How I Came to Be Mrs. Malone

After reading a friend's re-telling of her first impressions of her husband and their getting-together story, I was inspired to chronicle the story of David and Liz. We love to share our story and even have it down to a well-timed rhythm, each picking up the telling to share our side of the story, so perhaps David will finally come out of the woodworkings to tell you about how he fell madly in love with me. [I keep pestering him to post something on this blog because well....it says both our names, but he doesn't think he has anything to say or that anyone would care to hear from him. Maybe this will be just the topic to get him to write something.] Our birthday weekend always reminds me of how David and I came to be, because it was just around this time three years ago that it all began. But first, I have to tell you my first impression story because it so beautifully illustrates the goofy, childlike essence of David that I have come to love so much.

After graduating from BYU in August of 2005, I moved to Monterey, California to live with my older sister, who I love dearly and who is one of my best friends despite our five year age difference. She had just moved back to California after spending the last five years in Boston and I had decided to take a year off from school to work and relax while I prepared myself for the GRE, grad school applications, and more school. It seemed like the perfect solution to move to a quiet, beachside community in central California to live with Cassy for a year or so. [Of course, she went and got engaged four days after I moved in with her, but that's another story. I still haven't figured out how it happened.]

One of my first Sundays in my new ward, the Presidio of Monterey single's ward, we were having Linger Longer after church. I should briefly mention here that Monterey is home to the Defense Language Institute (DLI) where the military sends all their nerdy intellectual types to learn different languages (Korean, Chinese and Arabic being the most prevalent), hence the ward was largely comprised of military members, with a few "civilians" like myself. It was also a pretty tiny ward, which was a real change of pace from the BYU single's ward I had grown accustomed to in Provo. So there I was, sitting at a table, poking at the hodge-podge of food compiled on my plate, trying to talk and make new friends (thank goodness for Cassy and Monica), when a sudden commotion disrupted the conversations flying about the room.

I looked up to see a skinny little nerd in glasses, his suit jacket pockets and his pants pockets bulging with Motts applesauce cups, running away from a stern Korean sister, who was chastising him for stealing the applesauce and crying out for the Bishop to release him from his calling. (I think she was entirely serious too.) Well, everyone in the ward laughed along as David dodged around the tables, fleeing from Mikyoung's wrath, all the while claiming that the person who had brought the applesauce in the first place had said he could take them.

I'll never forget that first glance of David, pockets bulging with applesauce in the cultural hall in Monterey. David often says that he doesn't make a good first impression, and if his performance on the day in September of 2005 is any indication of the general way people meet David, I'd say it's true. Or at least, he makes a very distinct impression.

Well, after that, David and I had little to no interaction at church or at social functions. We hadn't formally met but I knew who he was and he knew who I was, mostly because he was the Executive Secretary and was a very visible member of the ward. There was one Sunday when he complimented my outfit and told me I looked nice, which completely baffled me because I wasn't much in the habit of being complimented by oblivious guys. I totally thought someone had set him up to say it. (I didn't know then that David has quite the eye for fashion and is anything but oblivious to what women wear. He pays particular attention to shoes and I was wearing my sister's red heels that day.)

Then there was the FHE held at the second counselor's house in February that was all about dating and why we needed to date each other and what both the men and women needed to do on dates, like opening up doors and saying thank you or just saying yes in the first place. I had gotten a ride with Monica, who after FHE, made David come out to the car to give him a box of fruit for his birthday. (I discovered that it was David's birthday....only two days before mine.) David made a big show of opening up the car doors for both of us, which I thought was a comical reaction to FHE's topic. Little did I know that David opens all doors for all females.

[Now I need to have a sidenote to talk about Monica. Monica is our Mexican yenta and has had a hand in marrying off three of the four Hayman children. She was the missionary companion of Elisa, my brother's wife, who moved to Monterey when Elisa moved there to date my brother and was long-suffering and patient in the long drawn-out process that finally got those two married. Then, she was the go-between between my sister Cassy and her girl-shy husband Brigham. And, without Monica's help, David and I would never, not in a million years, have ever started dated. So thank you Monica. My family owes you big time. You should talk to my Dad about getting some type of payment for all your services.]

