The Last 4 Months in Pictures

*tap tap*

Is this thing on?

Wow, it has been, well it's been about four months.  Sorry I have been lacking in the blog department, but I have been making up for it in life!  We celebrated 3 years of marriage, Kyle's been to South Korea, I have been to Mexico, family surprised me in Hawaii, and much more.  Here's a recap of our last four months.  

 

Mandee and I got to meet three actors from the TV show Sons of Anarchy.  A show that we both love! They came to Pearl Harbor for a free meet and greet for military families!

 

We were thankful to be able to be together for our 3rd anniversary.  We went to Lanikai and relaxed on the beach like we did the year before.  Thankful for these last 3 years!

The day after Kyle left, my friend Amy was putting on a women's night for military spouses.  It was a little black dress party at a hair salon where we got free blow outs, then were able to go upstairs and enjoy free foot massages from a massage parlor, all the while enjoying wine and chocolate!

 Kyle went for a month long training in South Korea.  Here he is with a few of the Korean Marines.

Part of his time in Korea, they went out on ship.  This picture is from where Kyle sits in the AAV when they are in the water.

This is the DMZ.  Kyle took this picture facing North Korea.  The soldiers you see are South Koreans standing guard.

While Kyle was there, he got in touch with two exchange students who went to his high school!  It's amazing how Facebook can keep people connected!

Kyle also got to meet up with Jesse!  Jesse was one of Kyle's roommates in college.  He is currently living and teaching kindergartners in South Korea.

Kyle's last day he was able to go to a Korean baseball game.  To me it seems like he had more of a vacation than work. :)

I was thankful to stay busy subbing while Kyle was gone, every day of the week!  I treated myself to Starbucks and a good book on a Friday after a full week of subbing.

So, this was pretty much amazing.  My dad was coming for a visit, I go to the airport to pick him up, I get out of the car for a hug, he is holding up his phone, so I ask him what he is doing and then Megan and Lexi walk around from behind a pillar!  Awesomesauce! We got to spend 10 days together...I loved every minute!

When Kyle was away and family left, I spend a lot of time with this girl.  Marcella had her first dance recital, so of course I had to watch this adorable little lion!

The day before Kyle got back, Toby Keith came to Kbay for a FREE concert! Bummed Kyle missed out, but glad I had friends to go with!

 So, we decided that we will collect Starbucks coffee mugs wherever we go and Kyle remembered! Look how detailed this Seoul one is!

Our friends Kyle and Aimee moved to the North Shore.  We are totally bummed they aren't as close to us now, but we enjoyed seeing where they live and staying the night with them!

 Kyle FINALLY received his 3rd ribbon!  He was so excited!  The left ribbon is the National Defense Ribbon and the middle is the Global War on Terror, which are both given to anyone who joins.  Kyle wanted something he EARNED.  Finally he received the far right one which is The Korea Defense Service medal which is when you serve over 30 days in Korea.

 Kyle had meetings he needed to attend at Camp Pendleton in San Diego.  His dad just so happened to be there for work too!  They were able to catch a baseball game together!  Lucky coincidence!

 Luke was Platoon Commander before Kyle took his spot.  He is getting out of the Marine Corps and moving back to New York.  Kyle's Captain had a going away BBQ for him.  Kyle sure is going to miss him.  He's a great guy!

 I started attending a new workout class.  I LOVE IT! And look at that view!

 Initially, Kyle was supposed to be gone for training, so I planned on going to Mexico with my family...he ended up not having training, but my tickets were already purchased, so I went and enjoyed myself!  Here's the family that was able to come in Puerto Vallarta...missing Kyle and Katrina. 

 Tequila!  The ones in the group who tested the flavors! They had almond, coconut cream, peanut butter, and coffee with vanilla and chocolate!

 We spent time in the pool to keep the kiddos away from the sand.

 Our resort had a ton of parrots!  Macie loved them, but in this picture it just squawked at her, so she was a bit timid.

