1 Meet Zurë

Everyone meet Zurë.

This cute little puppy of ours has totally taken our hearts. We have fallen in love with her over and over again. A couple months ago, I decided it was time to get a dog for our little family. Colten loves loves loves animals, especially dogs. 

Since I knew graduation was coming up, I wanted to get him a present he would love. One that would show him how proud I am of him, and something to go towards our next step in life. A puppy seemed to be the best present I could come up with. So I started to research what puppy I could handle, and also meet Coltens  standards of being a great dog. 

I found the Goldendoodle breed. And o.m.geeee. I fell in love right there! I was obsessed with finding one. Turns out, the great man above was watching out for us because just a few days of searching for a Goldendoodle, I found one that would be ready to go to a home right when we got home from Thailand. 

I was so happy, and to make things even better it was a miniature goldendoodle. Which I wouldn't mind getting a big one (standard) but I knew we wouldn't have an apartment for a few months once we got home so we would need a little dog until we got a more permanent home. So I quickly called and reserved our little puppy. It was EXTREMELY hard to keep it a secret from Colten. I'm the absolute worst at secrets.

Once it was time to pick our puppy (we had first pick of the batch) I told Colten I had a surprise for him. I showed him that litter of puppies and told him that he could pick whichever one he wanted! He freaked out and was over the moon all day. He loved one named "Cleo" she was an apricot color, and she was adorable! I personally loved the red one called "Ginger". I thought she was a beautiful color. We could not decide on one for the longest time. We would go back and forth on which to choose. 

"Cleos face is so cute though!"

"Ginger is more calm though right now, I want a calm dog."

"Cleo is so happy all the time, I want a dog with personality."

"Ginger is so pretty! She is different!"

This conversation went on forever, but then I remembered, it's Colten's present. Whatever Colten wants, he will get. After that thought, we decided to go with Cleo. 

A couple weeks later, the seller of the puppy batch called us and told us that Cleo had died of a heart murmur. We were devastated! We loved Cleo, all her pictures made us so happy! We were so smitten by her. By that time, in our minds, all the puppies were sold. We were the pick of the litter and now our puppy died and we didn't get to have one. We were so sad, we just cried and were down all day.

Once the seller called us back and we could talk to her about what happened, she told us that Ginger had not been chosen yet and was still available. Colten without hesitation said he would take her! We were so excited that one of the puppies weren't sold yet. AND we loved her just as much as Cleo since the beginning. We were so shocked she hadn't been chosen because she was predicted to be the first to go because of her color.

After our heartbreak, we were nervous to get her. We didn't want her to die of a heart murmur as well. We were still going to be in Hawaii for another week, and then Thailand for the next week. So all we could do is pray that everything would work out.

And it sure did. Once we got home my mother in law surprised us and had her when we got home! She was the cutest little puppy I had ever seen. I noticed that she was super calm though. Like.. too calm. She wasn't jumping and walking towards anyone. I turned to my mother in law and was asking her why she was so calm. 

She told me that there had been an accident, and that she had torn a ligament in her leg from slipping on the tile. Again, my heart dropped. I was so nervous that this little puppy wouldn't be healthy and live a long time. All these thoughts just flew into my head and I felt sick. 

But then, our little girl gimped over to me with her hurt leg and gave me her little kisses. All my negative thoughts washed away and I couldn't do anything but love her!

I was so smitten by her! We both were so happy. Healthy or Unhealthy she was ours, and we would love her till the end.

Colten quickly named her Zurë. 

 Ever since we have been busy parenting a puppy and getting her leg better.

 She continues to make us happy each day. She is the sweetest, and was meant to be ours!

0 B A N G K O K

click here to watch!

I was doing good about blogging during our Thailand trip, but then towards the end things just got too exciting for me and I didn't find the time to blog. We were so busy shopping around, wheeling and dealing. 

 Now that we are home and settled down (almost settled anyway) I found some time to make a fun little video of all our memories in Bangkok. 

I cannot say enough good about our trip. I'm so glad I closed my eyes and booked our (way too expensive) airlines tickets to Thailand. Sometimes you just gotta press the button and not look back right?

