We got a room tiled!

We had last Friday off (Veteran's Day). The day before Sam had found out that the tile was in a week early. So, early Friday morning he went to pick it up. I was so glad to get a week's head start on it. Even so, it's still going to be awhile before it's all done.

Sam got back to the house around 11:30. By the time we removed a few tiles that didn't fit right, it was about 1:00 before we started laying tile. We worked all day and got the office done by 8:00. It's very simple work, but sure is hard on the body. I don't think I'm that old, but I sure felt like I'd aged that evening. My knees, back and hands were hurting by the time we finished. By the next morning it felt as if I'd done 150 squats and lunges. Sam wanted to finish up and get the bedroom done the next day, but there was no way I was going to be able to do that. I was really hurting.

It feels good though to have one room done and it looks really nice. Sam did get the hallway closet tiled on Sunday, so this next weekend we'll get the bedroom tiled and then on the long Thanksgiving weekend we'll probably grout.

Saturday evening we went to the Aloha Dinner for our pastor and his wife. It was really nice, but it's sad to see them go. We enjoyed visiting and meeting others in the church. We need to get more involved in the church. I think Sam has invited about 4 different couples over "when we get the house done". He does love to have company and I have to try and accomodate that, even though I'm happy not having company.

One of the girls I work with, Rhi, has invited us over to their house for Thanksgiving. I thought that was really sweet of her. She knows our house is a mess right now. S am and I were going to go out to eat, but we hadn't found anywhere yet.

Well that's about it for now.

We have a free weekend :)

Another weekend is here. I'm not sure what we're doing this weekend. We don't seem to know what to do with ourselves anymore if there's no home improvement work to do. We're free from that for the next two weekends. We'll probably go to the beach. A girl Sam works with, Julie, was in a bad motorcyle accident last weekend, so I think we're going to visit her at the hospital.

Next Saturday our church is hosting an Aloha Dinner for our pastor and his wife, James and Julie. Their last day at the church is the 14th. They feel like it's time to leave the church and move on. I believe they are going to start another church. We're really going to miss them. I've appreciated his honest, true teaching. The church doesn't have a new pastor as of yet, but I just trust that God leads the right person to the job.

The picture above is an orange habiscus that we bought at Walmart several weeks ago. I love the deep color orange. When it first blooms the whole blossom is deep orange, but as the sun shines on it the color eventually turns to yellow. It's very pretty.

I was just going through some pictures and found these.

For our 2nd anniversary, Sam and I got a room at the Hale Koa and just enjoyed an evening down in Waikiki. We always enjoy getting away, even if for just an evening. The next day (which was our real anniversary) we met Diane and Liam at the Honolulu Zoo. Diane is married to Stefan, Sam's twin, and Liam is their 3 1/2 year old. I thought this picture was cute. They currently live in Japan and Stefan had already returned home. We wanted to spend some time with Diane and Liam so we went to the zoo together. As we were leaving, Uncle Sam wanted to buy something for Liam. He looked at a lot of things, but settled on this shark mask. We all had to look "scary" together.

Here we are on the beach at Waikiki. This was right behind the Hale Koa. You can't see it too well, but the sun was setting right behind us.


By the way, if you click on any of the pictures they'll come up on a separate page bigger. Also, there are comment links at the bottom of each post. You're welcome to leave me a message.

How many of you are there??

I found this website earlier today and thought it was interesting. You can type your name in and see how many people in the United States have the same name. I didn't think there would be that many people with my name. Guess I was wrong. Although when I put in my maiden name, Hosier, there was only one.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 254 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Check it out and see how many of you there are out there.

So, here's a quick update on the house. Sam checked on Monday and of course they didn't have the tile we need in stock, so he ordered it. They claim it'll be in by the 17th of November. I hope so, but I won't hold my breath. I guess there goes my goal of having the house back together by Thanksgiving. Well, at least we're in the home stretch now. We have to do the tile, then get closet doors and closet systems. I think that's about it and we'll be done. It'll be so nice to have our house back together again. Well, I'm going to go try to finish up the trim painting. That's the last thing we have to do before laying the tile.

Gabby's visit to the vet

Ok, you have to indulge me a little while I talk about my baby. I don't usually, so you'll just have to deal with it this time or skip this post.

So, yesterday I took Gabby to the vet for her annual checkup. Jeanne, a co-worker of mine, suggested I take Gabby to Dr. Fujitani at the Mililani Town Vet Clinic. She takes her cats there and has been very happy with the care they've been given.

