who is pregnant too!) and Sean, Jaime, Ken-e and the kids, and Jacie.  It was so good seeing them again!  Especially since Jaime and Ken-e are moving to Oregon in a few months! The food was great and then, the weekend was over :(  I had to fly back to coach CrossFit since Kai was staying on Oahu for a law event, so they dropped me off after dinner.  Hopefully we can make it back to Oahu sooner than later!

I LOOOVVVEEE LAS VEGAAAAS!

Quick note on the title of my post...back in college some friends and I took a trip to Vegas.  We had our fun and were trying to get some sleep when a drunk girl in the room next to us started screaming (think annoying high pitched voice), "I looooove Las Vegaaaas!'...over, and over, and over, and over again!  It was hilarious for about 2 minutes, and then it turned annoying.  BUT, now whenever I go to Vegas, I always think of that saying :)

(This post is long and I don't have many pics...my phone broke and so this is all that is left :P)  I got to go to Vegas again for a conference, so I booked a red-eye on Monday night. 

Getting There
 - After CrossFit, I took a shower at the gym and hit up good old BK (thats Burger King for those not in on the fast food acronyms) for a whopper before I had to catch my flight.  Lucky me, I sat next to a kid who smelled and a lady who wasn't scared to tell everyone that she was in Kauai visiting someone she met on match.com. Bleh.

 - Anyways, I decided to take the long layover in SLC again, so I got to see Jos, Junie, and Peejy Peej!  We went to City Creek, but then instead of going to Kneaders, we hit up Chik-fil-A (Mostly because I love Chik-fil-A and haven't had it in forever)!  Can I just say, Junie is the cutest!  She walked through Forever 21, tried on a bunch of sunglasses, pulled a few tops off the racks and said, "Oooh!" and "Wow!".  She is hilarious!

 - I stayed at the Encore this time and it was super nice!  My conference was at the Mandarin  (which is SUPER SUPER SUPER nice and where I wish I had stayed, but oh well.)  Kai came a few days later and we were able to do a lot of stuff:

Eating Out
 - Kai and I wanted buffet breakfast so we went to the Encore's buffet...unfortunately for us, we were late by a few minutes, so there was no waffles, bacon, pancakes, and all the other delicious breakfast foods.  Luckily for us, their lunch buffet wasn't too shabby either :)
- Nat & Felix were on their way to Coachella, but we met up with them for dinner as they were passing through.  We were debating on where to go, and since we were by Town Center, the choice was down to Yard House or Claim Jumper.  We ended up going to Claim Jumper, which we usually love, but after this last trip, we probably won't go for a while.  The food was just okay :P 
- On Thursday, I made Kai come with me to Fashion Show and shop...then we were starving so we went to Maggianos.  It was soooo good!  We started out with the bread, then had calamari as an appetizer (I was full on bread and calamari by the time my meal came out).  I ordered the lobster carbonara and Kai had a seafood canneloni, but as always, mine was better than Kai's :)  By the time we had eaten maybe half of the dinner, we were stuffed, but I knew I wanted dessert, soooo, we ordered a banana pound cake with ice cream to go (we go all out when we are on the mainland since Kauai doesn't have too many food options).  Our waiter was awesome and had extra strawberries packed for us since he heard me say I like them!  By the time we walked back to the hotel, my stomache had made enough room to enjoy the delicious dessert!

 - Friday, Monica and Chey came down from St George and took us to dinner at PF Changs!  I remember when it first opened in Utah and we used to always want  to go there for special occasions, but I hadn't been in forever!  We got the famous lettuce wraps, and then everyone ordered one thing to share family style.  My order was the honey walnut shrimp, which did not disappoint.  The food was all good, and then of course, we had to have dessert.  Chey is Kai's younger sister and I can always count on her to share a dessert.  I love love desserts and so does she, so even when we are full, we will still want to look at the dessert menu, and then usually we end up getting something (One of the reasons I love that girl)!  We shared my favorite, the banana spring rolls with the pina colada ice cream!  It was the best!  Oh, and they had this small sample dessert menu where each thing was like $4/each or you could get 4 for $12.  Anyways, Kai decided he wanted to try some of them and ordered 3 and the waiter was like, um, do you want one more?  And Kai said no, and then the waiter told him, well you can pretty much get one for free since it was the same price :)  Sooo, naturally, we got one more...and they were all tastey!

