Oregon Visit/Vacation

We were so thankful Kyle was able to get leave for 8 days (August 21-29), so we could go home.  I needed to go home for the weekend of the 24th because my childhood friend, Jessica, was getting married.  If Kyle wasn't able to get leave I was going to make a short weekend trip home to enjoy all the wedding festivities and then fly back to spend that last week with Kyle before he deploys, BUT thankfully he was able to get pre-deployment leave.  His deployment is going to be 8 months and I know his family and friends in Oregon were thankful to be able to spend time with him before he had to leave.

Jess, the beautiful bride, and I at her rehearsal dinner. Jess and I have been friends since the first day of 1st grade for me and Kindergarten for her.  Her family has a home video of her getting off the school bus and her mom asked her if she made any friends.  She said something along the lines of meeting a girl named Brittney.  Her mother, Sandy, said "Oh, Brittney." Then Jess replied, "Britt-knee!"  I am almost positive I told her about how I spell my name "BrittNEY" not "BrittANY", so I am sure I emphasized the "NEY" not the "ANY".  Jess is an only child, so her parents, Tom and Sandy, let her invite a friend on family vacations and I was lucky to be invited on probably close to 15 family trips from going to the Oregon Coast, Crater Lake, Sisters and many more.  I was so little I don't remember the names of all the places we went :) But I do remember camping.  We would go with her extended family, Aunts, Uncles, cousin, and close family friends, so I got to know them very well and considered them family.  Here are a few memories I will cherish forever:

• Family vacations
• Playing youth sports, particularly basketball camp in Colton my parents put on
• Watching and quoting movies like "That Thing You Do!" and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"
• Listening to soundtracks from "That Thing You Do!" and "Grease".  One road trip Sandy was tired of skipping through songs to our favorites, so she told us to choose one cd to play the WHOLE way through.  We chose "Grease".  Not the wisest decision :)
• Putting up a tent in her backyard and bringing her mini tv out there to watch movies and sleep out there on summer nights
• After Coast to Coast basketball camp, going to her grandparents house to spend the week with them.  I particularly remember renting "The Labyrinth" and watching it about ten times that week.
• Playing high school basketball, particularly in the state basketball tournament in 2005
• She got me hooked on Harry Potter and I will be forever grateful :)
• Watching The Bachelorette (Ali's season) in 2010 when we still lived in Oregon and also lucking out to watch the finale of The Bachelor (Sean's season) when we were visiting Oregon in February...this time with Kyle AND Joel!

We have shared so much of our lives together I can't even fathom my life without her.  We've created so many memories that I will cherish for a lifetime.  I am so excited to move back to Oregon to do double dates with newlyweds and watch some Beaver football since Joel is a Beaver fan!

 This is Jess', Uncle Jon.  Before the wedding started we were hanging out inside and he came up to me and said, "Look what I found in my jacket pocket!" It was Kyle's and my program from our wedding (April 3, 2010)! I told him "You must not wear that jacket much."  He agreed and we all had a good laugh about it.  Very nostalgic.

With the stunning bride before the ceremony!

They had their wedding in Canby at Willamette Valley Country Club.  Beautiful!

I still find it so weird to see Kyle in a regular suit and tie...he is always in uniform.  This was a nice change, but I do prefer his uniforms :)

Dad, Mom, and Alexis at the reception.

The Bride and Groom. I actually was telling two of the groomsmen that when I first met Joel I thought to myself, "He is a male version of Jess!"  Then the groomsmen started to laugh and they said they thought the SAME thing about Jess!  Guess they were meant to be :)

The dance party getting started.  Lexi didn't seem to mind the loud music.  I think she enjoyed the lights!

They had a fun photo booth.  Here is one shot of the females from the Adams family. My favorite is the top right because Lexi is smiling so BIG!

The morning after the wedding, Kyle and I went with his family (Rhonda, Larry, Darcy, and Josh) to the Street of Dreams.  There were about 10 homes that were newly built near West Linn.  They are million dollar homes, if you couldn't tell from the outside of this one. They sure are beautiful, but they make me want to be a millionaire. :)

After we went back to Kyle's parents and we played a little croquet in their newly landscaped front lawn.

That evening we went back to my parents (so thankful our parents only live 15 minutes from each other!).  We celebrated my late birthday (July 26), Macie's (September 7) and Megan's (September 29) early birthday with an ice cream cake.

I couldn't resist posting this...How cute is she?!

The following day, Kyle and I went to the Oregon Coast.  I know I live in Hawaii by an ocean, but the Oregon Coast is completely different!  Kyle knew I had been wanting to go for awhile, so we planned this 1 night stay in Newport. I do not see beautiful sea life like in the picture above in Hawaii!  Such a different beauty.

 We stopped by Yaquina Head Lighthouse and it was beautiful!

We walked down on Cobblestone Beach to get a different perspective of the lighthouse.

Looking down on Cobblestone beach and and sea stacks!

 Of course we had to stop at Mo's to get some of their famous clam chowder! DELICIOUS!

Beautiful view of the bridge, boats, and sea lions.

There were about 15 sea lions lying here and there were a few that were barking like crazy!

