Year in Review

2011
This year we had a very exciting and eventful year. We started the year off with the craziness of the wedding and all of the family that came with it. We were very blessed to have so many of our family and friends present on one of the biggest days of our lives. We had so much celebrating with everyone that was able to come. We had some long travelers come; Grandma Mary made the journey all the way from Hawaii and Laura happened to be home from Africa then. We had many travel from California, Washington, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and I am sure I am missing some. Following the wedding Jon and I enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon to St. Lucia. We had a lot of fun just relaxing and seeing all of the beautiful sights. I got scuba certified so not only did we sight see on land but under water too.


St. Lucia was one of our many travels this year. We were fortunate to travel with Jon's family to Hawaii for a wonderful cruise this summer. Following the cruise we took several weekend trips to visit friends and family. We ventured to Denver to visit David and Candice, we went to Virginia to visit Paul and Stacy and we went to Waco to visit Dan and Traci.


We came back to a crazy life and more school work. We both continued to truck on through our year of masters work. We are both getting a little tired of being in school and ready for the end to come. Thankfully as another year closes so does another semester of school. We will both finish school this summer. Jon will be done the end of May and I will finish the end of June.

In the craziness of the end of the year we also had some very exciting news, I am pregnant! We are not only excited for summer to come because it means the end of school but it also means we will welcome and new little bundle of joy. The baby is due mid July. As I went to the doctor today and saw the most amazing miracle of life, I was totally amazed. It is crazy to think this little thing that is so tiny is so developed and active.

We look forward to all of the joy and excitement this year has to bring. We hope that everyone had a blessed holiday season and that 2012 finds you healthy and happy.

Courtney

Wrapping up another semester

Well we find ourselves in the hustle and bustle of finishing another semester of school and getting all of our holiday preparations done.  I am very excited to announce that we will both be done with school in 6 short months.  This has been a long road and not the ideal road for newlyweds but we have faith that it will pay off later.  This semester Jon took a heavy load of 5 (all of them were 8 weeks, 2 sessions) classes and I took my normal 1.  In the spring he will finish up with his final 3 classes and graduate the end of May!  I will be taking two classes this spring, more than I am used to, and one the month of June.  Although I won't finish until June it is getting closer every day. 

As the holidays are getting closer we are trying to enjoy the festivities amidst the chaos of school, work and whatever else.  The nice thing this year, we will not be going out of town for any of the holidays.  We usually go out of town for at least one of the holidays but this year we were lucky enough to not have to.  We convinced my dad's side to come and visit us for Christmas.  I am very excited to be hosting the first Christmas celebration at our house with most of our family.  Luckily I have finished the semester and started to do some shopping but there is still plenty to do.  I am very excited for this week to come to a close and to have some time off work.  I often feel like our lives are so hectic we seldom have time to take care of the basic things around the house.  This break I have big plans for cleaning out my closet, and who knows what else ;)...we will see how that actually plays out.

We hope this holiday season finds everyone and their families happy and healthy.  As we reflect on this past year we realize how truly blessed we are.  God has given us a beautiful house, wedding and the love of one another.  We both have jobs and the opportunity to work on finishing our degrees. 

Slow down life...no wait speed up...

Well it has been awhile since either of us has posted on here and there is a reason, well actually many.  This year I decided to make the switch in grade levels.  I had taught 3rd grade for 8 years, wow that is a long time, and was looking for a change.  I was excited to find out the end of the year last year that I had the opportunity to move down to 2nd grade.  This thing that brought me the most joy in this move is the fact that I no longer had to teach our state test, the TAKS test.  After dealing with that test for 8 years I was ready for a break.  Well, as we all know with change comes work.  I knew it would be a challenge at the beginning of the year as I got the hang of something totally new but I had no idea how much of a change 1 grade level truly is.  I can say as we 'round the corner on the end of the second six weeks I am finally falling into a routine at work.  Things are settling down and everyone is happy at the end of the day, that is a plus. 

I am continuing my work on my masters and feel like I have TERRIBLE senioritis.  I can see the end, so close yet so far away.  I have about 6 weeks of my current class and then I will have three classes to finish.  I am planning on carrying a slightly heavier load in the spring so that I can finish in June.  I will have two classes for the spring and then take a month long mini class in June.  I can't wait and I will not be sad when I am not a student anymore.  I am not really sure how some people go to school their whole life.  It has been crazy with both of us working and in school but I sure am glad we are doing it at the same time.