Every day we did happy hour!  Unfortuntately, we didn't try these smoothies till the last day!  Delicious!

Loved being able to spend time with my precious nieces.

We walked to the zoo at the resort and we saw he precious fawn on the right and he looked so tiny and to have just been born.  Sure enough, we see the mom give birth, right in front of us to the baby on the left!  It was a miracle!  I love that in any language we know what a miracle is...there were locals there too and when the mom was pushing they were clapping, we were clapping and when she finally gave birth we all cheered!  Of all places, I expected a deer to be born in Oregon where we see them born all the time, not in Mexico!  But it was fantastic!

Trying to get a family picture with little ones :)

GELATO!

 I got home late on July 3rd and Kyle had an overnight "mandatory fun night" with his company, so I didn't see him till the morning of the 4th.  We decided to relax for our 4th.  Part of our downtime was Kyle shooting his bow and me watching him.  He's getting good :)

 Two weeks ago, my dad's cousin Frank, his wife, Kaureen, and their daughter, Ashley came on vacation to Hawaii.  I met up with them at Lanikai and them drove them around the Marine Corps base, so they could get a feel for where I live. 

I told Kyle that it was nasty and pouring rain outside, so he sent me a picture from where he was on the big island.  I sent him one from our bedroom, my view at the time.  I like seeing what his view is and my view is when we are in different places.

Here I am in the front!  My exhausting, fantastic workout class I joined!  I just finished a 2 week intense program, where we did strength 3 days a week and endurance 2 days a week. 

I went with Mandee, Mar and Maddox to see the new movie Turbo.  It was adorable and it was my first movie experience with little ones.  It was an experience :)

 Where Kyle works on the Big Island.  Pretty, huh?

 On Monday, I hiked with my friend, Valerie (left), Amy (middle), and Amy's girls, Eliana and Madelyn to Makapu'u Lighthouse!  We left at 0620 and it was a beautiful morning!

Thanks for bearing with me through this photo dump!  I could have posted a hundred more, but now that I'm caught up I will hopefully stay on top of this blog posting thing more. 

Kyle Turns 26

On Friday, the 29th, we celebrated Kyle's 26th birthday.  I am so thankful for his life and that he chose to be a part of mine.  At first, he was supposed to be gone on his birthday, but he isn't leaving till the 7th now.  To start off his birthday, he had to do the PFT (Physical Fitness Test) at 0600 where he had to run 3 miles in 18:00 minutes, do 20 pull-ups, and 100 sit ups.  Not the most fun way to start your birthday, but I surprised him with coffee and homemade lemon poppyseed muffins with a lemon glaze, when he got home.  

These are delicious and I found them on Pinterest! Click here for the recipe!

After breakfast Kyle headed to work, but luckily it was "Aloha Friday", so he got off at 1400! :)  He did not tell anyone it was his birthday because he embarrassed his Gunny on his birthday with cupcakes and having his troops sing happy birthday, so the last thing he wanted was for that to happen.  BUT...his Gunny saw on Facebook that it was Kyle's birthday, so he did the SAME thing to Kyle :)

Here is Kyle with Gunny Shaw holding his cupcake getting ready to hear his Marines sing happy birthday to him :)

Once he got home, we did our little birthday together. 

Kyle being surprised at the the blue ray I got him!

He'd been wanting this movie for a long time and kept quoting it the last month :)

Kyle also LOVES outdoor games, so I bought him Ladder Golf!  We will definitely get good use outta this game! 