 - We had talked to Mark, Kai's dad, and decided that we wanted to go eat Brazilian food.  We usually go to Texas de Brazil, and so we all were thinking that was where we were going, but then one of Mark's patients gave him a deal at a place called Yolie's, which is also a Brazilian place, so Mark took us there.  We get there and this place was empty, except for us and one other party.  It looked like it was probably a super nice place...back in the 80s!  I think we were all kind of bummed when we got there since it was definitely no Texas de Brazil, but we figured we could give it a try!  Kai's little sister's came and they were hilarious!  They had the napkins folded nicely into what looked like little hats, so Kai put his on his head.  Then JJ wanted to do the same thing, but the waiter came by just at that time and opened her napkin for her (like the waiters do at nice places).  JJ looked so bummed, but it was hilarious!  Then, this lady came over with a pina colada from the bar and asked who at our table ordered it.  No one had, but when we saw it, it looked really good, so we ended up ordering some for us.  Anyhow, this woman went 0 for 3 that night...as in  she never got the drinks to the right place on the first try!  The girls just wanted macaroni and cheese, which they didn't have, so they settled for the bread.  When we ran out, we asked for more and they didn't want to give us any since they said we would get full on the bread and not have room for the meat!  Well, finally after about 3 times of asking, they finally brought out more!  In the end, I am really glad we went to Yolie's.  Texas de Brazil is super good (and they have the cheese balls that I LOVE LOVE LOVE!), but it is so loud and crazy in there.  We were able to talk and laugh without yelling, and the meat was really good!  So good that we all left super full!

 
CrossFit 702
 - We have 6am CrossFit classes every day at our gym, so we are up bright and early on most days.  I was really excited to have a small break from that, so imagine my surprise when Kai told me we would be going to CrossFit 702 at...6am!  Yup, count the time difference between HI and NV and it is like working out at 3am!  Plus, I had to get to my conference by 8am, so I had to pack up all my stuff to get ready for work (luckily for me I am pretty good at packing up my stuff since I do it so frequently these days).  Well, we went and it was death by handstand push ups.  That was fine, but then once you fail on the hanstand push ups, you do 3 partner airdyne sprints.  Well, I am a whiner and I will be the first to tell you I hate running and rowing, but I found another thing to add to that list!  It is called the airdyne (which we just ordered for our gym)! I think it might be the worst ever!  My quads were burning, my lungs were on fire, and I couldn't really walk after I got off that thing!  AAAND, to top it off, my amazing husby decided to film me doing my 3rd sprint and then he generously posted it on FB w/out telling me!  If you are privileged enough to find it and watch it, you will see my true feelings toward that thing.  BUT, of course, the fact that I hate it means that it is actually really a great thing to have!  I look forward to using them at our place (kinda-sorta)!

La Reve

 - We decided that we wanted to see a show this trip so after some research, we decided to see La Reve at the Wynn.  I read a bunch of reviews that said it was better than the Cirque shows.  So, we splurged and bought our tickets.   It was pretty awesome, but of course, I was falling asleep by 10pm and was glad when it was over.  I thought the visual effects and stunts were cool, but Kai was not that impressed.  He said he thought 'O' was a lot better.  Guess i'll have to see it next time we are there!

 

Us before the show with our snacks.

 

 

After the show I was trying to get the cool colors, but obviously my photography skills are limited :P

Other

 - The first day of our conference, they took us to lunch at Twist, the rooftop restaurant at the Mandarin.  Usually conference food is a chicken or fish entree, but we had filet mignon, and it was soooooo amazing!  Everything we had was so good that everyone ate EVERYTHING on their plates..seriously...it was that good!

- I dropped my phone out of my back pocket into the toilet and broke it (this year has not been a good one for me and phones).  I had a bunch of pictures and videos that are now lost :(  

- Kai is convinced that I have a shopping problem since my entire trip revolved around shopping and eating out :)  What can I say, I love eating and I love shopping! 

6 Months Later...

Ok, so can I just say that time goes by WAAAY too quickly!  So, since I haven't updated this in MONTHS, lets just do a quick rundown of what has been happening in our lives...


September:
 - Kai and I went to Turtle Cove on the North Shore and snorkled.

 

We walked through the tunnel behind Kai to get to a cool snorkel spot.

