Hawaii Dreaming

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Anahola Beach, our first morning:

Princeville Hotel:

My view every day:

Valentines Day:

Gorgeous flowers that I don't know the name of:

Anini Beach:

Overlooking Poi Fields, North Shore:

Cool Church, North Shore:

Lighthouse:

Kauai Dreaming

Hawaii was fantastic. The weather was perfect, the cottage was quaint and comfortable, the scenery was to die for and the company was even better. It was truly a vacation of a lifetime. Aaron and I had the perfect combination of activities and relaxation. For every hour of hiking, sight seeing, driving in the jeep and exploring was matched with an hour of reading, napping, walking on beaches and frolicking in the ocean.

We basically spent each morning hiking or exploring and then spent the afternoons on various beaches sunning, snorkeling and watching whales. Aaron couldn't get enough snorkeling but there's something about it that kind of scares me. Not scary as in I don't want to do it, more just sort of spooky. Being under the water with all those fish just kind of ooks me out and I really didn't want to get stung by anything. Lucky for me...I didn't.

One of the best moments from the trip was our first morning there. Since Washignton is two hours ahead, we were wide awake at 6am. We watched the sun rise over the ocean from our bedroom window and then went down to the beach and walked in the sand. The sun and clouds were so beautiful and no one else was out there at the point. Very fun and romantic!

I also basically spent the entire vacation drinking my weight in smoothies. The fresh fruit smoothies were so good and I became thoroughly obcessed with mango, papaya and coconut smoothies.

Here is my favorite picture from the trip, we were headed to dinner on Valentines Day and jumped out of the jeep for a quick photo op...isn't he just delicious?

More photos and stories to come.

Dried Up Inspiration

My title might be a little dramatic but I have seriously lost all motivation for cooking in the last couple of weeks. I haven't cooked a legitimate dinner in weeks, I'm talking scraping together some chicken and rice here and there and a whole lot of scrambled eggs. For those that know me well, expecially my husband, know how much I love to cook. I'm constantly getting in "trouble" for overspending at the grocery store and loading up on non-essential items.

We are going to dinner at some friend's house tonight and I'm supposed to bring dessert...easy enough, except I can't think of anything to make. I could do something simple like chocolate chip cookies but I don't want to! Usually I have mental lists going of items I want to make and have scraps of paper all over my hosue with jotted down recipes. I even let my cooking light subscription lapse and I haven't logged on at Smitten Kitchen in weeks.

I think part of my problem is that I've been trying to stick to the basics when it comes to grocery shopping. When I looked at our bank statements from this fall and winter and saw how much money was going towards food, I almost died.

So, if anyone has tips or tricks to offer on how to save money at the grocery store or yummy recipes I should try, send them my way. I could really use a little inspiration.

Also -- 3 days until Hawaii. I have been obcessively checking the weather forcast and so far its supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny!

It's Been Awhile

I promised I was going to make the blog a priority and then went and disappeared for two weeks. Its been a wild couple of weeks. Aaron's parents visited two weekends ago and we took them snowshoeing in White Pass. It was very fun and right as we were headed back to the car it started snowing.

Speaking of snow, we have had a ton of snow in the last few weeks but because its Central Washington it always melts. I can't say the same for our neighbors to the east and the west. The Pacific Northwest has had some crazy weather this winter.

I spent all last week in LA for a conference. It rained and the wind blew the entire time I was there...it basically felt like Seattle except with palm trees. On the flight home, I was bumped to first class and got to sit next to Sarah Silverman. She didn't exactly pay any attention to me; but since I didn't get to do anything fun while I was actually in LA, that made up for it a little bit.

Of course, since we finally got the 4runner back this month, on Tuesday as Aaron was on his way home from work, the subaru started making a loud and weird noise. He pulled over and when he tried to get back in and start driving the car it wouldn't go anywhere. Come to find out the transmission crapped out. Awesome!

So...thats the boring update from the last two weeks. Aaron and I are anxiously awaiting our trip to Hawaii. Thankfully its only 10 days away. We are in need of a little rest and relaxation. I'll try and check in more consistently in the next few weeks.