San Fran

My favorite picture of the trip, with some of my own modifications-I love pictures and making something extra special out of them!

Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the Hamiltons, a couple from Michael's mission who were so kind to let us come stay with them and show us around San Fran!

Thanks guys!

Here we are on Alcatraz Island looking out at the Bay Bridge. It was neat to take the audio tour and learn lots of goodness about the prison!

This is a picture we took from the trolley-I love seeing the bridge through all the streets and houses!
Here is the cute little trolley!

Gotta love Pier 39 and their oh so famous seal village!

This was outside a little store-so wish I could've bought it!

Alcatraz Island from a distance.

A cell in Alcatraz-what a dreary place to have had to be sent to!

This is just some RIDICULOUS sailboat owned by some RIDICULOUSLY rich
person. Unbelievable.

Oakland Temple up ontop the hill overlooking the whole city!
B-E-A-Utiful!

Being true tourists (once again) at an awesome halloween fair thing-
they really had some neat stuff going on there!

Out on the Golden gate bridge on a lovely day!

On Alcatraz, looking back at the city-so happy!

OAHU

Welcome to Hawaii! Oh how we love it! Lets first say that we did this whole trip in a friday afternoon and saturday-we are awesomely time crunched travelers who make literally the most of their limited time!

We're just happy in this picture-nothing excitingly out of the ordinary. But I do think its a good picture of Michael :)

Our new travel buddies are also happy! Laura and Johnny and our cute jeep we got or cheap! I rhyme.

For our first adventure of the day-China Man's Hat.
The distance isn't as daunting as it looks.

Almost there-looking like we're just offshore-but out in the middle of the ocean!

Hiking up, up, up to the peak of the "Hat" for the most stunning view!

The pictures don't do justice to how glorious it was-being out in the middle of the ocean-

with the beautiful Hawaiian scenery ahead of you-

and the sun streaking its way through the clouds-
gently glittering off the ocean bay below. Truly breathtaking.

Aloha China Man's Hat!

We just dinked around the rest of our friday night-
saying hello to the oh so fabulous hawaiian men.

Eating some delicious shrimp and being true tourists
by posing in the wooden frame (looks for this again in San Fran...)

We took a last stop to the beach to relax for a bit of the night on the sand.

Bright and Early Saturday morning we headed off to Maunawili Falls!
The hike was pleasantly full of crossing streams, slipping through mud, and
viewing some more of that gorgeous Hawaiian scenery. Can't get enough!

The Falls! Nothing huge and grande-but quaint and cute nonetheless
as Michael proves he is a conquerer of waterfalls (which he is)
(no, seriously, he is)

Double jump as we prove we are the conquerer of the skies!

No, seriously, I am. See me? Ya.
Its like being a fairy in Never Never Land.
The vid at the bottom is me jumping from higher up
from the left side of this picture. Freaky it was!

We love to play! No growing up for us! Peace out Maunawili!

Stopping for lunch/dinner. Then Matsamotos-HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!
Before this we were at Waimea Bay
jumping off the rock there as well but unfortunately didn't snap any pictures.

Laura with the Bounty Hunter! Grrrrr!!! He's scary looking.

The one and only Sunset Beach to top off our trip.

There aint nothing like swimming in
the ocean under a perfect sunset!

And a special thanks goes out to Nola and Josh or letting us stay with them!
Even when they had just moved there 3 days earlier! Thanks guys! You're awesome!

Here is my jump-that was really really scary! I've jumped lots but it never ceases to pump me full of adrenaline. This isn't the best shot but this is about a 50 ft. jump out of the trees into the little pool of Maunawili. ROCK ON!!!

Viva Las Vegas

We went to Vegas for the weekend to play with Juli and go see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian. Chelsea has never been there, so it was a mesmerizing experience for her as we drove down the strip. Since we don't drink or gamble or pick up hookers, we put our energy into finding whatever else Vegas might have to offer.
This picture is from the top of the needle on the Stratosphere before we shot off into the sky! We rode two of the rides atop the Stratosphere. Big Shot and another one whose name has escaped me that took you out over the edge and spun you round and round. Both were super fun and a little freaky!