Jon's job is going well.  Since he was hired...a year ago, hard to believe...two of his good friends were hired there as well.  The guys have been having a good time carpooling and just being guys, I never know how many mouths I am going to feed on any given night. ;)

Jon has taken on a large load this 8 weeks for school in an attempt to finish up by the end of May.  He is taking 3 classes instead of his normal 2 so he spends many hours listening to lectures and working on assignments.  We keep telling ourselves we are so close and to just push on through.  He will have a big project that kind of wraps up his MBA that he will work on in the spring along with two classes.  After that, he will be finished.  We look forward to the day that maybe we can become addicted to some TV show.

One last thing:  The month of October we were blessed with the opportunity to open our home to a lady who is the daughter of some of Jon's parent's friend.  She is a missionary in Mali and is on her home stay.  She was taking a class at the community college near us and would stay with us during the week.  It was a month that went by fast with everyone's busy schedule but a great experience all around.  As we all sat at dinner it was so interesting to hear what life was like over there and how God was working.  This is our first week without her but luckily we had trick or treaters to keep us busy tonight. ;)

Until next time...
Courtney

The list of summer adventures

Well it has been quite some time since we have posted on here, about a month almost a month and a half I think.  Maybe one day Jon will finish the wonderful stories we have from our cruise and vacation in Hawaii.  We are so blessed to have the opportunities to spend so much time traveling and seeing friends and family.  Hawaii was only the beginning.  I came home from Hawaii around the 7th or 8th of August and we left that weekend to go visit some friends in Norfolk, VA. 

We had an absolutely wonderful long weekend.  We went to visit Paul and Stacy, Paul and Jon were roommates in college.  The guys lost touch for a few years but got reacquainted from facebook.  We were so excited when they came for the wedding but unfortunately didn't have a whole lot of quality time to spend with them.  So, we went to go visit them and enjoyed the cooler weather.  I am sure you all have heard but we have been breaking records with the temperature in Houston and its excessive need to go over 100.  We went to several cute restaurants that sat right along the water.  We also had the opportunity to go to the zoo the last day we were there and that was a lot of fun.   It broke our heart a month later when the the eye of the hurricane was headed right for them.  Luckily they were safe and did not experience any damage.  They shared pictures of the local area after the storm and it kind of reminded me of Ike, lets not do that again.

We got back on a Monday and I started back to work on Tuesday.  As usual it was a week full of training and finalizing the classroom.  The beginning of the year.  We had only been in school a week or two and Jon and I set off to our last adventure for awhile.  Over Labor Day weekend we flew to Denver, CO to visit Jon's brother and his family.  David and Candice used to live in Vegas, we had visited them there one Christmas but it was awhile ago.  Last Thanksgiving they moved to Denver and we hadn't had time to make the trip with the wedding and school.  Finally, we made it out there and got to spend time with them.  We had a great time and really enjoyed getting to know little Matty.  That is our nephew who is 18 months.  He is mobile and at the age where he is lots of fun.  Once again we enjoyed the break from the heat and the scenery was fantastic.  It was a pretty laid back weekend because this was also the start of college football season.  I must admit it was nice to have some down time, we don't get much of that around this house.

Since then we have been busy doing things around the house, starting our final year of grad school and I have started teaching a new grade, more on all of that later.

Maui Day 2 - Fish Turtles and Sharks...oh my!

So when you are sitting in Houston, planning what you are going to do on your Hawaiian cruise at each port, things sort of blend together and it almost turns into a work exercise in terms of scheduling which meetings where. Do we do a Luau? Where? What island? What wants to Scuba dive? Maybe we skip Scuba, and just go snorkeling? I’ve heard Maui is good for snorkeling…ok, let’s go snorkeling in Maui. We then called a company that does the snorkeling trips and discovered the main boat they had was booked up, so we got relegated to the “red headed step child” of the fleet. A smaller boat with fewer passengers, that basically tags along the big boat. Great. What seemed like a filler trip, turned out to be one of the most memorable of the whole vacation.

We went to 2 different locations, Turtle Town, and Molokini. Molokini, is a half crater off the coast of Maui that shelters the reef and allows for some of the most spectacular snorkeling ever. Remember that relegation thing for our tour? Well, that turned out to be the best thing that happened. Our captain decided to reverse course and instead of going to Molokini first, and then Turtle Town, we went to Turtle Town first and Molokini second.



Essentially we avoided the 10 other 100 passenger tours and their stops so we had the locations to ourselves. Awesome! This quickly paid off, in that the Hawaiian Sea turtles hadn’t grown weary of a bunch of tourists swimming around their house and were just floating around like I wasn’t even there. What resulted was a close encounter of the Turtle Kind. And by close, I mean I could of touched the turtle had they not warned me it was illegal to touch the turtles and arrests had recently been made for such an encounter. Instead I had to settle for some very cool Turtle footage. That waterproof case for Courtney’s new Flip camera paid off instantly!





