Holiday

I'm slowly learning what it is I like about the holidays. I've always loved everything about them ... seeing family, all the lights and decoration, and all the yummy food. But, I guess in trying to re-create what it is I feel Christmas should feel like at home, I am noticing all the little things that I wish it could be. I've got the Christmas tree up already (I couldn't wait ... ), some decorations, and a few presents already under the tree. I still need the smell of apples and cinnamon ... I have some potpourri for that but I think it's lacking in aromatic strength. I don't have nearly as many decorations and knick-knacks around the house as I'm used to, but I have lots of lights, so I think that makes up for it (notice the tree lights above ... I think that's what they look like to someone after too much egg nog). But the one thing that I can't even come close to re-creating, aside from having my entire family over, is my favorite of all ... cold weather and snow. I've decided that on Christmas Eve I'm going to shut all the blinds, make sure that the a/c is down to (at most) 60 degrees, and then I'm not going to go outside all day on Christmas so maybe I'll forget I'm in Hawaii. This place wouldn't be so bad if it would only snow every once in a while ;)

Selected!

Well, it's official, both Ace and I are going to be advanced to E-6! I just found out yesterday, and poor Ace probably won't find out until he gets home :( A lot of people made it this cycle ... congrats to everyone! We'll probably get frocked sometimes next week, and I'm crossing my fingers for 1st increment for both of us! It was definitely good news for me yesterday, since I woke up with a touch of food poisoning ... at least, that's all I could figure it could have been. I'm still in recovery today from it, and lucky for me, I had today and yesterday off from work. Go figure.

( I just got a few more negatives put onto a CD, and this photo is one I took back in '98 when I was in France.)

Photo taken in Paris, France and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1998.

Anticipation

So I got a phone call from my chief today, and he had the statistics for this promotion cycle. The actual results haven't been released yet, but probably will be in a few days, so I am HIGHLY anticipating the actual results, but so far I think they look good. 81% of the people who tested for E-6 made it this cycle, so I have a pretty good shot. Actually, I have an outstanding shot. Let's just hope I'm not one of the 19% who didn't ...

I was on my front porch, taking some fun photos, and I thought these two looked the coolest. The first one is neat beacuse it looks 3-D, and the second one kind of looks like a robot-dog to me. What do you think?

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Hunters?

So, I was putting my laundry in the dryer, and all of a sudden I hear the doorbell -- maybe. The washer/dryer is in the downstairs half bathroom, which is immediately to your left when you walk in our door, so it's possible I was just hearing things ... ironically it's harder to hear the doorbell from that room and it's right next to the door. So, anyways, I look in the peephole ... no one there. So I open the door just to be sure it wasn't a neighbor kid (they are constantly throwing balls and other odd objects in our backyard ... we're fenced-in so no one can access it but us) and all of a sudden someting jumps on my hand! I thought it was a gecko ... no big deal, see them all the time. So my cats start chasing around whatever it was, and it happened to be a huge cockroach! Yuck! I turn into girly-girl when I see huge gross bugs and usually I'm throwing out little girl screams while I'm trying to chase/kill/run away from the thing. So I was kind of relying on my cats to "clean up" the mess ... they wouldn't stop playing with the darn thing! I finally had to beat it down with a stick and get it into a cup to throw it outside. Those cats will eat a gecko faster than they will kill a bug ... they don't get outside much. At least it wasn't a giant centipede ... one time seeing one of those things in my house was enough to scare the poop out of me for a lifetime!

Kitties

Kashi and Fuji came home today from the vet. They seem like they're doing just fine ... poor Kashi has to wear this lovely contraption to keep from licking his stitches, but, other than that little annoyance, they don't seem to be in any pain :) It is kinda funny watching Kashi try and walk around with this thing on! He keeps bumping it into things and tried to push himself into the kennel at one point, even though the guard wouldn't let him fit in it! I'll have to keep them locked up most of the time to keep them from jumping around and possibly opening the stiches. The poor little guys!

Hike

Yesterday I went on a hike with some of the people I work with. We hiked three to four miles, and saw some beautiful scenes! Since it was my first hike on Oahu, it was an eye-opener to see all the nature that this island still has. Most of what I see are roads, buildings, and pineapple fields, so it was good to see the more beautiful aspect of this island. Today I take my kitties to the vet for their check-up before they get neutered tomorrow. I feel so bad for the poor guys! I'm having them declawed as well, which I feel even worse for doing, yet I feel it is a necessary evil that must be done. They don't wreak too much havoc on the furniture yet (though the furniture we have isn't exactly nice), but I'm mostly concerned with the cats playing with and potentially scratching our future kids. I love my kitties so much (laugh all you want ... if you don't love animals you'll never understand!) and I'd hate to have to get rid of them after we have kids. But I feel so bad for them that they have to go through all the ickiness of the surgeries.