The cave it pitch black for a little ways but luckily we had our camera, so I would take pictures every once in a while so we could see where we were going.

 

Turtle Cove didn't let us down!  We saw a ton of turtles :)

 

We are really mature and took advantage of the self timer!

October:
 - I turned 27!  For my birthday, we went and ate at my favorite restaurant here (Nanea)!  I decided to have a birthday week instead of just a birth day which meant that Kai got to hear, 'But its my birthday week!' A LOT :)  Sadly, I have no pictures from this night...iphone got stolen and I never downloaded my pics :P 

 

I did find this picture...these cute twins are in our ward and live in our building.  They made me a birthday card and hat and delivered some tastey treats! (Don't mind the fact that I am all sweaty...we had just finished working out)

November:
 - Kai and I cooked our first Thanksgiving meal and it came out not too bad!  I'm used to being in charge of a side dish, setting the table, cleaning up, etc., but this year, Monica, Brian, and Chey (Kai's mom, stepdad and sister) came to visit us.  So, Thanksgiving eve and Kai and I stayed up late prepping the turkey and then I woke up early the next morning to prep the sides.  Then during the day while the turkey was cooking, we went to the north shore and hiked, snorkled, and relaxed.  Then we got back, and finished the food prep.  I think everyone had fun and enjoyed the food!

  

Kai took the fam to the South Shore and Chey tried surfing. 

 
December:
 - We opened a CrossFit gym called CrossFit High Impact (CrossFit HI for short...the naming process was a headache and a whole other story for another time).  It has been tons of work and a lot of time has gone into it, but it has been a lot of fun too!  We are doing WAAAY better than our best case scenario (although I guess that doesn't really say much since I am totally not an entrepreneur and am totally pessimistic when it comes to projections).

   

 The picture on the left is the warehouse when we first leased it...we had to get more drywall put up, patch up the old drywall, clean, paint, put in mats, and put up our rig...

The finished product!

 - My work sent me to a conference in Vegas at the beginning of the month and I missed the first official week of our gym being open :P  BUT, it was soooo fun to be in Vegas again!  I stayed at Mandalay Bay, shopped, ate good food, and we even got to see each of our families!  Kai's flight had gotten cancelled and so he missed out on a full day in Vegas, but nonetheless, it was a great trip!  On the way back, our flight in LA got delayed by a few hours, which would've been a great time for us to meet up with friends in LA, but of course, we didn't think about it until it was too late.  Next time we will be smarter :)

 I was in Vegas and got to go see JJ & Meika's Chritmas Play.  It was soooo funny!  They both did awesome with their lines :)  Wish I had a video, but of course, those were lost with the iphone :P

 - Kai and I got our first real Christmas tree as a couple.  In the past, we never bought one since we knew we would be going to one of our families for Christmas.  This year, since we would only be gone for Christmas weekend, we decided to get festive!  This was Kai's first REAL tree and we loved coming home to the pine tree smell!

 Unwrapping our tree!  Best believe I had the Christmas music blaring...and I may or may not have been dancing around like a kid!  

The finished product!  What you don't see from the pictures is that it took us DAYS to finish the tree.  We had bought 6 things of lights at the store, but of course, I love lots of lights, so we ran out 2/3 of the way up the tree.  AND, since we couldn't decorate til we got back from teaching at the gym, it was too late to go buy more.  Anyways, the next day, Kai went to pick up more lights...unfortunately, he didn't see the little box on the lights that said, 'Colored', so our tree decorating was pushed back yet another day.  The next day, we exchanged the 2 colored lights for white lights, went home, and finally finished the tree!  Of course 3 of the 'unbreakable' ornaments we had bought shattered and our tree was crooked, but now I understand the time and effort it takes to decorate a tree!  I was so ready to be done! 

 - We spent Christmas on Maui since my cousin Cissy got married the weekend before.  My parents flew in for the wedding too, so we all got to hang out with my Aunty Nalani and Uncle Francis (and all the girls).  We skyped with Jonathan from Japan, and Keenan in the Phillipines, ate lots of great food and guri guri!

We checked out Iao Needle and Kai jumped in :)

- My parents came to visit us on Kauai after Christmas for a week.  Unfortunately I couldn't take any vacation since I am STILL on my orientation (less than a month to go), but we still got to do some fun stuff.  We hiked, kayaked, ate out, ate in, and watched lots of movies.  It was actually really nice to have my parents here since I have missed my mamma's cooking!  She is the best cook...seriously...