Anyway, later that week, my sister and I held a dinner party in honor of my 23rd birthday. We were having a fondue party in which all the food was being dipped in something. We had fruit dip and cheese fondue and won tons to be dipped in sweet and sour sauce. We had invited a number of people, many of who were not able to attend. Unbeknownst to both my sister and me, Monica invited David to come to my birthday dinner. After David was assured that this was totally okay (since he didn't even know me!), he asked if he could bring his roommate Jacob (later to be the Best Man at our wedding). Monica said yeah, that'd be great, just bring fruit or something to be dipped in cheese.

So that night, I'm frying up won tons like a madwoman when I heard a knock on our door. I opened up the door and David and Jacob were standing there. After recovering from my shock of seeing these two random people at my door, I let them in and begin to set two extra plates around the table. David then proceeded to take a few items out of grocery bag: some strawberries and a box of herbal tea. We all looked at him and said, "Tea? Why did you bring tea?!?" To which David insisted that Monica had told him to bring something to dip in TEAS. He had even asked her to repeat herself several times on the phone and was convinced she had said TEAS and not CHEESE. He was really confused but didn't want to come empty-handed and so he had bought tea.

We all laughed about his mistake and then sat down to dinner. It was then that I discovered just how humorous David is and he was likewise impressed, probably by the fact that I could cook. (David cannot cook to save his life.) Anyway, that night, interest was piqued on both sides. We talked a little back and forth, but nothing happened until the St. Patrick's Day dance in March.

See, our ward was very tiny, but the activities chairperson insisted on holding a dance for all twenty people who might show up. While I questioned it then, it was the thing David and I needed to finally bring us together. While David didn't come out to a lot of the activities (because he was so busy and stressed out with school), he does happen to be a dancing fool and was very vocal about his excitement for the dance. I was feeling rather sick that night and almost declined to come, but friends convinced me otherwise. David asked me to dance twice, the second time for the last slow song of the night. Afterwards, he asked me if I had any plans the next day (Saturday) and if I wanted to come with a group of people to the movies. I said sure and gave him my phone number. I was keeping a LiveJournal at the time and this is what I wrote about the dance the next day:

The dance last night wasn't so bad. It was a tad lame because there were so few people there and the obligatory bad music, but it still turned out to be an enjoyable night. I was only there for an hour, but I got asked to dance 4 times, twice by the same guy [David] who is a horrible dancer but he does it with such gustso that you can't help but find it endearing. I have a crush on his adorable goofiness. He's hilarious and we have similar senses of humor so its easy to play off him. He's the type of guy I would date for fun.

Oh, how young and innocent I was then. I had no idea what was in store for me. But anyway, like promised, David called me up the next day, gave me the details for the evening's plans, and said he'd come pick me up around 7:30pm. When he came to the door to get me and I got out to the car, David opened the front passenger door for me and I was surprised to find that Jacob and Kimberly (David's two good friends who he drove everywhere) were in the backseat and that the front seat was open for me. (Later I found out that David had kicked Kimberly out of the front seat so that I could sit there. She was not happy about it.) We drove to the movie theater next to the mall and saw the movie 16 Blocks, with Bruce Willis. Afterwards, the group of us (there were 8-10 people that night) went to Starbucks for hot chocolate and then David drove me home. Not 15 minutes after he dropped me off, David texted me with this message: “Thanks for coming with us tonight! I hope you had fun. See you at church. Good night!” Unfortunately, my phone was still on silent and I didn't get the text until the next morning. But that was the beginning. The months to follow before he finally asked me out were certainly interesting ones.

I had no idea then what was in store for the both of us and that that goofy guy with the bulging pockets of applesauce cups, who brought tea instead cheese, who danced horribly with exuberant abandon would be the man that I would marry. All I can say is that it has been a fun ride with David by my side. And maybe soon, I'll chronicle the long and painful process that finally led David to asking me out. Or maybe you'll hear it in his own words. Either way, the whole story is chronicled in my LiveJournal. :-)

Drive By Posting

I have not been feeling very bloggy lately so this will be short and probably full of lots of pictures. Work has been keeping me pretty busy these last two weeks (finally!) and David has gone back into work/school hermit mode but he'll be coming up for air next week, just in time for our shared birthday weekend. Our birthdays are only two days apart and we've taken to just having one big birthday celebration over three days. So I'll be back next week to regale you with tales from our birthday extravaganza(s) and maybe I'll even finally convince David to pen an entry as a birthday gift to me. (Hint, hint.) In the meantime, here are some photos from the hike David and I went on last week to Maunawili Falls near Kaneohe.