I made him take a picture with me on the self timer :)

By dessert, he wasn't in the mood for pictures, so I got a picture of his Funfetti Cake I made, his favorite :)

At the end of the day, it was a low-key birthday.  We ended up watching The Other Guys, ate burritos for dinner, and relaxed.  Kyle isn't one to make a huge deal out of birthdays, so this was perfect for him. :)  

Project Life

So, some of you may have listened to my rave reviews and possible obsession with a memory keeping system called Project Life.  Becky Higgins is the creator of this new-age of scrapbooking.  I remember growing up and making scrapbook pages with my mom and my sister, but it would take me hours to complete an entire page.  I would have to get my creative juices flowing, which could sometimes take up to an hour.  In the summer of 2011, I started creating traditional scrapbook pages for our honeymoon, but I think to this day I only completed 2 spreads because I could not figure out what colors, stickers, cut outs, and pictures to use.  Then, I was introduced to Project Life.  It is, without a doubt, the ONLY way I will scrapbook for the rest of my life.  It is for a traditional scrapbooker to the person who keeps all their photos on their computers or in boxes.  All you you need is the following:

That's it!  Can you believe it?!  Sometimes I still don't believe it's that simple.  No need to worry about being creative because Becky provides you with SEVEN different color options! You can choose whichever fits your personality!  You simply place your pictures into the photo pocket pages along with the journaling cards, begin to journal and you're set!  BUT, if you want to be creative, nothing is holding you back.  Isn't that great?!  You can add stickers and embellishments and MORE!  I truly believe this is the most effective way to document your life.  It is quick, easy, and something that a college student, wife, or mother could fit into their busy schedule.

This can be done by events in life, like a family vacation, birthday, anniversary, or sports teams.  The way I addressed my very first Project Life album for the year of 2012 was by week, whether I took 7 photos in one day or 7 photos each day of the week.  This is what makes this project so great, it is up to the person creating it.  Do it however it works for you.  Becky created this to be simple, easy, and way to capture the everyday moments that may pass us by if we don't take a moment to document it.  This could be from a daily chore like dishes, or where you eat breakfast everyday, or where your family leaves their shoes (which may or may not drive you crazy)...these are the moments that last.  We don't always want posed photos (even though I use a lot of those), but Becky has gotten me to think more about the everyday, like the grass in our backyard that desperately needs to be mowed or putting the camera on a timer and capturing Kyle and I sitting in OUR spots on the couch catching up on our favorite TV shows.  These are moments that I want to capture and remember and show our children what our life was like before we had them.

I am so passionate about Project Life that I have already gotten my mom, my sister, and three friends on the bandwagon and I hope to get some more of you out there to document your lives! I sat down in January and looked through my two 12x12 albums that were full of our memories from 2012 and I was SO proud of what I had accomplished and even Kyle said to me, "I am really glad you doing this because I would have forgot about most of these things that happened."

I am going to show you a few snapshots of my 2012 album to give you glimpse into what a finished album looks like.  I used the Clementine Edition and LOVED the colors!

   Here is my title page.  Becky provides you with designated cards for each 4x6 and 3x4 slot, which makes it super simple to create a title page.  I added a picture of us, along with some stickers for our name and the year. 

Here is one of my first pages and Project Life at it's simplest.  I put in a title card on the top left and put the dates of this week.  If I were not doing it by weeks I could title it by event like, "Birthday Party".  I also put in 6 journaling cards to write about each picture and 1 pretty filler card.  I slipped in the pictures and then journaled and here you go.  This took me about five minutes to complete.  As you see I took everyday pictures.  Bottom left I had given blood,  to the right of that was a new Bible study I was starting along with my bible, the top was a picture of a piece of paper that showed where we were on the housing list for a base house.  These aren't necessarily "pretty" pictures, but they were what was happening in our lives. 

Here is an insert from when I visited Oregon in February 2012.  Kyle was in California for training, but he was able to come up to visit for 48 hours.  In this layout, I had cut down some pictures to place in the 3x4 slots and I also put a movie poster in from a movie the girls saw.  I also added in some 5x7 plastics for pictures I wanted bigger from our family photo.  Now, if you look up at the top left with Megan and Greg and you see a little QR code (I'll show you exactly what that means a little later).

Here is a layout where I included another movie poster, a picture of me making muddy buddies for Kyle's homecoming, along with gas prices. 

Here is the same layout with the 5x7 showing the back picture. 

