Sunset bike ride

So Brooklyn's Biking for Autism event is this weekend and I haven't been riding my bike near enough. I had a headache still from my tooth today so I decided to head over to our favorite grocery store, Don Quijote's, and get some advil. We'd just gotten back from Maui and I'd returned my Wrangler before hand so the bike was my method of transportation this time which initially I wasn't too excited about but now I'm so glad it was. Along the way I just couldn't believe how beautiful this place is. You know how things look different in a car then they do when you're jogging or walking? It was one of those experiences. I started taking pictures then got to thinking about how different each part of the island looks from the other but how they're all so breathtaking. Here are some pictures from my bike ride and from other parts of the island.

Mountains on the way to the store.

Lanikai Beach.

View of my neighborhood.

Funky trees off the H2 highway.

Pineapple gardens.

More cool trees just outside Pearl City.

I got home from my ride just after the sun had fully set. I walked up to the front door and looked up to see a full moon in a stunning clear sky. This place is amazing. This was taken from the Vincent's front porch! Can you believe where I get to live???

KAMEHAMEHA vs. Kahuku State Champtionship Game!!

The Aloha Stadium in Honolulu was definitely the place to be last night. It was packed with over 20,000 people for the State Championship football game, Kamehameha vs. Kahuku. My friend Hanale is the Offensive line coach for Kamehameha so we were excited to be there to cheer him on...and to hang with his family and my favorite...his daughter Erihana. She's my buddy and you have no idea how I melt when she calls me Auntie Ceri.

It was a fantastic game just as it was predicted to be. The newspapers have been calling these teams the perfect matchup for states, having nearly identical stats for points scored, points allowed, rushing yardage, & passing yardage. One interesting twist is that the coach for Kahuku has a son that plays for the Kamehameha.

Kamehameha scored pretty early in the first quarter and scored at least once each quarter that followed. Kahuku was able to get a few TD's in there but it still didn't compare to the final score that reflects the Warriors domination of the game. Warriors = 34 & Kahuku Raiders = 21.

Here are two of my favorite parts of the evening.

1. Watching Hanale head-butt and chest bump the players after some amazing interceptions & even a punt block!

2. Watching Erihana try to find an empty stall in the ladies room on our bathroom/icecream break.

Official Winners of Hawaii's State Championship Football Game is the Kamehameha Warriors!

Congratulations Hanale!

Q: What is there to do on a rainy Hawaiian Night?

A: Easy, Catch frogs!!

Before I move onto the meat of this post I must mention...last night we saw the movie, The Blind Side and it was the best movie ever!!! I laughed, I cried, and I recommitted myself to striving to be a good Christian as well as to adopting children with extreme athletic abilities, all in all a great experience. If you haven't seen it, see it. If you have seen it, see it again.

We left the theater to find it was a crazy rainy night which spoiled some of our plans but created new opportunities...we decided to go frog catching. Hawaii has the biggest frogs in the world and I got these sweet frogs carved out of wood that have ridges on the back so when you run a stick up the ridges it actually makes the sound of a frog.

We were anxious to see if this would help attract frogs and we definitely found SUCCESS!!

Lanikai Juice is WAY better than Jamba!

This is our favorite smoothie/juice place, Lanikai Juice. It's amazing! The smoothies are wonderful but that also have these yogurt granola bowl things. It's like a yogurt smoothie but super thick and has granola, nuts, and coconut on top! YUMMMMM! Brookyn can't get enough.

We can't believe we've already had over a 1,000 hits!! That's crazy! It's also crazy that only 12 people have signed the guestbook!!!??? With only 2 making requests!! What's that about?

Anyway, we've come up with a way to spice things up a little. Being that it's 2009 we thought how about when we get 2009 views we do a DAY OF DIVING & DARING DEATH!!!!

This would include a morning Shark cage DIVE...

...if that doesn't kill us then we'll Cliff DIVE from the 30 foot drop offs at Waimea Beach...

...if that doesn't kill us then we'll sky DIVE over the Hawaiian North Shore Mountains & Beach...

if that doesn't kill us then our Mothers will...

So tell your friends about the blog and keep checking for updates if you wanna see craziness happen!

Justin Timberlake Serenade!

We took Erin's "Do it or Die" threat on her Justin Timberlake serenade request very seriously and delivered as quickly as possible. We'd heard he had a home up in Hali'ewa so we headed up there to check it out...we didn't find him but we found his brother!!! It was awesome! Then as you requested, we got him to serenade us...after first sorta serenading him, which was not requested...sorry.

Our new favorite songs!

I know you all are loving the song we learned on the Ukulele, "Drop." We've now added that to our blog playlist as well as our new favorite song which is probably what you're hearing right now if you're not...it's next.

We've heard it on the radio a million times and finally tracked down the artist. It's actually a local duo called, Keahiwai. How they came to be is pretty cool.