The falls and the crazy people who were jumping into what I can only imagine is a shallow pool.

On the ridge of the mountain before descending back into the valley to reach the waterfall.

One of the many parts of the hike where we had to jump rocks to get across the stream and continue on our hike. It was very very muddy that day. And we stupidly wore flip flops (slippers, as they call them here).

The stream.

One really awesome tree. The hike was more arduous than I had expected and it was extremely, ridiculously muddy. I'd post a picture of what my legs looked like after the hike, but it's gross, so I'll spare you.

Until next time....

Let's play a game...

Let's play a game called....guess how many geckos are on my wall.


Can you see all of them? The live in the air conditioner. One likes to hang out in the light above the kitchen sink. Sometimes, when we come home after being gone awhile, the geckos will come out of their hiding places to party.

There were four of them the night we came home and I grabbed the camera to snap this picture. One of them ran away. One is hiding underneath the curtain. I don't think you can really see him.

See? Total party animal.

Just another perks of living in Hawaii. All those free geckos.

What to do when your husband is away....

Unlike most members of the military, my husband doesn't work crazy odd hours at all times of the day. He has a very normal Monday through Friday, 7am to 3pm desk job. I quite like it that way. Except on the nights--like tonight--when he has to stand "watch." It's an extra duty that David has to do about once a month (sometimes more, sometimes less) in which he does nothing at some building down in Pearl Harbor. [Can I say that honey, or will you have to kill me and all my loyal blog readers now?]

Anyway, tonight he's standing the mid watch which means he's down there from around 10pm until 7am. (Yeah, talk about fun.) So here I am, at 3am, trying to decide if I want to crawl into our big, cold, lonely bed without my own personal heater or just suck it up for another four hours until he comes home.

See, the one thing I was unprepared for was how much I'd end up missing David on nights like these when he should be home, but he's standing watch or out of town. We spent nearly two years apart but now that we've been married seven months, I've gotten quite used to having him around and I have no idea what to do when he's not around and I start missing him. I don't know what I'm going to do when he goes away for a few weeks for his language training. Who am I going to talk to? Who's going to keep my bed warm? Ladies, what to do when your husband goes away? Party? Eat cookies in bed? Mope?

I know I shouldn't complain though. If anyone knows what it's like to be separated from her husband it's my sister. I think I can handle one night.

But I'm running out of Buffy episodes to watch on Hulu.

Help!


P.S. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. day! I hope ya'll enjoy. Me, I'll be sleeping.

My One Year Quest to be Less Lazy

I'm not much for New Year's resolutions. I never keep them, I never even try. I think about them and they generally are always the same every year: be more diligent about reading my scriptures and praying, be cleaner, keep in better contact with friends, exercise. I've turned very lazy recently and I'm liking it less and less each day. I'm not going to pretend to make resolutions this year but there's a few things I'd like to do this year to make myself less lazy. And maybe if I write them down, it may actually come true.

Get Published
I still have visions of getting my Ph.D. and I know that if I get published in an academic journal, I'll have a much better shot of getting into a program. I wrote a research paper in grad school which was highly commended. I presented at a school symposium and received more positive feedback. I even submitted it to a larger conference held here in Hawaii each year and my submission was accepted but I couldn't afford the $400 registration fee. Plus I was just too lazy to make more of an effort. Before I can submit it for publication, though, I need to do some serious revisions. I've done a lot of the research and I can do more of it online through the Library of Congress's online archives, but I'm lazy. Maybe if I can work on it a little each week, I can get the revisions done that I need and submit the paper by the end of the year.

