a year ago...

One year ago today, we were here:

In the Jacksonville, Chicago and Los Angeles airport flying to our honeymoon destination:   

We drove a white Mustang convertible to beautiful places like this:

We swam and sunbathed at beautiful beaches like this:  

We admired God’s handiwork and enjoyed our first vacation as Mr. & Mrs.

It was a wonderful adventure and a dream honeymoon for us. The start of a great year!

Read full posts and see more honeymoon pictures here! J  

FRIDAY!

It is finally Friday, but is it 5 yet!?! This week has just gone really slowly for some reason! I do think that I may be coming down with something though because I have been so tired and just not myself this week. I know there is a flu bug going around our area and I really hope we can keep it away from our house! I have a date tonight with a can of Lysol :)

Maybe this week has gone slow for us because we have fun plans this weekend that we have been looking forward to! We will be rising when it is still dark outside on Saturday morning and headed to Michigan for a fun day of skiing (husband) and snow tubing (me). Granted, I am not so much looking forward to getting up so early-but with some coffee I think I will manage just fine!

Speaking of skiing and snow-we got more snow! The Mr. actually had a snow day from work today (lucky!) due to weather. Luckily, that meant he got to drive me to work because the drifted snow was not something this girl was excited about driving in! Aside from our ski trip this weekend I think I am about over the snow. I am dreaming about spring and cute sandals, dresses, pedicures, beaches, lakes, flowers, and...just warmer weather! My Mom actually texted me a picture yesterday of the thermometer in her car and it read 80 degrees(!!!)-while it was blowing snow here! So, what did I do when I got home last night? Went straight to our honeymoon album and soaked up all the sun I could through our honeymoon pictures in Hawaii. If you missed the post about Kauai, you can get caught up here. Can we go back there soon? K, thanks!

Can you hear it too? Kauai is calling my name!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for little Anna Grace! Anna is making strides and becoming stronger each day. Her growth in such a short period of time is really astonishing and all thanks to God. She is fighting and so cute doing it! They were able to remove her from the ventilator and place her on a CPAP-which has been working well. Her Mom is updating a CaringBridge journal for her daily to keep us all updated. Please continue to pray for her and her family!

How precious is this little girl with her Gold & Black bow supporting Purdue? Too cute for words, and look bog big she is getting already. Keep on growing Anna!

Another prayer request is for a fellow blogger who lost her precious daughter Maddie in the past week. She has been updating her blog regularly and using it as an outlet for her emotions. It always leaves me teary as I cannot imagine what she is going through right now. My heart and prayers goes out to you! You can see her blog here. Please lift her and her husband up in prayers this week and in the coming days!

Well, that is about all for today...hope everyone has a great weekend and soak up the sunshine if you are in a state that has any! I shall return on Monday with pictures of The Mr. hitting the slopes! :)

Children are a blessing from the Lord....
Psalm 127:3

Hawaii and LOTS of pictures!

Okay people, I am sure you thought I would come home and saw Hawaii was horrible...I am going to disappoint you. Hawaii was AMAZING! We had a wonderful time and it was SO nice to spend a week with just each other. We even left our cell phones at the hotel several times, until we realized we should probably keep one with us for Google Mapping and other purposes. Of course I have TONS of pictures to share with all our friends and families. The following pictures only highlight our trip:

These palm tress are actually located on the property of Coco Palms Resort on Kauai, which is closed down. The hotel captivated me and I have been researching its history since returning home. That is another post for another day!
Stephen and I got upgraded to a convert able Mustang while in Hawaii. I so enjoyed getting my suntan on while crusin' down the road!
This church was in a book about Kauai I got prior to the trip and I knew I wanted to see it. It is beautiful, and 175 years old!
Aww, aren't we cute as newlyweds?!?! I LOVE HIM!
All of the beaches were gorgeous! This was the first one we stopped at on the side of the road, and I seriously could have stayed there for the entire trip. It was breathtaking and so quiet!
You know us...documenting everything :) Pictures on the beach!
This is the view from the Kilauea Lighthouse lookout...pictures do NOT do it justice, it was so beautiful!
This view of the Kilauea Lighthouse is amazing. The sound when you are standing there is also awesome!
There are lots and lots of waterfalls on Kauai, and they are all beautiful. This is at the Waimea Falls overlook.
Isn't it beautiful? It took a while driving up a dead end road to see it, but I think it was worth it! The road actually dead ends right here at the fall!
This is the beginning of our luau experience. Stephen was pretty stoaked to eat as much food as possible...which he did!
On the Smith Family property after being le'id...now we get to ride a train and see all the pretty flowers and landscaping. YAY!
Allow me to introduce you to the Waimea Canyon, otherwise known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Even though it was cloudy when we made it up there, it was still beautiful. The colors in the rock and lines were incredible. We also bought some pineapple from a man with a cooler and it was DELICIOUS! Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is in the 60s up here! Brr!
The sun was trying to break through, so we snapped a picture together while you could see some blue sky. It really was incredible!
This is called the "Spouting Dragon". The Hawaiian called it that because of the sound it makes when a wave is coming, it really does sound like an angry dragon...but really it is just a blow hole created by lava rocks.
We drove to Poipu Beach after seeing the Canyon and Dragon to watch the sunset, and it was BEAUTIFUL!
I had a hard time picking one sunset picture to post because I have like 20, no kidding! I just kept snapping pictures :)
This is the beginning of our kayak adventure on the river. Has Emily ever kayaked before?...NO
After an hour of kayaking, we beached our kayaks and started hiking to "Secret Falls". The hike path runs along the river for the most past and took us about 35 minutes. At the end the path opened up to lava rocks and a 120ft waterfall. It was amazing!
Eating some granola to keep that blood sugar up after swimming in the waterfall with my hubby. The water was SO cold, much colder than the springs I have swam in!
We enjoyed lounging at the hotel pool too! The Westin has a great pool that I had to swim in :) I also read some of my book (Charlie St. Cloud) and watched Stephen swim. We enjoyed our time there!
We may be adults, but we are still kids at heart. This is only one of our silly pictures taken on the trip. I love us!
Can you believe the view we had from our room? If we looked to the left, we could see mountains and the golf course; if we looked the right, we could see palm trees and the ocean!
Goodbye beautiful island of Kauai...until we meet again!