A day in the life

It’s not often that Christin and I have the same days off together (although now that I don’t have a job it happens a little more frequently). Monday was one of those days.

There’s a hike nearby that a lot of people on the island talk about. On weekends the locals like to hike it and hang out at the end. It’s known as the “swinging bridges” hike, and it was pretty cool.

We started the hike early at around 9am. The day was very overcast and it looked like rain, but it turned out to be just cloud cover and the rain never came.

I’d seen pictures of the bridges before and I didn’t think they looked scary at all. But truth be told, they made me a little nervous when I was actually out on them. They’re higher up than they look. And they’re a lot more rickety than they look, too. Some boards looked like they have given way under people before, and some were almost completely loose from the cables holding them. It certainly made the hike a little more exciting.

Towards the beginning of the hike Christin got a phone call from work, so we stopped while she took the call. In just the minute and a half we stopped, swarms of mosquitoes gathered round and tried to take a bite out of us. It’s funny (at least I think it’s funny), but Christin for whatever reason seems to get more than her fair share of mosquito bites, and this occasion was no different. While I totaled 3 bites, Christin had around 6 or 7 on each leg, plus a few more on her arms. And she must be allergic as well – because instead of just little bumps she gets welts. I really felt sorry for her. And again, all the bites seem to have come during the first couple minutes of the hike when we weren’t moving. Poor thing.

At the end of the hike there’s a man-made waterfall, pictured below. To me the water looked a little dangerous so I swam cautiously. It was also some of the coldest water ever so I wasn’t in very long. I guess I need to come up one weekend when there are other people to see which parts of the water are safe to swim in and which are not. With nobody else around it was really a relaxing place to be.

After that we visited ‘Iao valley. It’s a common tourist attraction and it’s only about a 30 minute drive from home, but we’d never made the trip. The famous landmark there is the ‘Iao Needle. Really, the needle wasn’t too impressive, but the valley itself was beautiful. The mountains here reminded me of the mountains along east Oahu that I love so much.

The other thing we witnessed was the suicide of this local Hawaiian guy off of a bridge here. Just kidding. I guess there are a few locals that jump off the bridge for money. It was quite impressive – the fall must be 30 feet or so. I guess I’m just a chicken when it comes to heights, so that made the jump that much more impressive.

Anyway, that’s a day in the life. Sorry to hog the blog, but I just copied and pasted a post from my own blog (and if anyone's interested, you can go to http://heeble.blogspot.com/ where you can get more info on what we're up to here on the island). Aloha!

-Chris and Jeff

Paige's Blessing

Hello everyone,

We just wanted to invite everyone to Paige's blessing. It will be on May 6th, and our Sacrament Meeting starts at 11:00. We are at the same church. The address is 6500 S. Dixie Dr. Take the 7200 South exit off I-15 (stay on this road and it will turn into 7000 South). Continue West through the intersection at 7000 S. and Bangerter Hwy. Take your first right (this is Dixie Dr.). The church is on the West side of the street. If you get lost, my cell number 201-7875.

After the blessing, we will meet back at our house for some sort of lunch.

Love you all - Greg and Emily

We're having a boy!

Matt and I have just returned from a 2 week vacation to Japan. Matt's parents have lived at Yokota Air Base for the past 6 years so we thought it was about time to visit! They will be transferred to a new location by the end of the summer. Japan is the same size at California and looks like Manhattan NY everywhere you turn. It is a "concrete jungle". The only country side is in the mountains. Yokota is located in the northern portion of Tokyo. We traveled to several parts of Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, and Yokosuka Navel Base. We do have several hours of video and over 500 pictures. We are always available for seminars, if you want more information! Here are a few pictures:

Cherry blossom season. Only lasts about 2 weeks each year.

Peaceful shrine

Mountain view. Drinking water only.

Girls helping us get to the train station.

Tokyo fish market and auction.

Big Buddha! The building was washed away but Big Buddha remained.

Saki jugs. Set up outside each shrine.

Geisha dancers at Gion Corner in Kyoto.

More cherry blossoms!

Silver shrine. This was one of my favorites!

Night boat ride to Miyajima Torrey Gate (floating Torrey gate in the water).

Peace Memorial at Hiroshima.

We had an exclusive tour of the Kitty Hawk at Yokosuka Navel Base. Another highlight!

My Big Day

It's official-I'm a bachelor. I mean I received my bachelor's degree, a BS in Child Development that is. Apparently I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Yay! Commencement was great with Elders Eyring and Hales speaking. It's great to be finished, but Theron has left for Virginia and I will not join him for another month. Hopefully I have enough projects to fill my time.

For those of you who didn't hear, we are expecting a new baby come September 5. In 2 1/2 weeks we will know what 'it' will be.

Love to all!

Wearing a diamond

Can you believe it? No more rumors... we're finally engaged! We're so excited! Troy is leaving for Oklahoma monday for work, so we'll get hitched around Aug 17th. We haven't worked out the details yet so more on that later. Love you guys!