Read More
I already read a lot. I love reading. And I've got plenty to read. But I want to start interspersing more non-fiction historical books and classics of literature into my fun reading. There's so much I haven't read and so much I want to learn.

Clean More
I went through this period my last year of grad school when I was obsessive about keeping things clean. It was a really weird compulsion that I've never had before or since. I've lost it now. David and I aren't dirty people but we both have the habit of putting things down and not putting them in their right places and then the house starts to feel a little cluttered. I know if I don't fix this now, it'll be worse once we have kids. So my goal is to clean for at least half an hour each day. Starting with the mountain of laundry threatening to take over our bedroom.

Spend Less Time on the Internet
I'll admit it...I'm an internet junkie. I spend way too much time online. Like right now. I'm watching an episode of Buffy on www.hulu.com on my laptop while writing this message on our desktop. How's that for an internet addiction? It's spreads to two computers. At one time. So, in order to be more productive, I need to be glued less to my computer. For a start.

Learn Korean
So I figure that if I'm going to live in Korea for two years, I should at least be able to ask where the bathroom is and know how to order food. David has been trying to teach me but I've been a reluctant student. Time to get cracking on the alphabet.

Commit More Time to My Job
I have a part-time job which allows me to mostly work from home for 17 hours a week. Only problem is, I don't keep constant hours and I don't often meet those 17 hours (not that I'm required to). But it would be nice to, you know, get a consistent paycheck, so I figure I should try to work a little every day so that I start clocking in 17 hours. There's a lot I could be doing that I'm not.

Find a Job in Korea
We'll be moving there in about 6 months time (give or take a month or two) and I should probably start looking soon if I'm going to find a job there. I'd most like to find a teaching position in an American school there.

Use the Wii Fit More
So I was way into using our Wii Fit for like a week but I haven't been on that thing in two weeks. But then I weighed myself today and got a pretty rude awakening. I want to get in better shape and maintain my weight so that I can continue to eat cake and cookies. To that end, I want to use the Wii Fit for at least 30 minutes every day.

Visit More of the Island(s)
Often, we just sit around, doing nothing. Well, David does homework. I do nothing. But I don't want to miss anything while I live here, so I'd like to visit the other islands. Go snorkeling or to the beach more. Visit the sights. I don't want to sit around all day anymore.

So okay, these do sound like resolutions. Whoops. Now that means that I won't keep them. But maybe I can at least try to be a little less lazy. Starting....now.

Public Service Announcement - You Should Watch Firefly

Hi. This here post is about obsessions. Over the years, I've had many, many obsessions. Some of which were fun and fleeting and some of which were enduring and all-consuming. Some of which had to do with *Nsync which I'd really rather not talk about right now. (Seriously, how embarrassing is that? Sorry everyone who knew me freshmen year at BYU.) Over the years, I have learned how to monitor my obsessive personality and my tendency to, well, obsess over many things and to keep them in check. Well, almost.


I have a few long standing obessions: Chocolate. History. Books. Museums. Pretty shoes. Checking my email 82 million times a day. Pop culture.


Right now, I have two new addictions: the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and Joss Whedon's Firefly.


Several friends of ours [me and David] had repeatedly told us to watch the short-lived but critically aclaimed television show Firefly. I'd heard about it, of course, but never knew much about it except that it was created by Joss Whedon, he who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which I once loved. (Actually, I still think it was one of the best written shows on TV but that's another discussion for another day.) But I also knew that it got cancelled after only half a season (there are 14 episodes) and I'm tired of falling in love with cancelled and/or soon-to-be-cancelled shows. (Stupid ABC.)


But then I found all 14 episodes for free at Hulu.com, so David and I sat down to watch them last week. By the third episode, we were hooked. We watched as many episodes as we could each day and then on Saturday, after a long and draining morning attending Sister Kim's funeral, we came home to watch the remaining four episodes we had left. We finished the last episode around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night and we both wanted to immediately watch Serenity, the feature film follow-up that basically wrapped up the series. [You could watch Serenity without having seen the show first, but it makes a lot more sense if you do.]


