Exhausted

I just got back from Dallas, TX tonight and I am absolutely head to toe, mentally and emotionally exhausted!! It was a great weekend and a lot of fun, but it was so bittersweets. Snowball Express is an amazing organization for the children of our fallen troops since 9/11 ages 5-18.. so you can see why it was so exhausting. The families, volunteers, and companies who donate are absolutely amazing. There were a couple thousand people there. I definitely want to volunteer again next year! As crazy of a weekend as it was it was amazing, and I was able to meet and spend a lot of time with some amazing people and children.

http://www.snowballexpress.org/

Multnomah Falls visit

 Today some plans fell through and I had been talking to a friend last night about needing to see these gorgeous falls again since it's been too long for it only being an hour away from me, so today I took Tayler and Emma and we headed off to brave the cold and the wind and see the falls :)

 Mt Hood looking gorgeous today on our way to the falls

 The bottom of the top waterfall

There was another waterfall a quarter of a mile away from Multnomah falls so we decided to go see it as well

It was a beautiful and full day :) Now to start packing tomorrow for Dallas, TX!

Veterans Weekend

 This weekend has become a busy one for me. This and memorial weekend just used to be a time when I took off with friends and enjoyed the sales and the nice long weekend. Now it's full of events with veterans and in cemeteries. This weekend has been set aside to thank those who have served and are still serving in the military, especially if you don't every other day of the year.

 Saturday night I went to a ceremony in Portland at Skyline Memorial for their POW/MIA ceremony with the moving Vietnam Memorial Wall. This is the last year it will be in Oregon because they are retiring the moving wall. It was very impressive and the ceremony very moving. (the closeups on the wall have a film over them, that's the condensation from the fog, it was 30 degrees)

 Me with some of the Korean War veterans that I met. 3 marines and 1 corpsman (the corpsman is the one with the giant smile and the rope around his arm). They had some amazing stories and they were all talking to me about Ryley. They had all been at his funeral. It sounds like they go to as many funerals as they can for those who die in combat from Oregon.

 At the ceremony they had all of us in attendance hold candles the whole time.

They had a table set up on stage with 5 empty seats, 5 hats, 5 upside down glasses etc for the men and women who are no longer with us and those who have not been found from the 5 different branches of the United States Military. They also unfolded an American flag, sounded the 21 gun salute, played taps, and refolded the flag and presented it to a widow that I know. They also presented her with the folded MIA/POW flag and some other documents. It was  a very moving ceremony and I'm glad I was able to be there with her and some of the other widows in the area.

Sunday Ryley's family, some of his friends, and some family friends went to the Elks Lodge for their Veterans day ceremony. While there they presented Ryley's mom with their Elks Medal of Valor. It was very moving as were their speeches addressed to those Veterans still alive and in attendance.

All in all it was a very moving and powerful Veterans weekend. Remember to thank those men and women in the military for their service and not just on Veterans day.

Fallen

I've seen these books everywhere and was really curious about them, but hesitant to read them until I heard from someone how they liked the books. Well that happened this summer. My cousin was reading them and told me they were really good. So far I've only finished the first book, but I enjoyed it! 

 Some Angels are Destined to Fall

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

“Sexy and fascinating and scary…I loved love loved it!” -P.C. Cast, New York Times bestselling author of the House of Night Series (from Lauren Kate's website)

I just started the second book, Torment, the other night. Can't wait to see how this one and the other 2 books go! :)

HAWAII!!!!

So as most of you already know I just got back from Hawaii!!! :) I was on Oahu staying at the Hale Koa right off the beach in Waikiki. I had so much fun! I started dating Alex and he flew me out there to spend some time together and to show me around where he's living. We drove around a lot, he wanted to take me hiking as well as the driving to different view points, but the hikes he wanted to take me on were overcast the whole time I was there so the view would have been clouds and rain lol.

 Up at the Pali lookout. the picture above is a view of where he's stationed out by the ocean

 Flat root tree. It was pretty cool to see

 At a botanical garden he wanted to show me that had a beautiful waterfall as well.

 First time feeling the Pacific in Hawaii lol

 At the Dole Plantation there were these really weird trees with multi colored bark. I called a lot of the trees and plants fake or Dr. Seuss plants. Alex had a great time teasing me about it

 Pearls I got from the plantation. I got the first one on sale and the second 2 I actually got for free (but I also put it on jewelry and that wasn't free)

 Alex's pineapple soft serve with pineapple chunks and my pineapple float (pineapple soft serve in pineapple juice). So delicious, but way too sweet for me.. I couldn't eat very much of it it was so sweet.

 Pineapple!!

 Another beach spot we stopped at to take pictures

 We even made it to the Laie temple! Absolutely beautiful!!

 Alex and I at the Marine Corps/Navy birthday ball.. outside in Hawaii.. It was extremely hot!! I felt really bad for everyone in uniform that were wiping their foreheads they were so hot, luckily we had a table in the covered area with fans and not out under a canopy. We had fun!

 We ended up meeting up with one of Ryley's friends and her daughter at the zoo. That orangutan was just sitting there playing in the sheet and playing with the grass.

 Big tortoises and bigger tortoises 

 They were huge!!

 Weird looking crocodile. His nose was very long and skinny.. more than normal

 The hippos thought it was feeding time, and it wasn't. They were just cleaning where they normally feed them from. They kept leaning back with their mouths open the whole time we were looking at them, which was a while before we even figured out they weren't going to be feeding them any time soon darn it.

 Ceiling at one of the entrances of the Navy Exchange in Pearl Harbor. It's all painted and the sting ray is painted on a sun roof of sorts. It was pretty cool to see!

 Rainbow while leaving the exchange

 Temple at night when we went to pick up another friend of mine to go out and eat dinner at this hole in the wall curry place. The curry was SO GOOD!!!!! After we ate and were just sitting talking she got a text from her land lord asking where she was and to hurry home because a tsunami warning was in effect.

 The lines at the gas stations were crazy long, and the sirens were very freaky sounding. I was just a little scared to death that something was going to happen besides everyone telling me they happened all the time and there was never any damage done.

 We couldn't make it back into Waikiki, they had it evacuated and wouldn't let anyone in, so we ended up going up to Tripler (the Army hospital) and waiting in the parking lot. We were there until 2 in the morning before we got the all clear to head back down. The biggest wave from the tsunami was only 3.5 feet... the surfers who didn't evacuate and were just sitting in the ocean waiting for the wave were even disappointed.

 At the Peal Harbor memorial

On the boat heading out to the USS Arizona memorial after watching a video with lots of live footage from the attack that I had never seen.. the atmosphere out there was incredibly strong, and heartbreaking

 The men who served on the USS Arizona and lived, but wanted to be buried with their shipmates and were. They cremate them and have a funeral service out at the memorial and a diver takes the urn to a drop spot in one of the hulls..

 We took a submarine tour off the beach of Waikiki

 They have these artificial reefs in the water to attract more fish and plant life in the ocean. Waikiki is a man made beach and the sand choked out all the natural reefs so this is an effort to bring it back..

 Some fish that swam really close to my window

 A sample of how thick the glass is.

 They took us down over 100ft, so everything was in shades of blue and green

 At the beginning of the luau at the Hale Koa. The guy (Cousin Jerry) climbed to the top of one of the coconut trees

 The food was amazing!!! Fried rice, fried banana, fish, pork, beef, chicken and some really good sweet potato.

 The men and women dancers were really good! I loved it it was so much fun!

 The fire dancers at the end were great too, and they were only 12 and 13. It was really impressive :)

I had so much fun in Hawaii and can't wait to go back for another visit!!