Our run in with NSYNC!

Erin you'll never believe this. So we read your comment on the Justin Timberlake Serenade requesting we find lookalikes for the whole NSYNC clan and we thought we'll never be able to swing that and had sorta written it off that it would just never happen. Well guess who we bump into? Freaking NSYNC!! It was unbelievable. We got some good footage of them singing one of my Old School Favorites. Hope you like it!

P.S. The video seems to be too wide for the blog template so part of the right side isn't showing. Here's the URL link for it on youtube where you can watch it in it's entirety if you wish:

NSYNC video on YouTube.

Recipe for Haole Brownies!

At Keanue's one night I saw this recipe on the fridge and it made me laugh. It's for Haole Brownies. "Haole" is a Hawaiian slang term for white people. Apparently these Brownies are a sugar vanilla flavor and come out white...hence the name. They're good so I thought I'd share.

This one is for Malasadas. A Portuguese donut type thing that's a Hawaiian favorite! YUM!

If the recipe's aren't big enough you can double click to see the photo full size or email me and I'll send you the full recipe.

Photo shoot with Erihana

Okay, I've been looking forward to this day since the first time I saw Hanale's daughter on Facebook. She is the cutest little girl ever! Each time they came over and I got to know her better just made me want to take her photo more and more. Getting some time with her quickly became one of my major "to do" items while here.

The day I arrived in Hawaii I began making mental notes of all the beautiful places I could take her for the shoot. Hanale and Erica were great to let me pick her up one afternoon after school and I was thrilled to take her to almost all of them! We started in Waikiki, went up to a park in Manoa, then to Maunawili Falls, then to this great fence I'd been obsessing over for months, then to the Quarry, Lanikai Beach and Kailua Beach. Here are some of my favorites.

We finished with some lollipops and a cookie pit stop since Erihana was SOOOOOOOOO GOOD! She really was the perfect model. Reminding me several times she knew what she was doing since she'd been "practicing her poses." What a doll! So 4 hours and 3 wardrobe changes later we were done and with some amazing shots in hand.

Hunt for the Perfect Souvenier...

I've been trying to figure out the perfect souvenir for this amazing experience and it came to me...a puppy! I've been wanting a puppy for awhile and thought it would be awesome to get one and bring it around the Island with me, give it a Hawaiian name, then bring it home with me. I thought I could name it "Souvenir" in Hawaiian...then an even better idea came to me, Puka, as in Puka Dogs...my favorite place to eat here.

My mind was set and I began the hunt. I called my airline to see how much it would cost to bring puppy back on those long flights with me and what arrangements would need to be made...then I checked Craigslist and all the local pet stores to see what was out there. The main dog of choice here is the PitBull, which is just not my style so I kept looking and my next choice was the Chihuahua mixes. Here are some of the candidates.

This was a chihuahua, terrier, and Brussels Griffin mix. He was really cute in a pathetic, poor thing, sorta way...I like that.

This is option number 2. Another Chihuahua terrier mix.

The next two are sister and brother chihuahua mixes. I love the color and markings on the brown, white, and black guy at the bottom but he's a little too crazy for me and I would never trust him in my room if my closet door was left open. The girl just below isn't nearly as cute to me but she's calmer.

Decisions. Decisions.

Hanauma Bay

Today we decided to hit up Hanauma Bay. Because it's such a major tourist spot and is often crowded we'd sorta been avoiding it but we did wantgo at least once while here. Snorkeling is so good here but the best thing about Hanauma Bay is how the reef stretches around the whole bay and comes up high enough that no sharks can get in!! We should've tried paddle boarding here!

Interesting fact: Hana means "bay" and uma means "curved". Which makes sense when you look at this wide angled aerial view of the bay. How beautiful is this??

We were ready to see fish, turtles, coral, all the sea life stuff...but one thing that we were not expecting to see were Island Weasels.

Along the road on that side of the island are some cool scenic points where we'd pull over, hop out and climb over walls to get some incredible views. There was one spot in particular that was just really amazing.

We ended up climbing over the wall and down some pretty steep drops to get close to where the water was crashing onto the rocks...can you see Brooklyn out there?