I'm so glad I took Jeanne's advice. Dr. Fujitani was so good with Gabby and didn't rush us through the visit to get on with the next appointment. She gave lots of good information without me even having to ask.

Gabby was certainly not her normal self though. She's usually the bully on the playground. If she sees another cat she start hissing and growling. She usually ends up hanging from the screen door trying to get to the neighbor cat. Anyhow, it was a totally different story today at the vet. She hid in the corner of her cage, burying her little head in the blanket. When I finally took her out of the cage she was trembling and pretty much clung to me the whole time. She kept trying to bury her face in my clothes. Poor baby :(

She did hiss at Dr. Fujitani a few times, but for the most part was much nicer than normal. I mentioned Gabby's dislike of other people/animals and how she loves to fight with me. Gabby generally has an attitude of arrogance. According to Dr. Fugitani, Gabby is a perfectly normal hand raised (bottle fed) cat. I guess she received so much attention from birth on up, she just believes that she is queen. She didn't get to socialize with others when she was little, so she really doesn't know how to act around others. She thinks the world revolves around her. I guess it kind of does in our house :)

She was so happy to get home. The trip to the vet didn't have any long term effects on her. As soon as we got in the door and I opened her cage she acted as if nothing had happened.

Here is a little photo montage of Gabby as a baby.

Here she is around 3 weeks old. She couldn't even walk yet. She was just propping her little self up.



Gabby - 6 weeks old. She was big enough at this point to follow me around the house. She ran after me every time I left a room.

Here she is learning to drink out of a bowl instead of a bottle. She was probably around 9 weeks old. It took her a little while to get the hang of it.




And, finally, this is Gabby now. She still sucks on her blanket.

Home Improvement Setbacks

We are finally to the point in our home improvement where we're ready to tile the floors in the back two rooms. We decided to go with the same tile that's throughout the house so it doesn't look too broken up. I think it's going to look really nice. So, this morning Sam went to the tile store and they were out of the tile we needed. The warehouse is closed during the weekend, so come Monday they'll see if it's in stock. If not, then it'll take about 4 weeks to get it in. We're a little discouraged about that. We were ready to get going on the tile. We're both ready to have the house back together. But there's nothing we can do about it, so we'll relax a little this weekend and hope to have the tile next weekend. If only we had a couple weeks to dedicate to getting this job done then it wouldn't drag on for several months, but we only have the weekends, so it'll still be a little while.

Life is too short

Life is so short and it's never quite as evident as when you know someone that has just passed away. There was a young soldier that worked in our office at Tripler when I first started there 1 1/2 years ago. She was a few months pregnant and had just found out she had cancer. She went through chemo and seemed to be doing alright. I'd see her from time to time and she always had such a sweet attitude. Well, yesterday I heard that she was in the hospital and was expected to live only another 2-3 weeks. This morning I received an email saying she passed away during the night. She leaves behing her 1 year old daughter and husband.

It's so easy to get caught up in life and forget that this is only a trial for what follows. It convicts me to be more forward with talking to others about Christ. It also makes me realize how fleeting life is and to appreciate those I love and try to enjoy each day I have with them.

Our visit to the Big Island

We just returned from a nice weekend on the Big Island. It's so nice to get away for a little while. Especially right now when our place is such a mess due to our home improvements :) The only part I don't like is leaving Gabby here by herself. I know she's just a cat, but she's our baby and she has a hard time when we leave.
Hawaiian Airlines as having a great sale on tickets so we got both of our round trips for just over $40 each. That's really a great deal. The only problem was we didn't have much of an option about what time we left in the morning so the flight we were on left at 5:30. Wonderful! I had to get up even earlier than I normally do. We left the house at 4:00.
I really enjoy going to the Big Island. It's very laid back and lots of open country. The temperature is much cooler which I love. We stayed at Kilauea Military Camp which used to be an Army base and was established in 1916, but has since been turned into a military recreation facility. They have really nice cottages for rent.

Sunday morning we were just waking up when we heard this rumbling start. Being from Alaska I've been through a few earthquakes and knew right away what it was. It only lasted about 30 seconds or so. This was the first earthquake that Sam had been through and I think he found it really interesting. No matter how many you've experienced though it's still a little unnerving. It didn't have much of an impact on our day and we went about visiting the island. It wasn't until we got back to the cottage at 3:00 that I checked my voicemail and had messages from Grandma Thorne, Mom and Kristy. That's the first time we realized that the earthquake had actually made the news. Watching the news that night we found out that Oahu had been without electricity all day. Thay had it much worse than us.