It was worth every penny. I can't wait to go back one day. 

p.s. this is my F I R S T video I've ever made with my camera...go easy on me! enjoy.

0 Thai Elephant ride & Tiger Temple

Okay, someone really needs to come over here and pinch me!!

It's been my dream forever to go to the jungle of Thailand and ride an elephant! Elephants are such beautiful creatures with such personalities. This whole trip to Thailand was inspired by my bucket list dream of riding one in their natural habitat. 

We are staying in Bangkok. I wanted to stay in the city since there is so much to do! So traveling to the elephants is about two hours or more. We found a tour that would take us from Bangkok to a little town full of jungle. 

We started off our day by getting picked up by this little thai guy that didn't know a lick of english. He struggled to say my name. It's so funny here, they know english but when they speak it I can't even make out the word. I have to think really hard, I figure out what sounds close to it and then I understand what they are saying. Colten keeps saying he feels so awkward because he wants to speak with them. We revert back to spanish when we feel awkward. 

Waitress: "you want drink?"

Colten: "si por favor!"

haha ugh wrong language dear!

We drove a good two hours and were just in awe of the driving here. It seriously is the coolest thing to watch. They have this smooth motion in their chaos. I've never felt more safe in a car before. And if you know me.. you know I'm the WORST back seat driver. I hate driving! I am so nervous when I'm in other peoples cars. I'd rather ride a bike than drive. So you would think I would be freaking out here right? They don't use their radios. They don't talk on their cell phones. The only time they somewhat relax is when they are at a red right. They put their car into park and then take a drink of water, call someone on the phone really quickly, or read the newspaper. As soon as it gets close to green light, they put their focus back onto the road. It's incredible. People mostly drive mopeds here. They start their kids young too. I see women with infant babies on the front of their mopeds as they ride. They are that confident in their driving!!

After a long drive we went to this WWII cemetery. I will have to write about that later, because to be honest I could not understand a word our tour guide was saying! I just smiled and shook my head up and down because our guide was making a huge effort in explaining where we were. Colten and I just exchanged looks and laughed because it was just foreign words coming out. 

We then drove to the elephant camp. Oh.my.goodness. it was heaven you guys! The elephants just roam the land. In fact, the way we found the camp was seeing an elephant walking down the road. I squealed when I saw how big they were. We walked to this little hut that was really tall. Thai children were running around everywhere. They were so cute. One little boy kept grabbing the bananas his mom was trying to sell and would run to the elephants and feed it. The elephant would nod it's head up and down and squeal his trunk as a thank you! I about died right there:)

We jumped onto our elephant, Meh. Meh's owner rode with us. He was hilarious. He knew english pretty well. We asked him a few questions on the walk:

C: "this is awesome! you must love living here!?"

T: "no. it get boring. same thing every day."

A: "is that your home?" (point to a little hut)

T: "yes, it's beautiful huh? I'm a single man."

A: "well than we need to find you a woman!"

T: "yes yes! I still can't find a woman for me. I go crazy."

He started to sing a thai song.

C:"you sing really well!"

T: "no if I sing well, then I wouldn't be here riding elephants!"

We laughed and talked our whole ride. Colten jumped onto Meh's neck and rode her. She kept nodding her head down and he kept looking like he was going to fall off. She would just carry on and look for her bananas. 

A: "how old is Meh?"
T: "She is 20 years old."
A: "what does she like to eat?"
T: "she eats everything! Bananas, pineapple, grass...but not this grass (points to flowers) she is picky. She loves to eat and eat. And now she is pregnant. ooooohhhh brother. There will be no food now."

The land was beautiful! Full of leafy greens. We were also by the river. We were going to bathe the elephants but we ran out of time. Elephants are so playful, so it would have been a blast to play in the water with them.

After the Elephants we went and ate at this authentic thai restaurant. No words can describe the food. It was that good! So full of flavor in every bite! Our dessert was pineapple, and it was the best piece of fruit I have had in a LONG time.

