Meet our puppy, Duke!

Joey and I have known that we wanted a puppy for quite some time now. We both grew up with dogs and we have always loved them. One fine December day as we were wandering around the local mall (which isn't so local since its like 40 minutes away) we were discussing what we wanted to do for each other for Christmas this year. We were going back and forth on a few ideas and trying to decide how to make it all work, then we happened upon the pet store in the mall..

 

we were in trouble!!

 

This pet store always has the cutest puppies and this day was no exception. As we walked around we seriously thought about buying one of the cutest store pups. The price tag on these guys was just a little to much for us to spend though and we just didn't think we could make it work.

 

Then in a moment of pure genius Joey pulled out his phone and hopped on craigslist and started looking up puppies. We found a few we liked, called around to some people and waited for them to call us back. When we finally settled on the breed we met a sweet lady in a walmart parking lot and she showed us her little brood of six week old puppies. They were all males and they were all so cute! They are a dachshund/terrier mix and we picked the one whose face was smooshed the most and was the most timid. Our sweet little guy sat in the corner and had the biggest cutest round eyes, it was love at first sight and we had found our dog.

 

Naming him on the other hand proved to be a bit of trouble.. we went back and forth on names all night. We knew we wanted something Hawaiian but picking a Hawaiian name is rough! We finally settled on Duke, which many of you are probably thinking, oh that is not very Hawaiian, but it is after The Duke, the grandfather of surfing. We love our sweet little guy and all the fun we have had with him so far. he is eight weeks old now and already he looks so much bigger! I can not wait for all the fun adventures we are going to have together as our little family!

 

the night we brought him home, how can you not love that face!

 

love, the williams

The Adventures of Joey & Bri

Few people may know that when Joey and I first began "dating" (i use quotations because the first few months were simply phone calls and text messages everyday back and forth) we began a list. A list of adventures. We would sit up on the phone late at night and think of all the wonderful things we wanted to do with our lives and together. This then turned into us joking about being the couple from the movie UP. Before we knew it our new slogan was, "Adventure is Out There!" We knew the theme song and we even watched the movie together on one of our actual first dates. As you may know in the movie the couple had a savings jar that they kept having to break into for emergencies and Joey and I too have had experiences like that along the way. We find it funny sometimes how this movie mimics our life, but i love the moments we've had.. 

Here is a movie Joey put together of a few adventures we have been able to have so far here in Hawaii. We have had a lot more than what is shown in the clip but up until a few months ago we didn't have this sweet camera to document our adventures so well! Here is to the adventurer in all of us, go out and live your lives to the fullest my friends and maybe jump off a cliff or two :)

love, the Williams

Enrichment Leader.. dun, dun, dun!!

well it has happened, a few months ago when i moved into the La'ie Married Student 5th ward i was given the calling to be on the Relief Society activities committee. To be honest i was thrilled, i got to plan all the fun, make all the fun and have all the fun but not have to worry about the logistics of it all because i wasn't the leader, i was just on the committee..

 

well that changed and it changed fast! One week i was on the committee, the next i was leading a committee of my own. I am grateful for this opportunity to lead these wonderful women on my committee and also to be able to still have ALL the fun, because really, i do have all the fun!

This calling is new to me, I'm not sure if i do everything the right way, and to be honest I'm not even sure if there is a right way. But, alas, here i am fumbling through and making do. i am excited for the new year to start and to be able to incorporate some new activities into our Relief Society. Hopefully my ward will get excited to and that we will see more and more sisters come out to the activities.

 

This month we did a Christmas card activity and it was so much fun! i love Christmas, everything Christmas! So i used my handy dandy cricut machine to make a few different card types and then i set to making enough supplies for my ward members to recreate these simple cards. We had wonderful food, Christmas music of course and a few Christmas decorations including a Christmas themed "photo booth" with the opportunity to use Santa clause or Rudolph props. All in all we had a pretty good turnout and lots of fun getting to know some of the sisters in the ward. Check out a few of my favorite pictures from the night..