We visited some really beautiful places on the Big Island. Since we flew in so early that first day and couldn't get into the cottage until later that afternoon we had a lot of time to relax and really enjoy our day. That first day we went to Rainbow Falls. There are alot of waterfalls on the island, but this one was particularly beautiful. Sam was determined to get a view of the waterfall from the top, so we climbed over all the rocks to get right out to the waterfall. We were looking right down on it. It was awesome!
We were fortunate enough to get to see the lava flow from the volcano. A lot of times it's too far away to see, but we got within two miles of it and had a wonderful view of it. Unfortunately the camera wasn't able to capture it. It was getting pretty dark out and the exposure was just too slow. It's pretty cool when you go down to see where the lava is flowing, because they have closed the roads due to the lava. You're on the road and then it's just closed and there are hills of black lava. We walked out probably 1/2 mile and were able to get up on a huge lava boulder and we had a perfect view. The red lava and steam from it entering the ocean was very visible. Thankfully the camcorder picked it up pretty well.

We stopped by the Thurston Lava Tube. Amazing what nature can create.

If you are ever on the Big Island you must stop in at the Punalu'u Bakery. They have the best Sweet Taro Bread. As we pulled into the driveway we could already smell the bread baking. We visited the Black Sand beach which is getting smaller it seems. The sand there is so pretty. I suppose it ground up lava rock, but it just sparkles. Very pretty.


There were Yellow Ginger flowers everywhere it seems. As we were walking through the trees at Rainbow Falls we found this beautiful bouquet of flowers. They smell so sweet.

Well, we had a really nice time over our weekend. It's always nice to get away. We wondered what had been damaged in our house because of the earthquake, but it didn't look like anything had been touched. I'm convinced it was blown out of proportion. I'm just thankful that we were alright and no one was hurt.

Another weekend is here

I love Friday evenings. The work week is over and I know that Sam and I have a couple of days to spend together. We see each other so little through the week. Our work schedules are just different enough to make it hard. Usually by the time he's getting home I should be going to bed. I don't usually though or I'd never see my husband.

For the next month or two I don't see us exactly enjoying our weekends though because of this home improvement project we got ourselves into. That's actually where Sam is right now. He went to Lowe's tonight to get the sheetrock, so we can get busy on the ceiling early in the morning. We only have 4 more sheets to get up. Even to me, that doesn't sound like much, but somehow it is when you're lifting that heavy sheet of sheetrock.

While we're doing the ceilings and repainting the walls I think we should either put new carpet down or lay tile. We looked at some tile last weekend, but when we found some we liked it was pretty expensive. I'm still not sure it would look real good not having the same tile all through the house. It may be better to go back to carpet.

The airlines are having another price war, so that's great for us. We like to go to the other islands and it's a perfect time when tickets are $19 one way. So, today we booked our flights for October. We're going to go to the Big Island again. Those mini vacations are so nice. Just to get away for a couple of days is refreshing.

We (or I should say Sam) have been walking Bill's dog, Kea. He's cute, but a handful to walk because he barks at everything. He only stands a foot tall, but thinks he's the toughest little thing around. Sam walks him in the morning and we usually walk him together in the evening. I feel bad that Sam is stuck doing it both times, but just before leaving Bill got a new room mate and I don't feel real comfortable going in not knowing when he's there. The other night Sam was going to be late, so I needed to walk Kea and sure enough Bill's roommate was just getting out of the shower. It wasn't the most comfortable situation for either of us.

Well, Sam just called and is on his way home, so I'm going to close and go open the gate. We have to bring those sheets in the house yet tonight and then go walk Kea.

Home Improvements

We have the hottest townhouse in Mililani. Part of the problem, I’m sure, is the single wall construction. The walls have no insulation in them and the ceiling is just plywood with shingles covering it. So as the days get hotter the heat soaks into the house and stays there. It was usually hotter inside than out. So...last summer Sam and I had a bright idea. We could just frame in the ceiling in the living/dining room area and put insulation in. It sounded easy enough. The ceiling is open beam construction, so Sam framed in between the beams and we put in a drop ceiling. We used tarp foil insulation (which they claim works better than the pink stuff) and put up sheetrock. The worst part was the 16' cathedral ceiling in the living room. It was a 3 month ordeal that took us to our limits. That was in our first year of marriage and it's amazing that we made through. It was a horrible experience, but it seemed worth it once we got it done. The ceiling looks great and it decreased the temperature by probably 10 degrees.

