Good Times in Hawaii!

We were fortunate to have returned home for a visit a lot sooner than we expected since Justin's work brought him back.  The poor guy worked all week, but hung out as much as he could.  He even squeezed in two rounds of golf!  It was so much fun reconnecting with friends and families that we left with our hearts and tummies full!

Here's some snapshots we REMEMBERED to take or ones that others have shared with us:

 

The Sunada's Were Here!

We were so honored to have these busy newlyweds, Kyle & Sara, spend their week of vacation visiting us!  We were looking forward to sharing with them a glimpse of our life here and so excited to have company!  Side note:  It was hilarious to meet them at LAX and see Kyle wearing SHORTS in 40 something degree weather! 

We got to show them the Camarillo and Ventura area and places we frequent.

We decided it would be a good time to experience our first road trip to Las Vegas!  It took us 6 hours and the weather was perfect!  We did make a few stops on the way and thankfully no one got car sick.  We haven't been to Vegas in so long, it was interesting to see how much they developed and still are building more.

The famous Zzyzx Road

The world's largest thermometer in Baker,CA

We stayed in downtown at the Main Street and weird to see so many people that you knew were from Hawaii.  What was even more strange was that you would even see them at the restaurants that served local food!  Some people just love their local food I guess or need good steamed rice (like Kyle, just kidding!).  :)

The main reason Vegas was on the to-do list was that Kyle & Sara really wanted to see Celine Dion's concert.  We had all gotten tickets ahead of time and by the time the night arrived, even Justin & I were really looking forward to the concert.  Like everyone else, we took pictures early with her poster.

We later came back to stand in line, but to all of our disappointment, we learned the concert got cancelled!  It was the first night she cancelled that led her to cancel all remaining shows until June! You may have seen it in the news, but she has some virus that requires her to rest her vocal chords.  SO SAD!  We felt really bad for Kyle & Sara.  We drowned our sorrows by enjoying Serendipity's Frozen Hot Chocolate, so yummy!

This then led us to find tickets for a Cirque Du Soleil show, KA.  It was totally worth it and made up for most of the disappointment.  Amazing performers and stage production!!!

On the way back, we were engrossed in conversation that we missed a major interchange to take one of the highways home...but here in Cali there's always more highways you can take to get anywhere you want!  Thanks to our iPhones and GPS we found our way without even having to stop on the side of the road!  Haha!  It's probably because Kyle was there to help navigate, but honestly, I'm getting better at it.  Thinking about it now and how the conversations went down, Kyle was 10 steps ahead of me giving Justin good detailed instructions, while I was just trying to keep up on the map on my phone....but I'm getting better! :)

It was such a good time with these dear friends.  We probably learned so much more about each other than we anticipated from spending 24/7 with them, but it made for such fun conversations!

America's Teaching Zoo

Tyler's birthday party was at the nearby America's Teaching Zoo at Moorpark College.  He invited his classmates and we all had a personal animal show! 

Catching Up

We wanted to catch you up on what the last three months looked like for us...

O Christmas Tree

 We shopped around for a tree in hopes to find one grown in California or even find a local farm to chop down our own, but unfortunately we ended up with an Oregon one from a seller in an empty lot.  Justin was proud he got to exercise those negotiating skills while I tried not to be embarrassed.

Baking Christmas Cookies

We spent an afternoon baking cookies with the family, even Justin tried to get into it. 

A Working Christmas Breakfast

 Instead of a party, our office had breakfast together at a local restaurant.  Here's the ladies I work with.  The one to my right is Antoinette.  We both are the "new girls", since we started a pay period apart.  We both also commute on the bus together most of the time.  Our schedules are changing so now we're on the bus together in the mornings, but I work later than her in the afternoons to earn me a day off every other week.  

Speaking of work...having this change in work schedule definitely helps keep my sanity.  It has been a challenge mentally with not only learning how to do my job, but having to learn it and realizing that my workload hasn't been tended to in a couple years.  It's been difficult to move forward on contracts without having to clear up the roadblocks of the past.  Overall, our office's performance statistics compared to other like office's statistics put us in a very dark light.  It even reflects in your own personal performance ratings despite if you did your part, which was very humbling for me to learn from my supervisor after my three months of training on the job and getting a low performance rating.  So, to keep my motivation, I have to celebrate the little victories...like closing ONE contract or reaching a day off (to do chores)!