This is a layout showing Design G.  I like this design because it includes vertical pictures with the horizontal.  This is when Dad was visiting and we went to watch his favorite comic book into a movie, "The Avengers", I had a Flat Stanley, and I introduced Dad to the HBO show Game of Thrones. 

Since Kyle is gone a lot for the field or on ship (like above), I encourage beg him to take pictures.  I want out album to consist of his life when he's gone too, not just mine.  He has done a good job so far, but I need to kindly remind him. A lot. :) But, I really want him to journal about his pictures, since I wasn't there.  As you can see, he still hasn't journaled from RIMPAC in July, but I WILL get him to! :)

Here is an example of a layout with all of my pictures from the same day.  This was my birthday, so I included pictures of me and my girlfriends at dinner because Kyle was away.  

This layout includes the monthly divider that says "August", which I LOVE! This is another everyday life layout.  Pictures of a text message with Kyle, my work, news about the Colorado shooting (I am still trying to figure out how I want to write about that), and my morning routine (coffee and work clothes).

This layout includes our vacation in Las Vegas.  I included a picture of the weather on the left.  This also has Design H which is another favorite. 

Same layout, but with Design H flipped to other side. The right side is Design D with 4 vertical 4x6 slots.

This layout is from when my family visited us in August.  I did not need much journaling for this layout, so I only used 2 journaling cards and then cut down pictures to fit in the rest of the slots.  Design F is shown on the right. 

This layout I cut up some pictures to fit into multiple slots.  The main thing I want you to look at is the picture of Tyler and Katrina in front of the waterfall.  There is that QR code again :)  First, I upload my videos to YouTube.  Then, I copy the link for the video I want, go to this website, which is a QR code generator, and paste it in the link area.  It will create my code for me. Then, I copy the code, paste it in a Word Document and I can resize it to make it small, medium, or big.  

So, here is the AMAZING, AWESOMENESS of the QR code!

This is another basic layout.  No inserts, just Design A.  I like to include screen shots from my iPhone, like the news (left side) and what my home screen (right side) looks likes.  

This layout was not complete with journaling when I had taken the pictures, but I wanted to include popular TV shows that Kyle and I enjoy watching.  

Another basic layout of when I flew home in November.  I also included a picture of a football game that Kyle had taken.  On the far right 3x4 I included a picture of a book that I finished reading. 

Here is my layout from the last week in December.  On the bottom left I included The Durant's famous streudel recipe that I baked for the first time!  I also included in a 3x4 a screen shot from FaceTime with my family, which I am in love with! Along with my pictures, I like to include pictures that I get texted to me from family, like the picture on the right side of Macie and Lexi, my nieces. 

So, there you have it!  A glimpse into my 2012 Project Life.  I truly hope that you feel motivated to begin documenting your life.  As you can tell from my layouts, some weeks I did very simple layouts and some I did extra inserts to add more.  Do as much or as little as you like, the only goal is to get your pictures off your computer and into an album!

Along with everyday life albums, Becky also created Baby editions, childhood editions, and there will be new editions coming out in May! Click here to see her products.  BUT...right now, TODAY, March 25, she is selling two different kits on HSN!  You can go to HSN and purchase your kits which come with the binder, the core, kit, 60 pages of plastic photo pages, and monthly dividers for only around $50! That's basically half off! Here are the editions below.

The Jade Edition.  Click here to buy on HSN.

The Blush Edition.  Click here to buy on HSN.

There is about 6 hours left to purchase at this price and I'm not sure when they will sell out, there have already been 16,700 sold!  So go buy yours, friends and family!

I bought the Jade Edition for next year and so did my mom and sister!  Go buy yours! If you don't buy today, Project Life is sold only from Amazon and great prices year round, but this price you can't beat!

Keep checking back for updates on my album for this year!

P.S. I do not make any money from this, I am just passionate about getting people to document their lives!  I do wish this was a direct home business though because I have already hooked a ton of ladies and I would be making a great profit! :)