White House Christmas

I had the honor to once again go to the White House Holiday Party, or as I refer to it, the White House Christmas Party. This year, I took my friend Audrey as my guest. Honestly, she had been on the top of my list last year but then I met this boy, invited him, and she got moved down the list. Now that the boy is my fiance, I figured it was definitely her turn. Audrey is a dear friend (we traveled to Moscow together last fall) and she's going to be helping me with several things in the wedding planning process so I thought it would be nice to take her with me.

Of course, the highlight was getting our picture taken with POTUS and FLOTUS. Audrey talked to POTUS for a few minutes and invited him to church. I didn't have anything planned to say so I ended up having small talk with FLOTUS about the trip to Hawaii and the organic farm I went to with her. By the end of the conversation, my neck was hurting because THAT WOMAN IS TALL!! If you notice, I come to her WAIST! And I'm wearing heels!!

We had a great, great time! As I've mentioned before, one of the best things is taking someone who has never experienced being in the WH before and seeing it through their eyes. I'm pretty sure that Audrey loved it and had a great time! The White House was decorated beautifully as always and we had a great time mingling with my colleagues and sitting on pretty much every piece of furniture possible. It was a truly fun and memorable evening and I really do appreciate the Obamas for opening their home for us! :)

Crazy Realization!!!

I came to the realization that I am officially old enough to be POTUS. My birthday was recently, and I realized that I am now OLD ENOUGH TO BE THE POTUS!! I could run the country. I love America, don't get me wrong but I can't believe that the constitution allows someone like ME to run this wonderful nation!!

My birthday was spent with the best person in the world, Brian! We spent the day playing tourists and crossing things off of our list of things to do together. We started with a nice lunch downtown and then went to the International Spy Museum. The Spy Museum is one of Brian's favorites (it's like his version of how the Newseum is to me!) but I had never been! So we went and learned a lot. The only down side is that I am now exceptionally paranoid and think everyone around me is a spy!! :)

We also celebrated with birthday cupcakes at Red Velvet Cupcakes and then went to see the presidential portraits collection in the National Portrait Gallery. We ended the day at a Christmas party (that's one of the blessings or curses of having a Christmas birthday and it just so happens to fall on a weekend!) with friends from church. We had a great time and just spending the day together with nothing really on the agenda was a wonderful treat!

'Tis the Season!!

Oh my! It's been a while! I guess I should apologize once again for my blog-slackness! Planning a wedding is not helping in my quest to be a good blogger. Who knew it was so much work? :) But it will be well worth it!

So let me catch you up on the month of December so far! Well, I had a week off work at the beginning of the month. I had a to-do list ten miles long to prepare for Christmas and cross some things off the wedding prep list. I'm proud to say that I accomplished most of what I set out to do. Unfortunately, there are still several biggies on the wedding prep list but I'm not stressing about them. I'm trying to keep this wedding planning thing as low-stressed as possible. Many people have told me that planning a wedding will make me want to elope and I just don't want that to be the case!

Anyway, back to the events of recent days.... We put up my Christmas tree before December 1st so it's been great to be in the Christmas spirit all month long! Every year, I really enjoy putting up each ornament and remembering where I got each ornament from. I love reliving each trip and story and remembering dear friends who have contributed to the collection! All of the ornaments from my childhood are on there, as well as the ornaments that my mom has made through the years. Perhaps some of my favorites are ones that my mom gave me from ornaments from her tree when she was a little girl and in particular the little blue glass ball that was on my grandparents' tree when they were first married nearly 75 years ago!

Once again, I played the oboe in my church's Living Christmas Tree. There were several oboe solo lines and I didn't screw up on any of them. In fact, despite of my playing, the music was beautiful, if I do say so myself! Every year, the LCT seems to go by quicker and quicker but this year my lips hurt more than ever too! But it was a lot of fun and gave a really good message about the birth of Christ and his impact on our lives. I encourage anyone in the area to check it out next year!!

The Prettiest Place on Earth

Well, at least one of them! Our last leg of our island hopping was a trip to Kauai, which was one of the greenest, most beautiful places I had ever been to! We had a day and a half to spend in Kauai and once again, we wanted to get as much in as possible

Of course the first thing on our agenda (after getting food) was to see none other than a waterfalls. Bless Brian's heart for going along with this plan. At least waterfalls are generally beautiful so it's a win-win for everyone! It's not like I was dragging him to landfills or something!

