Broken Husband

Sometimes our lives are awesome. Other times they're not. Austin sprained his ankle last week at work. It's a dumb story too... he was just getting out of the water truck he drives for Interstate Rock this summer and landed on a rock funny. When he called to say he was coming home early, I was excited because sometimes his truck breaks down and he gets to come home. I asked him if his truck broke. "No, I broke." Poor boy. I have been taking great care of him the last two days. And it is HARD to keep that boy down. He asked if he could ride his bike the first day! Sometimes, I swear, it's like I'm mothering a little boy. "No, you cannot ride your bike, you just sprained your freaking ankle!" And it's kind of a bad one, too. His whole leg is swollen. And this picture has no filter on it either. It looks that gross.

So yesterday (okay, last week... this post is old) was his last day in bed (last of only 2 days total... but it seemed like a week to him). He saw a picture of a chocolate cake in the corner of our smart TV. He got it in his head that he really wanted to make that cake. Really bad. I can only take so much whining, so if he wanted to stand on his ankle and bake a cake for an hour, go for it. So my cute boy slaved away making this magnificent cake, only to find out that the recipe online was really, really wrong. Nothing like the short video clip he watched on the TV. His cake batter looked like bread dough. So he added some water (to the cake pan that he had already poured his batter into... ah, me) and stuck it in the oven anyway. 20 minutes later we had the weirdest cake in America. It really wasn't his fault. He did everything the recipe said, but it was nasty. Didn't stop him from eating 1/4 of the pan though. Hahaha. Oh my, the man I married. He was so bummed though. And it did nothing for his cake craving either. "Juuuuuuuje, please make a cake, please, please, please." That's how I ended up with a cake already in the trash, baking another (with a true, time-tested Gifford recipe). He had used of the last of our sugar though, and I wasn't going to go to the store. So I used this Truvia baking blend stuff we had in the pantry. Needless to say, my cake turned out a different texture than normal with a diet-y after taste. Meh. Better than the first, though. This time, half the pan got eaten before joining its cake friend in the trash. My house is trashed after the past two days of boy in bed. I swear I have been cleaning nonstop too! It's just that the man I married never stops eating! Taking care of an invalid husband gave me a taste of maybe what it's like to have kids. Oh boy, can't wait. I just had to write this up, because these last couple of days have cracked me up. And I can post it freely, because Austin never reads my blog. Ever. That's what he gets!

4th of July and other days

I love it when family visits. Shauna and her kids were visiting by the time we got back from Havasupai on the 3rd. I showered, had a short nap and went right over. Matilda Jane immediately felt I was lacking lipstick. I wish this picture wasn't so dark... otherwise you'd see a mouth that had been lipsticked so many times, the color was migrating toward all other parts of the face. Ain't she the cutest? She did a pretty good job on me!

I thought my body would be trashed from that hike for the rest of the week. But by the 4th (next day!), it was pretty alright. I will claim that as a victory. Havasupai: 2; Juje: 1. Cool. My family was feeling restless in the middle of the day, so we decided to do a nice little WOD. No one in my family has ever done Crossfit, so boy was it fun! I loved it. I made a sweet playlist to blast from the basement speakers, and we got going. Austin flew through it of course and ditched the rest of us. By the end, Matilda had joined in too. I can't get enough of that girl!

Janna is the owner of many random items. One being this "Tim, the Enchanter" cap (name the movie). Austin fell in love. He hasn't taken it off since. You think I'm kidding? If you live around Hurricane or St. George, you might just see for yourself. I grabbed his horns and was being a bit bossy one night, and he turned and growled at me. "I wear the horns in this family!" Oh boy...

Austin is the star of the pool when kids are around. Sometimes he throws a little too hard and shorts fall off. That butt-in-the-face picture is priceless. 

I trimmed all the hedges at my parents house because they were looking overgrown and gross. Plus, the electric trimmer thing really caught my eye. It was real fun. Until I shaved a hornets nest. Oopsie. I'm still dang proud of all those hedges. 

Oh, and fireworks were bomb.com this year. They had a weird firework rope that draped down the mountain in St. George making it look like a fiery waterfall. Loved it. Another great birthdate with my Tim, the enchanter. 

Havasupai

We've been planning this Havasupai trip with Hayley and Nate since about February. It seemed the universe did not want us to go. Between our messed up reservations and a snobby Indian lady who would not help and the heat wave of 2013, it's a miracle we A) made it there, and B) made it out alive! Oh, and Hayley and Nate's A/C went out in their car on the way to Vegas too. So that was cool. Or hot.