Apparently Kauai is a lot like Western Samoa (at least thats what my mom said)!

Hehehe :)

The parentals were actually pretty good kayakers!

Glad these two crazies got to come visit us!

January:
 - I got to go to Oahu for my cousin Angela's wedding.  The ceremony was beautiful and true to our Ige roots, we had the best food!  Seriously, I think I just ate the whole weekend!

 They looked so happy and everything was beautiful!

 - While I was on Oahu, the Kaaa's, my parents, Aunty Kimi, and I went to see Wicked at the Blaisdell.  It was my 3rd time seeing it and I still love it!  Leading up to the night, I asked my mom if she knew the story of the Wizard of Oz and she said yes.  Then when we were actually at the play, I could tell she was confused during the first part...of course, come to find out, she hadn't actually seen the whole Wizard of Oz movie, she just knew what it was!  Needless to say, we had to explain a bunch to her so she could get it :)  She isn't blond, she is just Samoan ;) (I'm probably gonna get it for saying that)

 

 - We added another member to our family...a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo!

We decided that it was time for us to upgrade to an SUV so we can go camping without fear of getting stranded :)

 - We had our grand opening for the gym and Kai's dad Mark and Mark's friend Chuck came out to support!  They were with us for a week and we had a lot of fun.  They were like two boys having a sleepover every night...they would talk and laugh until they fell asleep.  Not to mention, Mark took us out to eat, and worked on our shoulders (love having a PT for a father in law)! They went hiking, snuck into hotel jacuzzi's, went stand up paddleboarding, and siteseeing...and most importantly, RELAXED!  Mark works A TON, so we were glad he could take a break for once :)

February:
 - Deinas and McMeaty came to visit us for a week.  They flew in on a Saturday morning and my cousin Joelle and her kids (Carson, Cady, and Camryn) decided to come visit too!  We went tubing down the tunnels (its like a long lazy river with tunnels), which in and of itself was a huge adventure.  Cady was nervous about it from the beginning, and the 45 minute drive up the dirt road didn't do much to calm her fears.  Once we got up to the tunnels, she calmed down and was ready to go.

 Pretty sure it took 4 people to pump up this floater!

 Here we all are at the beginning...everyone was happy :)  We made it through the first tunnel which was long and pitch black and Cady was fine. 

  

Then before we entered the second tunnel, the people in front of us said it was blocked, so of course, we all stop.  Joelle, Deina, McMeaty, and the kids get out so we can hike around the tunnel and get back in on the other side...which was what everyone said the plan was.  It was pretty dense where we got out, not to mention it was muddy too.  Of course, after we were bushwacking our way out and not finding the road, we were debating what to do.  Everyone else in the group had apparently changed their minds and floated through the blocked tunnel.  Finally, we resorted to going back to the water and putting the kids on the tubes and pushing the kids up the tunnel (Not to mention I lost my sunglasses AND broke my slipper)! 

 Luckily the kids were okay to get back in and we made it to the rope swing

We finally made it back to the car and everyone was happy!

Thats about it in a nutshell.  Life has been super busy, but really great! 

Did I do that?! (Think Steve Urkel)

I recently got hired to do Internal Audit for Kauai Community Federal Credit Union and I started 2 weeks ago.  I feel pretty blessed because I had been looking for random jobs since there wasn't anything in my field, and when I applied to be a Loan Counselor, they looked at my resume and said they may have another position that they could open based on my past work experience (not to mention it pays double).  Long story short, things worked out and i'm excited to be working again!

Soooo, I am considered a part of the management team with all the VPs and the President (crazy huh?) and along with that comes a really nice office with great views! 

 

To top things off, I also have one of those bank robbery buttons that is under the desk.  When I first saw it, I thought it was so cool, but now i'm rethinking that...

During my FIRST week of work, I was working at my desk and the VP of HR came by and asked if I had pushed the button.  Of course, my answer was, 'No'.  So, he said he was going to figure out what was going on.  Later on, I find out that the police showed up because of the robbery button and guess who pushed it?!  Yup, ME!!!  Embarrassing?!