Well, I had planned on renting the movie from the library because it only costs a dollar, but neither David or I could stand to wait until Monday when the library re-opened, so we raced to our room to put on clothes (as we're much in the habit of of wearing our pjs as soon as we get home), and then raced to Wal-Mart to see if we could just buy the movie there. They didn't have it, so we raced over to the nearest Blockbuster to rent it. The movie secured, we came home and popped it in at 10:30 p.m. It was a completely satisfying ending to a very good television show. And I was grateful that the movie had been made so they show could have its final good-bye and not leave the fans with no answers.

The best way I can describe the show is a western set in space. It's far more complex than that, but that gives you the general feel of the show. Like all Joss Whedon creations, the characters are complex, the dialouge is rich and filled with wit, and the banter is snappy. If you like sci-fi, if you like Star Wars, if you've ever liked an episode of Buffy, you should watch this show.

I'll let you know if I find any other obsessions. I have a new one about every other week.

And you're welcome.

A Two Hour Tour

This is my husband.


Cute, isn't he? He's in the Navy. When I tell people that my cute husband is in the Navy, I get knowing looks and often the question, "Is he gone from home a lot?" And when I tell them that no, my husband isn't that kind of sailor, you know, the ones that actually go out on ships or boats, they look at me funny as if they've never imagined that someone in the Air Force could not be a pilot (which most are not, the Navy actually has more pilots) and that someone in the Navy could be a land-loving linguist who sits behind a desk and does not, in fact, live on a ship/boat for 6 months out of the year.

And really, it's so much better that way. Because after two hours on a whale watching tour around Honolulu harbor, my adorable little husband was quite seasick. And you know what else? He's not a very good swimmer either. Makes you wonder why he picked the Navy, doesn't it? It's a family thing really.

But this is all beside the point of this post. The point of this post is to inundate you with photographs from the aforementioned [aforementioned is such a wonderful word, isn't it? I try to use it as often as possible] two hour tour.

Oh here we are. Proof that, indeed, we were on a boat. This is about halfway through the tour, right about when David started to really wish for land again.


Here's the top deck of the boat, Starlet. It wasn't the most fabulous ride ever, nor did it have the best amenities, but it was the cheapest whale watching tour and the earliest (8:30 a.m. departure time) which meant that there were fewer boats in the harbor disturbing the whales and other sea creatures. They did, however, provide ginger pills to help calm motion sickness which, I think, helped a little. At least no one threw up.

Here's us getting ready to leave the dock and head out for Honolulu. The buildings in the background are of Honolulu and that thing jutting out on the right side is Diamond Head, the extinct volcano that forms part of the southeastern tip of Oahu.

We set out for our great adventure, hoping to see whales in all their glory. At least, we hoped to see a tail or something flipping out of the water.

As it was, this was about all we saw of a whale. We encountered the lone whale almost immediately after leaving the dock and followed it for a little while along the coast.


He came up for air a few times but did not engage in any breathtaking theatrics to excite the audience on the boat.


And then this little boat came chugging through the waters and impeded our view of the whale.

So we continued on on our tour, with the hopes that we'd encounter other whales near Diamond Head. Apparently, each boat/ship [I wish I knew all the different types of sailing vessels and what to call them but alas, anything that floats is a ship to me. Except a submarine. That I know is a boat...] can only stay attached to a whale for a given amount of time before they must leave the whale alone. Good policy, in my opinion.

So we continued out into the harbor and down toward Diamond Head. I liked seeing Honolulu from this view. Also, I'm really into this tilt-y thing with my camera. I can't help myself. I think it makes for cool shots. But I'm starting to think I'm over-using it a tad.

So here's a normal shot of Diamond Head. There are a couple of good hikes on and near the volcano that are pretty cool. David and I have done two of them. We should do them again. When we reached Diamond Head about an hour into our tour, we turned around.

And passed this catamaran with pink sails. It was pink! I had to take a picture. If I ever have a sailboat [which I never will after discovering my husband's non-sea friendly stomach], it would have pink sails. Just sayin'.

As we were making our way back to the dock, we saw dolphins jumping and twirling and diving in the distance. Dolphins are much more theatrical animals. And very friendly. Actually, they kinda like to show-off.


They were jumping and diving. And a few of them, mostly the smaller teenage dolphins, were doing twists and turns in the air. So playful.