Justin's Birthday

Don't worry, this wasn't a raunchy birthday gift by all means!  

The night before his birthday, I couldn't think of any other places to hide his present besides the shower in the extra bathroom we don't use and the car.  I decided to not to hide it in the car to make things easier for me the next morning before I left for work, since it's cold and all.  So in the shower it went.  Everything was fine until I heard him go into that extra bathroom (I was already in bed for the night).  I couldn't go back to sleep and he came into our bedroom with me sitting up.  He said he smelled mildew in that bathroom and I couldn't figure out if he pulled back the shower curtain to see his gift hiding.  Long story short, he didn't let up until after we had a few conversations in that extra bathroom and a few trades of smelling things.  Total FAIL on my part!  Two lessons learned here: Justin has a good sense of smell and latex balloons smell like mildew. 

 Christmas Eve

Justin finally got to go golfing and went to a course across the street with his coworker, Mike.  He's known Mike for a long time now and they used to work together in Hawaii.  Mike moved here 8 years ago.  Mike's a brother-in-Christ and always was very kind to us over the years.  He welcomed Justin into the Calabasas office and invited him to be apart of his lunch crew.  We had him over for dinner afterwards and it was fun to have company again over a meal (Teriyaki Furikake Salmon, tofu salad and rice) that reminded us of home.  We had fun conversations about the differences between Hawaii and California.  I'm disappointed I forgot to capture a memory of the night!

Celebrating Christmas with Our California Family

We went to the Wilson's for lunch and got to skype with my family in Hawaii.  We finally got to see the doggies and boy do we miss them!!!  It was so fun to experience a 1 year old and 5 year old open Christmas presents.  Tyler painted us that piggy bank, so cute right? 

Then, we headed over to the Nakamura's for dinner.  Aunty Carol & Uncle Wally made a tasty roast and salmon!  A real treat to have a hearty home-cooked meal!

Welcoming a New Year

This New Year held a lot of meaning for us, compared to previous ones.  We were ringing in a new year in a new place that is our new home for now, without our family and friends, and stripped of familiar traditions.  These mixed emotions coupled with getting through the challenges of transition brought us to a page that we were ready to turn and start a new chapter into 2012.  We praised God for taking us out of comfort and bringing us here, asked Him to forgive us for trying to do things with our own strength and by our flesh, and prayed we would have sweet memories with Him and not wasted time to look back on in the future. 

 

On a lighter note, we are so grateful for the family we do have here so we can share the holidays with.  They went all out on the food! Aunty Carol & Uncle Wally made some local Hawaii dishes and Japanese ones.  Some were similar to my mom's cooking and some were my aunty's own style, all in all, it made for such a grand YUMMY feast!  David experimented and made a spicy ahi salad and Justin got to make fresh ahi nigiri!  I made the super easy almond float.

Golf N Stuff

 This place was super fun!  We only did one of the fancy mini golf courses, but they had other activities that reminded us of what we heard Castle Park was like back in the day.

 Exploring Old Town Camarillo

Justin wanted to explore this area in Camarillo that he sees everyday on his way to work, off of the freeway, that is "hustling and bustling".  We get there on a Saturday afternoon and it's deserted!  We walked around for a little bit, but realized there's just a bunch of hair salons, barber shops, and some eateries.  We ended up at the Camarillo airport for lunch, Waypoint Cafe.  My coworker recommended this place and it was really yummy!  What made it even better was that while you ate you could watch all these little planes park or make their way to the runway.  It was a trip to see these people park their plane, come in for a bite, prep their plane, get back in and make their way to take off!  Who does that?!

 Making New Friends

God is definitely providing us opportunities to get connected to the church we've been attending, Community Bible Church of Ventura.  We were invited to have lunch with some people from church.  Pictured here were just a few of them.  The guy on the left is the worship leader and his fiancee.  We've been invited to be a part of a bible study that the couple in the middle is starting with one or two more young married couples.  It's a smaller church compared to ones we had visited and is only 10 years old.  They've been looking for someone to do PowerPoint!  Can God make it any more obvious where Justin needs to lend a hand?

Discovery Science Center

 

 

 This past weekend we went with the family to Discovery Science Center in Orange County.  There was a special exhibition on Star Wars.  Very cool place for kids and even adults.  Justin had fun trying to figure out some of the intellectual stations and teaching Tyler how to program R2D2 to travel through a course.