So now, a year has passed and we obviously forgot how horrible an experience it was because we decided the office and bedroom needed to get insulated too. Last weekend we went to Lowes and bought the 2x4s for the ceiling. I made the comment that I was dreading going through this again and Sam said "Actually, I'm kind of excited about it". I don't think it took too long for the excitement to get dampened. Saturday and Sunday Sam spent framing in the beams and through the week we moved everything out of the rooms. Our bed is now in the dining room and clothes are hanging wherever there is room. Dressers are sitting throughout the living and dining rooms. Gabby loves the new setup. She has all kinds of new places to explore.

Today we got up early and Sam headed to Lowes to get the sheetrock and other supplies. We decided to go with 12' sheetrock to eliminate having to mud and tape the seams. That sounded like a great idea until I tried to lift one sheet. I was able to help carry 3 sheets before Sam got a neighbor to help with the last one. My hands hurt and feel blistered.

For some unknown reason, the people who built this house put a ledge all around the rooms about 6 inches from the ceiling. It's just enough to make it nearly impossible to get the sheetrock up there. The first sheet ended up breaking. We found that if we cut it shorter by about 1/2 inch then we can get it up to the ceiling. We've been at it for around 7 hours and got one long piece up and 2 smaller ones. I'm ready to quit, but we have a lot more to do. My poor husband has been stabbed with the razor knife and hit in the head with a 2x4. It's been quite a day.
Sam had to quit to drive our neighbor, Bill, to the airport. I’m not sure how much more we’ll do today. I’ll try to post some pictures of the progress.

Our visit to Alaska

So, Sam and I just returned from visiting my family in Alaska. It was a wonderful trip home. We stopped in Anchorage overnight to visit with some friends who recently moved there from Hawaii. Tom is a pilot for Alaska Airlines and Maryann recently retired from the military. They have a daughter, Ellen, who attended Bennett Youth Center where Sam worked. That's actually where he first met them. It was nice to see them again and spend a little time there. Unfortunately, Tom had to work while we were there, so we didn't see much of him.

It was so nice being back in Alaska. The weather was great, especially after the 85 + heat we were having in Hawaii. I was really ready to get home to Fairbanks/Delta. Kristy and the kids came up from Ft. Bragg, NC, so it was really nice to have all of us there at the same time. It was great to see Connor and Hadassah again. They are both such good kids. I was glad to get to know Hadassah. Sam didn't get to stay very long, but we enjoyed the time we had.

To the right is Mom, Dad and Hadassah at the Deltana Parade.








Sam and me at creek in Anchorage. The salmon were running, so there were lots of people fishing.








Sam and me at an animal reserve south of Anchorage.

Our life up to now

In January 1999 my Mom and I were on our way to an Army training on Kauai. I had no idea I would soon meet my future husband. Our luggage was lost on the way over, so we ended up going to class the next day wearing the same travel worn clothes. Not the best way to start our training. One of the first people I remember noticing as class started was this guy sitting directly in front of me. It was nearly impossible to ignore him as he was constantly doing something to get attention and make people laugh. He was cute, but I didn't pay alot of attention to him at first. Sam says he was to the point of doing backflips trying to get my attention. He kept every day of the training interesting and fun. It wasn't until nearly the end of the week before we got to know each other and there was a definite attraction. I was sure I would never see him again. Not only did he live in Hawaii and I lived in Alaska, but we were so different....it would never work out. We wrote a couple of letters to each other, but didn't keep in touch.
Jump ahead 3 years to May 2002. I was working in Human Resources at Ft. Wainwright, AK and his name came across my desk as the supervisor of one of our new employees. As such, I had to send him a letter of reference. Of course I included a short personal note. Not even a week went by before an email popped up on my screen from him. For the most part we haven't gone a day without talking or emailing since.
I think from the beginning we both knew we were heading toward marriage. We just had to work out the details of us living so far apart. I tried to get a job in Hawaii to give us a chance to know each other on a daily basis, however that never worked out. So, after two years of long distance dating (with occasional visits) we decided to just go for it. I was visiting him in April 2004 and about 30 minutes before taking me to the airport he asked me to marry him.

We decided to get married September 4, 2004 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Just a few days after our wedding we were off to our new life together in Hawaii.