Hana is Heaven part 2 - stachefest 2009

Rob and Alex had the "brilliant" idea to have a mustache growing contest while in Maui. Let it be known that I was so incredibly opposed to this idea, however, like bad Indian food bringing on a tsunami of indigestion, this too was inevitable.

Rob started out just shy of a full beard and grew out that hairy beast for weeks before our trip - a whole family of squirrels could have been living in his beard for all we know. Here he is at the start of our trip, the bearded wonder ready to drive to Hana. If we had gotten in a car accident, his beard would have fully worked as an airbag for his face.Slowly, over the week, his face evolved.
Rob called this the "pork chop". I personally think he looks like a serial killer. Or a racist scary dude.


A few days later, here was the "trimmed down" version of the pork chop. The Skinny Pork Chop, perhaps?
Then, *cue dramatic music here*, the Stachie arrived. Is it me, or does he look like a red headed Tom Selleck here?

I'm sorry, but only Tom Selleck can rock that look. I HATE stachies. Hate 'em. What's that saying? Guns don't kill people, only people with mustaches kill people? 'nuf said.

I think I look kinda scared here.
However much chafe this brought my mug whenever we smooched, it sure did make the guys happy. Al even decided to participate and went full stachie with Alex and Rob - the picture of the 3 of them slays me - hysterical!
Finally, victory day! All facial hair was gone! I was so darn happy - I don't think Rob has ever been smooched that much in one sitting. So nice to have my sweet hubby's face back in all it's glory.

Hana is Heaven part 1 of ???

We just got back from 10 days in paradise with our really good friends. 12 of us total (including 2 bambinos) went to Hana, Maui - we were really lucky to have been there once before but this time the group expanded:

Rob & I got to Maui first so we went to Costco for everybody. I felt like we had a huge house of foster kids or something - we had 2 completely full carts of food...insanity! That's $1,100 dollars worth of Costco groceries (plus $1.50 hot dog in that belly, of course)

I'm glad we rallied and made the 2 hour drive to Hana that night - once we woke up in the morning we had 9 days of nothingness stretched out in front of us!We ended up renting the cottage next door to Karen's parents' place because there were so many of us. We had the kid-free joint, which was quite a blessing for nighttime...although we woke up with the sun ever morning at 6 anyway (the one and ONLY drawback to staying on the ocean). Here was our little pad, we stayed there with Jason and Tara:Having coffee on our porch with the ocean view:


We mostly just hung out at Karen's place, though. I cannot begin to explain the level of chill that we reached while there. There is nothing better to sit lazily on the porch (or on the hammock, brilliant!) and chat while looking out over the ocean. I swear, there would be no wars if everyone could have the chance to spend a few days there.
We laughed a ton, ate our weight in fresh fruit and the cocktails were definitely flowing.

We girls would pick poumeria flowers daily for our hair - I bought some fake ones at the airport that will just have to sustain me until next time.Hanging on the porch was heaven but so is their massive back yard. Bocce was almost a daily event (complete with cocktails and wearing swimsuits, of course):...and we also tried some backyard golf as well (a hole being one of 9 different pre-determined palm trees).

But the piece de la resistance is Karen's Dad's John Deere. I can't help it, I like John Deere's a lot.

Not really sure what that's about, but why the need to analyze it, eh? Riding the JD around the yard was one of my favorite activities...

Karen and Alex even got us all matching JD shirts - brilliant!

More hilarity and hijinx to follow:

Go Rammies!!!

We went to a local CSU alumni event at a bar yesterday with Leigh and Kevin for the annual CSU/CU game and we had a blast. It was awesome to see how many people turned out in support for our rammies and it was fun to meet people of all graduating years (although I'll fully admit when the class of 2006 walked in, I felt a little old. Those girls were really perky)
We were so proud of our Rams - they kicked butt and beat the Buffs, it was a fantastic game!

In addition to spanking the Buffs, ahem, we also got spanked. The owner of the bar had a huge paddle and was roaming the bar randomly spanking people. It wasn't really something you could say no to, so we all took one like the proud Rams fans that we are. Yoewch! These pics are all pretty blurry since they're from Rob's phone, but you still get the gist. Pretty funny.

Video o' the week - Aloha!!!

In honor of our upcoming Hawaii trip to Hana with our good friends, I thought we'd post the video movie we made after our last trip there in 2007. Good times, good times.

We're going again with Karen and Alex and Lisa and Jason - and the newbies will be Jason and Tara and Steph and Al...along with two kids this time too!

I can't wait - it cannot be next Friday soon enough. Enjoy an oldie but a goodie!

POW #34 the "Sean vs. Elvis" edition

This weekend, my old youth pastor, Sean, was in town for work and we got together with him for dinner. It was great to see him right after our 10 year anniversary renewal with Elvis and we were joking about Sean and Elvis going head to head for fastest wedding ceremony ever. Our first one probably clocked in at under 10 minutes since it started raining and blowing hurricane-style winds on us....the second one was around 8 minutes from start to finish (but did include 2 Elvis songs and a boogie break). I do have to say, Sean was super chill and just rolled with the change of plans with the weather - he did a great quickie exchange of vows that would have made the Princess Bride movie writers proud. I'd say for that, Sean comes out ahead.

Here's a pic from this weekend with Sean:

And here's a few from the original wedding. Sean's trying to quickly squeeze some vows in before the rain started coming. Notice Nicole is having to hold my veil because it kept whacking Rob in the face and my dress is taking on a life of its own.
And here's us "signing the deed" with Sean:
good times!