Our boat pulled up closer to the dolphins so that we could get a better look and enjoy the dolphin show they were putting on for us.


A big group of dolphins came up right underneath the bow of the boat and swam along with us for quite awhile.


It was really quite a neat experience to watch the dolphins. It made David really want to swim with the dolphins. I didn't mention the fact that he can't swim all that well.

So, the dolphins eventually left us and went to play elsewhere as we pulled back into the dock. We never saw any other whales but the dolphins definitely made the trip worth it. There are several other activities that David and I would like to do before we leave Hawaii, including visiting the other islands, and whale watching was definitely one of those on my list.

David goes back to his regular work schedule and starts school next week, so life will be much more boring starting then. Hopefully I'll still find something worth writing about.

A Drive Around the Island

Last Saturday, David and I drove up the windward side of the island from Kaneohe to Laie, which I hadn't seen before. While David drove, I hung out the side of the car, snapping pictures as we whizzed past beach, ocean and palm trees.

Kam Highway, which runs basically around the island, sits right next to the ocean, and there's not a lot of beach, really, but this is pretty typical of what the windward side looks like.

Blurry trees and all.

There's not much between Kaneohe and Laie [I don't even think they have a grocery store] but there are several homes, even some that are built up on stilts right on the beach. Crazy people. Have fun when the next tsunami hits.

There were lots of palm trees. And it was quite windy. We stopped at a beach park along the way to take in what little there was to see and to walk around the park.

You can see the mountains in the background, which separate the windward side from the rest of the island.

It was a bit dark and cloudy, but I sometimes like ominous clouds. When I'm safe inside.

There's a little island off the shore of the beach park. I forget what it's called.

We drove all the way to Laie before we stopped to eat and turn around. I jumped out of the car to snap a few photos of the temple. I've been meaning to take photos but I always forgot my camera when we went to the temple and now that it's closed for renovations, I didn't know if or when we'd be back up that way.

Though I'd still like to go to the Polynesian Culture Center before we leave the islands.

The Laie temple is the oldest active temple built outside of Utah (finished in 1919) and it's pretty small and in definite need of updates.

Tomorrow, David and I are going on a whale-watching tour off the coast of Honolulu. Hopefully there will be more pictures, and hopefully even one or two of whales.

Seriously?

Seriously, where is everyone? I know it's the holidays and everything and that some people may have lives but seriously? Where did everyone go? Did everyone just fall off the face of the planet and cease to blog? [And also, I'm probably going to say seriously a lot because David and I just watched an episode of Kim Possible featuring a character named MotorEd who sports a fabulous mullet and says seriously way too often. You have been warned.]

Okay, so most people do have lives and did go to fun and exciting places for the holidays while I sat at home and went nowhere and did nothing. Actually, David and I have been keeping pretty busy what with death hikes and hospital visits and the like. Here's some of our random goings-on from the last week:

1. A shopping trip to Ala Moana Center, the biggest and fanciest mall in all of Hawaii, full of stores like Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Coach, Betsy Johnson, Tiffany's, and Harry Winstons. It's that kind of mall but also, it has some of my favorite stores like Aldo shoes, Lucky Brand Jeans, Williams Sonoma, and Banana Republic. [There is a BR outlet close to our home too, thank goodness.] So, both David and I kinda hate driving to Honolulu because traffic sucks (no matter what time of day or day of the week), and Hawaiian roads are ridiculous. Seriously. It took us an hour to drive 16 miles at 11 a.m on a Tuesday morning. I just....I can't explain. Anyway, we had a very successful shopping trip. Or I should say I had a very successful shopping trip. My wonderful and loving husband bought me three pairs of Aldo shoes (all on sale), a pair of Lucky jeans (half off), two necklaces (2 for $15), and a pretty purple silk dress from Banana Republic. David also bought a very nice looking pair of Lucky Jeans for himself (with my hearty approval). It definitely helps that David 1) likes to shop and 2) willingly buys me any and all high heels I want. What can I say....he's got a thing for shoes. I know ya'll are jealous. It's okay. I didn't realize my good luck until after I married him.

