Sorry for the laziness

Wow, I guess I slacked a little bit on the updates.  I guess there really wasn't anything to say.  Stephen is still working at the marina on the weekends, and I'm still working for the band on the weekdays, and between us, we have been seriously lacking in adventures.

It's put me in a really cranky mood.

There is nothing quite like living in paradise and working all the time.  No really.  You should try it.

Having said that, Stephen finally got his Hawai'i teaching license squared away and has an appointment with the vice-principal at Kalaheo High School to fill out some paperwork and get into the sub system.  He already basically told the marina that he's going to leave sooner than later, and on Wednesday he'll give them his two weeks' notice.  I cannot wait until that happens.  We've already saved up enough to buy an "island beater" (that would be a car) so he can hit the ground running.  He's also already started networking with the guys in the 111th National Guard band and the Honolulu Wind Ensemble (our community band).  We are also thinking about our first off-island adventure!  Wooooo!

Anyway, catching up.

For New Year's Eve, Stephen had a gig with a community jazz band, and then when we were done at 9:30, we met his friend Sheri to try and go down to Waikiki for the countdown.  Of course everything was booked, so we ended up at Dave and Busters.  Apparently they had a champagne toast on their rooftop deck (who knew), but when we decided to head up there fashionably late (ten minutes before midnight), it was full to capacity.  We ended up walking down to the Ala Moana beach park and midnight happened somewhere along the way.  We were able to stand on the beach, though, and see the fireworks that were happening at Waikiki and at the Hale Koa.  At least, I think that's where they were happening.  There were fireworks to our right and fireworks to our left.

It's not a great picture of us, but that's the three of us on the beach.  After the fireworks, we agreed that we were really tired and left.  And that was that.

The other exciting thing that happened over the winter break was that Stephen used the money his brother gave him for Christmas to buy a surf board.  Surf boards are way less expensive out here than they were in Newport.  I'm not sure if it's just a supply and demand thing, because at 9'1" it qualifies as a longboard, same as what they sold in New England.

Anyway, here's a picture of him waxing his new board:

Oh yes, it's also pretty.  That doesn't really hurt, either.

He's been really excited about it, so he went to a different surf shop to see what their option were for used boards and what he might be interested in purchasing so any potential visitors can hop on one, or so I can possibly learn.  The joke was that I'm so bad at surfing that I'd need a raft.  Lo and behold, it's actually possible that I'm so bad at surfing because I've always rented an 11' longboard, and those are extremely difficult for women to maneuver.  The lower center of gravity, lower weight, and narrower width of a girl compared to a guy means that girls need smaller surf boards, more like an 8' "fun board."  With that in mind, I think I'll give his board a whirl a few times before I just totally write myself off as a surfing failure.


Speaking of surfing failure, I did take a few pictures of Stephen out on the waves.

Totally on top of that wave, which means he missed it.  It's just shore break anyway and not really good to surf on.

Paddling away on another little shorebreaker.  Yup.  Not the shining pinnacle of success.  But he's been going maybe once a week (which is good considering our work schedules mean I have the car on our days off), and today he apparently stood on the board for a whole 8 seconds... out of a 3-hour outing.  Baby steps.

Those were some nice days, and then work started up again, and two straight weeks of not seeing each other.  Today was a three-day weekend except for the band, which met at the band hall at 6:45am in uniform, ready to go for the MLK parade in Waikiki.  That meant a 4:30 wake-up call for me, because I needed coffee to wake me up enough so that the next cup of coffee would render me functional.  Still, I had a lot of fun (after all, this is the job I signed up for, not the paper-pushing and collateral duties... collateral damage?).  I was just jealous of all the people in their swimsuits and kayaks taking pictures of us while we marched and played for three miles with sweat dripping down our dress white uniforms.  Yay, laundry.

Stephen was surfing while I did that, and then got home quite a bit after I'd already gotten back, ate lunch, and took a nap.  We were going to kayak out to the Twin Islands (the Mokes), but we weren't going to spend that much money when we only had 2-3 hours, so we grabbed our snorkel gear and biked down to Lanikai.

Now some more jealousy-inducing beach photos.  I'm well aware that it's the middle of January everywhere else, but here, we're still working on our sunburns.

The Mokes.  These pictures are not enhanced.  Just sayin.

Stephen walking back from rinsing his mask

More tan, less fish belly.  He liked how I caught all the girls, too.

Sad little dying fishie.  But so pretty.  So I shared.

Deannafish.  The water really is that blue.

Hawaiian Gregory

Crappy picture of a Hawaiian Lionfish.  I tried to get a good photo, but good grief he was at the bottom of the ocean and wedged against a rock.

Purple coral looks like brainzzzzzzzzzz....

Well that is all I have for now.  In a few weeks, we should be back on our whirlwind tour of Hawai'i.  I did not accept assignment here just so we could never do anything, so at least I FINALLY had something to share!

Until next time!