Anyway, we went to see more of God's beautiful creation when we saw Wailua Falls. Kauai gets the most rain of anywhere on earth so I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that it was raining. But it was still a pretty drive and waterfalls are beautiful no matter what the weather! These waterfalls were made famous when they were in the opening of the show Fantasy Island. I didn't watch that show (I'm a little too young) so I can't verify that but that's what they say! Then we drove a little more and went to our final waterfall stop of the trip. I know, you're sad. We were too. :) We saw Opeakaa Falls which were a little far away but beautiful nonetheless.
During the afternoon, we decided to just relax at our hotel. I was beginning to come down with allergies or some sinus-related issue and rest was just what we needed. And we had a beautiful location to do just that. I fell asleep on a huge sofa like thing near the pool deck, right by the ocean. I was totally chilling and it was nice!!

On Friday, the last day of our adventure, we decided to drive to the north part of the island to see what we could of the Na Poli Coast. The best way to see the coast is by way of helicopter but we decided to leave something to do if we ever came back! Everywhere we went, we still saw some incredible beauty, despite the rain, and it was beautiful!
On our way back, we decided to find somewhere to go snorkeling. Brian had been while I was working earlier in the week but I wanted in on that fun too! We drove to several spots where the surf was a bit too rough before finding a place on Anini Beach. It was great! We swam and snorkeled out to see a bunch of fish! Brian said he saw more during his Oahu snorkeling outing but this one we had to work for a little bit more. And the payoff was great! We saw a lot of fish!!

After changing back to real clothes, we then decided we had time to go see Waimea Canyon on a different part of the island. And I'm so glad we did because that too was amazing! I've actually never see the Grand Canyon before so I was automatically blown away by the beauty and craftsmanship of God!! It was beautiful!!! I couldn't stop thinking about the majesty and glory of God!What an awesome way to end our little adventure! We covered a lot in a matter of 4 days! We left the canyon and drove straight to the airport to take the red-eye home. We really had an amazing time exploring the islands! It was a bit rough to return home where it was 43 degrees cooler!! I am so grateful for the opportunity to see as much as we did! Hawaii is definitely a place to enjoy a variety of God's creations!!

The Really Big Island

The next day, we woke up exceptionally early for our next adventure. Actually we had a 5a flight from Oahu to the Big Island. We set our alarms for 2:30a, which for the record, is in the middle of the night. One of the benefits of such an early flight is that we got to see the sunrise after we landed in Hilo.
We only had one day on the Big Island before our next adventure so we decided to pack as much in one day as possible. We continued our quest to see more waterfalls and succeeded when we saw Rainbow Falls. These were beautiful and exceptionally accessible! No hiking in the dark required! I was a little bummed we didn't see a rainbow because I'm pretty sure every single picture I've seen about Hawaii involves some sort of a rainbow. But alas, maybe it was too early but there were no rainbows. But it was beautiful nonetheless. Our next thing on the agenda was to go to Mauna Kea, which is nearly 14,000 feet tall. If you measure it from its base underwater, it's the tallest mountain in the world. We drove up to the visitor's center at about 9000 feet and boy, my ears were popping! We decided to skip driving all the way to the top due to time constraints and my fear of getting altitude sickness and not being able to continue with the rest of our day. We had an awesome view of the island and it was a really cool drive. After finding some lunch at a restaurant in downtown Hilo, we headed to see yet some more waterfalls. I apologized to Brian for dominating our overall schedule with waterfalls but they were really cool and he didn't seem to mind at all. This time we went to see Akaka Falls which are 442 feet tall. There was a little 20-minute pathway that took us by some other falls but seeing Akaka Falls was the highlight. Those are some major waterfalls and definitely one of the highlights of God's creation!
Our next stop on our adventure was the main reason we chose to go to the Big Island... Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Brian loves national parks and it's his goal to cross as many off his list as possible. I like that goal and have vowed to help him in that quest. Plus he wanted to see a volcano erupting. Also a good goal but we quickly learned once we got there that in order to see that, we'd have to do a 6+ hour hike and it wasn't accessible by road. So we drove through the park on the Chain of Craters Road and stopped at several overlooks to explore a bit. When we stopped at the first overlook, Brian said, "Wow, that's a really big hole in the ground!" It was where the volcano erupted back in 1954 and Brian was correct. It was a massive hole!


