Labor Day Weekend

Once again I have decided to head out of town to work in Bethel this month, so this was my only weekend off for the entire month of September. I am very happy to report that my best friend Wendy has been dating a guy from Europe for about 5 months and they are happily engaged. He came to Alaska earlier this week and proposed!! I am super excited to help her plan the wedding! We won't know a date until their Visa goes through. This marrying a foreigner is a fairly complicated process.

Alfred and I had plans to do some camping and hit the Alaska State Fair this weekend. The rain killed our plans for camping. However we did make it to the fair. It was the same old thing and I am starting to wonder why I go every year. It's outrageously expensive and just not that fun anymore. However, we did pick up my friends' kiddo and drag him along. We literally dragged him because he got super tired after we got there. We had some food and rode a few kiddy rides. Nothing spectacular by any means!! The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful...I can't even remember what we did. However, I believe there was lots of sleeping in and relaxing involved because we have been on the go so much. We bought ourselves racquetball rackets....very exciting!! We are going to try and play more. We have been pretty inseparable since Hawaii and I will miss him again when I'm gone for work.

The week in Bethel was wretchedness and not EVEN worth talking about...ugh...never again.

Back to work a few days early this week. I couldn't believe how quick Fall has come this year. When we got back from Hawaii leaves were starting to turn already. There are very few things about Alaska that I dislike, but the short Fall season is definitely one of them! However, the trip to Oregon and Delaware next month will be helpful! I am looking forward to meeting Al's family and for him to meet mine. We actually have lots of cool plans for October, so the blog should be more exciting next month...I will try to keep up with it better!

Work and Play in August....Hawaii

Wow what a crazy month this was!! I started out the month by working the first 21 days in a row. I worked my week off in Bethel, Alaska at the Yukon Correctional Center. Not much to report there other than I was very glad to come home! This jail was different in alot of ways than where I work everyday. For starters it was all men. Also, it was a mostly Native Alaskan population. I really loved the learning experience and kudos to the hardest working Correctional Officers I have seen so far. Those guys have a tough job and they do it well!! I was really missing my Alfred but we chatted on the phone and skyped a few times. I was so happy to see him when he picked me up at the airport. I am just crazy about him. We had a lot to be excited about too! Just another week until we head off to Hawaii for 8 days!! When I returned from Bethel I had one more week of work to get out of the way before I could go play! I was ready for a break!

We decided to have a date night on Friday Aug 20th. It was a beautiful evening so we decided to head down to Beluga Point and see if the whales were in the inlet. Once we got there we climbed out on the rocks and sat in the sun. There were no whales, but an awesome view anyhow. Since we were so close to Girdwood, we headed down to have dinner. I had heard lots of good things about Maxines so we popped in there for dinner. It was incredible, Alfred was very impressed too! We will have to go there again soon! On the way home we stopped to see a movie "Dinner for Scmucks". I thought it was weird and a flop. Alfred pretty much thought the same thing. We had some friends of our family coming into town that evening so we ran over to the airport to grab them. They were going to stay at my house while we were gone for the week. Finally off to bed to rest up for our flight tomorrow!

Our flight was heading to Hawaii around 2pm. Alfred and I got up and went for a run in the morning. We got home and Mom had made french toast. Chris and Mary were asleep in the living room so we had a house full of people. We had some breakfast then off to the airport. We were pretty early so we grabbed a "celebrate we are starting vacation" beer from Chili's. My good friends Bill and Kim were joining us for the trip. They ended up in the seat right in front of us on the plane. The flight there was good and pretty quick.
We arrived in Honolulu and said goodbye to Bill and Kim. They were heading to Maui and we wouldn't see them for a few days. It felt so good to step off the plane in Hawaii!! It usually feels so good because its the dead of winter when I go. Even though it was summer, I still love the feeling there! I was pretty excited to get to our hotel and walk around Waikiki. I have 2 places that are a must in Waikiki....Cheesecake Factory and PF Chang's for dinner! We were staying 2 nights at the Waikiki Beachcomber. It was wonderful and in a perfect location. We got changed and headed to dinner. There was a long wait for dinner so we put our names in then hit the streets. We ended up grabbing a seat at the bar area and didn't wait 2 hours for dinner :). We ordered Mai Tais (fabulous) and some appetizers. Incredible dinner and a wonderful start to our trip. We even turned down the cheesecake for dessert (twice!) I could walk around holding Alfred's hand and browsing in the art stores all night! However, we only have 1 day to get a lot done tomorrow so off to bed we went.



