We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. We were a little nervous this year, seeing as it was our first year without family. But it turned out to be a nice Christmas after all. We had a little Christmas Eve party the night before with some other families in the neighborhood who didn't have family around either. We went caroling and then came back to have treats and hot chocolate and cider. We also let the kids act out the Nativity Scene. It turned out to be a nice night. Gracie was so excited the next morning and couldn't wait to tear open the presents. So to our family as promised here is a look at Gracie on Christmas morning. The excitement as she walked down the stairs and realized Santa really did come.
She had asked for a closing eyes baby and a crib. It didn't take her long to guess what was in each gift from Santa.


I was proud of myself as I pulled off 2 surprises for Deven. This is the first one. In our ward is the "famous Bone Carver" he is so talented and sells his merchandise here in Hawaii. Anyways I asked him if he did custom orders and he said he did so I had him make this medical symbol necklace for Deven. I think it turned out quite well and I thought it was a great sentimental gift for him. He did an amazing job just look at all the detail.
My second surprise for Deven was his first surfboard. He has really gotten into surfing lately. One day I would like to get him a really nice board, but this is a great beginning one. Anyways Gracie and I picked this out for him. I am house sitting for a friend who went home for the Holidays so I asked her if I could hide it in her house until Christmas. On Christmas morning I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. and snuck out of bed and walked over to her house got the board and snuck it into the living room then I had to sneak back to bed without Deven knowing. He woke up for a minute but I just told him was hungry and went down to grab a little snack. He was convinced and fell right back to sleep. He was just as surprised as Gracie in the morning. It was so fun to be so sneaky. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a hard time being surprised and keeping surprises I always get so excited and tell early, but not this year.

Gracie after all was said and done. After we got done opening gifts we made a big breakfast with walnut pancakes, eggs, and bacon (something we never seem to do anymore either since Deven leaves so early) We just enjoyed watching Gracie play with her new toys and then headed to the beach for some afternoon fun. It was so relaxing and I must admit I enjoyed the sun on Christmas a little more than I thought I would. A neighbor of ours invited us over for Christmas dinner and so that is how we ended the day. We definitely missed being around family but as promised here is are way of sharing our day with you enjoy. P.S. On a side note my brother Lee just got home from his mission tonight. I am excited to call and talk to him tomorrow. I wish we could have come home for it, but soon enough we will be making a trip. Welcome home Lee

Merry Christmas Everyone

We just wanted to say Merry Christmas to Everyone. I ordered Christmas cards this year from my sister and they got delivered to us on the most rainy day of the year. When we got them it looked like the package had been dropped in a puddle and ran over. Only about half of the cards were send able. But I am sending out greetings to everyone. We have had quite a year. I still remember 1 year ago when we found out we would be moving to Hawaii. Time goes by so quickly because here we are. We end this year feeling very blessed. Deven and I have survived half a year of residency. He manages to keep pretty busy, while Gracie and I are making the adjustment to our new life. There are things I miss deeply on this island (like Target, Sonic, and Super Walmart) but we are surviving. The scenery is beautiful and we are able to enjoy the outdoors year round. We have a wonderful ward who has taken us in and made us feel welcome. They take good care of us for that we are so thankful. We miss family especially this time of year. It has been a little different getting ready for Christmas with no snow (we are still wearing flip flops). But over all life is good. We have a lot to look forward to this upcoming year and that keeps my mind occupied. Deven's family will be coming to visit in April and my mom will be coming in May. We of course are so excited for the arrival of our new little boy in April. So to everyone we hope all is well and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!

It was Deven's birthday on Saturday. Yes he is 30 (I can't say much because I turned 30 first). He is back at work and is on nights for now so we did things a little different. We had a mid afternoon date. Gracie was worried about missing his party so I let her (with the help of her baby sitter) decorate a cake for Deven while we were gone. She just wanted to help him blow out his candles. I didn't have 30 candles so he got off easy this year. Happy Birthday thanks for all you do for us. We LOVE YOU!!!
We met Deven after work one evening and went to Honolulu to see the lights. I am not sure if you can see the Santa in the background but He is doing the "shocka" sign and has his red coat wide open sitting by a beach with turtles. We thought it was pretty funny.
Gracie got to get her face painted. She picked flowers. She was so proud of it and felt so beautiful we let her keep it on the next day.