We kept driving through the park and stopped and looked at the hardened lava from lava flows in the past. It was just miles and miles of desolation and black lava. I had never seen anything like it!

We drove all the way down to where the road ended because it was cut off by a lava flow in 1995. It was super cool to climb all over the hardened lava and again, it was such a unique sight! I almost had to pinch myself to remind me that we were still in America!!

Brian had found that he qualified to be able to stay in a military post inside the National Park that was on the rim of the volcano. Which was great!! We were exhausted by this point and still had stuff on our agenda and being right there was key!! So we checked into our cabin and after dinner, we drove over to the site of an active volcano. It was the Kilauea Caldera, which was about a mile from our cabin. When we got there, it was incredibly foggy and misty and not the best volcano-viewing weather. We could see an orange glow coming from the ground but that was about it. But then the most amazing thing happened! All the clouds and fog disappeared within minutes and we could see it clearly! The camera doesn't do it near enough justice but it was so cool to see the magma bubbling up at the earth's surface!! Again, something I had never seen before!

We went back to the cabin and were completely exhausted after our fun-filled day! I am pretty sure I was asleep by 9pm!!

Island Hopping

Once POTUS left Honolulu on his way to Australia, the real fun could begin! Brian had joined me in Hawaii and had kept quite the busy schedule while I was working. We actually didn't see each other much, especially since two of those days, I was with FLOTUS and POTUS and had to stay at their hotel one night. Brian hiked up Diamond Head, went snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, took a scenic drive around the Tantalus and Round Top Drive, saw some waterfalls, and visited the National Cemetery of the Pacific (the Punchbowl). And I worked the whole time. Again, I don't expect you to feel sorry for me because I was in one of the most beautiful workspaces of all times!

But on Tuesday, POTUS was safely in the air headed to the land of kangaroos and so my extended time in Hawaii could begin! (Don't worry, my network was not footing the bill for any of this and this was all on my own time and funded by me- and Brian!)

We had quite the agenda and wanted to see as much as possible! I'm breaking this into several posts so they aren't too overwhelming!

So our first stop was to go to Pearl Harbor. When I had been to Hawaii in 2008, I was completely bummed that I had been there for two weeks and didn't get to see Pearl Harbor. I am so glad we made it a priority to see because it was awesome. Not only was it one of the more moving places I have been but it was so educational. Maybe it's just me but after being there, I totally got the enormity of WWII and even the parallels to 9/11. Things about WWII just clicked and gave all that I had learned from school and books new meaning. I missed the movie in the theaters back in 2001 but being there in person was the best. We took a tour of the museum there (which were incredibly well done) before watching a short movie in the little theater there. Then we got on a boat and rode out to the USS Arizona Memorial.

Brian had done his research and knew that we should be able to see the oil still leaking from the vessel below. It was really cool to see that.
I had seen pictures and heard all about it but seeing it with my own eyes was a memorable experience.
After we finished seeing the USS Arizona, we saw a submarine in the harbor. Upon closer investigation, we realized that it was a museum dedicated to submarines in WWII. We realized that Brian's great-uncle, who had died on a submarine in WWII, was listed on one of the memorials. Then we figured out that the submarine in the harbor, the USS Bowfin, was only a couple of numbers off from the submarine that his grandpa's brother had perished on. So we took a tour of the submarine to get an idea of what it was like for his great-uncle. It was such an educational thing and took on even more meaning with that family connection.

I wouldn't consider myself a pure history buff but I do enjoy learning and seeing Pearl Harbor was such a wonderful experience.

After that, we decided we wanted to go hiking to see some waterfalls. My dad loves, loves, loves waterfalls and I guess I inherited that trait a bit. We decided to spend the afternoon going to see Manoa Falls. I was late afternoon when we got there so daylight time was of the essence. But we hiked the .7 mile short hike and saw, at that point, the tallest waterfalls I think I had ever seen. It was getting dark so we didn't spend to much time enjoying the waterfalls. Just enough time to catch our breaths and get a picture.
It was a beautiful ending to a wonderful day!!