One week into the job and here I am causing false alarms for a freaking bank robbery!  Now I wish I could just have the stupid thing taken off so I don't 'accidentally' push it again.  Bleh.  Guess i'll just cross my fingers that it doesn't happen again!  On the bright side, at least I know it works :P

I love my pops!

My dad decided last minute to come visit us for the weekend (since I was going to be starting my new job this past Tuesday), so we picked him up Friday night at 10:30pm.  We had already made plans to go kayaking with our friend Cliff, and luckily, he had room for one more, so we brought my dad along!

 

It was the daddios' first time ever kayaking, and my first time kayaking in the ocean!  My dad and I took one kayak and then Kai paddled a single.  Anyways, it was pretty amazing.  We headed out from this beach called Rock Quarries and paddled about a mile around this point to a secluded beach.  You can only get there by boat or kayak, so we had the whole place to ourselves. 


Thankfully it was a beautiful day, but its crazy to be in the swells.  In the pic on the right, you can barely see the tops of our heads. 

 

When we got to the beach, it was surreal!  There was a seal just resting on the beach!  And the views were beautiful from every angle!

We basically, just hung out on the beach, and then there was a small tunnel/cave thing there the ocean water goes through.  The boys said they were going to swim through, but the water looked a little crazy for me, so I had decided I wasn't going to do it.  Luckily, after the guys all went through, they reassured me I would be fine, so I did it, and I'm sooo glad I did! 

Anyways, after that, we had lunch, talked, and my dad went and got a bunch of opihi.  He ate some and said it was good, but when Kai tried it, he wasn't a fan.  I think Kai was probably right, it didn't look appetizing at all!  After a long day of relaxing, we all headed back in to paddle back.  There was a pretty crazy shore break where we were launching out on so we had to swim out and then climb onto our kayak after we passed the breaks.  BUT, me and dad did good.  We almost made it all the way back without tipping (we tipped when we were about waist deep and pretty much back).  In our defense, pretty much everyone else did too. 

That night, my pops bought stuff for dinner and then we came home, ate dinner, and watched the BYU v Utah game.  I was so tired, I fell asleep through half of the game and woke up just in time to see BYU miss a field goal (which would've tied the game).  Anyhow, we'll get them next year! 

Monday was my last day of freedom before becoming a contributing member of society again, so we were planning on doing some sightseeing in the afternoon.  We dropped Kai off in the morning and went to WalMart to get RainX wipes for my windshield and we got a flat tire!  I was so glad my dad was with me because I heard a weird sound, but had no idea what it was.  Thankfully, my dad knew so he told me to pull back into the parking spot.  He got everything out and was starting to change the flat, and then as he was taking off the lug nuts, he realized there was one with a key lock (aka, a stupid thing that is supposed to prevent people from stealing your hubcaps/tires).   Of course, with our luck, we didn't have the key, and there is no VW dealer on the island.  I called around to a few auto shops, tire shops, and auto parts stores to see if they could help, but everyone said the same thing...they didn't have the part!  After trying to figure out what we were going to do, I remembered that our neighbor has the exact same car as us, so we called and she was on her way into town, so she brought us her key.  Problem solved, right?!  Nope!  It had 13 spoke things and ours had 17!  So, I called the dealer and found out that the keys vary by vehicle.  AND even if I told them how many spoke things I had, they couldn't guarantee that it would be the right part.  Not to mention, it costs $40!  It was a nightmare!  After about 5 hours of trying to figure out how to get it off, a guy at Napa overheard me and said he would come help.  He had a bunch of tools and he finally smashed a thing over the lug nut and even though he stripped part of it, he got it out! 

Anyways, there was a bunch of other crazy stuff that happened (I got kicked off a bus after I was stranded in another city, my phone died, etc.), and I was soooo mentally drained!  Luckily, my dad was there to help me with everything!  After he got my tire fixed, he took me grocery and household goods shopping, gassed up my car, and then took us to dinner before we had to take him back to the airport to catch his flight.  Then, he took the part with him and went to a few dealerships to find the right part so he could send it to us!  Now we will be able to change our tires out and hopefully not deal with this again!  Basically, my daddio is the best!  He is cray cray sometimes, but at the end of the day, he is always there for me and is always doing whatever he can to take care of me and make my life easier!  I love him lots and am glad he got to come visit!  Can't wait to have them come again in December!