I had to go to the bathroom so bad. We were out in the jungle so the toilet I used didn't have water. It had a tub full of water next to it with a bucket. So I went to the bathroom and then poured the bucket of water into the toilet to "flush". They luckily had a sink to wash my hands.

Once we ate we were off to the Tiger Temple. Colten was so giddy about this place. He is such an animal lover. The Tiger Temple is run by monks. They bring tigers in from the wild and tame them.  They have all sorts of animals. Deer, hogs, bears, buffalo, eagles, and goats. There is a story that they let one of the hogs back into the wild, the next day the same hog came back with 10 other hogs! The animals love it there. We were in awe from the moment we stepped foot on the grounds.

We learned from the monks how to touch and get a picture with the full grown tigers. Our jaws just kept dropping seeing them interact with one another. Don't let my face fool you in some of the pictures. I would get nervous getting close to the big tigers. They were so solid, and their paws... wow!

We then went and played with the cubs. They were only months old and so adorable. If only you could of seen Colten's face in person... his face made my whole trip:) The cubs would just run to you and jump and play. They would sit and fight with each other too. Their growls were so deep for how little they were! They would bite you, but it was just a little nibble. You would have to hit their nose to teach them not to bite. We would just pick them up like babies and they would just paw at you. They were such little rascals!

We were in Heaven all day!
 D A Y   T W O in Thailand was defiantly one for the books!

0 T H A I L A N D

T H A I  L A N D has already won our hearts over.

We decided we wanted to plan a vacation when were leaving Hawaii for the last time. I wanted to celebrate Colten's graduation just a little bit more. I thought that it would help the sting of leaving our lovely home in Hawaii.

We flew to Tokyo Japan for our layover. It was the coolest, most peaceful airport I had ever been to. They had all sorts of cool little hang outs (I'll save that for another post). We arrived in Thailand after about 21 hours after leaving Hawaii. This was by far the longest we had ever traveled. But surprisingly it wasn't that bad. Maybe because we were just so excited it didn't seem that far. We were experiencing new things every moment. 

Once we got to Bangkok, it hit us that we weren't in America anymore. In Japan everyone knew english, so it didn't seem so bad. In Bangkok, people only spoke broken english, and we defiantly felt like we were a minority there. Colten stuck out like a sore thumb. He is by far WAY taller than anyone around us. On our flight, we had a handful of Americans so we just followed them to our luggage. 

Once we got our luggage we just looked at each other like, "what's next?" We decided to walk around to find the sky train. As we were walking this local guy yelled for Colten to go to him. He started to tell him directions on how to get to our condo. He obviously didn't notice me walking a little bit behind him because as soon as Colten got distracted some other guy came out of no where and was about to pickpocket coltens backpack. As soon as he saw me coming right towards him...starring... he just froze and looked like a deer in headlights. We just stared at each other for a good 30 seconds before he slowly walked away. 

My heart just dropped after that. I felt like we were this HUGE target. Luckily they didn't get anything from us, but as soon as we left I told Colten what happened. That of course freaked Colten out so we just flipped our backpacks around to our stomach side and we decided to trust a taxi. 

It was the weirdest ride because we couldn't communicate to each other! I felt so bad not being able to say thank you properly. Colten at least tried, and the guy just looked at us blankly. hahaha! It was a smooth car ride, until I looked up. Our driver was literally driving in the middle of the lane, in and out of traffic. He wasn't the only one either! It was very smooth chaos. I just looked over at Colten and we just smiled. I'm just glad we aren't driving.. we would be so lost! By the way, they drive on the opposite side of the road, and on the passenger side. It totally throws me off.

We got to our condo in one piece and were so exhausted! We had a little miscommunication with our keys but luckily a girl walking by helped us out with our lack of Thai skills. She spoke english really well and she communicated for us! We were so grateful for her!! Once we got in our condo we were all smiles! Best sleep in a long while!

Waking up we found our balcony had the most amazing view! We were so giddy to go explore. Just downstairs we have an amazing supermarket. The produce inside is amazing. It's so fun to look at all the food labels in Thai. You know what it is, but the names are so different. So far nothing tastes too different than Hawaii. Everything is just much cheaper here! 