2. I learned that Hawaiians like fireworks. A lot. Seriously. A LOT. See, I grew up in California where fireworks are illegal to purchase and I always find it so strange to see fireworks for sale at Wal-Mart, plain as day or to have people set them off in their driveways. I swear all the residents of Mililani must have spent thousands of dollars on fireworks with the amount of noise and smoke and cracklers going off all day on New Year's Eve. Plus, they do it in the street or in their driveways [WAY too close to buildings and cars] and set off car alarms and rock the windows. I'm so glad its over.

3. I've been enjoying my Wii Fit even though it keeps telling me that I'm unbalanced, and learning to rock out on the drums on Guitar Hero World Tour. I have terrible rhythm, but I'm slowly getting the hang of the drums, although the pedal still gives me problems. I pretty rock the guitar though.

4. We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which is slow and meandering and beautiful and haunting. Not the type of movie you watch more than once, but well worth the experience once.

5. I inadvertently reawakened David's love of Legos. There are Legos everywhere. All the Star Wars Legos are battling each other on the living room floor right now. So far a single clone droid is the only casulality but I'm pretty sure C3PO will wander into some sort of trouble sooner or later. He always does.

6. We watched Wall-E for the first time and ate kettle corn popcorn. Loved it. The movie, not the popcorn. Though that wasn't bad either.

7. We drove around the Windward [east] side of the island since I hadn't seen that side of the coast before. This is what we saw: beach, ocean, palm trees.....Yup, that was about it. Pictures are forthcoming.

I'm avoiding taking down all my holiday decorations and admitting that the fun holiday times are over, but I will be glad when people stop having fun and get back to blogging or hanging around online. Seriously. It's like ya'll have lives or something. Stop that. I'm getting a little bored. And I've already read four books this week. Well, actually...that's pretty typical.

Nevermind then.

Part III: Stairway to Heaven or I how almost died at the top of a mountain....

Stairway to Heaven (or Hai'ku Stairs) is one of Oahu's most famous hikes, made only more popular and desirable a climb because of its illegal status. I won't go until the details of why nearly 4,000 stairs were installed into the side of a massive mountainside or why it is now illegal, but if you want to read a little bit more about the hike and it's insanity, click here or here.

David has been dying to make the climb ever since he first heard about it a couple of years ago, but never found the right time or a group of people with whom to do it. The entrance to the trail is generally manned by a guard to prevent people from going up the stairs and you have to get there and on the trail early, early in the morning, before the guard shows up at 6 a.m. So when the Siebachs invited us to join them and a group of their friends on the hike the day after Christmas, we lept at the chance. I, for one, was totally unprepared for what was to come.

Sure, I knew there were a lot of stairs. And sure, I knew that you basically climb into the clouds and it gets really cold. But the hike kicked my trash and I'm glad I've lived to tell the tale.

Our story begins at 4 a.m. on Friday morning, when David and I woke to our dual alarms clanging and clacking us awake. We dressed and packed our small camelback hiking bag (with our provisions for the day for both of us) and walked over to the Siebach's house to wait for the three other people joining us on the hike. By 5:30 a.m., we'd made it to Kaneohe (after one or two wrong turns) and had found a relatively inconspicuous parking spot in a residential neighborhood near the first gate.

Now, there are many barriers in place to prevent eager hikers from reaching the stairs, but they are in such disrepair that it seems almost a joke to have them there in the first place. So we easily climbed over a fallen section of fence to reach a road, then traveled through a dark bamboo forest with the aid of a few flashlights (remember we began this hike when it was still pitch black outside) and paraded past the empty guard station to the trail head.

Had it been light enough outside to see anything, we might have stopped to see these signs at the foot of the trail.

But since it was pitch black, we strolled right past them, on our merry way, and shimmied past the second gated fence and got into position inside the metal railings of the stairs.

Now had it not been pitch black and had I been able to see that this was what I was about to climb up, I might not have agreed to this in the first place. But being blissfully ignorant of my future, I began the climb with all the zeal and excitement my sleep-deprived body could muster.
It wasn't very long after starting the climb--which at some points is quite literally vertical, like climbing a ladder--that I realized how woefully out of shape I was and quickly fell behind the others. Luckily, David was not about to abandon his wife in her time of need and he fell back to encourage me the rest of the way up.

