watching sunset at ko olina

after spending the day at lulu's beach with tutles (i think that's what it's called), we went to ko olina to watch the sunset. melody and i had fun doing a photo shoot while the boys chilled out in the water.

Paili Lookout

the very windy and historical paili lookout

we were're trying not to be blown away


the view from above

it was sooooo windy. melody was having fun flashing everybody. good thing she was wearing a bathingsuit under her dress

Pearl Harbor

We look so ity bity in front of this HUGE ship
the boat ride over to the sunken Arizonia

i have no more pictures of our time exploring the Arizonia becuase my camera battery died =(

Please Come Back

Summer, your blog was in desperate need of an update. So I did one for you. We all want to hear of the exciting things you are doing in Hawaii, so keep us updated through your blog. Maybe now that it is pretty, you will want to come back more often :)

--Melody

Here is a Post in Nickell's Honor

our first valentines day together in person we had fun getting each other gifts. he got me chocolates (of course, wouldn't be valentines day without them), a container with a bunch of drawers to organize my scrap booking stuff, and a label maker!!! i love it!! i got him a remote control car, chocolates, and a few other things that are not to be written of...wink wink

GIVING THANKS

Darrell and i had a double celebration this thanksgiving. a year ago, on thanksgiving day, the love of my life, Darrell William Bryce , purposed to me. it's pretty hard to beat that, but this thanksgiving was still a great great great day.
heather and i teamed up and made the table decorations. i made my yummy apple crumb pie. Darrell played his Call of Duty Modern War Fair II game, which makes him happy. Debbie cooked up a feast--we could hardly fit everything on the table. the day was full of laughter and fun

i was totally in my element decorating the table

Darrell being a silly butt

so i came up with an idea of making thankful cards. i put one in front of everyone's plate. before dinner we each wrote something we are thankful for. we put them in my pioneer basket and at the end of dinner we read them.

pioneer basket. it took a long time make these summer and Darrell paper pioneers, but i enjoyed it. i saved them so i can have them for my future thanksgivings...if they will last

for the napkin holders i made pumpkins and turkeys. gobble gobble

our leaf tree. it looked perfect for our fall feast. plus it made up for the lack of colorful leaves outside =D hehe

after dinner we all talked and laughed playing cards until midnight (we didn't realize how late it was until we checked the time. oops). i love how Darrell's family is full of jokes making every moment an enjoyable, laughable one.

Taking A Trip To Honeymoon Land

(as a warning: this is the longest blog in the history of blogs; but i hope you all get through the whole thing)

So, Darrell and i had a wonderful, fun, relaxing, beautiful honeymoon about 3 months ago. i have tons of video of it, however, i have not yet posted them. shame on me. so, i have picked some videos for you all to see. ENJOY =D

Our honeymoon actually started in California. we stayed at the beautiful Hyatt hotel, in Valencia, for a couple of nights. it was a great location with restaurants, stores, a mall and theater all in walking distance from the hotel. it was a wonderful way to start off our honeymoon. i don't have any pictures to share of our time here though =(

then we flew to Oahu, were we stayed the night in Waikiki, before flying to Kona, Hawaii. here are a few videos of us in Waikiki.

there were lots of interesting things happening all around us. Darrell had been working in Waikiki at the time, so he wasn't as excited about everything as I was, but we still had fun and enjoyed everything together.

This little girl singing was amazing. we could hear her blocks away and i was like "do you hear that singing?" and when Darrell told me it's a little girl, i was blown away. by the time we got to her, she was just ending her song. that girl has some amazing pipes on her.

