Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Hawaii Trip

At the end of August we took a trip to my home sweet home. It was sooo much fun! I so wish, and Ben is starting to wish, that we could afford to live there. I don't know how anyone wouldn't want to live in Hawaii. It is the greatest state ever! Anyway back to our trip, like I said it was a lot of fun. We were only there for about 6 days, which is not enough but we took what we could take. I was able to show Ben some of my favorite things about the island and some of the tourist things. We weren't the best at remembering to bring our camera everywhere we went, but we still got some great photos. When we landed we went to Costco and Walmart with my mom and didn't get home until 6pm, but we were still able to give Ben a little tour of the North Shore and around Laie, my home town. By the time we were done with dinner we were tired and ready to go to bed because we had been up for 20 hours and flying. The next day we just hung out and went swimming in my pool and the beach by my house. I got stung by a blue bubble, but it wasn't too bad. For those of you don't know what a blue bubble is here is a picture of one out on the sand for you,

The bubble is harmless but the tail is what gets you and it can wrap around you and for some people it really hurts. Luckily it doesn't hurt me and it also only brushed past my fingers. Also that morning I had a doctor appointment and then took him for an acai bowl and fell in love with them. They taste so good! I need to find some acai on the mainland so I can make em for him.
The next day I took ben to do the touristy stuff. We first went to the swap meet and got everyone in his family some presents and he loved driving through the tunnels to get there because they don't have a whole lot of those in Idaho. He took a bunch of pictures of them but i will only upload one :)

After the swap meet we went to Pearl Harbor and luckily got in really fast. Here are some pics of it,






yes the oil is still leaking out of the Arizona. It's pretty crazy. On the way home we stopped by the Dole Plantation. We didn't go inside because there isn't too much to do so we just took pictures of the outside pretending that we did go in.



After Dole we went to "Turtle Beach" and we were really lucky because there were quite a few turtles up on the beach and a bunch of them in the water. It is illegal to touch sea turtles so they rope them off when they go up on the sand so no tourists will try to touch them.


Thursday night I was able to go to the temple and take out my endowments in the Laie Temple. It was an awesome experience and it made me more excited to marry Ben. It was dark wehn we came out of the temple so we didn't get a picture but here is a picture of the beautiful temple,

Friday was our day of crazy fun. We went to my favorite beach ever, Waimea, and yes we forgot the camera. It was a lot of fun and Ben and I both got fried, Ben much worse then me. I felt bad for him. His shoulders were BRIGHT RED. Then we got home and got ready for our engagement party. The party was so much fun. I got to see a lot of old friends and Ben was able to meet them. We went swimming, had pizza and cake, and got to talk to a bunch of people. My mom put together an awesome party and I can't thank her enough. Here are some pics of the party. The cake was done by my friend Kamealani. It was really pretty. The bottom tier was a pool and the top tier was a diving board. The cake toppers were Mr. & Mrs. Potato head done by my friend's, Sarah Lowe, mom. The center pieces were done by the cake makers mom. They all did an awesome job!



Everyone partying!



After the party and spending the day at the beach Ben and I were TIRED! So we spent the next morning being lazy bums and then my dad wanted to go show him a few places around the north shore. We introduced him to Ted's Bakery, my dad's favorite place. My mom and I are not huge fans but my dad had to have him try the famous chocolate haupia pie. We also showed Ben what a banyon tree was and around the famous Turtle Bay.







Sunday was our last day there. We just went to church and relaxed and went home that night. It was definately too short of a stay and we can't wait to go back! We are hoping to go back next year to help my parents paint there house. Sorry this is such a long post, but hope you all enjoy!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Our very eventful lives

So I haven't written in awhile because of school, but the good news is, I AM DONE WITH SCHOOL!!! Ben is done till January, but I graduated with my associates degree and will be going to massage therapy school in a while. Ben and I have moved down to Blackfoot since we are done with school. I am living with his parents and he is living next door at his grandparents. Ben is having a fun time having to drive an hour to and from work everyday...NOT. I will be joining him in those lovely hour drive to and from Rexburg next week. Ben and I got the apartment we were wanting. It is a place called Cougar Court and it is 800 something sq feet, 2 bedroom, a decent sized kitchen, a big bathroom, and a fair sized living room all for a reasonable price so we are happy. There isn't much else going on in our lives except for we are down to 2 months and a week before we are married and we can't wait!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Dirty Dash!

This past weekend we went down to Utah to run in what is called the Dirty Dash. It is a 5k run (felt like 5 miles and we honestly think it was 3 1/2-4 miles) through a bunch of mud and obstacles. You start running straight up hill in mud and by the top of the hill everyone was walking. We kept going and there were a bunch of hay bales that we had to jump over and for one of them a girl knocked me over and I have a gnarly bruise from it. Then we crawled through muddy rocky pipes and got our legs all cut up. We then had to jump over walls that were in the middle of huge mud puddles. We then had a long dry run and I then realized my shoes were busted through the toe but we kept going. Then we had to go through this nasty nasyt swampy muddy area. By the end of this we were dying. My ankle was killing me and Ben's knee was killing him. We still were not done though. We had to run through a bunch of tires and then we were so close to the end. The very end we had to run up a hill and at the top of the hill where my sister was there to tackle me in the mud. We had been fairly clean except for our legs butI got covered from head to toe in mud after my sister tackled me. I then thought Ben was way to clean and tried to tackle him but he ended up tackling me, but he still got dirty none the less. After all the team got to the top of the hill we slid down a HUGE water slide, ran down a hill and jumped into a huge mud pool. The pool was FREEZING and it smelt like cow poop, but it was fun none the less and we then finished the race. Even though the run kicked our butts, the worst part of the run was showering off. It was a super powerful ice cold shower (it was just snow melt off the mountains). We couldn't stay under for more than 5 seconds. Everyone was running in and out of the water. It was a very painful experience. Even though it was a painful run, it was the funnest thing ever and I recomend it to everyone. We walked through a good amount of it and we still beat plenty of people.
Here are some pictures of the run










Monday, May 30, 2011

Our Story

We met in January of 2010 in our FHE group. We didn't really talk or hang out, but luckily we were FHE brother and sister again the following semester and we spent a lot of time together after that and started dating on May 25, 2010. After almost a year of dating we got engaged on May 13, 2011, and yes we got engaged on Friday the 13th. Ben proposed to Janessa after having a picnic and taking a walk along the river. He proposed at sunset and it was the perfect proposal. We are getting married September 30th, 2011 in the Idaho Falls Temple for time and all eternity. We can't wait to start our lives together!