We got to the the top of the trailhead about 10:30 pm or so on Sunday night. We should have just started hiking in and camped on the trail, but we decided to sleep in our cars for a few hours and start at 4 am. Big mistake. We put our back seat down and tried sleep on top, halfway in the trunk. It was so hot and horrible. I finally dozed off for about 45 minutes when my alarm went off. We started to get up and get ready when Hayley and Nate told us that it was only 2 am. My phone was still on UT time. Cool beans. We were all so tired and weird, but decided since we were up, we might as well start.

The hike down the switchbacks wasn't too bad, but as soon as it leveled out my hip gave out and slid out of place and then popped right back in. Sometimes my joints do that. I knew it was bad new. My hip just started rubbing wrong and we still had like 9 miles to go. Cool. That hike in was so hard on those hips! I was dying. Luckily we made it to the village near sun up and only had to hike 2 more miles to the campground. Hayley's face in this pic sums up how I felt on the whole hike. Haha. Don't let my fake smile fool you!

 

 

This picture kills me. Some random old dude that Nate was practicing his camera on. Pretty spry!

  

We kept trying to see how close to the waterfall we could get. Super fun game. 

Nate looks dead and naked.

By mid afternoon, we were exhausted. Just like my last trip to Havasupai, the first day seemed to drag on and on. We took weird naps and played games, but still the day would never end! We just wanted it to cool off so we could go to bed so bad!

Day 2 we hiked to Moony Falls. Crazy big.

  

Originally we were going to camp again the 2nd day and wake up bright and early to hike out. But since our bodies were still pretty wrecked from the hike in, we decided to leave that night when the sun set and camp on the trail halfway. Good thing, because I feel like I barely made it to our camp spot that night. So exhausted! We made camp and were about the fall asleep (Austin was already passed out of course), when we heard the most terrifying animal noise. I wish I could describe it. It kept getting louder and closer. I woke Austin up, and it finally got so close that the boys were freaked out too. They jumped up, Nate grabbed his huge knife, and they threw rocks to try and scare whatever it was away. I have never been so legitimately scared in my life. So freaky in that dark canyon. After that I didn't sleep a wink. Literally. Getting up the hike the rest of the way out was horrible. Hayley and I woke up feeling like throwing up too. Cool. I couldn't bear to choke down my last clif bar. I should have, because once we got to those switchbacks from hell, I had zero energy to do anything. I was stopping every few steps to crouch down and dry heave. It was horrible. I wanted so badly to rock the hike out since this time around I felt like I was in WAY better shape than last time. Austin felt so bad for me, he took my pack. He made me continue without it and he carried it almost the whole way out on his front. Crazy kid (love him!). We passed this group of men on the way out and they were all, "Are you married to this dude?!! If not, you need to marry him today!" I married him. "Well, you better keep him around forever!" Haha, I couldn't agree more. I finally decided to choke down my clif bar, and that helped a ton. By then we were almost out, and Nate (those two didn't stop once on the way out. Nice job, guys) came back down to grab my pack from Austin. I wonder if I'll ever hike outta there with my own pack. Haha. Ah well.

Good times. Got home to see Shauna and the kids at my parents house. Awesome visit! Love them so much. We did a family Crossfit WOD the next day, too. Don't know how my body pulled it off, but it did! More pics from their visit coming later. Hopefully. I suck at blogging, so no promises.

Hawaii 5.0

There was this one time when Austin's uncle gave us a call and said, "Hey, we have an extra bed in one of the timeshares we rented in Hawaii. Wanna come and stay for free?"

What does one say in response to that? Duh.

Not an hour later we had 2 tickets to Honolulu and a car rented for the week. I bid on tickets and got a killer deal. Same with the car... which was later upgraded to a Prius for free so we had amazing gas mileage for driving around the island. Sometimes our life is awesome. The best part about it was that the trip was in a week. We didn't even have to wait around for our fun to begin!

I did write in a travel journal while we were there. But sometimes when I'm writing in my journal it's super boring. Like, "then we did this and ate that and blah, blah, blah."

So I shall spare you the details and hit the highlights with some pictures. That's all anyone wants anyway. That's a lie. I love reading the details of other people's lives. I'm not creepy at all. Just stalkery.

Day 1: 

Airport time and Austin's little friend he sat by on the airplane. They were both watching the same things on their phones the whole flight. Oh boy.

