Boise, ID

I am horrible about this blog, but a ton has happened since the last blog! We have moved to Nampa Idaho because Darren is doing an internship for American Construction Supply and I am student teaching at Reagan Elementary. Darren started on the first of August and has loved working! I started inservice this last week and they were full of meetings and working in the classroom. School starts on Monday, and I am so excited. I have officially 37 kids in my class, so I am sure that there will never be a dull moment!

We have done a few touristy things in the Boise area, but as we live here longer we will be able to do more. We went to the old State Penitentiary and it was so cool! The buildings were amazing and the history that was there was very fascinating. This coming week the Western Idaho Fair is coming to Boise, and I am so excited to go!! I love fairs, because that means fair food and especially elephant ears.. I hope they have them :)

I haven't taken very many pictures since we have been here, but as soon as I do then I will post them!

Catching Up!

A lot has happened since the last blog! We are back in Idaho and doing great. We got back right before Christmas and made the move back to Idaho and got all unpacked. Darren had knee surgery just 2 days after we got back. He did great through surgery and recovery was a little more complected. We drove to Washington for Christmas and spent time with both of our families. School started up again in January and we made it through the semester with no problems.

Now that everyone is a little caught up we are in the summer semester at BYU-I. Kylie is in her last semester on campus and Darren just has 2 more! We are enjoying the weather getting nicer and we both have our bikes out and riding every where. Darren is working on campus for an old teacher. He is working in the wood shop and loves it!

Another move is not too far away. We will be moving to Boise in August because Kylie is doing her student teacher there. She will be in a 4th grade class at Reagen Elementary school in Nampa. Darren will be doing an internship in Boise as well. The company does the concrete frame work for the new freeway they are doing. We are both excited to be getting done with school! Kylie will be walking in July, just a few short months away :)

We had some great friends Mike and Lyndsey (& Drake) just move away and they will be missed for sure :( Well, that is our life in a nutshell. The pictures below are just a few of what we have done in the last few days.


When we got out!


The group that went.


Burt the Blazer and Tyler's new Jeep.

Few Days Left

We have been on Maui since August and our time is coming to an end. We are leaving in just a few days. We have had so much fun while we have been here and have loved every minute of it. The last few days we have been able to go exploring around the island because we ended work last week. Thursday we hopped on the scooter and drove to Wailea which is on the other side. We went and looked around all the hotels for christmas trees. We also went to Alexanders which is a fish place that we love, and it was amazing as usual. Then on Saturday we drove the west side of Maui to go to the Olivine pools. It was so windy that we couldn't even get down to them but it was so much fun. Sunday we went to Costco and had great samples. Monday we went on our whale watch. It was so fun! We saw tons of whales, full breech, tales, and even males fighting. It was so cool to see. We also went through the middle of 300 spinner dolphins which were jumping out of the water. I was so glad that we were able to go out and see all the animals. Here are some pictures of our recent adventures.

Wailea:




Olivine Pools:





Whale Watching:

Mardi Gras of the Pacific

We just experienced our first Halloween on Maui. Oh man, what a crazy night it was, It was one of the best people watching I have ever watched in my life. I now know why it is called the Mardi Gras of the Pacific. I have to say there were more bums showing then I ever want to see for the rest of my life. I had to work, but I was still able to dress up. Darren and I went as caveman. Some people thought we were from the Flinstones, but we were not! After I got off work, we were able to jump from place to place to hang out. It was a ton of fun and we are glad we were finally able to get the full experience.




Some of the real treasures of the night :)

Still living the dream!

We have been working more and more which is good, but it has cut down our time at the beach. But thats okay, because we can still go anytime we want. We have been going on some great adventures and just been having a great time. We recently went to the Maui County Fair, and had so much fun. It is pretty small, but they still had great fair food!! We went to their animal section and lets just say, Idaho has them beat by a lot! There were like 6 cows, a few long horns and alpacas. Even though there were not very many animals it was still fun! We wish everyone well and ALOHA!

Our Funnel Cake

Forest Ranger Station

Entrance of the Fair


Welcome to our backyard!

Finally.. Pictures

At the Old Lahaina Luau

Dinner, under the dirt

<3

We recently went to a luau and these are just a few pictures. I know we need to take more pictures, so we will try and I will post them soon!

Aloha

Aloha!! We are having a great time in Hawaii. We have been here for a little over a month and are finally getting into the swing of things. Maui is in its slow season which means all the restaurants are less busy and everyone just gets fewer hours. We hear that it starts to pick up near halloween (which is called the Mardi Gras of the pacific) so we are looking forward to that day. We usually work at night so it gives us the whole entire morning to go to the beach and read our books enjoying the sun. As my wise uncle says "we are brown as bears!!". We have our favorite beaches but we are expanding our horizon and trying new ones.

Recently we went harvesting in our backyard. We have two huge mango trees, a lemon-line tree (we don't know which one it actually is and the whole family is split so we decided it had to be both), two banana trees, and a grapefruit tree. We have been picking mangos regularly, but then we did our big harvest. We picked 9 grapefruit and one weighed 6 pounds. These are no ordinary grapefruits. We had a huge bundle of mangos and tons of lemon-limes. The bananas are not quite ripe yet so that will be on the next harvest. But the grapefruits were the most shocking. We placed many on our back fence to see if anyone would take them. And they did!! (I will put of pictures of our harvest in a few days!)

There are many interesting people who live in Hawaii and many of them are very sketchy people. I was walking home from work one night, Darren was already home and I came around the corner of our house and there was a bum sleeping in our walk way in his sleeping bag with his pillow. I quickly turned around in a panic and went to the lights by the store next to our house and called Darren. He came out and told the guy they he had to leave, so after about 15 min the bum packed up his stuff and left. I thought I was safe but then just a few days later he was back. I no longer will go through the front entrance, I head around the back!! Many people have told us how to get the bum to move, but Darren says he will just spray him with the hose. I cannot wait for that day so he wont come back!!

We are having the best time of our lives and still cannot believe we actually live in Hawaii. Aloha!