We watched the dancing waters three times, I believe, because the music changes each time. You can't watch just one.

Such an amazingly beautiful spectacle! Before this we witnessed another fantastic spectacle. We saw Phantom of the Opera in the theater that was built around the show. It was crazy awe inspiring! They shortened it a bit, but most people wouldn't recognize it. We ended up eating at Panera Bread twice because Tracie hooked us up with gift cards. We love that place. And we love Tracie! Thanks a bunch!

Tradition led us to this little snack place to get chocolate covered strawberries. We ended up getting a lot more than that, as you can see. I guess you just can't say no to chocolate and sugary goodness either!

This picture is in there for the sole reason of letting short, Mexican guys know that they do actually have a chance with tall, redheads-should someone ever wonder :)

Puerto Vallarta Adventure

This was quite an interesting trip. We were initially headed to Alaska for the weekend with my old roommate Spencer, but when the flights filled up at the last minute we decided Mexico would be fun! What an adventure it turned out to be.

This is Guayabitos, about 45 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. We flew down early Friday, went and grabbed our cheapo rental car, and took off up the coast. We were going to stay the weekend at a friends place here in Los Ayala. Getting there turned out to be harder than we thought.

After attempting to get up the hill of death to the house, we were all muddy and a little beat up, so we decided to go to this restaraunt on the hill. It had quite the view and was so nice to just sit and hang out, but Chels and I didn't know what half the food was, so the food was a little less than desireable. Notice how our plates are still full....

After we ate what we could, we headed up to the house. It was a crazy bumpy ride in a little piece of crap car, but we did make it. We couldn't pull up to the house because the road had caved in at the entrance, so we got out and walked up to the house.

This is the house we went to. It's the pink one on the right. It actually has a gorgeous view over- looking the beach. It is a really cool location in the middle of this jungle, but comes with all the blessings of a jungle.

As we were climbing to the house we almost walked through the web of this freaky guy. The little one on the left is larger than 90% of the spiders in America, so you can only guess how big the one on the right is. It literally was as big as Chelsea's hand.

They were all over the place. There were none in the house, but they were all over the place outside as we walked around. You had to be really careful not to walk through their webs, which were actually a golden silk thread if looked at properly. Later, we were told that these Banana Spiders are not poisonous, but they were still freaking scary.

Amidst all these freaky spiders, there was this little preying mantis on the railing. It was about the size of a penny. It was SO small and cute! There was also a frog on the side of the house!

This was the view from the back balcony and it really was amazing. We stayed here in Guayabitos for a night, and then decided to go down to Puerto Vallarta for a couple days.

In Puerto Vallerta we decided a zipline tour would be fun. We went to El Eden, the film set for the movie Predator. It was gorgeous driving down the coast and then through the jungle and the little towns.
To prepare for our zip lining adventure, we needed to have close-toed shoes, which neither of us had. So we headed to Wal-Mart and got these awesome cheapo mexico shoes which suited us perfectly. Chels actually really liked them!

This is Mike, swinging through the trees!

Ew, ya, we look like dorks, but had a good time nonetheless.

And this is Chels doing her swinging thing.

We were pretty hot and sweaty due to the hiking and humidity and after a few minutes debate, we decided the cold water would be good for us.

Michael sliding down the waterfall. It was really scary climbing over to the spot where I start. Then it was scary because I got stuck in the current of the waterfall. Bobble-head Michael!

Doing a backflip off the rope swing. We were really glad we decided to play in the water.

Any rain really takes a toll on these dirt roads in Mexico.

It made for exciting, jaw clenching car rides though!

Saying goodbye to Mexico. What a random, fun trip it turned out to be!