Visit from the foreigners

As promised I have been working on the the video and pics from when our foreign friends visited. As far as the blog entry itself, our friend Helene from France keeps her own blog that she has in French and translated to English, so I will just copy and paste that. Her English is very good, but a few things get lost in translation, but I'm sure you will enjoy it. Jen and her friend Sarah left last week and my friend Dan left yesterday We have lots of pictures to share, but not much video. It will be up soon.



Here are Helene's blog posts:

Aloha Hawaii

Leah dropped me at the airport early in the morning. After a 3 hour flight from Tampa to Dallas, and then a 8h30 flight from Dallas to Honolulu, I finally arrived on the main Island called Oahu. The weather is cloudy, with showers, but it is warm 75°F. It is the humid season here. Honolulu looks like a big american city with high buildings. The mountains looked wonderful from the plane.
Rachel and Nathan welcomed me at the airport and we went back to home. They live in a little house on the hills of Honolulu. Later in the evening we went to pick up Nathalie ( my ex roomate from Germany when I was in Chicago). She arrived from Germany with a stop over in San francisco and 11 hour time difference from Europe!!!!!!


Day at Waikiki

Today, Rachel, Nathalie and I took the Jeep and went to see Waikiki .
A lot of shops, famous brands, lots of boutiques, beautiful hotels and a very nice beach called Waikiki Beach. Waikiki is the most touristic place on the island. Nathalie and I were crazy about the shops !!!!!! We had a drink at Margaritaville ( Jimmy buffet's Chain Restaurant), on the terrasse. So nice.
Then, in the afternoon, we went to visit Pearl Harbor Memorial Historic Site. We saw the USS Arizona battleship which was sink on Dec, 7th 1941 and still reminds under the water. Very emotional


Another Day at Waikiki

Today, we went to the south east of the Island, south from Waikiki. Wild landscape, rocks, and steep coast. We spent the day walking on rocks, taking photos, and enjoying the wonderful/ magic/ incredible landscape. We spent most of the afternoon on the "Hidden Beach", because very hard to notice it from the road. Back home, Rachel cooked a vey nice Brown Pie for my birthday. Delicious! We will all go to party friday night in Waikiki for my birthday! Cannot wait!


Northshore

Today, Nathalie, Rachel and I took the Jeep and went to the north of the Island, called “North Shore”, very famous for surf tournaments and wonderful wild coasts. The weather was very windy and the waves were huge. We stopped at “Turtle Beach”, where we saw big turtles swimming in the waves. Very nice! Then we went to Waimea Bay, famous for the nice beach and a big rock where you can jump from. Then, we visited Waimea Valley, which is a botanical garden. After a quarter a mile of walking on the paths, we discovered a very nice waterfall. Rachel and I decided to swim in the very cold water. So much fun to go under the waterfall. Then we went to the “sunset beach”, huge sandy beach, and we watched surfers and Kitesurfers having so much fun on the huge waves! We ended our trip to Hahuku, very famous for its shrimp cabins.


Helene's 25th Birthday!!

On the evening, we went to party for my birthday. First, we went to a house party ( Rachel’s friend) in the military area of Honolulu, and then we went to a club in Waikiki called ‘Senior frogs’. We had so much fun!


Whale Watching

Today Nathan, Rach and I woke up at 7am and went to the harbor to get on the Starlett boat to go watch for whales. After one hour of concentration to find some whales, we finally saw a tale !!! The boat cannot get closer than 100 yards from whales. But the whales can come closer to us if they want. A little bit later we saw a group of 3/4 whales jumping out the water,but very far from our boat. It is really the good time here to see whales ( from December to March). We had a wonderful view of Honolulu and Waikiki skylines as well! For dinner, Rachel cooked a some pastas and a very nice homemade apple pie! A very good surprise to see Miss Rachel cooking !


Shopping Day

Today we spent the day in the biggest shopping Mall in Honolulu: Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Guess, Old Navy... favorite american brands that we do not have in Europe!!!


