Time Flies When....

( I don't know why, but it's not letting me upload pictures! Sorry! I will try again later)


Time flies when you're having fun and SUPER busy! Yep, it's been awhile. How have all three of my readers been?? HA! I can't believe that it is already March. I obviously haven't been keeping up and I have a ton to blog about. But for the sake of time and space, I'm just gonna give a condensed version :)



**So in the middle of January, as most of you know, we went to the Big Island of Hawaii! Yay! It was super relaxing and a little different than most of our trips there. We didn't do nearly as much as we normally do and I can't blame anyone but myself and the little Button inside of me. I WAS EXHAUSTED! But we still got our snorkeling and beachin' in and even found some new beaches we really like. We saw tons of whales jumping out of the water and even a group of 50 or so Spinner Dolphins jumping out of the water! Oh and of course we had our share of shave ice! I also found my new favorite ice cream and of course they only make it at that particular store (I googled it and everything and it's really only at that ONE blasted place in Hawaii :/ )but it's called volcano ice cream.... It is banana flavored ice cream with chunks of Oreos and strawberry syrup swirled throughout. I know, it may not sound that great, but.... it's pretty much amazing! We also hung out with our friends, Walter and Alice, several times and always have a blast "talking story" with them! They are the nicest people you would ever meet and they would give you their left arm if you needed it. While we were there, they were celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Kona Temple being built. So Walter and Alice's stake put on a huge show and food fest (you know how Hawaiians love their food, yum!) So we crashed the party and it was REALLY long but good. That's it in a nutshell. Hawaii. Eleven Days. Relaxing. Beaches. Snorkeling. Shave Ice. Friends = GOOD TIMES!



**Get the box of tissues, cause this next bit is pretty sad. So on our last day in Hawaii, we had dinner with Walter and Alice and then they dropped us off at the airport. We said our goodbyes and were already thinking about the next time we would be seeing them. We flew home overnight and were extremely tired, cause no one ever really sleeps on a red eye flight, lets be honest. What made it even better, is that I had my first doctors appointment that morning around 11. So Jason decided he would go put in a few hours at work before the appointment cause it didn't make sense for us to drive all the way home just to drive back out to the Cottonwood hospital in Murray for my appointment. After a nap and a bite to eat it was time to pick Jason up. When he gets into the car he tells me he has bad news...... I honestly had NO clue what to expect. He told me that last night, (while we were flying home) Alice had a stroke and was not responding. WHAT?? How? We just saw her literally hours ago and she was FINE! Nothing wrong at all. I guess she had a stroke in the middle of the night and passed out in the bathroom. Alice's mom (who was staying with them for the time) was calling her name and Walter got out of bed only to find his sweetheart on the ground not responding to anything. They called the ambulance and took her to the hospital and later had to transfer her to a hospital in Maui cause the neurological center is better there. ----SIDE NOTE: Learning about this minutes before my nerve-racking appointment (I was nervous and thinking the worst about my appt.) only made things that much worse. ----- So, Tuesday passed and no improvements. Wednesday comes and still no improvements. Early evening, I get a phone call informing me that Alice has passed away. I AM IN SHOCK. We just saw her. She can't be gone. How is Walter? How are their kids? She was only 55 and just retired a month ago. This can't be happening. I kept waiting for another call telling me something different. That she will recover and be fine. People survive strokes, why not her? One thing I know for sure, is if there is a line to get into heaven, she would be bumped right to the front. She was amazing. Her spirit. Her kindness. Her selflessness. So. The funeral. Her brother was in Iraq and they wanted to wait to have the funeral when he could be there. So it wasn't scheduled until two and a half weeks later. We made things work with time off and tried to get over there to the funeral. I say try because you have to remember we fly standby and only get on the plane if there are open seats. Well, it just so happens that it was over Presidents day weekend as well as Valentines day so flights filled up. We tried to go through Vegas with no luck and flew back home. Then we went to L.A. and flew to Kauai. We figured as long as we got to one of the Island we'd be able to Island-hop pretty easy. WRONG. It also happens that the volcano on the Big Island was erupting and people must have wanted to go see that cause ALL of the tickets were sold out until after the funeral. The only other thing is, Alice knew EVERYONE. No joke. She would always see several people she knew wherever we went with them. Everyone loved her. Plus, they were preparing enough food to feed almost TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE at the funeral. I told you. She knew EVERYONE! So we can only imagine people also had to island-hop. Well, we made it to Honolulu. Not to the Big Island. We were so sad we couldn't be there to support Walter and his family and to pay our respects. But we tried. WE LOVE YOU ALICE!






**I really hope this doesn't sound bad. But since we flew all the way over there and Jason's sister, Jen, was in Oahu with her family for the week, we decided to stay for awhile. Ok, a week. But Jen said we could crash with them for free. How can you turn down a free place in Hawaii? Plus Oahu was the only island we hadn't visited. So while we were there we went to Pearl Harbor, which is very humbling and made me so sad to think all those men and women died so unexpectedly. We also went to the Polynesian Culteral Center, which is pretty dang cool! It's expensive unless you know someone that can get you in for half price (which of course we wouldn't have gone if we couldn't get in for half price). It's one of those places that you need to visit, but you really only need to visit it once and you're good. It's really interesting to learn about all the cultures and stuff. OH, for all you Skywester's out there, I saw and met Siu's brother. You remember our "awesome" commissary manager?? Ya, his brother is totally different and SUPER funny! And really short. Even I was taller than him and I'm only 5'3"! Ha! It was really funny. While we were there we also stopped at the Dole Pineapple factory for some pineapple icecream, yum! We even stopped by a roadside shrimp shack a couple of times and had fresh yummy shrimp and the biggest prawns you have ever seen. We are really greatful that Jen and her family let us crash with them and have a good time with them! THANK YOU!






**Other than that, I've been working five days a week at Marriott and it has been pretty busy. So needless to say, when I get home, I just want to lay in bed and not. do. anything. Even update my blog! I know this post is still really long and I'm sorry for that. You obviously already saw my post about my first doctor's appointment cause you saw my baby's cute picture :) Everything is still going great! I will find out what we are having on April 2nd, which is just a hop, skip and a jump away! YAY! I will post some more pictures of my baby bump (which I absolutely love!) Who would have thought I would ever say that I like my big belly!