Sea lions barking and playing

 Don't mind his face.  He really was excited for Dutch Bros coffee and fresh caramel corn!

The Devil's Punchbowl

WOW!  I love how the cliffs go right to the sea, along with the wonderful TREES! This is called Cape Foulweather...fitting for the weather :)

A little Oregon Coast history for ya!

The bad weather started to roll in, but I loved it!

I recently bought this new app for my iPhone (Rhonna Designs) and was messing around with it and I LOVE it! 

Okay, so Kyle and I have been looking for houses in Oregon to purchase.  We are "supposedly" getting out of the Marine Corps.  And I use quotes because Kyle changes his mind a lot. ;) One reason we are looking in Oregon is because we will move back there and second, housing prices are going up.  This is the house that we are in the process of purchasing.  It is in West Linn.  We will be doing a lot of cosmetic updates (new floors, paint, new doors and floorboards and hopefully a few other things like re-painting the kitchen cabinets and a few minor changes to the bathrooms).  Pray for an easy transition with this until we can get renters in because I am having to deal with this while in Hawaii and while Kyle is in the middle east!

Love my beautiful nieces!

Um...hello cuteness!  How stinking adorable is this?! Alexis giving Kyle a little goodbye lovin'!

A last picture with Kyle and his parents before he deploys!

I stopped at the Beaver store with my mom and sister and got Kyle a Beaver football shirt...some of his OS shirts are getting a little ratty.

We loved our trip/mini vacation home to Oregon! 

Weekend Getaway in Maui

The weekend of August 9th through the 11th Kyle and I took a short, three day trip to Maui.  We had received vouchers for free round trip tickets to any other island from friends who won four tickets in a raffle.  So gracious of them to let us have two of those tickets!  We decided to use them on a trip to Maui.  Kyle is deploying to Qatar for 8 months and he leaves September 8th.  We wanted to have a little getaway before he leaves and we were so thankful for such a wonderful trip.

On our way from the airport when we were headed to our hotel we stopped by a little national park to look at the Iao Valley Needle.  This is where King Kamehameha came to unite/conquer (whichever you choose :) ) the islands.  

After driving an hour to our resort, we had about four hours till we could check in to our room.  We got some fish tacos for lunch, played some ping pong, and lounged by the pool. 

We arrived on Friday and had to wake up at 12:45am to leave our hotel and be at a bike shop by 2:00am where we were going to do a sunrise bike tour.  This tour took us up to the top of Haleakala at 10,000 ft.  We got to the top to watch the sunrise, but it had rained on us since we left our hotel at 1:00am and did not let up and as you can tell from the picture, it continued to rain when we tried to watch the sunrise.  We were one of the "lucky" ones to experience, on average, one the 20 non-visible days of the year.  The tour guide cancelled our bike tour, but fortunately we were able to get our money back.  Unfortunately, we got back to our car at 8:00am and had already been awake for 8 hours. :)

This is the view we SHOULD have gotten.  Isn't it beautiful?!

The rest of the day we spent at the pool, either lounging or swimming.

Saturday evening we drove into Lahaina, only 10 minutes from our resort.  This picture shows only part of the largest banyan tree in the United States.  It stretches over 1 acre and is 140 years old!

Here we are at the center of the banyan tree.

For dinner, we took advice from a local to try the burgers at Cool Cats Cafe.  We split a burger, fries and milkshake.  DELISH!

View from dinner of downtown Lahaina.

On Sunday, we started early and did the Road to Hana.  This was our favorite waterfall.  It flows under the main road, so a lot of people drive by without taking the short 3 minute hike off the road to see it.  Thankful for our Maui Revealed book that told us where to stop!

The two of us in front of the Lower Puoholamoa Falls.

Beautiful view from the Road to Hana.

We took an off road called Nahiku Road and at the end of the road we had this beautiful lookout!

We stopped to eat at a little Thai place in Hana before we continued on.  We walk in and I look at Kyle and say, "Isn't that Weird Al Yankovic?!" I know this is a poor picture, but I didn't want to blatantly take a picture of him because he was with his family, so I snuck this one. 

As we continued on, we stopped by the Seven Sacred Pools.  Unfortunately, it had rained so much the day before they closed the pools from all swimming, but we took a nice little hike to view the falls.

After we left Hana, we continued around the bottom of Maui heading west instead heading back the same way.  The road turned to gravel for part of the way (only about 5 miles) and got VERY narrow.  We were following a mini tour bus, a rental car and then coming our direction came a truck and horse trailer! We had to put our car in reverse for a ways for the other vehicles to back up to allow the truck and trailer through.  I really didn't think we'd make it...but they did!

Also, along our drive we passed a cow wandering in the road.  Not typical for Hawaii...in Oregon I'd expect it, but not Hawaii.

Amazing view and so quiet...we seemed to be the only ones on the road.

We finished the Road to Hana in time to eat dinner, return our rental car, and even catch a flight an hour earlier to get home at 6 instead of 7.  It was a beautiful weekend.  It didn't go quite as we planned with our "sunrise" bike tour, but overall we had a fantastic time together and we both have decided that Maui is our favorite island!