-Alison and Troy

And the Thesis is Almost Done

Just wanted to tell everyone that i finished the fourth chapter of my thesis today and am looking forward to finishing the much shorter conclusion this weekend. if all goes according to plan, i will have my thesis completely done by the first of April and will be well on my way to graduation! YEAH!!!!! In case you did not know and would like to make arrangements, commencement is on the 12th of May, and we will be having a Graduation/1st Birthday party for Aiden and myself following the graduation ceremony. We hope that all of you can come and celebrate with us, but we understand that travel and such is difficult to arrange at times, so we wish you all the best and understand that you will be there in spirit.

Cheers,
Price

More Pictures of Paige

Here are a few more pictures of Paige (all cleaned up). (I can't quite figure out how to write a caption for the pictures. Oh well...I'll keep working on it and I'm sure I'll figure it out sometime.) So far, she has been a wonderful baby. She hates having her diaper changed and getting a bath, but other than that, her awake times are very calm and happy. We'll see how long it lasts! We hope everyone else is doing well.

- Emily

Josie Pictures

I made it onto the blog!! Ed, Josie, and I are still doing great. Josie is posing for pictures for me. Not sure if she likes it. But here are a couple that we thought were cute. She still has no teeth and she inchworms and trys to crawl and loves her new walker. She follows me around the kitchen hitting my toes with it.

This is her first swing ride at the park. The little daredevil loved it. Had enough of her yet?

Well, now that we've figured it out(except for the formating.), we loved seeing and reading about the family. Keep em coming.

Paige Ann

We are excited to announce our newest family member: Paige Ann. She was born at 11:35 a.m. on March 7th. She weighed 5 pounds, and was 18 inches long. She has Greg's chin and my nose. Unfortunately, she also has my dad's hairline (dark hair on the sides and back, but very little on top). We just need to glue bows to her head until her hair fills in. She is an absolute joy in our home! Austin and Macy absolutely adore her (and Greg and I are pretty smitten with her as well)!

My good friend is a professional photographer and asked if she could document the birth. So, here are some of the more "tasteful" pictures that she took. This is Macy's 3-year-old picture as well. (For the record, we do still take pictures of Austin, I just don't have one to post right now.)

Life in paradise

This is a quick update from Jeff and Christin and Steve. In case you hadn't heard, we all moved to Maui just before Christmas. It was rough going to begin with, but we're starting to get into the groove of things now.

It wasn't long before we found a cute little ohana to rent. We (read Christin) are still working on getting the place decorated like we like it, but at least it's suitable for living. Here's a picture of Chris and Steve in front of our place:


On Christmas day we all took a hike up Haleakala crater, which makes up the East side of Maui. It rises to over 10,000 feet. Here's Chris and Steve at the top:


And of course being at the top looking into the crater made me and Steve want to backpack into it. So the next week we did just that. We took about 4 days and explored the whole place. We ran into all sorts of terrain from desert to rain forest. It's was beautiful:




So right now I'm working at a tax office doing tax returns (what else?), Christin is doing massages, and Steve is working as a bellhop at one of the big hotels here (he just saw Christian Bale and Steven Tyler the other day).

More recently we all took a Saturday and hiked around Poli Poli State Park. It's on the side of Haleakala, and one of the few places where redwood trees flourish like they do here:



Sadly, a couple days after we were there someone started a forest fire there and burned thousands of acres of the park. All started with a discarded cigarette. Broke my heart. We're anxious to revisit the park and see what's left.

And here's one last picture of all of us on our trip around West Maui mountain:



So, in short, things are good here. We'll keep you posted on all our adventures. Now that we have a computer and at least limited internet at the house we can update more. Hope all is well with the rest of the family.

Aloha!

Jeff

The evolution of walking

Hey Y'all,
Aiden learned a new trick over the weekend and i thought i would share i few videos with you documenting his progression from crawling to walking.
Cheers,
Price

A change of servers

Hey,
In order to allow for more room to post, I have taken the liberty of switching teh family blogs from teh old blogger to the new blogger. According to the blogger people, there shouldbe no problems, just accept the offer to change when you log in to post. If anyone has trouble getting their things posted let me know and i will see what i can do to help.
Cheers,
Price

Just thought we would send some random pictures for fun: Tyler and Rachel on Halloweeen, Lindsay and her date for Homecoming, Henry Eyring (Grandson of Henry B Eyring, son of Henry J Eyring); and Rachel and Aiden playing on the floor. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving from Idaho!

Abby's Blessing

Hi, this is Lexy. I just wanted to share some pics of Abby in her blessing dress. Abby was blessed on October 8th. It was a beaultiful blessing and I am just loving being a mom. Today Abby laughed for the first time. It was just once, but believe me I tried everything I could think of to get her to do it again. No luck. She is already stuborn.

Linda Gets It

Hi everyone! Linda is finally logged into the blog and we are trying to figure it all out. She'll do her best! (alexie is typing and really logged in for her). More exciting things to come, like pictures of the new kitchen (hopefully soon) and grandchildren (no, that does not mean anyone new is pregnant :o) ).