I had previously posted a couple of videos of Darrell and i arriving at our house in kona, Hawaii. we were able to stay at the house for free since it was owned by his dad's company. here are lots more videos of us during our honeymoon on the big island of Hawaii.

we had to do lots of driving to get to places from where we were staying. but, since the scenery was so beautiful we didn't seem to mind a whole lot.

the thing about Hawaii is, there are volcanoes, and some are still active, so that was cool and SCARY to think about. the second video is of volcano smoke coming up from the ground because of all the heat and lava going on beneath the surface.

we went on a trail to a lava tube. the trail was beautiful with all the nature around. the actual lava tube was cool to walk through, i felt like i was walking through a cave of mystery. but if i was to go again, i would NOT wear flip flops

seeing this waterfall literally took my breath away. i had never seen a big waterfall like it before. it was an incredibly beautiful sight.

OK, so on our walk back to the car, after looking at the waterfall, it started to sprinkle a little. i of course wanted to leave, but my wonderful husband wanted to walk to another waterfall. After some bickering, of me wanting to leave and Darrell wanting to stay, Darrell ended up wining, so we headed towards the other waterfall. Of course, it started sprinkling harder. and me, being picky about my hair getting wet, stuck my head under Darrell's shirt. we finally made it to the waterfall, but i didn't care to peek my head out from under Darrell's shirt to look at it. i hear Darrell say, "aw, this waterfall sucks", so we quickly head back. A couple of minutes pass, and it starts pouring rain!! i got sooooooo upset. i tried standing under a tree until the rain stopped, but it wasn't stopping and the tree wasn't protecting my hair from getting wet, so i was like "FORGET IT!!" and ran out into the rain. I RAN as fast as i could to the car. i was running so fast that my sandals came off and i didn't even turn back to get them (luckily darrell picked them up though). the trail consisted of stairs, so i got really tired from all the running, and had to take a break. during this break, i almost wanted to bust out laughing from the whole situation but i didn't. i kept a frown on my face, and continued running. lets just say, our drive home was a VERY quiet drive.

the first video below is of Darrell and i looking at this road that's all broken and destroyed. but, the view of the ocean was surely perdy. and there was a fury little animal down in the rocks. i couldn't get video of it though =(

the second is of Darrell and I trying to drive to the Green Sands beach. it was a difficult drive since there wasn't an actual road to get to it. so here we were, in our little rental car, driving over some massive bumps and lumps and humps. it was fun-e


we couldn't make it all the way to the actual Green Sands beach, but we did find a beach along the way with some green sand. it was neat-o

Our honeymoon in Hawaii was only 5 days long, which wasn't enough time to do lots of things AND be newlyweds (if you know what i mean..wink wink) But, I'm happy that we were able to go to a beach and have fun in the water at least once. on the way to this beach we realized we forgot to bring, of all things, TOWELS!! so we stopped at a wall mart and bought towels. the beach crowded, but it was REALLY nice, so, hence the crowdedness. the sand was soft in and out of the water. the water passed my "clear water" inspection. and the weather was perfect for a day at the beach.

and that's the end of the videos. i have a bunch of honeymoon pictures on my facebook, but here are a few....

this is us on the plane to California to get married. this was the first time in our whole long distance relationship, of constantly flying to each other, that we were actually on a plane together. it was a very special moment for us to know that we no longer had to fly away from one another or have to be apart anymore.

Waiting to be seated for dinner in waikiki

Our green sand beach

Darrell spotted this old theater and thought it was the coolest thing.

we went to this really nice restaurant called Tommy's Bahamas. we decided to sit on the deck and I'm glade we did because watching the sunset and having the nice breeze was perfect. the food was pricey pricey pricey, but it was good good good. it was funny, when we first got to the restaurant, they asked us if there was any special occasion. Darrell said, "uh, no" and i was quiet for a second until i realized, wait a sec, it's our honeymoon, so i said "our honeymoon." I'm glade i realized to say that because they ended up giving us dessert for free. i can't believe we both forgot. Ooops

OUR FREE and very yummy DESSERT

i felt as though i was in another country. like Tuscany or Greece or something, i don't even know, but i felt it.

THE END

i hope you enjoyed the journey. Our honeymoon was a wonderful time for Darrell and I. I'm happy we were able to share a bit of it with you.