I hope its ok that i put your picture here. Its just so darn cute I cant stand it. Plus lots of people have been asking about you since you have met most of my family. I love you and miss you guys.

So on saturday we decided t do some things that we hadnt done yet on the island. First we drove to the end of the road up on the Northshore. When we go to the Northshore we always go up H2 and then turn to the right and go thur all the towns and follow the road that way, it connects all the way around the island. But it you go to the left you can only go so far before the road just dooesnt connect to the other side of the island. Anyways You’d have to look at a map to understand what I was talking about, but we hadnt been that way. It was beauitful, the beaches had hardly anyone on them. There was a skydiving place and a glider airfield. It was very cool.

a glider that flew over head of us… or should i say glided

i have offically become a local here in hawaii, how do i know? My sandals tell me so

so today was our 3 year dating anniversary. We always try to do something fun on the weekend it happens to be on. last year we drove up to niagra falls for the weekend and stay at amys. So today we wanted to do some stuff we hadnt yet done. We went horseback riding this morning in the mts. at koolau ranch. It was awesome, I havent ridin a horse in a dont know how long. My horse’s name was Bo and she was new from Canada, haha funny huh? Kevs horse was some hawaiian name for lighting. Koolau ranch is really famous for being the set for many movies, Pearl harbor, windtalkers, jurassic park, LOST. You can actually take all different types of tours there, ones that are especially for seeing where the movies have been shot, ATV rides, etc… Anys the Ranch owns a bunch of land up on the windward side of the mt. We even passed a bunch of world war 2 bunkers along the way, even some wild cows which my horse wasnt to thrilled about…

view out to ocean on one side of trail…

random loose horse…

ranch kitty

my horse

After we went horseback riding we went and had some breakfast and went to this beautiful little beach called lanikai. You frequently see people from lost at this beach because most of them live in Kailua. Our friends said they say Hurley the other week. Anyways I dont care about lost people I just want to see Dominic Monaghan so I can see someone from Lord of the Rings. Anyways we went snorkeling and swiming and just layed around. It was a very very great day.

so here is an update…
1. i started a new job like 2.5 weeks ago. I am doing marketing/smallgraphic design for a Construction company in honolulu. Our friend matt works there and he let me know about the job opening. Its going ok, i dont know anything about construction so thats not so great but it works out great because i am one street over from kev and we have the smae hours so we drive in together and we get to have lunch together and now we are members of 24 hour fitness so we go to the gym now after work that is right down the street from our works so we dont have to sit in traffic for forever.

2. i think i have decided to run in the Toronto waterfront marathon on sept. 30th. im like 93% sure im going to do it. Its just the starting thats hard. haha i say that now but 4 months from now im sure ill look back and think starting was the easy part. Anyways my thoughts are… what an awesome acomplishment and where else to run a marathon then in the place where my entire family lives. Who better to cheer me on. SO IF YOU ARE RELATED TO ME AND YOU ARE READING THIS THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO COME CHEER ME ON!!!! It will be so fun.

3. our cats are crazy

4. the bachelor this season is from hawaii, so you should watch it.

5. dancing with the stars is kev’s least favorite show

6. its mothers day next month so remember to get a card for your moms

7. kev is a crazy spear fishing guy now. even to wear he dives down to deep and the fills his mask up with blood that is pouring from his nose. just kidding well not about the blood he just had a sinus something or other and the water pressure did something to some blood vessel in his nose.

8. my parents are coming memorial day weekend yippie

9. this weekend me and kev have been together for 3 years

10. Kev taught a graphic design workshop to high school students over the weekend. sat and sun. he liked it alot i think.

ok ok so peter cotton tail has already come and gone but here is our first easter together (married) picture. We kept the LULA tradition alive as I intend to my entire life but going out for nice chinese food. MMMM I love P.F Changs. The horse had fun too…

So off to the dole plantation we went one afternoon the whole Richardson gang. We actually did something there this time instead of just walking thru the store and taking funny pictures. Of course we still did that… Anyways this time we went on a train ride around the plantation and then went on a garden tour where we got to plant our very own pineapples. It was fun. Although some one (i wont mention names) got alittle sleepy on the train ride. hehe but Who could blame them we were in line at pearl harbor at 6:45 am that morning.

i decided that the na pali coast deserved its own post because 1. we have so many pictures and 2. its just so beautiful. When we left kauai we boated around the island and got to sail by it at sunset. It was awesome!! There is no road along this side of the island, maybe you can tell why so you can only see it by boat or helicopter or if you make the hike.

im a pirate

you cant tell from this small picture but looked like observatories to us…

Kauai we decided was our favorite island. Its the most beautiful place you’ll ever be! Its so country and laid back. It was awesome. The first day we rented a car and drove up to the north shore as far as you could and then hiked along the na pali coast for a while. The hike is actaully 11 miles we only did about 1.5 or 2. We had flip flops on which we ende dup taking off and just hiking in our bare feet. The views from the hike were amazing. we were really excited about seeing the rest of the na pali coast when we pulled out the next day. After the hike and a quick swim in the ocean we got back in the car and drove to the complete opposite side of the island and drove up to see waimea canyon “the grand canyon of the pacific”, it was amazing. I had no idea that it would be so big. We got to see mountan goats and even the infamous nene (hawaiian state bird that is almost extinct) there are those stupid nene signs everywhere, but this was the first time we ever saw one. There were waterfall everwhere, it was really awesome…

one of the views from the hike

more pictures from the hike…

from the boat…

a look out point along the rd.

