Christmas! is over

Well, Christmas this year came and went, and the best part was definitely all of the family time. It was a little hectic this year, with J and me moving across the ocean, and the country, during Christmas, but it's so nice to know that we have so many homes in so many places to welcome us. It certainly has been interesting to pack up and clean up so many old memories - first in Hawaii leaving, then in California to clear out all evidence of my life from most of my old house, then again in Colorado to make room for two people's things in J's old room. Life leaves so many memories trapped under dusty shoebox lids and inside old bags and plastic boxes. Part of me is excited for the judgement day, when I get to remember everything all over again for eternity.. and part of me is glad I get to take time during this life to throw out the trash and embarassing Book of Life entries before reviewing it all.

Also, we have decided to start a couple of family Christmas traditions - to buy some nice cheese to enjoy and share (borrowed from the Goodwills, and professor family at BYUH we admire), and to send out Christmas cards. The last will be, unfortunately, late. But, I promise the tardiness is NOT part of the tradition.

Anyway, there aren't any pics for this entry, so I'll stop now before the text gets too boring. It's enough to say that seeing so many family (both Henderson and Quillen sides) has been huge buckets of fun and has made this break one to truly be grateful for. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and good wishes for the New Year!

the fire is so delightful

Well.. J isn't totally right about the temperature here (though it is cold). He may have exaggerated a little (by that, I mean quite a bit). Yes, it is colder here than in Hawaii. No, we do not have to keep our winter coats and boots on in the house. It was true, though, that when he and I arrived at the house we are currently living in, it was about 40 degrees inside. Then, we turned the heater on for two hours, and it warmed up to 60. Now, it is a warm temperature, in fact, he was so warm last night that he couldn't sleep without eating ice cream. ^_^ This was due in part to the fire we built in our lovely fireplace, and partly to the various heaters. What will we ever do when we reach Colorado? He may be warm in his winter clothes.. and I may have to stay inside in my California-weather winter clothes.
At any rate - it is now warm here. And I'm sure I will learn how to be plenty warm in CO too. Merry 4 days 'til Christmas!

New Post... what to post?

Hello all. So since I've got nothing else to do, I will blog. But blog about what? It's vacation, and I'm a lazy bum! "You Dirty Bum!!" (What movie, what movie?) So anyway, we are just here in California and enjoying time with Lianna's family. However, through careful observation, I have noticed that all Californians keep their homes heated to a scorching temperature of 60 degrees. Crazy energy-conscientious hippies! (jk jk) You basically wear winter coats, gloves and boots inside. Not my idea of cozy home.

I am also presently job hunting... trying to find a job that will use my degree. Something science-based, something that will look good on a med school application if I don't get in this round. (I hope that doesn't happen, but it has to many others and is quite common. Oh well, what will happen will happen.)

We are just getting ready for the holidays here, which is all great and fun. But I guess I will post some of the other pictures that I said i would. Here are more pictures of the Big Island as well and the crazy floods that we experienced the last few days.
This Car had it lucky. It was on high groud. Others were almost completely submerged.
This is the road. Well, was the road? Anyway, you can see the yards/houses. Look and the fire hydrant!
Here is the "Guard House" at the entrance to BYUH. Behind it is a big field. Warning: Smoking is hazardous to your health, especially smoke bellowing from a volcano.
Our lovely thanksgiving feast... at Pizza Hut (And yes, I was still a Dominos worker at the time)
Here is us at the entrances of the freaking awesome lava tubes.
And here is my beautiful wife. Isn't she cute? I think so.

We made it!

After lugging 13 pieces of luggage for three people, we finally made it. We are now in California with Lianna's family, still trying to get everyone settled. We had a lot of things to do here the first few days, including a quick afternoon trip to Fresno, which was a three and a half hour car ride each way. Right now, we are going to rush out to go Christmas shopping. We miss Hawaii and all our friends, and the cold here is a constant reminder of that, but we'll make it. =)

We made it!

It is done.

Well, we finally did it. It was a nice ceremony, and it actually hit me that we were graduating when we were sitting there during the ceremony. Now that feeling is gone, and so that means it was fake, it still hasn't hit me yet, or I felt it, got over it and moved on. Still it feels pretty cool I guess. I mean hey, we're college graduates. That's something pretty special.



Isn't she cute?

This is a picture of Lianna and me with President Eyring. You might say, "Joe's not in there." BUT I AM! You can see my head and my funny, and incredibly annoying hat right over the shoulder of the man behind Pres. Eyring. I'm basically famous now.

Plans, floods, and power outages

So, I figure that I better post before we don't have power any more. First of all, our plans. I guess we really dropped the ball on letting everyone know our plans... but that is partly because we are figuring them out as we go! So, for now, here are our plans:

First, we are flying standby from Hawaii to California. We are leaving Monday, the 15th of December. We hopefully will get out Monday, but if not, we got an entire week to fly standby back to California! Surely we will get there.

From there, we will spend part of the Christmas season with Lianna's family. We are going to stay there in California with Lianna's family until the 24th of December, at which time we will fly, not standby, to Colorado to spend Christmas and the holidays with my family. From there, we stay. Lianna is going to start message therapy school in Aurora, right by where we live in Colorado, on January 5th. She is going to do that until about August. I will get a job... somewhere... hopefully. Once we get our situation figured out, (Like our finances, if/where I got in to med school, apartment contracts, insurances... etc) we will look at apartments. Then, come fall, I will go to med school and Lianna will get a job as an elite massage therapist for famous movie stars and ridiculously rich people. Well, maybe not that, but she will work as a massage therapist while I am in school to help offset some of our debt. So there you have it. Those are our tentative plans for the next 8 months.

Now for the good part. You make all the plans you want, get ready to move, plan on studying for finals, (which by the way, I successfully procrastinated for quite some time until the last day, which was the day the events below happened), and BAM, mother nature hits you with a swift left jab. Welcome to winter in Hawaii.

So this is right outside our house. Luckily for us, the water did not get high enough to get into our house. Unfortunately, others in our ward were not so lucky. Of course, this all began at 3:00 am, and caught everyone by surprise...


Yes, that guy is over 6 feet tall and the water is up to his knees. Crazy!


Here you can see the swing set. Those swings in the water are about three feet from the ground, maybe more. There was a lot of water >.<

But, even after the worst of it, it always gets better.


However, like I said before, Mother Nature only hit us with the swift left jab. She's gonna follow up with the powerful right hook. I hear that the worst isn't over. And now, as I write this, the sky is literally blackening, with flashes of ominous bursts of lighting and slow, groaning thunder shake the ground with a dull uneasiness. Round two anyone? The power went out about an hour ago due to a shattered electric pole not too far from our house. Of course, it happened on the only road up to this side of the island, and therefore cuts off half the island from us. And of course, Lianna's mother and father are stuck on that side of the electric poll, literally a half a mile away from us. =( But life goes on. Lets just hope 1) it doesn't flood out graduation, and 2) we don't need our 72 hours kits (which we disected and sold, packed, ate). Hehe, exciting living in paradise.