Sunday morning... our shuttle to Pearl Harbor was picking us up around 7 am. We arrived and walked around taking pictures while we waited for our boat ride to the USS Arizona memorial site. I was pretty disappointed because they didn't have the movie there this time. When Mom and I went a few years ago you watched a short movie and it made you really excited to see the Memorial. Without the movie the effect just wasn't the same. We got some cool pictures though and Alfred had never been. So we headed out of there and had plans to hike Diamond Head. We got back to the hotel, grabbed some lunch, and got changed. We took a bus out to Diamond Head and got our first sunburn on the way to the top. It was a fairly simple hike for us. The view from the top was beautiful. We picked up the next bus and headed back down into Waikiki. We were wandering the streets and came across what would be a highlight of our trip!! We are trying to stay on our fairly healthy eating schedule so when I saw a familiar frozen yogurt place, I was pretty stoked!! When I visited San Diego a year ago I remember we got yogurt at this place where you put all your own toppings on. I remember it was fantastic!! We went in and made big helping of yogurt with topping as and it hit the spot!! Alfred agreed that it was pretty fantastic. Sure wish we had one in Alaska....I thought about looking up the franchise info...
We headed back to the hotel got showered and ready to hit the town again. We got back to the hotel and lounged by the pool for awhile. The best part about vacation is that you can do as much or as little as you want!! Later that night we headed to PF Changs for dinner and shopped around. We had an early flight for Maui, so it was a pretty early night again. I have been to Waikiki 3 times now and I really enjoy it for a day or two. We had so much fun...our vacation was so perfect already!!!



We got over to Maui the next morning around 9 am. We reunited with Bill and Kim at the airport. Maui is so much calmer than Honolulu. It has lots of farms and open land. This is definitely the place to come for relaxing. Our condo wouldn't be available for a few hours so we just hung around and killed some time. We had a few issues with the condo when we got in, but got it taken care of pretty quick. We changed and drove down the coast to Big Beach. I had to show Alfred the "nude beach"...he was less than impressed...it was all men that day..lol. I was in Maui last December and a good friend showed me all over the island. It was really fun to show Alfred around and I knew a couple of good spots. We drove down to the lava fields and passed by all the beautiful houses in Wailea. We had a good first night and decided to head out to Lahina for dinner. We got to Bumba Gump Shrimp that evening, but I wasn't feeling well. My stomach was killing me...I was trying to hide it, but everyone could pretty much tell. I tried to eat my yummy shrimp tacos...but the pain was getting worse. I have no clue what was wrong, but we ran into the drug store and grabbed some tums, gas-x, and pretty much everything they had for tummy pain. I attempted to walk around Lahina but the pain would not stop and I couldn't even stand up straight. Very strange....I felt awful but we had to call it a night. Once we got into the car I scrunched up into a ball and Alfred rubbed my head and made me feel much better. I don't know what it was ..but we later came to the conclusion that it was constipation...lol....we laughed about it all the way back to Kehei!! The next few days were filled with lots of swimming, snorkeling, hiking, and lots of love.





My favorite part was taking a boat ride out to Molokini Island for some snorkeling! The boat ride alone was fantastic. I love being on the ocean. We got out to the island and snorkeled for a bit. Then we discovered the boat had a ramp to jump off the back. We all took turns jumping into the gorgeous water. I have never seen such blue water..not even in the Carribean! We had lost of fun with that then headed over to Turtle Town to swim with some turtles. It wasn't much of a "town" of anything when we got there. We only saw one turtle. We saw lots more on other snorkel trips.

So we have been dating for about 3 1/2 months and I have been dying to tell him that him the "L" word for weeks now!!! However, I am trying to be patient and let him say it first. So we were about half way through our vacation when it finally came out! We were at a Luau and it was perfect! I had been wanting to tell him and am very glad he said it in return. (Yes...I said it first)!! The rest of our trip was fantastic. We took tons of great pictures and did lots of exploring! It couldn't have been better and I couldn't be happier or more in love with him!! We were sad to get back to the grind, but all good things must come to an end! Until our next adventure.....