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Away

My computer is finally back up-and-running again. I re-formatted the entire thing, just to be sure to wipe away all of the nastiness. I didn't lose anything important ... and by important I mean all of the photos I have on my hard-drive that I haven't burned to a CD yet (which I am definitely going to do very soon...).

Halloween is just around the corner, and I don't have anything planned, aside from staying home and handing out candy to the neighbor kids - I still have a pumpkin sitting on my table that needs carving, too. Last year, when we were in Misawa, we forgot it was Halloween and didn't have any candy for the kids. Those poor children ... the looks on their faces when we had to turn them away! We finally just had to put a sign on our door :( This year, I'm hooking them up. Oh yes, I remember being a kid and going through the candy bag, separating out the "good" candy from the "bad". I think our parents actually did that for themselves, though, when they "checked" it for tampered candy. ;) This photo is another one from our vacation. We went to the Maui Ocean Center, and the lady was feeding the fish and the stingrays. There was even a tiger shark floating around ... it pretty much ignored all the action, though.

Photo taken in Maui, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Vacation!

Andrew and I got home just a few days ago from our 11-day cruise of the Hawaiian Islands. It was so relaxing! This photo was taken at an island called Fanning Island ... the MOST beautiful of all the islands we saw while we were on our cruise, in my opinion. All of the islands have their own unique beauty ... Fanning Island was more like the type of place I tend to think of when going to a tropical paradise in the middle of nowhere :) We went hiking past waterfalls on Kaua'i, drove along the coast in Maui, and visited a coffee plantation in Kona. It was so much fun! Cruising is definitely the way to have a nice, relaxing vacation (especially if you like to eat!). I am kinda sick of old people, though. There is hardly anyone my or Ace's age on those boats ... sometimes it feels like you're aboard a floating retirement community! Of course, that also has to do with the cruise line we sailed with.

Life after vacation is going quite alright, unless you count all the computer problems we've been having. Our desktop has some weird virus or something that's not letting it work right, my laptop won't let me load a new version of Windows in it to clear the HD, and I'm typing on Ace's new laptop, since he had to get another one because his other laptop is fried. I love computers and technology, but it can be so finicky sometimes ... you never know when you're going to lose everything you had because of a small glitch. But I still love 'em ;)

The above photo is Copyright 2006 Nicole Young. Please visit iStockPhoto.com for purchase information.

Luau

Andrew, Jon, Nicole and I all went to a Luau the other day ... it was my first one. It was good times -- probably more fun for tourists, though, since the "awe" of the island has already worn off by now for me and Ace :) I'm still trying to master my new Nikon ... my "old" flash and "new" camera don't seem to want to play well together, so I'm having difficulties trying to figure it all out. It seems to have a mind of its own sometimes. Oh well, Ace and I leave today for our 11-day cruise of the rest of the islands, plus an additional one called Fanning Island (I think it was where Gilligan's Island was filmed), so I should have plenty of time to learn to use it better :) I'm still trying to pack all of my stuff with only a few hours before we have to drive to the pier! But, of course, I had to get one last blog entry in (not like I'm consistent about them anyways, but I'm trying to make more of an effort). The photos of our kitchen/office room are still on the way. We haven't quite finished organizing the junk and file folders, so once that gets squared away (mostly it will just take a trip to Office Max) then I'll post the before/after pics.

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Busy

I'm back to my blog, after way too long of neglecting it. Life has been very busy, yet enjoyable! Andrew's brother, Jon, is visiting us right now, and it's been great having him here. We've been trying to spruce up our house and get it closer to what we want, and so since Jon is here we finally got the guest bedroom mostly done. It has all the necessities, and I'll add things like curtains and pictures after a while. This weekend we plan on taking on the grueling task of taking down the yellow-plaid wallpaper in the kitchen, and then adding some more color to the kitchen walls and the connecting room (I'll be sure to post before-and-after photos when it's all finished).

This photo is of my cat, Fuji. He loves sitting on that chair like that ... my cats are so odd. I actually got some funny footage of my other cat, Kashi, and I sent it to AFV just for the hell of it ... I've always wanted to do that! Ya never know ...

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.