So you have some idea as to the clarity of the water, those Turtles swam down probably about 30 feet to go under the reef. It was very clear, and compared to Molokini, this place was cloudy!

As we wrapped up this location, we were getting back on the boat, when a huge school of fish swarmed. Apparently one of the crew were feeding them and they were familiar with this routine. What I was able to capture was the last part of this swarm. Lisa, my aunt handed me her camera and was going to sink down a bit so I could take her picture in the school of fish. In the 30 seconds it took us to coordinate that, they were gone. Impressive none the less!



We then set off for Molokini, already satisfied with this trip. I had not expectations of seeing a turtle let alone filming one from and arms reach away! What could possibly top that!

When we got there, the Captain kept saying things like, “wow, I haven’t seen it this clear in a long time”. I have come to recognize that when crew members who do this every day get excited, you are about to see something unique. This happened last year on our Boston Whale watching tour. Our naturalist was giddy and squealing as we watched a mother humpback and her bay jump out of the water continuously for a good 20 minutes. So my ‘cool stuff’ radar was up. The captain said the visibility was at least 150 feet. Think about that. Your standard basketball goal is 10 feet. Stack 15 of those on top of each other and that is how far into the ocean you could see. It was like snorkeling in Ozarka water.

I am not one to wait for tourists even if I am one, so when the crew said go for it. I grabbed my fins and snorkel mask, and jumped in. As I was doing that, the following conversation took place between another snorkeler and a crew member.

Crew: “You might actually see some white tipped reef sharks here.”

Snorkeler: “what.”

C: “yeah, but don’t worry, they are as threatening as a Labrador Retriever.”

Me: “so, we could play fetch with the sharks?”

C: “Ha! Probably!”

A different snorkeler, on her honeymoon I believe, overheard the last two comments and said…

Honeymooner: “Wait. What? Sharks?”

Me: “Yeah! We get to play fetch with some sharks! Should be fun!”

Crew: “wait. Let me start over…”

I didn’t wait around for the crew to explain to the petrified honeymooner because frankly, the look on her face was all I needed…and so I jumped into Molokini’s Ozarka clear water and set off to discover something cool…

I’m not going to lie, at first I was not real impressed although it was very clear. It was basically the same type of fish we saw at turtle town cruising around. I did film a few, but am only going to post a few videos here more to show how clear and how blue the water was.







It then became more fun to film the people. So as I was cruising around with the Flip I was filming Courtney when my sister came up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and pointed straight down…



This 8 seconds of video is pretty useless except I know what she was point at…Shawna proceeded to practically jump out of the water and swam towards the boat screaming “Shark! Shark! There is a Shark in the water!”

So lets just back up a quick second and recall that conversation with the honeymooner and anyone else who was probably paranoid about sharks. The last thing they probably wanted to see or hear is someone in full fledged panic mode yelling about a shark in the water.

SO what did I do? I had a video camera! I swam after the thing of course! Now this was a white tipped reef shark, or apparently the Labradors of the snorkeling world, it was probably 3 feet long but as you can see in the video, not really threatening. I was on the surface, and was swimming as fast as I could trying to follow the thing about 15 to 20 feet below me. As I was doing this, I saw the biggest fish I had seen yet. It doesn’t really show on the video, but you’ll notice me cut away from the shark briefly to show a fish that was probably 2 feet long and 12 inches tall. Most of the rest of the fish you see are probably about the size of your hand and maybe a bit bigger. I tried to follow the shark as long as I could, but me in big ole flippers on the surface was no match for the little white tip.



Once the shark left, we basically were just swimming around. My brother David was the first to do it, and I’m not sure anyone else besides myself and crew actually did it, but we had the bright idea to free dive down to the bottom. These videos are pretty uneventful except I think it gives you a good perspective of how deep the water was despite how clear it looks. If you are really interested there are more on our YouTube channel



So snorkeling was a success. Heck the trip was a success at this point and we were only on the first Island! Our afternoon was spent in the historic whaling town of Lahina before we head back to the boat. Just driving on Hawaii is cool.

Maui was complete…Off to the Big Island, where I led the rebel cause and managed to get Shawna, Courtney, and myself deleted off the Passenger list of the cruise ship. It was SO worth it…

Jon

Hawaii, The Beginning - Greg Lind and Volcanic Surprises

To start with, this trip was extremely packed full of numerous experiences, from 100 feet below the ocean surface, to nearly 14,000 feet above it.

This trip will be split up into each days experience to avoid a 50 page long post. While there will be stories to explain videos and photos, the majority of these posts will likely be photos and videos with context provided.

