Kyle's BFF

In the Marine Corps, Kyle and I both make friends, but our friendships are a bit different.  My friends are wives who are always on island, never leave unless they go to visit family, and most of them are stay-at-home moms or in search of jobs, so we can usually hang out whenever we'd like.  I see the majority of my friends multiple times a week, which is very unusual for the civilian life.  I adore seeing my friends and being able to walk to their house on base at any given moment to say hello or just hang out for a bit or meet at Starbucks on base for a nice coffee and conversation.  I'm definitely going to miss that when we move and I start my teaching career.

Kyle on the other hand, the majority of his friends are Marines and they are all in different companies than he is so they are off training or deployed at different times as he is.  So needless to say, many of the times Kyle is home, his close friends aren't home.  Mike Gunther is one of those friends. 

Kyle and Mike met at OCS (Officer Candidate School) Juniors in the summer of 2007 and then we a part of the same platoon at OCS Seniors in 2008.  They became good friends and have remained close with one another since then. 

Look how young they are!

Both of Mike's parents are retired Colonels from the Marine Corps and they live in Arlington, VA.  Kyle got to meet his parents after OCS Seniors.  Here they are with "Colonel Gunther" as Kyle refers to him. 

Since OCS, Kyle has only seen Mike a few other times.  Kyle went down to California and met up with Mike to go to Catalina Island during Spring Break our senior year of college in 2009, then we ended up getting stationed in Hawaii where Mike was stationed.  The only problem was he was deployed to Afghanistan when we arrived.  When he finally got back from deployment, Kyle left a month later for 3 months of training and when Kyle got back to the island, Mike left a month later for United Arab Emirates for a year long deployment.  

 Here we are at his going away party before he left for UAE in June 2012.

Mike got back from UAE in mid July when Kyle was on the Big Island for training.  Luckily, Kyle returned on my birthday (the 26th) and Mike was here for a couple more weeks before he got completely checked out of the Marine Corps to start his next chapter in life.  Mike spent his last four nights on island at our house.  It was great to get to know him a little better and I know Kyle is going to miss him, event though they didn't spend that much time in person together anyway, but it'll still be different with him out of the Marine Corps and living in Virginia, until he begins to travel for a few months while he applies to government agencies.  

 Kyle was a bit jealous Mike picked up Captain before he got out...Kyle wants those two bars :)

I pray that Kyle and Mike can keep in touch and stay friends, even if we end back up on the west coast in Oregon and he ends up staying on the east coast in Virginia.  I'm gonna leave you with an excerpt from what Mike wrote in our guestbook, that I made him fill out and I'm glad he did!

"Some people are your friends because they're good for you at specific times in your life and some people are your friends because they're always good for you.  Thanks for being the latter guys."

- Mike Gunther

26 Years and The Stairway to Heaven

I am officially over half way through my 20's.  Holy smokes!  Time flies and I get older, but apparently to a man I met while giving blood the other day I look like I'm 17. 17!  Just to be clear, that is a junior in high school!  Seriously, guy?! I know it will be flattering when I'm 40 and people say I look like I'm 20, but right now it is not flattering and it's my feelings just a tad.  At least Kyle and I are in the same boat, we both look 17.  Just wait till we have kids, people will think we are high school kids with children! :)

My birthday was on the 26th and I was so thankful to have Kyle come home from 3 weeks on the Big Island on my birthday!  He's missed my last two birthdays, so I was blessed to have him home.  In the morning I met Mandee and her kids at Starbucks on base for a birthday coffee, then I went to pick up Kyle, later we met his friend, Mike, (who just got back from UAE from a year long deployment) for lunch at McDonald's on base, followed by opening up gifts, then onto the movie theater to watch The Wolverine with popcorn AND soda (we splurged!), finally we headed home and our friends Kyle, Aimee and their friend Holly came over for an all-nighter till we did the Stairway to Heaven hike where we left at 1:30 in the morning.

 Ready to open my lovely gifts from my lovely family and friends!

The gang hanging out watching The Dark Knight Rises (the girls are hiding/cuddling on the couch).  It's only 10:40...the girls fell asleep, but the rest of us stayed up till we took off for our hike!

Heading up in the dark!  The reason we had to start so early or late, depending on who you are, is because they post a security guard at the bottom to stop hikers at 2:30.  It's not unsafe, but the trail goes over multiple peoples property (private and government), so they don't know who is liable if someone is injured.  We all had head lamps on for the climb up.  This is a view of Kaneohe.

We made it!  It took us just under 2.5 hours to climb close to 4,000 stairs! We left at 2:15 and got to the top at 4:33.  This meant we had to wait for over 2 hours till sunrise...definitely not the fun part. This is the inside of the bunker at the top.  It's muddy and concrete, so we brought trash bags to sit on to keep clean, but it didn't help with the padding!

 My favorite picture!  The peninsula is the Marine Corps Base.

On the way down...we were fortunate to get the view from the previous picture, but about five minutes later the clouds rolled in. 

 Kyle leading the group back down

Another bunker on the way down with cool graffiti for another photo op :)

Can't get enough of these mountains!

The H3 (highway) down below amazes every time I see it or drive on it!

This is a picture our friend took and she edited it, so it looks different from ours, but I like this shot she got of us better than the one on our camera! 

If any of you get the chance and come to the windward side of the island and also don't mind getting up at 1:30 in the morning, then DO this hike!  It was definitely worth it! It wasn't as physically grueling as other hikes we've done because this one has hand rails to support you the whole way and the steps are really nice, actually!  It is a bit tough to find the trail head, but if you need help just ask us!

This was definitely a great beginning to my 26th year of life!