Mailani (born and raised here in Kailua) & Lei met when they were pretty young, elementary/middle school age by playing a lot of the same sports. Six years later Lei hears Mailani sing at church for the first time and can't believe how great she is. Mailani remembers Lei picking up her ukulele and strumming and then she's blown away. Now that the two have discovered each others hidden talent they decide to try out for their high school talent show and won. They were then playing at family functions, grad parties, coffee shops, and other gigs when they hooked up with 2 local producers that helped them cut their first album. It was released in 2001 and snagged them 2 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards and 5 nominations. They've got 3 albums out and another to be released soon.

This song is called Falling by Keahiwai and IS available on itunes!!! Hope you like it. We can't get enough.

Grandpa loved Hawaii

Thank you all for your messages...we are aware there has been some serious dropping of the "blog ball" on our part. We hope you'll all pardon our neglect. Here's where I've been.

This is a picture I took last June of my amazing, noble, rock of a Grandfather, who unexpectedly passed away last monday. In june I'd just gotten home from my mission and was anxious to get caught up with him and Grandma. I went out for a visit and he let me practice taking some pictures with him. At the time I didn't know what a treasure this photo and memory would become.

I got word on Sunday that he'd had a stroke...at church...of all places, and doctors were saying he wasn't going to make it. I quick hopped on a plane headed for Washington to be with family and to attend his viewing and funeral services. What a blessing that was for me. I don't know if I could be okay with it all if I hadn't gone. Each of my 50+ cousins were there. Every single one except those currently serving missions, and those ones on missions Grandpa would've wanted to stay exactly where they were doing exactly what they were anyway. My Grandfather was a great man; a matchless example of hard work, dedication, humility, strength, integrity, service and faith, both in his life and in his death. We all miss him and are so grateful for the man he was and legacy he's left us. I've never been so proud of my last name.

I've had a different comforting feeling coming back here to Hawaii, a place he LOVED. One of the many missions he and my Grandmother served together for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was here. They lived in the city of Laie for several years and our family was able to come visit them on an occasion. I've loved being back here in a place where I have great memories with him and a place he held so dear. Which is why I'm sure he appreciated me wearing a Mumu to his viewing.

In just the few days I've been back we've really hit the ground running again. I'm way behind on the blog but check in soon for RIDICULOUS amounts of fun posts. In the meantime have a great Thanksgiving week!

Oh and Erin...thank you for your comment and request and know...WE ARE ON IT!!!

Name Bracelets, the Hawaiian Alphabet, and Teddy's Burgers!

All over the place you can have your name translated into Hawaiian and put on the item of your choice; necklaces, keychains, wallets, etc. it's great! Who doesn't want to know what their hawaiian name is...be honest with yourself!

Brooklyn and I chose the leather bracelets, as seen below. As you can also see below I wanted to know what lots of names were in Hawaiian. : ) The thing is I thought the bracelets just got cuter and cuter the more I put on my arm. Brooklyn talked me down to three but then choosing the colors was very difficult.

Come to find out in Hawaiiain:

Brooklyn = Polikuline

Ceri = Keli

Cerina = Kelina

Joy = Hau'oli

Amy = Mea

Leigh = Kula

and unfortunately Allsop = Allsop

As you can see in this picture after a trip or two to the International Market the name bracelet count grew ...

I'm pleased to Inform you that

Gretchen in Hawaiian = Kelekena

Jennifer = Kinipela

Turtle = Honu

Hilarious = le'ale'a

Free one = Ka noa

Another cool thing is that there are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet! That shocked me! Their vowels are the usual: A, E, I, O, U and the consonants are: H, K, L, M, N, P, W.

Here's the tricky part, the pronunciation.

A's sound like ah, except if they're followed by an i, then together they make the hard I sound.

E's sound like A's

I's sound like E's

O's sound like hard O's

U's sound like oooo, as in boo who...got it?

It's actually pretty simple, here we'll show you while we wait for our burgers from Teddy's. Teddy's Burger's is basically the Hawaiian version of In N Out Burger and it's delicious!!!!

A day of Shopping, Eating, and needing to be sleeping!!

SHOPPING:

Today was one of Brooklyn's off day's so we headed to the international market in Honolulu for a day of shopping! The international market is a great place to find jewelry, Aloha Dresses, cool woodwork, name bracelets, neat artwork, street musicians, ukulele's, food, and crazies dressed as random things that charge you to take a picture with them. One thing we're not so crazy about with the International Market is how forceful some of the vendors are. I've never been good at bartering. It brought back funny memories from my many trips to NYC. No matter how many times I went to Chinatown, if I didn't have Jill or Melissa with me I was probably gonna end up paying asking price for any knock-off purse I got. I've gotten a little better but not much. It helps though when their asking price is completely ridiculous which was often the case especially with the pearl kiosks. All in all it was a great trip and we got a good head start on Christmas shopping.