Read what you want and re-vacation with us on the Blog, or simply ignore us for the next week or so as we post tons of photos and videos of our most recent adventure.
We look at it this way, its better to put the photos and videos up here so you can ignore us or watch as you choose rather than us plop down in your living room and tell you how amazing our trip was when you really don’t care.

So with those disclaimers…we landed in Oahu.

We literally got on a plane at 9am in Houston and thanks to that ever spinning globe we call Earth, we landed 8 hours later in Honolulu, Hawaii on the Island of Oahu at around 12:30pm and promptly got in our “transfer” vehicle. We were thinking beat up van, old taxi, whatever…nope. We got the luck of the draw, and our draw was a limo. Good start so far!

This Limo took us straight to our cruise ship, the Norwegian Cruise Lines “Pride of America”. We got checked in and promptly left the boat to go meet family for lunch before the boat departed.

Travel Day 1 – Wake up in Houston, Go to sleep on cruise boat in Hawaiian waters…so far so good.

Thanks to that lovely time change, we woke up the next morning at like 4 am or something ridiculous. For those keeping track at home that would be like 9 am Houston time. The advantage of that was we got to start off our trip to Maui by watching the sunrise through small ocean rain storms.

Good Morning Maui!

You would think that would be a good day in itself! Nope. We were just getting started…
First up on our list…Mama’s Fish House.

You think, a fish house, who cares? This is not your normal Fish House despite the hole in the wall name it goes by. This was considered by many at the table the best meal they have ever had, or at least right up there. The Menu literally listed the fish by the location of where the Fish was caught that morning and the Fisherman who caught the Fish. Courtney and I both had Some Hawaiian fish called the Unu (I think) that was caught that morning by Greg Lind somewhere near Maui.

I have no idea who Greg Lind is, but I am pretty sure I have never been to a restaurant that tells me who caught the animal I was going to eat. Ever been to a steak house that said Jorge Sanchez butchered Bessie this morning in the Fields outback. Nope, didn’t think so. So the food was fresh…but I haven’t even mentioned the view yet…

Then there is this fun tradition that you are supposed to do when you are in Hawaii. Try poi. Try what? Poi.
Wikipedia says this:

Poi is a Hawaiian word for the primary Polynesian staple food made from the corm of the taro plant (known in Hawaiian as kalo). Poi is produced by mashing the cooked corm (baked or steamed) until it is a highly viscous fluid. Water is added during mashing and again just before eating, to achieve a desired consistency, which can range from liquid to dough-like (poi can be known as two-finger or three-finger, alluding to how many fingers you would have to use to eat it, depending on its consistency).

They then provide this appetizing photo…

We describe in both texture and taste as “Wallpaper paste with a purple hue”
So …Courtney and my Uncle Sean got to try this delightful little delicacy…

Looks Yummy!

While that little diddy was going on at one side of the table, My Mom was trying raw oysters courtesy of my Chef Brother for the first time. I had to capture this paparazzi style. Rapid clicking of camera while trying raw oysters can only enhance the experience I am sure. The result was something like this, with a few edited out, but you get the point…

And just some Bonus photos from the beach at Mama’s Fish House…

So what do you do when you eat a huge meal and are this close to being in a Food Coma? Go drive for 3+ hours on a road famous for how twisty it is of course! We took off in our 3 rental car caravan on the Road to Hana. Something like 60 bridges and 200 turns in 36 miles...or something...

We only had one casualty from this little drive…One person didn’t quite make it the whole trek without bringing back lunch for a second go around…Nothing some serious Febreeze couldn’t handle! Probably sucks for the next person to rent that car after the Febreeze wears off…
But oh the views we discovered!

Then just when we were about to turn back to make the trek through the vomit comet road, we came across a sign that said “Hana Lava Tube”. So of course we had to go check it out! This was a little gem. The more famous Lava tubes are on the big Island as a apart of the Volcano National Park. This one wasn’t nearly as populated and at one point we turned our flashlights out and we could not see our finger poking our eyes. It was quite literally void of all light. What a Lava Tube is, is essentially an underground tube that formed when the volcano erupted and had solidified on the surface but continued to have molten lava flowing underground and essentially traveled through these tubes that later remained. Sometimes collapses would occur that would allow discovery and skylights. This particular tube was about a quarter mile to the point where we were no longer allowed to go. Everything you see in the pictures are rocks. Even the ones that look like we took brownie batter and tossed it on the ceiling…

And so we concluded our Improvised Day 1 of the cruise, and Day 1 on Maui. Yes. We didn’t plan any of this. Tomorrow, the planning begins, and what a plan it turned out to be!
Jon