Maui Trip Part 1

Nathan drove us to the aiport at 7am, and then we took a plane to go to Maui. After a 30min- flight, we arrived on the island where the weather was very cloudy.We rent a car and directly went on the very touristic '' Road of Hana". 40 miles road from Nord East to South East of the island. Many scenic points, waterfalls, black sandy beaches, volcanic landscapes... Then, instead of coming back by the same road, we decided to cross the island , by a road which was recently closed because of an earthquake in 2006. We thus accrossed the island from North to South: volcanic rocks, cattle in the middle of the roads, huge cliffs... Pictures won't show the real beauty of the island! On the evening we went to eat some shrimps in a restaurant and then back to our hotel in Kihei, on the east side of the island ( many resorts are located in this area). Leah ( also named " Flat -Leah", was with us in Maui ! In our hearts...)


Maui Trip Part 2

Today we decided to explore the Nort West of the Island. First, we stopped to a craft market , where Rachel and I found many Maui made souvenirs. We drove by beautiful sandy beaches, with palm trees ( as you can imagine in Heaven). After a little while tanning on the beach, we drove and stopped in a little town called Lahaina. The main street was very cute. First we had some 'tropical drinks' and then we spent the rest of the afternoon, walking and shopping in the town. Rachel found her engagement dress picture! After dinner, we drove back to the airport and flu back to Honolulu, where Nathan picked up us. Wonderful trip!


Germaine's Lu'au

Today, we went to Waikiki and enjoy to enjoy the beach and the sun. On the evening we went to see the famous show '' Germaine's Luau" which is a rich cultural heritage of the Pacific Islands show. We watched how they cooked the "Kalua Pua's" ( roasted pig) under the ground, different danses, typical hawaiian songs... Very entertaining !


Hanauma Bay

Today we went to Hanaumay Bay, the best area on the island to do some snorkling. Hanaumay Bay is a wildlife preservation. Fishes have amazing colors. Beautiful bay!


Last Days in Hawaii

We spent our last days enjoying the relaxing hawaian life. We went to the beach, doing some shopping. The weather was windy and a little bit chilly these last days. Nathalie and I arrived two weeks ago exactly: time run so fast . It is the end of our trip. We had such a good time with Nathan and Rachel who welcomed us so well! Thank you so much guys and cannot wait to see you in Europe next time! ;)

OK people I need some feedback

Wow, I am really addicted to all the newest features to add to the blog. The most recent addition to the blog is a webcam. It is live streaming video of our front room where we keep Sheila when we're not home. This is basically just a trial run, the camera we are using is the webcam on my laptop. So it will be hit or miss if I have it set up or if I'm using my computer for something else. If you get a chance to see it when it is set up thats great and I would like EVERYONE's opinion if possible. Right now I have the feed from the streaming video in two places. The first place is front and center above the most recent post. The socond place is all the way down at the bottom of the page under the posts. I tried putting it off to the left in a smaller format, but it wouldn't stay small so it just blocked the posts. I want to know where you guys like it better, or if I should just keep them both. Just post your replies in the guestbook. Mahalo!!

p.s. if the feed isn't broadcasting live, here is a sample video of what it will basically look like.

Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

Good Bye Hawaii

I totally forgot some big news. Rachel and I are moving back to the mainland this June. As everyone knows we are getting married in about 5 months (OMG!!). We both want to start a family pretty soon after that, but we don't want to be 4000 miles away from our families when we do so. Also we want to start thinking about buying a house and that is just not an option if we stay out here. So here's the plan as of right now. Basically when I'm done with this semester of school we are going to move to Chicago where we can both work and get things ready for the wedding. When we get back from our honeymoon we will then move down to North Carlina. Where exactly we move to in NC depends on which school I transfer to, but it will most likely be either Raleigh or Wilmington. I know it's hard to believe that we are leaving paradise, and Rachel and I are both sad we are leaving, but we both realize there are more important things that we want. Thanks for your support. Aloha!!

Jen is here!!