Man I'm gonna miss driving down the road, pulling over the car, hopping out and being able to take pictures like these!!

Our Christmas Card

Double click to see it larger!

"On numba 1 day of Christmas"

So there's this awesome version of the song, The 12 days of Christmas, Hawaiian Style, that we've been hearing on the radio and we're in love with. All the gifts are funny Hawaiian things and we love how rather than say, "on the 1st day of Christmas" they say, "on numba one day of christmas." It's so great. However, there are parts where we're not exactly sure what they're saying so we headed out to see if we could get the skinny out on the streets.

FYI - tutu means grandma in Hawaiian. This will be useful in a minute...

A special thanks to all our Enrichment ladies that helped with this endeavor!

We love you!!

btw-the version we have playing on the blog isn't the same one that's been on the radio but it will suffice.

I need to feel some Christmas! Honolulu City Lights with Erica & Hanale!

When you've grown up on the east coast and in a place where you can expect some snow around Christmas or at least some serious cold...It's hard to feel like Christmas is coming when you're still able to live in your bathing suit. Some people have put lights up and Santa has made some appearances at the mall and other places around town but I still just haven't been feeling it...until tonight.

Tonight I got to go with Erica, Hanale, and the kids to the Christmas lights display downtown.

It was great. The city's been doing this for 25 years now where Honolulu decorates the outside of government buildings with huge trees, lights, statues, Nativity scenes, as well as the inside of the buildings with Christmas trees and wreaths from the city's decorating contest. Here are some of the contestants.

This ones covered with all kinds of cute sea creatures.

This is a HUGE Hawaiian Santa Statue made out of foam then covered in fiberglass.

Here's sweet Erihana looking at the nativity.

It was really a beautiful display and totally got me feeling the spirit of the season. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Or as they say in Hawaii, MELE KALIKIMAKA!!!!

Curry House & Bubbies Ice Cream Parlor in Honolulu with the ladies!

Tonight was Enrichment night so we met up with the other girls in the ward at the curry house in Honolulu. We love the ladies in our ward here. They are so fun and easy be around. From the second you meet them you just feel comfortable...so a night out with them was a total blast.

The curry was amazing and Nancy even got us to try Kim Chee...which I will say wasn't half bad.

Then we headed down the street to get some dessert at Bubbies, a local ice cream shop, where we were introduced to another new food, Mochi. It's so good!! It's a Japanese flour that can be used to make a ton of different things...we ate it in the way most things taste best...wrapped around ice cream! So you get a flavored mochi and a flavored ice cream and the Mochi is wrapped around it so it looks like a Mochi nugget with ice cream on the inside and you just eat it with your hands. It was amazing!

HIGH SURF WARNING!

So I guess the insane waves of the North Shore this week made not just local but NATIONAL news! Rightfully so. It was crazy up there. We headed up early to do the shark cage excursion but the water was too high and rough that the company wasn't taking any boats out. That's right folks...we booked the shark cage!!!!! Stay tuned for that post! Since we were already up on the North shore we headed over to watch the Quicksilver Surfing competition at Waimea Beach. The waves were at 50 feet high. Some of the highest they've had in almost a hundred years!

The road from Hale'iwa to Waimea is right along the beach and there were spots where we were driving on sand, leaves, branches, and other debris that the water had carried all the way up onto the road in the night when the surf was even higher! WOW!

To give you an idea of how high and active the water was

...here is a picture of Waimea beach on a normal day:

Here's Waimea Beach this day:

There were still people crazy enough to go out and try and catch a good ride in. Can you even see them??

People are crazy!

My Buddy Erihana

Having your front tooth knocked out calls for some serious pain killers so I spent the next little while in bed and on vicodin. So it was great when my buddy Erihana came to keep me company. Erihana is my Friend Hanale's daughter. I'm living with her grandparents(Hanale's Parents).

We watched The Santa Clause, she showed me how she can type her name, I taught her how to draw in photoshop,

we ate ice cream, played hide and seek,

and made christmas cookies!

Is she not the cutest????

I can't wait to take her pictures next week! We did a little practice shoot so she could "show me here poses." She was so funny.