I just wanted to say to everyone Merry Christmas. If you have snow enjoy it for us!!!

Deven's Week Off

Well it has been a fun week, but also a rainy week here for us. Deven had this week off and we had many plans, but had to postpone some due to some crazy weather. We have been hit hard this week by rain. We got 15 inches in 12 hours. Deven and I were getting worried that our house was going to flood. Many of the roads were closed and the stream behind our house looked like a raging river. The dirt here is red so Gracie thought it looked like a chocolate river. Some parts of the island were hit hard and many people's homes have been destroyed. It is really sad because the parts that were hit the worst, are the more poverty area's and those people lost everything. So we managed to have some fun despite the past few days. Deven is taking up surfing and he wanted to spend as much time as he could trying. Even on this overcast rainy day, Deven wanted to head to the beach to try and catch some waves.
Gracie thought she was pretty good too, but she says she will only surf on the sand not actually in the water.
What looks like a dead seal in the background is actually a molting seal. This seal picked White Plains beach to rest for a few days. Gracie thought it was so cool. We had to stay and watch the seal for what seemed like hours, then when we got home she wanted to play like she was a molting seal.
Deven threw me a surprise birthday party early. I was definitely surprised. He wanted to do it before a lot of our friends left for Christmas. I had no idea and he kept asking me if I wanted to get dressed that day, but I kept saying if were not going anywhere tonight I just want to be comfortable so I ended up in my sweats for the surprise, but it was still a great surprise. So thanks to Deven and all my friends who helped him out, it was a great birthday. (We are not going to mention age)
Me in my sweats, at least I showered that day, but just threw my hair in a bun, cause Deven had told me we, that we should just hunker down that night and play games. I was ready for a lazy night at home.
Deven also managed to get some boogie boarding here. If we timed it right we usually found some sun in the mornings and then the clouds would roll in by the afternoon.
This was the best part of his vacation. We woke up early one morning to hike Diamond Head. It almost felt like a road trip. We wanted to beat traffic through Honolulu and hike to the top and watch the sun rise. So we started our hike off at 6 a.m.
Some of the pictures a long the way. When you get to the top you have a quite a few of the island. It was so perfect in the morning, there weren't a lot of people up there and the ocean seemed to peaceful.
At the top of the crater. Gracie was such a trooper she hiked the whole thing. She thought it was so much fun. She didn't even complain when we had to climb 200 stairs.
A view of Honolulu from the top of the hike.

It is not too late to order Christmas Cards...

Hey everyone my sister has started a little business doing graphic design. Right now her focus is custom Christmas Cards. If you are interested here are her prices...

(30) 4" x 8" $20

(32) 5" x 7" $30

(27) 4" x 6" $15 postcards

(27) 4" x 6"

Here is an example of her work with my last years Christmas photo.

All you have do to is email her your family picture and then she can mail your cards to her.

Thanksgiving and kicking off the Holidays

This is going to be a random post, but we have had a wonderful weekend. Deven is on an Anesthesiology rotation the hours are great and he got Thanksgiving weekend off. He also has a week off here next week. We are just trying to enjoy some holiday activities and and enjoy our first Christmas here. We went to the Tripler Hospital Tree lighting ceremony tonight. It was a lot of fun, there was music, food, hula dancers, and of course Santa made a visit. Gracie was sure she saw him flying in the sky.



We took advantage of a rainy weekend and put our tree up. Gracie, Deven and I had so much fun decorating it. It almost feels like Christmas here. We are kind of enjoying the rain. I have even made hot chocolate a couple of times.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Our friends the Reese's invited us over. Everyone pitched in and we had wonderful food. It made the day great as this is one of our first Thanksgivings away from family. This is a picture of some of my friends we celebrated with. Me, Chantell, Audra, and Amanda. Thanks for a great Thanksgiving. This year our turkey was cooked in and IMU. Our ward dug a huge hole in the back of the church and cooked 60 turkeys in this underground pit all night. The meat was sooo good.


