Maui

You can tell that we just arrived because we are all still wearing pants!

Hunter's first "lei"

Island JennQ: What is the first thing Jimmy wants to do in Hawaii?

A: Play Risk on his cell phone. Our first Maui sunsetHunter and Grandma

Jimmy in the ocean

Hunter's first experience with sand

Maui: Haleakala Eco Adventure

Jimmy and I just got back from a wonderful vacation in Maui, Hawaii. We have been to Hawaii before, but this was our first time visiting the island of Maui. Maui is awesome and, in my opinion, much better than Oahu!

We went with Jimmy's family... his mom and dad, two sisters, our future brother-in-law, and super cute nephew. It was incredible and I have so many pictures to share. I decided to just break it up and write several blogs about our trip to Hawaii.

Haleakala Eco Adventure:

Jimmy, Jennifer, and I decided to go on an "Eco adventure" in the Haleakala Crater and it was so fun! We hiked, went on 5 incredible zip-lines, and an Indiana Jones type bridge.

It's official... Jimmy and I are compatible

Jimmy and I just watched a report on 20/20 about the science of love and compatibility. It was very interesting. A love specialist, Dr. Fisher, created a scientific compatibility test which is supposed to be based on chemical systems.

Of course, we were curious and thought it would be funny to take the test and see if we were actually "compatible."

We took the test, mostly as a joke, thinking it would be inaccurate and stupid. However, we were very pleasantly surprised to see that we were matched perfectly!!!!

I am a Builder/Negotiator and Jimmy is a Builder/Director. We are a perfect match in our primary and secondary biological type.

Check out the website:
http://www.chemistry.com/whyhimwhyher/index.aspx

Chillin' in Spokane

Jimmy and I took our annual trip back home to Spokane, WA. We had a good time meeting up with old friends, relaxing, and spending time with our families.

While we're in Spokane, we also look forward to pigging out in restaurants and on food we can't get anywhere else. We ate at Pizza Pipeline, Azteca, had crisp meat burritos from Taco Time, and of course, our favorite.... Zip's fries with fry sauce.

Yummmmm....

We also met my parents' new puppy for the first time. Dixie is a dachshund/chihuahua mix and super cute! As you can see, she loves to give kisses :0)

My first kiss with Dixie

This was taken seconds after she licked my face... ewwww, dog slobber!

Jimmy just got licked in the face!

Getting reacquainted with Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty used to be our kitty from college and my parents adopted her after we graduated

Dixie giving Jessica some tongue.

Here's some pics from a typical night at the Gadingan House... it's KARAOKE time!

Jimmy is "making love out of nothing at all"

I love Karaoke! It must be genetic :0)

Sistaaaaa!
The coolest parents ever! Aren't they cute?
Jimmy is obviously getting lost in the song.
Me and my mom singing a duet. Dixie, our #1 fan, is watching lovingly.

Me and my dad

January... a special month!

January is a special month in our family! Both my mom and mother-in-law celebrate their birthdays this month. Happy Birthday Moms! Also, my parents celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary on January 7th! Wooo hoooo!

This month, Jimmy and I are taking a vacation to visit family in Spokane, Washington and then to Maui, Hawaii to relax and take a break. We are so excited!

Moving up & moving on

Jimmy's best friend and mentor, Frank Vasquez, was promoted at the beginning of the year. We are so proud and happy for Frank and his family! It's bitter sweet because along with most promotions in the Army, a permanent change of station (known to military folks as a PCS) is soon to follow. Sadly, the Vasquez's will be moving to Germany at the end of the summer. We will miss them so much, as we see them as family.

It is tradition that the spouse "pins" on the new rank during the promotion ceremony.

MSG V!

Daddy's Girls

Jimmy just loves our kitties and they love him!