After landing, we headed straight for the east shore for some authentic Hawaiian grub. Lau lau (which was really good... left pic) and some super weird rice/noodle/soup stuff. That was mine, and those noodles A) look like worms, B) taste like chicken, and C) feel like jello. Hmmm. That purple pudding stuff is made from the root of the green leaves, called Poi. Super sticky, gross stuff. Austin loved it of course. The white cube was a coconut dessert. Kind of a texture like flan, but more firm. Loved it. Pork was amazing.

 

Headed to the Byodo-in Temple next. We got in for free since it was almost time to close, and the grounds were super beautiful. 

Day 2: Headed to the north shore and stopped at the Dole Pineapple plantation on the way. YUMMY pineapple "whip" at that place. And am I the only one who had no idea pineapples grew up from a bush??

 Turtles on the north shore. Austin and I found so many turtles snorkeling on this trip. Loved them!

Temple in Laie. So gorgeous! Finished our day off with a nice, muddy hike to Maunawili Falls. The hike took us through some sweet LOST-like jungle. We were covered with mud at the end. 

Day 3: Church with the other Beechers (this is seriously like the only activity we did together. Oopsie). Church grounds had an awesome courtyard with a ginormous tree perfect for climbing.

After church (yeah, we're bad), we rented snorkeled at Shark's Cove on the north shore. Such amazing snorkeling. When we got there, we set our stuff down on a rock and started to get ready for the water. This huge chick was nearby listening to music and glared at us and started muttering profanities. I thought she was nuts, but apparently she was talking to us and ticked that we set up "camp" too near her. She went and grabbed this pool floaty and dragged it on top of our stuff. Like she was literally stepping over us and dripping water on our stuff. I guess she wanted us to move?? Weirdo. What the crap? So we moved. I wish I could better describe the story. It was really funny and weird L-I-V-E. Drove to the tip of the island and watched the sunset. I'll move here.

Day 4: First day I woke up WITHOUT a raging headache (does anyone else always get headaches on vacation?). We tried to go paddle boarding, but the wind was out of control, and our boards were a joke in the water. So we hiked up the mountain instead to some old WWII "pillboxes" or bunkers. Amazing hike. Amazing fish tacos at Maui Tacos, by the way.

Day 5: "Today I was betrayed by the ocean. My heart hurts because we've always been so close--practically a love affair. Today she got a little jealous of my handsome man, and took revenge. She stole my favorite swim dress and tried to steal my comfy Teva flip flops, but only got away with one. Not like one is anything without the other! She also got away with my rented snorkel bag and Austin's favorite work out shirt. You see, we dumped our stuff on the beach far away form the water and thought it would be just fine. We snorkeled away for a couple of hour. When we came up, our stuff was everywhere and soaked. Dumb tide. Our backpack with my phone in it was drenched. My phone still works but is now acting super weird. Dumb old sea! I'm so mad at it. I really liked that dress! And those flip flops were so comfy. I hiked in them all the time. Blah."

So that happened. Made me have to get a new phone, too. After snorkeling, we hiked to Monoa Falls. Super pretty. That island really is paradise. Also, um, when you take pictures with snorkel gear, you are always supposed to put the tube in your mouth. Otherwise you look like a tard. Here's for your enjoyment: me!

Day 6: Woke up bright and early to snorkel at Hanauma Bay. Got there by 6:30 am and got in for free! The fish were awesome because they weren't shy at all. But I didn't love it because it was so shallow in some spots by the coral that I felt like I was crawling over it. I like to look at that stuff, but not touch it. Gross.

Then it was off to the awesome swap meet and Pearl Harbor. Did I mention that the ocean ruined my phone battery so I could only take about one picture before it died? And we had lent Austin's phone to his uncle for the GPS. Cool. So pics after this point in our trip are sparse.
-Lighthouse hike
-Luau at Chief's Luau (what a sucky time to NOT have a camera!!)
-Touched a turtle's neck
-Got some sweet tribal tats
-Pig roasting
-Dinner and fire show
-Asians stole our seats. "Dang Asians" was probably the theme for this trip.

Day 7: Tried to paddle board again. Still super windy, so we got kayaks instead. Kayaked to these two little islands on the east shore. Loved it.

 Found the Shrimp Shack! I would have been stoked, but I hate shrimp. This boy was super happy though.

And then we went home. To real life. Well, for Austin anyway. The perks of being a teacher! We still had some shots left on our disposable water camera. These pics are courtesy of the Worwood's pool.