Ok so these pictures are random, but I just had to share our costco gas experiences with everyone. This is by far the cheapest place to get gas on the island. And so everyone waits. I have waited 45 minutes before, but I guess it is worth a great deal is a great deal. Sometimes the cars are lined up off the exit. CRAZY!!!!

We didn't go shopping on Black Friday this year. We decided to hit the beach instead. Deven had Thursday and Friday off and he was craving a really relaxing day at the beach. We headed over to Bellows Beach and Gracie and Deven worked on their boogie boarding.
It was a perfect beach day and since everyone was out shopping it was not very crowded.
Gracie had her friend Brooklyn over and they helped me make rice crispy treats. They had more fun licking the spoons and eating whatever they could out of the bow. They made it a point to get it on their faces. They thought it was so funny that it stuck to their faces.
We found a train ride because what are the holidays without a train ride. Ok so not really important, but it has been rainy (we are in the rainy season) so we were trying to find some activities to do inside.

It's a BOY!!!

Well, we finally got a peek and found out it's a boy!!! We are excited and have a lot of shopping to do. Deven was more than thrilled as he was so worried about the girl to boy ratio getting out of control and really being out numbered. Gracie took it a little bit hard in the beginning (she really wanted a sister) but she is getting more excited as we talk about it. We are excited to have one of each.

Good Times

I haven't updated in a while and was down loading pictures and realized I was getting behind. Today Gracie and I went to the park with her friend Cordin. It had been raining all night and it didn't take them long to find the mud. They rolled around in it and put their faces in it. I almost forgot to take a picture before rinsing off outside. She was covered from head to toe, but she had fun and that was matters.

Deven had Sunday off and it was a rainy day. We decided to go for a drive to Pali Lookout and then see if we could find a Sunny part of the island and have a picnic dinner. This wasn't the nicest beach but there was no rain and the sun was going down so we decided it was perfect.

Gracie kept asking us if this was a volcano and I can see how she thought that. This is one of my favorite sights in Hawaii as you drive to the other side of the island the mountain peaks are so high the clouds just rest on them and it does look like a volcano.

Gracie and I at Pali lookout. I forgot how windy it is up there. It is up in the mountains and you can look out and see the Windward side of the Island. Legend has it they use to push people off these cliffs so hold on tight so you don't blow over.

Deven and Gracie at the lookout. It was actually a little bit chilly up there and Gracie and I thought it was so fun to put on jackets.

Here a sign that winter is coming is the size of the waves. This is our favorite beach in the summer months and during part of the winter it is closed. This was on a day of 12 foot advisory but it gets bigger and soon the surfing competitions start we are excited to go watch one.

I need to be more thankful

I have been feeling very ungrateful lately, and may be even a little bit sorry for myself. I miss my husband as he is working all the time which leaves me to put Gracie to bed by myself. He usually gets home just in time for a quick story and then lights out. Some days I feel completely exhausted and feel like a single mother. My Gracie has an abounding amount of energy and keeps me hopping all day long. And it is no secret I haven't felt the best this pregnancy. Things are getting better but still not perfect. I have found myself complaining all the time and not appreciating this exciting event in our life. I had a doctors appointment today and he was asking me how I was doing, my first thought was to go off on just how miserable I was, when he said, "after all this is definitely a miracle baby I still can't believe it. " I felt so small at that point. I have been so caught up on poor me that I haven't taken the time to appreciate how lucky and how grateful we are. Gracie and I spent the rest of the afternoon having some quality time together and I kept thinking how could I be complaining this is all so worth it. How could I not want another little baby in our life. Sure she wears me out, but she is so much of my life. She makes my life great. She wakes up laughing and usually goes to sleep laughing much of it because she finds great pleasure in torturing me. She likes to squeak a loud plastic chicken at me in the morning just to wake me up and she thinks she is so funny. (We can thank Nana for that one...but we will get you back ha ha) And we can't get into bed until she has shown me all of her new tricks and all of her stuffed animals and dolls are tucked in somewhere in the house. But life would be so boring without it. So since this month is a month of being grateful. I decided I needed look at the positive and not the negative. (Deven will be so excited).

