Friday, September 24, 2010

Eye on the Prize

Or, "What Doesn't Kill Me..."

So big news first- Landon and I are buying a house! Well, hopefully. Assuming the whole process over the next month and a half doesn't present any insurmountable problems or leave me so far removed from my sanity that I land in an institution.

The tricky part (in addition to the general trickiness I'm discovering is inherent in any house-buying) is that I am responsible for doing this all on my own. Landon left the day before we found out our offer was accepted and won't be back until three weeks after we move in. I'm going through a learning curve, for sure. So far I'm pretty proud of myself for scheduling an inspection and getting paperwork to our lender, although I feel like I'm just barely keeping ahead of some rabid beast chasing after me.

Paperwork is my least favorite part of anything, and I'm so anxious to get my hands on this house and start painting and ripping up carpet I can hardly stand it. I am certainly staying busy, and here I was wondering what I would fill my time with when Landon was away. Silly me. I should have counted on Life showing up.

Even with all the headache of the buying process I'm really, really excited. I will be sure to tell Landon, though, that he doesn't have to buy me a house every time he leaves just to keep me occupied.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

I'm Maui-ed!

So about a month and a half ago, my wonderful amazing fabulous awesome husband surprised me with a trip to Hawaii. We got on a plane a few weeks later, and spent a week in Maui for our slightly belated honeymoon. And it. Was. AMAZING.

I was adventurous and rugged. We filled every day with as much as we could, here are some highlights:

Snorkel Trip- we took a boat tour out to two different snorkeling locations. The ride itself was fantastic, and we even had dolphins swim alongside our boat for a little while. In spite of swallowing a liter of sea water my first time out, I got the hang of snorkeling and saw coral and a spectacular array of fish I had previously seen only in aquariums. We even got to swim with turtles, and thanks to our nifty under-water camera, got some great shots.

Zip Line Tour- I had never done a zip line tour before, but my sister did back in the spring and was raving about it for weeks. So when the opportunity arose for us to do one while in Maui, we took it. We had a blast! It was a pretty incredible feeling to be soaring over treetops and valleys, hundreds of feet in the air. The last line (there were seven total) was 3,600 feet long, and one of the guides said Landon easily went at least 60 mph. And our guides were way cool, both for the zipline and the snorkel tour.

Swinging Bridges Hike- One of the days we took a few hours to go hiking, and at every step we were surrounded by unbelievably beautiful scenery. Waterfalls off in the distance, bamboo and jungle foliage in abundance, creeks and rivers running alongside the trails... There were also two swinging bridges along the trail, which made for precarious fun. As hard as it was to pull myself away from the ocean, the hike was amazing and I'm glad we went.

Ocean You Can Swim In Without Getting Hypothermia- I'm not normally much of a water girl, but I loved being in the ocean. The temperature was perfect, I loved feeling the movement of it (a little different than Grandpa's pool), and we spent a lot of time swimming and snorkeling. Landon's uncle lives in Maui, and took us around one morning to 4-5 different beaches so we got to see a lot of different facets to the coastline there.

The Food- Hawaiian breakfast = awesome. I probably had french toast with bananas and macadamias and coconut syrup three different times and it was always ridiculously delicious. I had the best pulled-pork BBQ sandwich of my life. Shave ice is wonderful. Burgers from Cheeseburger in Paradise are also wonderful. I even ate sushi, and loved it so much we went right back the next night. Amazing food.


Landon and I were swimming in the ocean the last night we were there while the sun was setting. It was a spectacular sunset, but very bittersweet to be there in the midst of all that beauty and have to go the next morning. I've never been anywhere that's had such a profound impact on me that I was crying when I had to leave. I have to go back, and the sooner the better.

I had an amazing time, and we took lots of pictures. I'll just have to look at those to hold me over until next time!