2 Saturdays, 3 Hikes, Fireworks and 1 day of cleaning

Where did May and June go? I have no idea....whew....I have been a busy little bee lately and have pretty much worn myself out. We had a nice semi-relaxing 4th of July weekend. I say "semi" becuase we actually went hiking TWICE!....yeah..... that's some kind of record for me. I had the awesome treat of having a FULL 3 day week end and then actually got off Saturday the following week! Yes! you read that right...I got 2 Saturdays off in a row! It was wonderful at the time but I am sure paying for it this week with working 6 days (Monday through Saturday). I'm looking forward to my next day off next Wednesday.

Working weekends isn't as terrible as you think it would be. SOMETIMES it's slower than regular days but usually not, however I enjoy having a lot less people in the office and we get free parking on weekends...so awesome- definitely a perk. I also have come to enjoy my "personal" days off during the week. I love hanging out and being with Scotty and my friends but it's kinda a nice to have a day to myself once in a while, even if it just means that I get to do the laundry while watching HGTV.

On my second Saturday off, (July 9th) I had suggested going hiking AGAIN! to my husband....yeah! what was I thinking?!.....so I pretty much totally flaked on him come Saturday morning and got his brother Kai to go with him instead. They hiked to Waiakeakua Falls (yeah even a waterfall wasn't enough to get me to go a hiking a 3rd time in a week). THANK YOU KAI!

I was desperate enough to NOT go hiking that I even volunteered to watch my nieces while he hiked with Scotty. It probably wasn't much of a fair trade since the girls are pretty easy, pop in a movie, give 'em a few crayons and they are set. I got a bonus this time cuz they were exited to use my swiffer mopper and swiffer dusters and they were able to "swift away" til their hearts content :o)

I in the meantime got to work reorganizing our small food storage, cleaned out our kitchen cupboards, did 5 loads of laundry, cleaned the apartment and tossed some junk that was cluttering our 1 bedroom apartment. It felt so good to get a few things in place.....it's gotta be my OCD.....hmmmm....

July 2nd- Scotty and I went on a short Waterfall hike(my favorite types of hikes).

I much rather hike to see a waterfall then to the top of some ridge. Yeah, I'm kinda weird....when I get to the top I do have a great feeling of accomplishment but I usually say the view isn't that worth it since I could've just looked at a picture instead. What is most amazing for me when you get to the top or to the "destination" of your hike is knowing that you are at least half way done and it will be over soon :o) Waterfalls are more fun because at least you can cool off and get some fun pictures- 2-3 are enough but not when you are hiking with Scotty.

I love seeing all the plants and especially the flowers, Scotty takes lots of flower pictures for me for my screen savers....... This yellow one was one I hadn't seen before....

I love the big leaves that remind me of Jurassic Park. It always seems like the plants in Hawaii are normal houseplants on steroids.....like if you took all the desert plants that don't get much water and gave them the environment to thrive like in Hawaii they would become ENORMOUS. There's this one plant that looks like a HUGE yucca that reminds me of home....I'll have to take a picture of it sometime.

Click HERE for more pictures from Hamama Falls.

July 3rd-  I was so busy with hiking the day before and getting my visiting teaching assignments updated for Relief Society that I completely forgot that I was in charge of the lesson on Sunday. Thankfully my friend Kat dropped by to help me finish preparing the Visiting teaching assignment sheets to give out that I was able to get up early enough to work on my lesson.

It is amazing how much the Spirit helps you when you need it the most, even though it was my own fault for procrastinating Heavenly Father prepared the way for me to give my lesson. As I was trying to figure out what topic to give it on, the thought came to me to do it on something that I've been struggling with, so I went straight to a book that I've been reading for inspiration: "Extremes: How to keep your virtues from becoming vices" by Robert  Eaton.

I must say that I was drawn to the book first because of the yummy ice cream on the cover, but what's inside is the biggest treat of all. I LOVE this book and highly recommend it.

Anyway...... so my lesson was about keeping balance in our lives-something I struggle with daily. The spirit helped me teach it and the ladies all contributed- I learned so much and was grateful for the opportunity to learn by teaching .

July 4th- Hiking for the second time in 3 days! Wow! I really should have gotten some special prize for this one :o) So my trick for enjoying hiking more than I usually do is to invite friends along to keep me distracted. This time we also invited the missionaries in our ward. We hiked up Hawaii Loa Ridge.

About 15-20 minutes from the summit it started really raining and got slippery and muddy and I was more than happy to turn back with a few others. But Scotty, Mike and the missionaries had to make it to the top.

In the mean time the rest of us headed over to our favorite burger joint for burgers, fries and my favorite chocolate shake.

We met up at our  pool and relaxed the afternoon away. Then it was off to our friends' apartment building to watch the fireworks......

What a couple  awesome week ends!

Click HERE for more pictures of our Hawaii Loa Ridge Hike.