Looking forward to Halloween

Well this Sunday was the primary program. This was Gracie's first year participating. Deven had to work and he was really sad he missed it. I wish I could have recorded it. Of course I thought Gracie did a great job. She said her part without any hesitation and was so proud of herself. She tried to sing every song I saw her lips moving throughout. She kept waving to me and of course I was so proud, yet at the same time she is growing up and it is so crazy to see how grown up she has become. On a fun note, Gracie and I have been counting down the days till High School Musical 3 came out. I am not sure how she came to like it ( I am sure we can thank the older cousins) None the less we went to see it and had so much fun. She was so entertained and couldn't stop talking about how much she loved it. Deven came with us and he even admitted it was a pretty good show.

For Halloween Gracie wanted to be a dalmation puppy. I looked all over and I all I could find was hot furry costumes. She would melt here in Hawaii, so we decided to make her a girlie dalmation. She has already got to wear her costume once to a Halloween Birthday party and can't wait for Halloween to wear it again.

A Guilty Confession

Well this weekend was Deven's 4 day weekend. I had been counting it down since the rotation started. I was only seeing Deven for about 2 hours a day and I kept telling myself just hold on till his 4 day weekend. Well the weekend came and unfortunately he had a PT test Friday morning so it was at 5:30 a.m. so naturally when he came home he wanted to sleep for a little while, we had a late start but finally ventured out for the afternoon and went to Kailua to check out that side of the island. I couldn't help but notice he just wasn't feeling like himself, he was really tired and he was starting to develop a cough. Well the next day Gracie was so excited for him to come to her gymnastics class and then the rest of the day was going to be so fun.... or so I thought. He was not doing well and after gymnastics we ended up coming home and he slept the rest of the day. I was trying so hard to be understanding but by the night, I must admit I was really disappointed. I went to bed crying. Sunday he tried to go to church and he didn't even make it through sacrament meeting he went home early. He thought he was feeling better that night as we had invited some friends over for dinner, but by the end of the night he was having high fever and his cough picked up. He didn't even make it work on Monday. Finally Tuesday we decided he needed to go get something for his cough. He stopped in to talk to the ER doctors about what he should do for work that night and they told him he had been exposed to microplasm (or something like that) apparently it is a really bad bacteria and it causes pneumonia. So they had him get a chest X ray and sure enough he has pneumonia. Now I feel a little bit better not that I didn't believe him when he said he didn't feel well I was just feeling sorry for myself and thinking why now why this weekend. They now have him on antibiotics and other things so hopefully he will get feeling better. He kept saying he didn't feel good and I kept thinking I have been sick for the past 14 weeks and I just keep getting told to hang in there it will pass (so part of me was thinking the same thing. Suck it up.) I told him I felt really bad and I really do hope he gets feeling better.

