Miss you.

Love you.

A few things that make me think of you

The ocean

Butterfly kisses

Three billy goats gruff

A huzz

Beanie babies

Black licorice

"Classy" names

Thanks for always watching over me.

Thanksgiving Day

It's that time of year again...food, family, and friends. It's the one time of year that everyone remembers to be grateful.

Some things I am grateful for...

Being married to such a great guy

Living in paradise

Attending such a great university

All the wonderful family and friends that I have

For Thanksgiving this year we spent the day with Beau's Aunt and Uncle on the opposite side of the island. We had a delicious dinner together. We are SO grateful that they invited us over. Their house was BEAUTIFUL and everything was absolutely DELICIOUS.

Me and the hubby

The three woman with beautiful lei's

The gorgeous view from the front of their house

Appetizers

Appetizers

Appetizers

The beautiful table setting

Stuffing

Lots of yummy veggies

Creamy mashed potatoes

Turkey and wonderful cranberry sauce

It was so nice being able to webcam with my family back home. I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!
~Author Unknown

Thanksgiving day pictures coming soon!!

Job Envy

I LOVE this project. Oh how I wish I worked at Duke. Check out this awesome CNN video about their work.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/11/20/ac.amazing.lemurs.cnn

Don't mock. This is WAY cool.

Birthday celebration

Today is the day! Birthday birthday! Unfortunately it is Monday and Beau and I are both very very busy with school and work. Soooo, we celebrated this past Saturday with a trip to Haliewa, our favorite town, nestled on the North Shore of Hawaii.

Welcome to our day...

We checked out a gallery featuring our favorite artist, Heather Brown

We ate delicious Thai food

Pad Thai

Pineapple Fried Rice

Thank you for all the birthday wishes everyone! I am blessed to have so many great people in my life. And I am SO grateful for having such an amazing husband. Thanks for making my birthday great! :)

Temple Re-dedication

The Laie Hawaii Temple was re-dedicated today! We are so blessed to have a Temple right around the corner from our house.

Saturday fun

My birthday is on Monday but we decided to celebrate today. Before heading off to our favorite town however, we baby-sat one of our neighbor's kid.

He LOVED playing with Beau. He liked playing with me for the first hour, but unfortunately he decided he didn't like girls, and would only play with Beau. I made attempts to show him how cool I could be too...but to no avail. I only got swatted at. And bitten.

Very cute kid though.

He loved figuring out how to do this

My old phone served as entertainment for quite some time

Birthday celebration pictures coming soon!

PacAIR

Today I went to a PacAIR (Pacific Association for Institutional Research) Conference in Kaneohe. BYU-Hawaii was asked last minute to give a presentation. The head of IR, and the VP of the University introduced and summarized our project, while myself and two other co-workers gave the 40 minute presentation. I admit we talked a little fast, so it was perhaps not quite 40 minutes, but it was a really cool experience. Myself and my two co-workers were the only students in attendance. BYU-H is very unique in the sense that they involve students in their IR program. Most universities only have full time staff employed in IR positions. I really am blessed to go to such a great school that offers such great opportunities.

The conference was way awesome though! It was really cool to make contacts with people from so many different universities and see what sorts of methods they use in their research. I came home and told Beau all about it and how the conference made me become "a bit nerdy." His response was that I had always been nerdy.... At least he tells the truth. :)

With my two lovely co-workers!

The most delicious lunch. Fruit and veggie heaven.

Thought for the day

“You come into this world absolutely like a plain, unwritten, open book. You have to write your fate; there is nobody who is writing your fate. And who will write your fate? And how? And for what? You come into the world just an open potentiality, a multidimensional potentiality. You have to write your fate, you have to create your destiny. You have to become yourself. You are not born with a ready-made self. You are born only as a seed- and you can die also only as a seed, but you can become a flower, can become a tree.”~Osho

Where I would like to be today

Dilemma

This is clearly not a pressing concern, as it cannot technically be an issue until we leave Hawaii, when we will no longer live in a studio, but my husband is trying to warm me up to the idea of a dog. Not just any dog, but a bull dog. I have never wanted a dog before. Well, not since I was 10 at least. But how do you say no to faces like these? And my husband's cute face for that matter? I imagine this being a huge debate one day. Anyone have any thoughts on what to expect with a dog? Pros? Cons?

Sure they're cute...but they're so slobbery too.

Saturday

No classes.

Sunshine.

Clean house.

Good Food.

What more to ask for?

Yummy dinner.

Apple spice cookies.

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cookies/apple-spice-drops/

If you haven't noticed a trend, I always feel the need to bake something on either Saturday or Sunday. Beau doesn't seem to mind me baking goodies though.

Happy Birthday to my baby brother!

I can't believe James is 17 today!! When did this cute kid grow up so fast?

Such a little guy

Happy baby

Love the trousers!

At mom's wedding, all grown up

First time in Hawaii

He wishes...

Home for the holidays, preparing for a trek through the snow to the grocery store

SO much snow.

School spirit

At my wedding, this past summer

What a kid. Behave my little bro. Treat mom well. Stay cool. Love ya! :)

New gizmo

Check out our BEAUTIFUL new toaster oven! I feel very married at the moment. A year ago and I would have found a gift like this extremely peculiar, but I am absolutely thrilled with it now! It not only can fit 6 pieces of toast (not that Beau and I alone will ever need that much toast..), AND an entire rotisserie chicken, but it can ALSO fit an entire 12 inch pizza!! I can bake anything up to 12 inches in it and not have to heat my entire house up (which is easy to do in a studio) by turning my oven on!

Stainless steel and beautiful.

Life is good. :)

Campus

I was walking through campus today as I was finishing my morning classes and I realized what an absolutely beautiful campus we have. I mean, the buildings are not in the best shape unfortunately, but the natural beauty is awesome.

Here are just a few beautiful things from campus...

One of my very favorite trees

Some giant leaves

A mongoose! These guys are ALL OVER the place

A lot of the landscaping is being re-done right now....

But look how beautiful everything is turning out!

A lot of the land is torn up because of the new landscaping, but little by little it is turning into an incredibly beautiful place. It's SO nice how nice everything is looking these days. With the temple opening up it seems like the whole community is being beautified. Love love love it!

Dreaming of a future home

I realize that I will not be living in any sort of dream home for quite a few years, but I like to look for great decorating ideas none the less. Here are a few awesome (if not slightly overdone) styles that I absolutely LOVE.

Fish wall mount

Such an amazing patio set up! The bright colors are beautiful

Simple. Modern. Gorgeous.

The subtle addition of patterns here is great. I love almost anything patterned.

Cooking would be so much more fun if I had a place like this to do it in.

Same kitchen as above, but a better view :)

I love homemade artwork and these are super cute. When I have kids I will definitely be making these and hanging them in the play room.

Again, patterns! What is not to love?

This is by far the most BEAUTIFUL laundry room I have ever seen!

More patterns! And the teal color is awesome!

I can only dream of having one of these awesome hanging beds/couches.

This bathtub is alright, but what what I REALLY LOVE is the picture behind it. It is made entirely of mosaic tiles! What a great idea!

Sometimes cluttered chaos can be art. And art is beautiful.

And if you haven't guessed by now...patterns=love.