January 13'

Great Grama's 94th Birthday
We celebrated Erik's Grandmother's 94th birthday at Grama Jean and Papa's house.

10 Year Anniversary
Erik and I celebrated our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary in Hawaii. We stayed on the Big Island for a week. Hawaii is always awesome and this trip didn't disappoint!
So I remember what we did...
Saturday: After a 1/2 day at work E and I took lunch to my parents house and ate before heading out to the Courtyard Marriott by LAX. We wandered to Quizino's for dinner before heading to the fitness center to do a short workout.
Sunday: The hotel shuttle took us to the airport. We were hoping to find a McDonald's in our terminal but, found a Carl's Jr. for breakfast instead. The flight was pretty bumpy but, I was good playing Angry Birds Rio. :) We got in about 12:30pm (Hawaii time), got our rental car (Gold Ford Escape) and went to lunch at The Harbor House. After lunch we went to Wal-Mart to get some snacks, breakfast food and of course alcohol :)We found a very yummy Mai Tai mix and checked-in at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort
Monday: We headed out on a little adventure that was supposed to be about a 5 mile roundtrip walk to a shopping center but, turned into a 9 mile hike since we got a little lost. We did see some really nice hotels and beach areas though.
Tuesday: Set out at about 7am for Hilo. We stopped at Akaka Falls were we did a quick walk around the 1/2 mile trail to see the falls before getting to the Hilo Airport for our helicopter tour. The heliocopter ride was great except I started feeling nauseous about 20 minutes into the 50 minute ride. We flew over an active vent and down to the coast were the lava was hitting the ocean. Great tour! We did a quick lunch and stopped by the Liliuokalani Gardens and ran into the Big Island Candies factory/store. So glad (and sad) we found this place. You could watch them hand dipping the cookies and sample some of the goodies. There was so much to choose from I could hardly decide but, I settled on peanut butter and coconut brownies. Erik even got some macadamian nut crunch. Had we known how good they were going to be we would have bought 10 boxes of each!
After Big Island Candies we headed to Volcano National Park where we stopped by the information center, checked out some of the lava fields, an old lava tube (Thurstons Lava Tube) and an old vent crater. Continuing our drive along the south side of the island we stopped at a black sand beach that had about 5-7 sea turtles just hanging out on the beach. Very cool!
Since our excursion to the black sand beach went so well we decided to try and find a green sand beach at the southern most point of the island (and the US). That trip didn't go as well... It was getting dark and we found ourselves wandering several miles off the main highway on a very narrow, unlit, kinda paved road. We never found the green sand beach but, we were just happy to find our way back to the main highway! I think we ate dinner at 8:30pm that night! (Subway...)
Wednesday: We wondered along the beach by our hotel and found some really pretty beach areas with more turtles and tide pools. We laid by the pool and walked to the Queen's Marketplace for dinner and shopping.
Thursday: After a trip to the fitness center for a run and some weightlifting (weights for E, running for me) we did some snorkeling, laid by the pool and rented a kayak for an hour. We had dinner in Kona and headed to the Sheraton where they shine a light into the water to attract the plankton that the manta rays feed on. After over an hour of waiting and talking to some nice ladies from Nebraska we only saw 1 ray and decided to call it a night.
Friday: Our actual 10 year anniversary! Had a couples massage, Erik's first one ever! Wandered up north a little ways and checked out some hotels and beach areas before going to dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. BEST dinner ever! E had the Cowboy ribeye and I had the petite filet, best steaks we've ever had. We also managed to polish off 2 baskets of bread, a cobb salad, mashed potatoes, and most of the sweet corn! And they sent us home with free cheesecake since it was our anniversary!
Saturday: After a 5.5 mile run and some more weights in the fitness center we lounged by the pool and at the beach most of the day.
Sunday: Quick trip to the fitness center for a little cardio before the plane ride home... Also, did some last minute shopping at the airport before the flight. Got home about 10:30pm and didn't go to bed until 12:30am. Plenty of laundry to catch up with but, worth it!


View of the pool from our room.

Petroglyphs on the Kings Trail. 5 mile walk turned into 9 miles!

Akaka Falls (yes, you are reading it right)

Blue Hawaiian helicopter ride.

Thurston Lava Tube in the Volcano National Park

Turtles on the black sand beach

Anniversary Dinner at Ruth Chris. Best dinner EVER!

When you work as hard as we do to keep in shape, you post the bathing suit picture :) 

Ethan's Citizenship Award
The day after we got back from Hawaii Ethan got the Citizenship Award at school. So glad we could both be there. It was the first time we got to see him since being home and he started to cry a little when he got his award and we got to go up and hug him.