 

the cards we made.. number 1

number 2

number 3

the "hohoho" banner i made

a few of the ladies from the ward

lovin' the props!

so cute!

so fun :)

a wonderful activity with the ward!

many more fun activities to come, and i cant wait!

love, the williams

*update* 25 things before I'm 25

while Josh was here I was able to mark off a few things on my list! I am super stoked and can't wait to mark off some more :)

 

1. skydiving
2. bungee jumping
3. hiking to chinaman's hat
4. doing the lighthouse hike
5. visit family in Utah
6. go shark diving
7. learn to surf
8. learn to paddle board
9. go scuba diving
10. have a baby
11. visit California family
12. go to Mexico
13. go horse back riding
14. Honolulu zoo
15. Pearl Harbor
16. swim with dolphins
17. hike waimea falls
18. go to the dole plantation
19. kaneohe zip line
20. Polynesian Cultural Center night show
21. hike diamond head
22. hike stairway to heaven
23. camp on the beach
24. island hop (big island?
25. catch an octopus

 

Three things down, only 22 more to go, but as I look back at my list I realize I have some pretty lofty goals.. oops!! Here is to hoping it all gets done!

love, the williams

Our first Tsunami

As Joey and I were watching a show together and snuggling up on the couch, we all of a sudden had a knock at our window and our dear neighbor was informing us that a tsunami warning had been issued! We quickly switched over to the local news station to get the latest updates and information on what to do. I am not going to lie, I was a little panicked at first. I kept telling Joey that it was better to be safe than sorry and that we shouldn't hang around our home.

The news made it out to be a pretty scary ordeal, I know that they have to make sure everyone is prepared but they probably caused me more stress thinking about what could happen then what actually did happen. We got the warning around 7:10 on Saturday night, the tsunami was triggered because of an earthquake in Canada (those darn Canadians!) and we were told it would hit our island around 10:28pm. Since I was a little flustered Joey appeased me and we packed up a few important papers and a spare change of clothes just in case and left our house for higher ground around 9:45. We ended up at a friends house where we chatted and ate brownies, when the first waves hit it was as if the ocean went from low tide to high tide all at once. But luckily for us and our island that was all that had happened. The water levels rose and the currents got stronger but there were no injuries and flooding everyone made it through the Hawaiian tsunami of 2012!

I am just very thankful for a wonderful husband who takes the time to make sure I feel safe and left our house to make me feel better even if he would have rather stayed and gone to bed. Plus on the bright side I can now say that I have heard the tsunami alarms going off in the case of a real tsunami!

 

love, the williams

A brother, four days, and lots of fun!

DISCLAIMER: this is very long, and has LOTS of pictures!

Around my birthday I was joking with my brother Josh that since he didn't get me anything his present should be him flying out to Hawaii to spend some time with me. He had never been, and I missed him, so I figured it was really a win, win, situation. It took him about a month to figure out his schedule and get everything in order but he made it, and it was the best four days we have ever had!

Before he got here I tried to plan out some things that would be fun for us to do, I wrote them down, made a list, and then made it again about seven more times. I was just so excited! His mini vacation went a little something like this...

Day One: Josh arrived from the airport, successful flight and very tired! He had a long day of travel and landed in Honolulu around 5:40pm. Even though he was tired we had to show him a few things! So we drove home through the north shore and tried to show him some of the cool things about this side of the island. We ended our tour in the town of Kahuku where we decided to eat dinner at Kahuku Grill. It's only like the best burger and fry place on the island.. seriously, not joking.. Josh could see why we never stop talking about the place, he loved it too! After dinner we went home and showed him the point, we walked around it a little bit and then gave him a tour of our home, which really was just opening the door and saying, this is it! Josh and I chatted for a little bit until he passed out-- I'm telling you this boy was exhausted!
 