Jimmy and Lucy "Snout"

Jimmy and Ally


The kitties enjoying their Christmas gift, the "purr pad"

The Wonderful World of Neil - Revisited

I started this website entitled "Jimmy's World of Wonderful Things" my sophomore year at Whitman. The website only ended up having one entry and that entry was Neil Hoff. Neil was my roommate that year and I was constantly amazed at how picturesque he could be at certain times. He is a great guy and always was the center of whatever we did.

On his blog "Alaskan Adventure" he recently posted some pics of him with his new fauhawk haircut and it totally reminded me of my old website. Below are some of Neil's best of the best pictures.


This one was taken at 3PM after Neil just got up. He had this Bio 112 research paper that was a week and a half late. He had stayed up all night to work on it, but played hearts and Mario Golf with us instead.

This one was from freshmen year and it just screams erotica.

And this one was taken also during a Mario Golf marathon.

YAY NEIL!!

Large crowds and big shiny moving balls?

Apparently, the place to be in Virginia to celebrate New Year's is in Richmond's Carytown to watch the Byrd Theater's lighted ball go UP when the clock strikes midnight. (Our ball goes UP... take that New York City!!!)

Luckily for us, Steven lives 2 blocks away from the Byrd Theater! He was able to save us a parking spot in his driveway so we didn't have to deal with finding parking or walking really far to get to the location! We didn't go last year because of how hard we've heard it is to get parking and the huge crowds. I am so glad Steven was able to hook us up and we went this year! It was freezing outside and super crowded, but we had a lot of fun!

The Ball goes up!

Freezing in the crowd

I got to thinking about why people are so obsessed with celebrating New Years with a crowd of thousands of strangers to watch a glowing ball move in sync with the countdown to midnight. I have come to the conclusion that people, for whatever reason, feel they can't be alone during New Year's Eve... so the most logical result of that is a social gathering where people get totally wasted somewhere outdoors and wait to watch a shiny ball ascend (or descend) at midnight... Wooo hooo!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day

Opening gifts!

Jimmy LOVES Taylor Swift

New PJ's!!!!! I might actually have to retire my ugly teal and pink plaid pajama pants I've had since college!
Jimmy's new shirt

New socks! Thanks Mom! Both pair are actually mine, but Jimmy mistakenly thought the gray ones belonged to him. He was disappointed when I told him they were girl socks. However, he borrowed them once already!

This gift was from my sister to "StinkyTard." I started opening it, thinking it was for me, but it was actually for my brother. Steven is the StinkyTard, not me!!!

StinkyTard's gift... Steven's trying to learn Chinese before his trip to China

We have been so very blessed in so many ways this year, it has been overwhelming and we are very thankful for everything. Besides being so far from our family and friends, we have such a great life and never want to take that for granted.

Jimmy and I had so much fun at Christmas this year! We decided to keep things simple and just got one gift for each other. Jimmy got me a bracelet (from my new favorite website etsy.com) and I got Jimmy's tint fixed on his truck.

Jimmy and I hosted our first Christmas gathering this year. We had Steven, Tyson, and Rayne over to hang out and had such a fun day! Everyone sang karaoke and we had crazy, hilarious singing competitions. The power ballads and rap songs are the most fun songs to sing. The boys played a heated game of Risk, which surprisingly ended well, with no hurt feelings, ha ha ha. We also had Nintendo Wii competitions, watched a movie, and opened presents. Tyson got us a cat puzzle, so we all worked on that together too. There is nothing else to say other than it was such a good day... one that I will never forget! It is so wonderful to have my brother around during the holidays. Since he's moved here, we are able to spend so much quality time together.

Karaoke

Risk

Big Brain Academy Competition

Jimmy made a delicious Christmas dinner of Cornish Game Hens and I made a broccoli casserole so the boys would have a midnight snack. Jimmy was able to get get my favorite cake, red velvet, from my favorite bakery so I was very excited about that... I think I ate about half of it myself! We ate and ate and ate ALL day! I must have gained at least 5 pounds on Christmas.

Jimmy prepping the hens