$1.00 US Dollar = 30 Bahts When you look at the prices it looks like a lot, but it really isn't in US money. We only spent $15 all day yesterday for all our meals and groceries. Which makes us all smiles. It seems appropriate that Thailand is called The Land of Smiles. Other than our little pickpocket experience, everyone is super friendly and nice to us. 

After we explored for bit, we took a dip in our pool. The humidity isn't as bad as we thought. Hawaii prepared us. I don't feel like it's too different than what we experienced in Oahu. It still feels good to take a dip in the water! 

We spent a good hour in the pool by ourselves....there may or may not of been a little flirting going on;) 

A third honeymoon never hurt anyone right?

Day one in Thailand was a success. 

-sincerely, adri

0 he did it.

COLTEN JAY LAMB

CLASS OF 2013

GRADUATING WITH A BACHELORS IN BUSINESS

WITH A EMPHASIS IN MARKETING

AS WELL AS BEING A SCHOLAR ATHLETE IN GOLF

  

these past four years have flown by. 

i'm so incredibly proud of my little graduate. 

not only is he an amazing athlete but he is also as smart as any Einstein out there.

a devoted husband, and loyal friend. 

watch out world, this man is a mix of everything great.

he is going to do amazing things.....

what a dream boat. 

0 grams.

::HALEIWA TOWN + WILDFLOWER WEDNESDAY::

::GRAPEFRUIT TURNED SWEET? + PROUD OF THIS LITTLE MISSIONARY::

                                     

::WHAT PERFECTION LOOKS LIKE + MY LANE OF CHOICE::

:: I LIKE TODAY + FINDING A DESERT ON A TROPICAL ISLAND::

our life over on insta.

our last few grams of us living in paradise. I started using instagram when I moved out here. Back then, I was one of the first to have one. None of my friends had an instagram but me, so I thought I was pretty clever having all these cool edited photos.

Now--->instagram is the new Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, I remember when Facebook was the new myspace. Yeah, I thought I was pretty cool with a myspace account too. I could put really cool slideshows in my profile of pictures of me and my friends and (cough cough) then boyfriend (please don't take me back to those days!)

I ended up deleting my myspace because of my overdramatic high school breakup. It just drew drama to me and I just wanted out. My cousin told me that it was time for a more "mature" social network. A network called Facebook. After several days of heartbreak... I decided to join that Facebook world.

Facebook then evolved into this HUGE network. I loved it! I could talk to all these new boys from all over the state. I could instant message without anyone knowing. I could put up pictures still, just like myspace. I was hooked!

Jump forward to our move here in hawaii, my cousin once again told me I needed a more "mature" network. But this time a more "mature + private" network...instagram. And well, we all know how the story ends.

Social networking will continue to evolve and grow. I'm just grateful to have something that connects me to friends + family. I'm really grateful that it stores my pictures too. Looking back always makes for a good date night between Coco and I.

Facebook was the connection we needed to go on our first date! Instant messenger was my best friend. I would get home from work and get on Facebook. Colten noticed that I would get on around 5 o'clock everyday, so he purposely would get on and chat with me. After about a week of both of us spitting game to each other, we decided it was time for a date.

I'm so glad I decided to join the facebook world. I'm glad I have a memory book with instagram.

I'm excited to see what comes next....

0 halona cove.

Destination: Halona Cove Beach

This little cove is on the southern/eastern part of the island. (close to hanauma bay) It is such a gorgeous spot! It's located right next to the freeway, easy to find looking out your window. Right next to it is the Halona Blow Hole. Many tourists go over to the Blow Hole first, and then they discover the little cove on their right side. 

You climb down a little ways to get to the ocean. You can also just hike and explore on the cliffs next to the ocean as well. The water is of course warm, and there are so many little creatures along the coral. It also has a big sand area you can lay out on. The best part about being in a cove is that the waves don't come in so harsh. It is easier to float on the water. 

We discovered this little spot last year for Colten's birthday. We were exploring that side of the island because we were waiting for our sail boat later that evening. I'm so glad we found it when we did! It's a fun little cove.

It's a must see spot...pictures don't do it justice!