I was ready to give up many, many times, especially when I would think we were nearing the top of the ridge, only to discover that there were nothing but more stairs in my future. Every muscle in my body was protesting and I had to stop and rest constantly, trying to wipe the dewy mist from my body. But finally FINALLY! I made it to the first platform, with the hardest part behind me.

The sun was just coming up as we reached the platform and I was greeted with this view of Kaneohe Bay below us.


It was a good thing I got a look at it when I did, because the clouds moved in not too long afterward and this was all I saw for the rest of the climb:

On a clear day, you can see all the way to Kaneohe on one side and to Pearl Harbor on the other. All I saw was stairs, sheer cliffs, and whiteness.

At the second platform, there's an old abandoned building, an old supply depot of some form, missing its roof and full of rusting parts.

Like the old pulley system behind us.

I don't think anyone would really want to use it anymore.

But I love old rusted bits of machinery. Can't say why.


So we continued climbing past the second platform, where the trail widened out a bit. There were some parts of the trail that were so narrow that I could barely squeeze my child-bearing hips through. But I actually discovered that the narrow railings made it quite a bit easier and much less dangerous in the ascent and descent. I think part of the reason the trail is "closed" is because it's not fit for two-way traffic. There's no room for squeezing past someone.

But, as we moved across the top of the ridge, to the final platform, the trail was wider and less vertical. And when we reached the end of the trail, we came up to another abandoned building.

The old building was an old satellite/radar outpost once used by the Navy and built during World War II.

Hence the big, unusable satellites.

More rusty things. Just because....

We stopped and rested inside the old building while two of the boys rigged up hammocks. It had taken us an hour and a half to reach the summit and I was hot and sweaty and my muscles were quaking with the effort but suddenly, I became inexplicably and undeniably cold. As I lay in one of the hammocks, wearing two sweatshirts, I started to shake uncontrollably and my teeth started to chatter. I'd never had my body temperature drop so quickly and while I knew it wasn't normal, it didn't scare me.

Poor David, on the other hand, was very worried but he went automatically into Boy Scout mode and started treating me for hypothermia. The other, more prepared members of our group, lent me a pair of warm track pants and a windbreaker and I stripped out of my damp clothes and into the warmer, drier clothes. David and I decided to start back down the mountain before I became incapacitated while the rest of the group stayed behind.

I started to warm up once we came out of the clouds and got past the first abandoned building, but my legs were turning rapidly into rubber. Anytime I paused, my legs shook....but eventually, I realized that this was happening to everyone else and didn't feel so ashamed.


The climb back down took us half the time it did to come up....and thank goodness too because I don't know if I'd have made it off the mountain if we had stayed any longer. And since it was actually daylight by the time we scurried down the mountain, I was able to get some shots of the craziness that is Hai'ku Stairs, like David descending out of the clouds on our way back down.


Or two of our companions making their way down the stairs. There were some parts that were scarier to come down than to come up, but for the most part it did not require one to make such faces as the guy above did.

Here is the most vertical section of the climb, which requires you to climb down like a ladder, while clinging to both the rails and ropes.

But though Stairway to Heaven was crazy and it nearly killed me, as you can see....it was totally worth it. Even the parts when I thought I was going to die. And even later that day, when I still felt sick from climbing 85 million stairs and even now, when my calves ache from all the activity and my knees don't want to bend anymore. Totally worth it.

So we made it off the mountain and back through the hole in the fence [so much for our early start....the guard never came] and then we passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops....oh, wait. We just went through the bamboo forest and down the road and over the fallen fence and back to the car.

And then we came home. And died.

Well, actually, we got breakfast and then the Siebachs, David and I went to the hospital to visit Brad and Charlie. And then, just as we had sat down to eat dinner with Gaby, Luke [the Siebachs], and the missionaries, a lightning and thunder storm rolled into Oahu and wiped out all the power on the entire island for twelve hours.

So my morning starting in the pitch black bamboo forest and ended in my pitch black bedroom. But oh, what a glorious day it was indeed.