we found lots of caves along the way, this was from inside.

there were even wet caves

waterfall at waimea canyon

goats

nene signs

ahh watch out its a nene

so after we left maui we ended up on the big island again but this time on the kona side. We had a short day there. We had to tender in and then we decided to just walk around the town and then we went swimming and then headed back to the boat for the night. In one of the lounges there were private rooms that you could reserve that each had their own karaoke systems in them. We decided to do it one night, just the two of us. It was alot of fun.

this one is for my dad. The family jeweler…

We dont usually wear much more than flip flops, board shorts and tee shirts now a days but on the boat I got to wear my new dress one night so we took a few nice pictures.

so today we took a bus to a town called Lahaina. It was very nice, it was right on the ocean. It was very much like a key west kinda town. We just walked around and shopped and stuff…

you can see the other island here, i think it was lanai?

how cute is this?

this is the second largest banyon tree in the world, it took up the entire park. It looks like its 20 trees but its all one its all connected.

We were in maui for 2 days and we have lots of pictures so there is going to be day one and day 2 as far as posts go. Maui was very beautiful!! The first day we rented a car and drove along the coast of the island on a road called “The road to Hana” the road is a tourist attraction in itself because it is so long and whindy. It gets very very narrow in spots and becomes a 1 lane rd over many many small high up bridges. It is terrifying in some spots, well is was to me. I am an already nervous driver because as most of you know i have been in one to many accidents. Now put me in a car on a road that is hanging off the side of the mts. that is one lane with the locals driving toward u in their jacked up giant trucks 20 miles faster than they are suppose to be. There is no where to pull over except to roll off the mt. lets just say my knuckles were white the entire 6 hours it took us to drive it and back. Scary-ness aside. The views and beachs and waterfalls are amazing and well worth being scared of the rd. We got to hike waterfalls and climb thru lava tubes and sit on a black sand beach. This side of the island that were were on was so country, for the entire 6 hours I think we saw 1 gas station and 1 small grocery store. There is nothing out there and i mean nothing. That night as we headed back to the town the boat was docked in we stopped in this cute town to walk around. When we were getting out of the car we saw a mom with dreadlocks i didnt really think vey much of it, but as we walked around the town, i think me and kev could have been one of the very few people that didnt have dread locks. It was the hippy-est town i have ever been in. It felt like a tropical vermont, but worse. It was crazy.
ok on to pictures…

this was the nicest of the many one lane bridges we went over, most of them were old wood…

you cana see the turns

if you look you can see the rd we just came from as it snakes down the side of the mt.

here we are the the black sand beach. Every rock around there was jet black

lava tube

lava tube

here we are at sunset.

this is actually on the second day as we were pulling out of port, it was awesome cause we saw whales jumping and flapping tails and fins all around the boat. Its humpback whale season in hawaii right now.

so tuesday we were in hilo and we rented a car and drove to Volcanoes National park. It was so crazy. It was my favorite thing that we did the whole trip. it just nothing you’ve ever seen before so its so cool. We didnt get to see any flowing lava up close but that night on the boat when we pulled out of port we sailed by the coast and could see the red glow and it flowing down the side of the mountain and into the water it was really awesome!

this was the enterance into one of the lava tubes

inside lava tube

this was the start of a trail we hiked called devastion trail. It was so barren and everything seemed gray scale. It lead up to the egde overlooking a huge crater.

these were the lava stones the trail was made up of…

this is me stealing a whole bunch on lava rocks, if your lucky you should be receiving a small package soon. I guess its against the hawaiian gods and here pele the volcano goddess to take rocks but i wanted them to badly.

crater at the end of trail

these were steam vents. You can see them in all the craters but you could find them on the side of the road where there was a crack in the ground. It was very warm

this is the end of the road you can drive on. You use to be able to drive further out but in 2003 the lava took the road. Now you have to hike the last 2 1/2 miles to see the actual lava flow.

this one you can see the steam cloud rising from the water where the lava is going into the water.

i made a song up called “im jumping im jumping im jumping on the lava” and then i replaced the words “im jumping” with whatever i was doing at that moment on the lava. It kept me entertained for a very long time.

this was us at dinner that night.

so we got back yesterday from our cruise and lets just say it was awesome. The other islands are so amazing. They are so different then oahu. We had the best time exploring everywhere. I figured since we have so many pictures (kev took more than a 1000) i would break it up by islands, but first i would start with just some random photos of the boat that we have. It was a very nice boat its brand new not even a year old yet…

these are some pictures of honolulu from the boat before we left, this is actually where ill be starting work next week, on the 13th floor of one of these buildings.

a view of diamond head from boat

aloha towers from boat…

we liked large chess alot

nothings funnier then a room of old people wearing orange life vests.