Day Two: On the schedule for today was a hike, I just didn't know which one. I wrote down a few and told him about them all and he opted for one that Joey and I hadn't yet tried, the Maunawili Falls. We had to drive to the town of Kailua for this hike which is about 45 minutes away but it was totally worth it. The hike was beautiful, very green and muddy, but it had a stream going through it and lots of fun trees to climb. It was a beginners hike so it was very easy and not to long but it was all worth it when you got to the waterfall. Unfortunately when we got there someone had gotten hurt so we had to wait for the firefighters to clear the scene and they took her out with a helicopter. It didn't take to long and they allowed us to enter once she was gone. This waterfall was ten times better than La'ie falls, it was an actual waterfall and it had places on the side where you can jump off into the waterfall! Joey was a trooper and did it first, then Josh and I took a little longer. I mean hurling yourself off a 50 foot cliff is a little nerve racking, especially when the place your jumping from is tiny and slippery with mud.. but I did it! And it was awesome!! Joey and Josh went for round two, I opted to jump off some of the other smaller ones. We hung around in the falls for a while watching some other people jump and then hiked back out to our car. By this time we were starving so we fed our bellies with some Jack in the Box since they don't have that in Utah and Josh really wanted it! We capped off the day with a trip to Waimea Bay where we continued our jumping spree with waimea rock. We jumped off like three or four times and then swam around in the ocean before we caught some of the last rays of sun and relaxed on the beach. As we drove home for some dinner we stopped at sunset beach to see the rest of the sunset, a must see if you ask me :)

getting ready to start the Maunawili Falls hike



one of our views

Josh climbing a tree!

taking a break by the stream, we like climbing on rocks

Josh and Joey

we were warned :)

classic screen grab of a video of josh jumping of waimea rock

Day Three: Joey had to go back to work and school today so it was pretty much just me and Josh, a twin day! We decided to get some snorkeling in today and I took him to my favorite snorkeling place, Pupukea beach. We got there and got all our gear on and then we venture off into the wild blue ocean. We checked out the coral and all the rock formations and saw lots of wonderful, colorful, big and small fish. We were out for about an hour but Josh quickly observed it only felt like 20 minutes! Time flies when your in the water. We soaked up some sun rays and then headed across the street to Pupukea Grill and had a nice chat while we grubbed on our food. Once our bellies were full I took him down to the town of Haleiwa and we rented some paddle boards and took them down the river. This was a first for both of us and we quickly learned how much of a work out it really is! My arms are still sore. We were gone for about an hour and we got to go all the way down the river, where we spotted some turtles and we're proud to say we didn't fall! Although we both came close a few times! On the way back home we stopped and got some shave ice because you can't come to Hawaii and not eat any shave ice! We met Joey at the house and got ready for a fun night at the PCC. We were going to see the night show and I for one, was super excited! The show was wonderful and full of singing and dancing. I think I can speak for us all when I say the fire dancers were our favorites. I would recommend the show to anyone who comes for a visit, you gotta see it at least once!

pupukea beach, where we went snorkeling

Josh trying to catch some sun

shave ice, yumm!

the PCC night show :)

 

Day Four: Josh and I were on our own again today, and we had to take the day a little easy since he was filling a little under the weather. We chose a nice easy hike in the Waimea Valley botanical gardens. It was really a hike, more like a long scenic walk that ended at a waterfall you can swim in. This waterfall had no jumping spots though and the water was freezing!! But after our long walk I thought the water felt good, and I was definitely not going to come all this way and not get in. We ventured in, it took Josh a little longer, but he made it and we swam to the waterfall snapped a few pictures and then swam back out. We walked back out and spent the rest of our day in Kaneohe, we did a little shopping, played some games and went and saw a movie together. We ended our night by eating some dinner and hanging out with Joey. This was Josh's last night so we talked a bit then headed to sleep so we could wake bright and early, his plane left at 7:10, which meant we had to leave my house by 4:45.. YIKES!!

heading out on our path at waimea valley

this water is fffrrrreeeezing!

Josh's turn

oh, hello!

my turn!

All in all it was a wonderful birthday present and a great vacation for Josh, it was so good to see him and to show him all the fun things we have been doing out here. I may have also tried to convince him to move out here.. we'll see if it happens, fingers crossed!!

love, the williams

La'ie Falls Hike

As Joey and I were pondering what to do one fine Hawaiian evening, we decided that a hike might be nice. There were a few that we had been wanting to check out around the area but we hadn't gotten to yet. We narrowed down our choices to the La'ie Falls Hike! Hooray!!