A Little Miracle....and other fun stuff

Well a lot has been going on in our lives lately. I have only seen Deven one day in the last two weeks. He has had to work every weekend and today is the 2nd day he has had off. I have been trying not to complain but we have been lonely without him. He works 12 hour shifts right now so he gets up at 4 a.m. and gets home around 7 p.m. Just in time to help put Gracie to bed and then he is fast asleep on the couch so I have to wake him up to go to bed. He starts nights tomorrow we will see how that goes. I think this would all be easier on me but we are letting everybody know we are expecting baby #2. It has all come as a shock and as a miracle in our lives. We have been trying for years and were finally told our best shot would be invitro. So we started all the lab work and testing and as soon as we got here we started going to an infertility specialist. I had just finished up all the lab work and was actually going in to set up an invitro date when we found out I was pregnant. Then we went through and ectopic scare as I was having a lot of cramping and with my history the doctor wasn't convinced and told us not to get our hopes up. But after a week of blood work and ultra sounds they were convinced everything looked good and that this is nothing short of a miracle in our life. So we were excited but I have been sick pretty much ever since the beginning. Nothing like with Gracie (so may be it's a boy). I had nausea and vomiting 24 hours a day and it got to where I wasn't sleeping at night so then I wasn't functioning during the day. Thank you to drugs. Deven talked to the doctor and with the help of anti nausea medication I am doing much better. Food doesn't always taste or sound good but I feel like I am getting my life back. So for such a long story we are excited and that is why it has been so hard to have Deven gone so much. But we are now hoping for an Easter Baby. And with that will come visitors so we are excited. Gracie can hardly wait. I just posted a few pictures below of things we have been up to. So I am a little behind with everything right now in my life. I am hoping for a good week and can start to catch up. Our carpet finally came so they will putting it in this week. Also I am trying to up date my blog but I am so computer iliterate, (I don't know what happened to me) I call Lisa all the time to walk me through things so slow but surely I am trying to up date it.
Thanks to Aunt Lisa for Gracie's new pink shirt. The funny thing is she just picked out new pink shoes and thought it was so exciting that it matched.

Gracie has started a gymnastics class on Saturday mornings. She loves it and counts down all week till next time.

On Deven's last day off we tried Kayaking. Gracie was never so sure and clung to me so tight the entire time and kept saying that is enough please don't tip us over. We kept trying to tell her she was safe but she couldn't wait to get out when we got back to shore.

We visited the Honolulu aquarium. This picture was taken in front of the jelly fish. Deven has now decided one day he is going to have an aquarium of just jelly fish. He thinks they are so cool. too bad you can't see them in the picture.

Our little princess... every picture has to be an ordeal. She strikes any pose she can but normal.

The Floating Hospital

Well this has been a long week I will not lie. We figured this week Deven put in close to 100 hours. He got lucky and got the weekend call so we didn't get to see him this whole weekend. He finally got home Sunday about noon, but now he is sleeping soundly poor guy he is tired and gets to start all over tomorrow Thanks goodness he switches rotations this Thursday. I will not miss this one. He had one afternoon off this week and he had heard at the hospital that The Mercy Ship was at Pearl Harbor apparently it only docks here about once every 2 years The doctors told him he should go check it out. It was amazing. It is literally a hospital on the water. Right now it was returning from a humanitarian mission, but in war times it acts as a rescue ship on the water. It is capable of staffing up to 900 people. We got a tour and and it was amazing. The Mercy Ship

This is up in the captains bridge. The guy was so awesome and he showed us all of the new GPS technology they have on board. They were in the process of mapping their route home to San Diego. They were leaving the next morning.

He let Gracie and Deven touch the captains wheel. Gracie was a little nervous she didn't want us to really go out to see. We tried to assure her it would take a lot of effort to get that ship out of the harbor.

This is on top of the flight deck. The sheds is where they store their two choppers when they are not on a mission. They said the wings fold up and they fit inside. On their last mission one of their helicopters got 4 bullet holes in it. I think is is so sad people attacked a ship that was coming to help them. They said it was a little scary as they have very little fighting power on this ship. They take with them a small security force.

This is the CAT Scan machine on the boat. Deven was amazed at all the radiology technology. They usually have 2 radiologist on board. This boat had 12 Operating rooms, and ICU, a huge pre op room. A full Dental and eye clinic. It was amazing.

Deven Gracie and I walking up the dock to get on the Mercy Ship

This is a picture of just how big this ship is. We had just parked our car and couldn't believe how big this ship was. It towered over all the other ships in the harbor. They usually go out for 4 month missions at a time. Deven thought one day he would like to have the opportunity to do this. This time they visited Guam, Vietnam, and a whole bunch of other tiny islands between Hawaii and Australia. I can't remember all the names. Anyways they told us of all the people they helped. In each island they will do surgery on up to 50 people a day. I just forget sometimes how lucky we are to have good medical care and access to it.