Hi everyone. I've added yet another little feature to the blog called "twitter". It is a nice feature that allows Rachel and I to send small messages to the blog from our cell phones and they are automatically added to the blog. It only shows the most recent one but there are arrows at the bottom of the box for you to scroll through the twitter messages. Also Rachel's Maid of Honor Jen just arrived, she is here visiting with one of her friends. They flew into Oahu and went to a wedding on Maui. Rachel has been really busy with work, working mostly night shifts, so she has been really tired lately. I am on my last week of school before spring break starts, I am looking forward catching up on some sleep and not doing any homework!! One thing I promise to do this spring break is finish putting together video and pics from when our foreign friends visited. Tonight we are going to a LUA'U!! Aloha.

Updates on Our Life and Blog

Aloha everyone. For those of you who haven't heard our dryer has been out of commission for a little over a month and we have been going to the laundromat to do our laundry (15 min drive $2.75/wash) and that was getting annoying. Well my neighbor Damien, who we share a washer and dryer with, found one the other day for only 50 bucks and I installed it over the weekend. So now we have an almost new dryer!! As most of you know we are coming back to the mainland for the summer before we get married and we have been looking into shipping Sheila, who now weighs around 80 pounds. The estimates we have been given were around $1600 dollars ONE-WAY! That was obviously way more than we could afford, but not to worry. Rachel found out yesterday that Continental Airlines will ship Sheila for $850 ROUNDTRIP!! Thats awesome. We were getting really worried because we did not want to leave Sheila here for 2 whole months without us, nor did we want to have to ask any of our friends to take on such a huge task. Nothing has been finalized yet, but its looking a little better than before. Now for the blog itself. I have added 2 new features to the blog which I mentioned in the Updates list. The first feature is the blog Archive, which is a little navigating tool you can use to go to any blog post in the past by clicking on the year and month. The second feature is a Guestbook which is located at the top of the blog, right above the latest blog post. I decided to put in a Guestbook because it was getting hard for me to keep up with new comments, and I thought it would be a easier for everyone to leave and respond to messages.

Random collection of stuff

Here is another collection of videos of Rachel, Cloye, Sheila, and I all made into one. Rachel and I bringing our huge couch home with Rachel's jeep, Cloye getting a mohawk, all of us going on a hike, and a couple of other things.

Today is the last full day our visitors are here. Nathalie leaves first thing tomorrow morning and Helene leaves tomorrow night. The video will be done soon and we have lots of pictures to put up too. Enjoy!

Christmas in March?????

We're baaaack!! Well I finally finished the Christmas video. I had to edit about 2 hours worth of video so it's down to about 20 min. As far as updates are concerned...where do I begin? Sheila is now 78 pounds, and is getting so big. We just took her to the vet a couple of days ago for a rabies booster and the vet said she is going through a growth spurt right now. Cloye is doing well, she was throwing up for a couple of days so we took her to the vet as well. The vet said it might have been because of an obstruction, but after taking some antibiotics and spending some time in the vet she's all better. We never found out exactly what the problem was, but she's happy and healthy now. For me school is keeping me busy as usual, although I seem to have alot more homework this semester than I did last semester. The good news is my grades are all good so far. Rachel is keeping busy with work and continuing on planning the wedding. She has also made some improvements around the house. She sanded down and painted our shower floor, made a nice cover for our couch, and made curtains for the office and a matching cushion for my computer chair.
Right now we have 2 visitors here staying with us. Helene and Nathalie are two of our very good friends. Helene is from France and Nathalie is from Germany. Helene was there when Rachel and I met for the first time. And we met Nathalie a few weeks later and we've all been close ever since. Helene has a blog of her own so in keeping with tradition I am going to copy and paste what she writes on her blog onto our blog so you can have a perspective from our visitors. Now, speaking of visitors we have Rachel's Maid of Honor, Jenn, and one of Jenn's friends coming to visit about 2 weeks after our foreign friends leave. Then one of my friends Dan aka broom is visiting March 23-29th which is also my spring break. I will be adding a video to the blog post from Helene, which I am working on now, and I'll get some more updated pictures up ASAP. Sorry for neglecting the blog. I am going to try giving more frequent updates. ALOOOOOOHA!!