We had been talking to friends about this hike and all we heard were positive things so we were pumped to check it out! Joey was a wee bit tired since he had a long day of school and work so we let him rest a little bit and set out on our hike around four p.m. Now keep in mind, we had talked to many, MANY, people about this hike and even googled it multiple times. We only got good feedback about this hike. As we parked the car we realized a few things..
 

1) we were starting kind of late

2) we didn't bring any water (DOH!)

3) do we need a permit for this?

4) that sign says we need a permit (oops!)
 

It took us a while to find the trail head, we had to walk through some private property first but we arrived and started the hike. It was easy going, a gradual incline but very wide open paths. There were a few spots that had small hills and this very fine sand, it sort of looked like we were walking on the moon. As we went farther and farther we started getting more into a forest area. Pretty soon we had been hiking for 30 minutes, then an hour, and then an hour and a half and still no water fall?! What the heck where is this thing and how long does it take to get there? We ran into some lovely people from Arizona who said we were almost there, HOORAY! So we kept plugging along. We came upon some very narrow walk ways with a drastic plunge down the cliff on our left and then we were like Tarzan in the jungle swinging on tree limbs to descend into the depths of the waterfall. At last, we had arrived! We carefully and very tiredly walked into the opening expecting to see a beautiful cascading waterfall.. negative! We got what I like to call a rockfall.. or rocks with water trickling down. Seriously?! This is a joke right? I just hiked for two hours and three in a half miles to see this? Ahhhh!! It was a very anti climatic "waterfall" (notice the quotations) but it was an absolute wonderful adventure getting there. By this time I was so thirsty I almost dove into the water running off those rocks. It tasted divine, like pure heaven flowing over rocks, especially since we didn't bring water with us. The hike had gorgeous views and was pretty easy going, we ran most of the way back because guess what, we were running out of light! We ended the hike in the dark with not flashlight except our phones and luckily we had made it to the easy part before the sun played its cruel joke on us and hid. We are not sure if we would do this hike again seeing as the falls were so disappointing. We are still scratching our heads to as why no one warned us about this..

after we finished the hike everyone had lots of horror stories about it.. thanks friends!! Check out a few pictures..
 

starting off the hike

 

one of the many views we saw

gotta document this

 

we made it to the summut!!

there she is, the la'ie "waterfall", pathetic huh?

Joey drinking from the falls

i did it!!

so proud of him

thumbs up on this view!!

 well, there you have it folks. Will we do it again? I dont know, probably not all the way. It was a fun adventure though and we did enjoy some time together.

Love, the Williams



25 things to do before I'm 25!

This birthday wasn't really that big of a deal, it came and it went, until all of a sudden it sunk in. I am 24, next year I will be 25, I will be entering my late twenties...

I am starting to get old!

 

In my effort to preserve my youth I have decided to make a list. Yes a list. A list of 25 things to do before I turn 25. I pulled out my phone one day while at the beach and I thought, what do I want to do before I'm 25? This is what I came up with...

1. skydiving
2. bungee jumping
3. hiking to chinaman's hat
4. doing the lighthouse hike
5. visit family in Utah
6. go shark diving
7. learn to surf
8. learn to paddle board
9. go scuba diving
10. have a baby
11. visit California family
12. go to Mexico
13. go horse back riding
14. Honolulu zoo
15. Pearl Harbor
16. swim with dolphins
17. hike waimea falls
18. go to the dole plantation
19. kaneohe zip line
20. Polynesian cultural center night show
21. hike diamond head
22. hike stairway to heaven
23. camp on the beach
24. island hop (big island?)
25. catch an octopus

so much to do! I better get started, I already only have 11 more months! yikes!!

love, the Williams

 