EATING:

Hawaii is HOT! I don't know if you're aware but in hawaii it gets hot and thats when your body is craving a nice cool tropical smoothie of some sort. We scored and found a sweet smoothie place there in the market that makes you a drink with a fresh fruit of your choice then puts your drink back into your fruit to use as your cup! Pretty cool...but very heavy!

The food highlight of the day was the PUKA DOGS!! First off, I love hot dogs. With that being said...years ago on the Food Network or something of the like I caught a show about the best hot dogs in the Nation where they traveled around the US unveiling the greatest hot dog places, most unique hot dogs places, biggest, etc. and one place they featured called, Puka Dogs, was in Hawaii. After finding they had a location in Waikiki we quickly planned an excursion to try it out. It was amazing! They feature fruit relishes rather than pickle relish. The menu offers the following delectable relishes: Mango, pineapple, banana, coconut, papaya, and even starfruit! Are you salivating? They also use bread with no holes then use a scalding rod to make a hole in it so the bun cooks from the inside out and wraps all the way around the dog. BRILLIANT! It was incredible and over my dead body will I leave this place without having eaten a hot dog with each of the relishes!!

NEEDING TO BE SLEEPING:

I don't know if you're like me but if you are then you know shopping is exhausting and when you're exhausted and hot you can get kinda loopy. We shopped from early in the day to a decent hour in the evening and were really losing it by the end. Our desperation for sleep brought out behavior in us we were not familiar with. We seemed borderline drunk. I don't know why we felt we needed to begin recording our rants but we did. I guess we were aware we hadn't made any crazy videos in a little while and the blog was suffering so hit the record button. We might regret posting this one.

Our First Ukulele Lesson!!

The Singles here are crazy and get together a billion times a week!!

Sunday = church

Monday = FHE

Tuesday = Ultimate Frisbee

Wednesday = Paint Ball

Thursday = Dodge Ball

Friday = whatever they decided thursday

etc....

So tonight was Ultimate frisbee. They play for real...in the dark, rain or shine, and tonight was RAIN! It's been raining a little bit each day but never really lasts long...except for tonight. It poured...for awhile but that didn't stop them.

After that we headed to Keanue's for our FIRST UKULELE LESSON!!!

Then Keanue made us a midnight snack! YUM!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Taking a break from posting our Hawaiian adventures to wish my Dad a Happy Birthday!

Hey Dad! Happy Birthday!

I wish I could be there to celebrate with you...well sorta, except that would mean I wouldn't be here. So I guess what I'm saying is I wish YOU were HERE so I could celebrate with you. Sorry I didn't send you a card but I did the next best thing. Can you guess??? Yup, I made you a video or two!

I wasn't sure if you were in a funny birthday mood or a sentimental birthday mood...so you get both!

LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU DAD!!!

"You're the best!!"

-Ceri

Some things you might not know about Hawaii:

1. It actually consists of 8 main Islands: Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and the Big Island of Hawaii.

2. It's the most isolated population center on the face of the earth! Hawaii is 2,390 miles from California; 3,850 miles from Japan; 4,900 miles from China; and 5,280 miles from the Philippines.

3. Almost half of the WORLD'S commercial supply of pineapples comes from Hawaii.

4. From east to west Hawaii is the widest state in the United States.

5. Under-sea volcanoes that erupted thousands of years ago formed the islands of Hawaii and the islands themselves are the projecting tops of the biggest mountain range in the world!

6. Hawaii has its own time zone (Hawaiian Standard Time.)

7. There are no racial or ethnic majorities in Hawaii. Everyone is a minority. Caucasians (Haoles) constitute about 34%; Japanese-American about 32%; Filipino-American about 16% and Chinese-American about 5%.

8. The island of Niihau is a privately owned island, with livestock raising as its principal industry.

9. The island of Kauai is the 4th largest of the islands.

- By law no building on Kauai is allowed to be built taller than a palm tree.

-The Waialua River is one of 5 navigable rivers in Hawaii. It drains off Waialeale Mountain which is considered the wettest spot on the earth!!! Averaging 488 inches of rain per year.

10. The Island of Oahu has the city, Honolulu, which is the 11th largest metropolitan area.

- More than 100 world-renowned beaches ring Honolulu

- On any given day Waikiki attracts 72,000 visitors.

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11. The island of Maui is home to many famous attractions including the old whaling town of Lahaina, the road to Hana, Kaanapali Beach and the Haleakala Crater (Ha-lay-ah-ja-lah), which is the world's largest dormant volcano.

12. The big Island of Hawaii is the largest of the islands, twice the size of all other Hawaiian Islands combined.

- The Big Island has Kilauea Iki, the world's most active and largest volcano.

- The island houses the world's biggest telescope and more scientific observatories in one place than anywhere else in the world.

13. Hawaii has the highest life expectancy of all the United States. Male=75. Female=80.