Home Sweet Home

Hey Guys,

I figure I should give you all a peek at what we call home out here on Oahu. If all goes as planned, there should be a little video of Ko Olina (our neighborhood) and some pics of the house. If any of you SDA designers are looking at this, yes, I know my house is one giant brown blob. David and I are having problems agreeing on accent colors. Not to mention finding money to buy some. So no laughing! :)


See http://www.koolina.com/ for more information or pictures of the Ko Olina resort.


So, without further ado, here is our home:

Front of our house

View from the balcony

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Our Bedroom

Guest Bath

We have a guest room, but it is currently housing a guest, so no pics. Besides, we probably will have to get rid of all that stuff when we move.

So that's where we live. We love it - it is beautiful. Those of you who are thinking about coming to visit: COME BEFORE OCTOBER. We will be moving (and packing) all of Oct., and after that we will be living somewhere decidedly less cool, and probably without a guest room. So if you can, head on over before then. You won't regret it. And we need the company. It's a win-win.

Midlife Crisis

Say hello to my dad's Midlife Crisis.

Honestly, I expected this kind of crap from my mom, so it was a real surprise when Dad pulled into the driveway with a giant Harley. He actually got it a while ago, before David and I moved over to Hawaii. I guess that faced with the fact that both of his children will live too far away to harass him, he needed to find something else to replace us that required lots of time, could possibly upset him greatly by getting in a wreck, and sucked the life out of his wallet. Perfect!

Actually, dad has had a lot of fun road-tripping on his 'hog'. Just look at him. He's so cute. Kinda dorky, which makes sense, as Court and I are such nerds ourselves. At least we come by it honestly. I'm just glad he's huge so no one will mess with him at biker bars.

Dad's possible biker-clan names:

Jolly Green Giant
Twiggy
Killer (from that time he dropped it on Diane and fractured her leg)

Ok, so I'm not really good at picking out macho names. But I amused myself for at least 15 minutes trying (in vain) to think up something funny, and imagining him in a biker gang. When my inner thug would’t come out to play, I got desperate and even looked up one of those Internet biker nickname-generator things, which is where I got this one:

LIGHT LESTER NO PANTS

The Internet is a weird place.

To be fair, it really isn't that much of a midlife crisis - Dad has been having a great time, and getting lots of use out of the bike. It's great to see him enjoying himself so much.

Sorry dad, it's just funnier expressed this way.

An Assumed Vacation

Well, after entreaties to both David and Stephen to write regarding Stephen's visit failed, you all are stuck with me, who was not around for most of it, and I'm kind of fuzzy on the details, since he came around 3months ago. Whoops. I'm a little behind. So here goes - their vacation as I remember hearing about it.

Stephen is the first of David's siblings to come visit, and we were very excited to have him. I don't get much vacation, so I worked during the week, turning the boys loose on the island. Sitting in the office, I had way too much time on my hands to obsess about the weather. At the start of his trip, it was both raining and very voggy, so I was a bit upset with nature. In a (well-meaning) attempt to find the boys some sunlight, I actually made a chart showing when it would be sunny where on the island. A dormant OCD trait had reared its ugly head. I have vague recollections of badgering David about it, and at the same time, my normal, rational side was viewing the whole thing from afar, wondering what the heck I was doing.

Luckily, the Dyer boys are immune to any kind of badgering, so they shrugged it off and had fun their own way. They did things - now a year later, I'm having issues remembering what. They went water skiing on the North Shore, hiked out to Kaena Point, went spearfishing, kayaked out to the islands, and did other stuff I'm sure I can't remember. We were so excited to have him.

Corene

These are just a collection of pictures from our last weekend of moving in San Antonio - I had lost them with the camera. Corene had kept our dog for us for 3 months in the interm of us moving. Lily misses Corene and Gigi (Corene's dog).

Look at this picture of trailer-backing perfection. I rock.

David's favorite Mexican place in SA - I'm sure we'll make a beeline for it when we visit. Mexican food really is terrible out here.

Sand Castle

David and I decided to broaden our beach horizons, and try out a new place this weekend. It was supposed to have good snorkeling, so we were excited -



Until we got there and realized the surf would probably bash out heads in, or at the very least, drag us out to sea to drown. Either way = dead, which was not in the game plan.



So, we decided to engage in some juvenile behavior and build a sand castle. I still find that it is great fun, and David is a sweetie for playing with me.

David Builds Turrets

Naturally, David decideded to build a big, manly wall. For protection, of course.

I swear, this looked much more impressive in person.

I know this is a messed-up picture, but David is so cute, I can't resist.

David's wall actually came in handy. Look at that thing withstanding the ocean's might!

David's Birthday

Stalls of Death

Coming up with birthday ideas are much more challenging now that we hang on beautiful beaches every weekend just to pass the time. Hm.

When in doubt, go for manly. And what can be more manly than guns?

The Birthday Boy and adoring fans

Paul (whose idea this actually was, bless him), Court, David and I headed up to Kualoa Ranch, which is a tourist mecca, and is a filming site for lots of movies/TV shows, and signed up for some shooting range action. Geared up and ready to go, we pitted our skillz against each other - and not surprisingly, Paul kicked our asses. At least he is nice about it.

Forever Alone

I wish you could see that Courtney's tongue was sticking out in concentration.

Have bullets, will fire

Rockin the earmuffs!

We had fun, even though it is kind of awkward holding guns that are chained to the wall when you have monkey arms that are longer than the chain allows for. That's my excuse, anyway. You can see our results below.

I did pretty good! I'd like to thank my Father and Romayor, TX for all their devotion in gun-related issues.

After some fun Frisbee-tossing at a park nearby, we headed off to Birthday Surprise #2.

Which, of course, was sweets. There is this old-timey ice cream parlor that has the most ridiculous ice cream creations you have ever seen, including a sundae that is a mountain of ice cream - it includes around 2 gallons of ice cream, along with several pounds of toppings. It takes two people, who actually carry it out on a LITTER. And Ice-Cream Litter. I had to see this.

We opted for a much smaller sundae, but there wa still much amusement, as there was embarrassing restaurant singing, as well as a video of David taking 8 hours to blow out his candles, since he thought we were taking a picture instead. It was funny. Maybe you had to be there.

Back at home we ate cake (of course I made him one) and hung out. It was a nice, chill day out.