September in a nutshell

Oh September, what a magical month. It is the month I was brought into this world, it must be pretty magical! Seeing as this is my birthday month every day was special to me, but I will try to sum up only the big and important events. Here we go!
Technically the Magical month of September didn't start out so magically. It was Labor Day weekend, I was missing my family, Utah, and SWISS DAYS! Joey decided we should head into town and check out Pearl Harbor since we both haven't seen it and it would take my mind off things. We started out on our journey excited to see this historical sight, but alas, about twenty minutes into our drive we heard a thumping noise coming from our car. Not quite sure what is was we pulled over and I took a look. Oh phew! It was only a stick stuck in mud on our tire.. WRONG! I pulled the stick off, we kept driving, and again..
 thump, thump, thump!  
Oh dear.. we pull over again and to my dismay I see our tire tread unraveling. Our plans went from a fun FREE day at pearl harbor, to a not so fun and very expensive trip to Big O Tires in Kaneohe where I begrudgingly spent all my savings on two brand new tires. My silver lining? The still small voice that prompted me to bring along our savings cash. I had no idea why I threw it in my purse as I was running out the door, but man am I glad I did!!

joey changing the tire

there she is..

September is also when I became in love with ice cream mochi.. what is mochi you ask? Well really I have no idea, but it is delicious! Just kidding I kind of have an idea, it is like a rice pudding it comes from Japan I believe, could be wrong though. In the ice cream form it has a rice pudding/jelly like shell and then there is ice cream in the middle. Sound gross? Maybe a little but it is delicious...

this is chocolate mint mochi! Mmm

Our favorite television show to watch together started back up, hello Scandal, we have missed you! Football also started again and that has been a blast to watch. I am a huge San Fransisco 49er fan and Joey is an Oakland Raider fan. It doesn't cause to much trouble, most days :) With the beginning of the football season also came a new deal from McDonald's, Touchdown Tuesdays!! You can enjoy a quarter pounder meal and get a free quarter pounder, Joey and I both can eat for around $7, not bad. We make sure to work out afterwards! I also tried a new recipe from Pinterest this month, creamy potato cheese soup, YUMMY!! It was magnificent, everyone should try it, maybe I'll post the recipe later..

My parents sent me a sweet birthday box and it was full of all kinds of fun surprises! Joey got me flowers and balloons and breakfast and his sweet mom sent me some awesome Toms! The family I work for joined the fun and gave me a gift card and two of the sweetest birthday pictures from their kids. I truly am a lucky and blessed little lady.

some of the goodies inside said birthday box :)

We spent a lot of time with friends, playing games, hanging out on the beach, watching sunsets. We even went back to Waimea Bay and jumped off the rock again! Life sure was grand in the month of September :)

love, the Williams

August Catch Up

August came and went pretty quickly, we started out the month with jumping off Waimea Rock which you can read about here. 

This month Joey caught us an OCTOPUS!! That's right folks my husband is an octopus hunter! He went out with some friends (i had to work, boo) they used hand spears and they hunted the elusive octopus. Joey thought he caught one once but then realized he had speared a giant sea snail! OOPS! He finally caught one, brought it home and used it's guts for fishing bait. We were going to eat the octopus but it ended up sitting in our freezer for to long. We did however BBQ another friends octopus and man oh man was it delicious!! Boiled in coconut water, grilled on the grill.. lip smackin good I tell you!

there she is :)

The month of August also brought us a new home! We upgraded from our wee little room with a bed to a place that has an actual sink and full sized fridge! It is such a blessing to have the simplest of things.. check out the place!

this is the view from the front door

we have a sink!!

our full size fridge and our little kitchen area :)

our bed, which is right behind our couch and right next to our desk!!

 Joey jumped off Laie point, and he does is a lot!

We spent a lot of time at the beach, duh we live in Hawaii, and we met Roberts new dog, Kona!!
We love her, and are a little jealous, we want a puppy.


isn't she cute??

We also ventured down the east side towards the end of this month. We drove down kam hwy and found Makapu'u beach and look out spot. This is also where there is a lighthouse that you can hike up to (don't worry, it's on our list of stuff to do!). The beach was gorgeous and looked like a fun place to spend a day. When we drove a little further we found the look out which gave us a great place to take pictures and we adventured a little bit and found these old war look outs in the side of the cliff face. Of course we climbed a little and crawled into one!!

makapu'u beach

 

the lighthouse up there is where we want to hike :)

just enjoying the view

inside our look out

Well I think that pretty much sums up all the fun stuff we did in August, at least I can't seem to think of anymore. Now on to Septembers catch up blog we go, see you there!!

love, the williams