Honeymoon (Jetskis and Parasails)

On our last full day in Hawaii we rode the bus to Hilo Hatties (and bought the last of the 5 million different Macadamia Nut treats that we hadn't tried/eaten/bought yet) and lingered over the official Magnum P.I. Hawaiian shirt.  But our real destination was the Extreme Parasail shack in the Ala Moana Marina.  I was the gracious one who volunteered to sit out of parasailing so that Mike and his sister could parasail together.  I mean, I was sooo looking forward to floating 1000' over the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a few yards of nylon keeping me aloft.  I actually can't think of another time where I was more happy to be the 5th wheel of the party.  So I played photographer instead.

 **I have the new format for Blogger, and haven't figured out how to caption the photos without deleting them yet.  They're pretty self-explanatory I suppose, but I'll work on my skills!

And what post is complete without a paparazzi shot?  We were stuck in traffic along with this lady, who was just kickin' back with an entire Kleenex shoved up her nose.  Never blew it, never touched it, nothin.

Weddingmoon Part 2

**I'm a dork. I just finished this post and realized that I posted a lot of the same pictures as in "part 1". But this time I put captions on 'em so I'm leaving them!


I got scolded for my lack of narrating in "part 1" but I was pinched for time and wanted to get a post out so I skimped on the actual blogging. I'll do better this time.


Lets start with the 2 classy brides. We said we didn't need to go to Hawaii to find the blowhole (sorry mom!).


The beach was scattered with Kukui nuts (the nut that leis are made of) and when we had finished with our "I do's" and photos, we gathered some sand from this very spot along with some of the nuts to give to our mothers (and some for ourselves). I also collected some seashells from the beach that Michael's sister got married at to put in the jar that we gave their mom.

Playing with the effects on our camera. We have since got a great photo editing software program and will take the time to edit all our wonderful photos from the most beautiful day of my life.

I asked him if he could carry me, I should've thought before I spoke (we got some great shots even though the waves almost carried us away!)

Married.

I could not (and still can't) stop kissing this man!

I wore a plumeria in my hair every day that we were in Hawaii.

Our Hawaiian prayer. Michael's hands encompassed mine as a symbol that he will protect me and be my strength. And he is. As we recited our vows, I thought of no truer words. We have been through sickness and health. We've been richer and poorer. We've been through good times and bad. We've already been living our vows, listening to them knowing we've already been honoring them was an incredible and overwhelming feeling.

Our last photo before we said our "I do's"

The wedding party. Me, Michael, Michael's niece Courtney, our new niece Ashley, Michael, Jacquie (Michael's sister), and family friend Chris (who everyone calls Charlie for some reason) who is stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Making it legal. I decided to change my middle name (Ann) to my maiden name. I'll never forget the twinge of sadness in my dads voice when I got married (the first time) and he and I no longer shared the Borton name. I didn't want to hyphen my name but it never occurred to me that I could do something else with my name. When I lost him less than a year later, the feeling became a constant regret. Ann was just a filler middle name (it didn't belong to my great-grandmother or anything) so I took this opportunity to honor my dad.

Wedding Moon Part 1

We had the most amazing time, and I am still pinching myself at this dream come true. We have a ton of pictures but I thought I should get a few up now (and of course I picked the big day to start with!)

Mr. and Mrs. Wallace (yay!)
April 1, 2012
Waimanalo Beach, Oahu, Hawaii

He put a ring on it.

Michael and I are officially ENGAGED! We have been talking about getting married for a long time, and the time has finally come to where we can actually put action to our wishes. To quote Harry Burns from When Harry Met Sally: When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Or to quote Michael: "You had me a 'Friend Request Accepted'."


We are so happy. Falling in love with Michael was like putting glasses on for the first time and realizing that those green blurs are the trees. He is my light: the sun of my days, and fire of my nights. I'm trying to think of more analogies of how describe how I love him, but words only come close.

There was no 'big proposal', because a proposal isn't warranted. He didn't need to ask. He's been proposing to me in small ways everyday since the day we got together. He makes me feel so loved, so wanted, so appreciated. And he tells me so everyday how much. He makes my heart swell and my eyes well up. The words he said to me before he put the ring on my finger are etched on my heart.

Back to Blogging

Oh man, it's been a busy couple of months, add to that my laptop crashing really derailed my blogging!

Lets catch up... I went back to work in mid-December for Providence Health and Services. I am a "scheduling coordinator" for their new operating system that is being rolled over over 5 states and 20,000 employees. Essentially I write the class schedule for those 20,000 people; one hospital at a time. It's a wonderful company to work for and I actually love what I'm doing. The downside of the job is that it's a 40 minute commute each way (thank goodness for carpool buddies), and the double-edged sword is that I am able to work all the overtime I wish, but it really has been keeping me away from my family and exercise.

I also had unexpectedly wonderful news... I got divorced this week!! Over 2 years in the making, my divorce was finally finalized on the 1st. I am still processing the reality of it all, it's been such a miserable, heart wrenching, infuriating, painstaking process and I'm utterly relieved that it's over. And am ecstatic about the new possibilities for my future now that this obstacle has been cleared!

That is the last 2 months in a nutshell... more catching up as I find more tidbits of time!

Christmas Cheer on the Cheap

We've all heard of the Craigslist Killer, but have you heard of the more elusive (and very smug) Craigslist Cat?
Our good friends Rob and Tracy (who also happen to be Makenzie's godparents) gave us a little Christmas cheer in the form of a gingerbread house kit. It sat wrapped under our tree for less than a week and I thought it was going to kill the kids to leave it alone (hence our tree is pretty barren of gifts so I don't have to listen to the endless "how many more days until Christmas" and constant 'rearranging' of said gifts under the tree).
Sound Harley hosts free Santa pictures (on Santa's Red Harley) and Lance the Llama. The kids were more interested in watching how close the Llamas hind end was getting to the bike behind him, they found it highly entertaining.
"I'm a sexy beast"
This is probably the real Santa... I mean it's gotta be rough on a fella to live up in the Arctic year round.
We also took advantage of the Groupon deal of the day and saw the Alderwood mall Santa (possibly the best Santa around) on the cheap: $11 for our photos.
We got to the mall at 5:08. Santa went to dinner at 5:00. Of course he did. So I stood in line for the next 52 minutes while Mike supervised the kids running from the fountain to the Pokemon kiosk to Game Stop. In no time Santa was back from dinner and we had a prime spot in line (vs. the saps who still had another hour wait in line behind us).
Waiting. Waiting. And more waiting.

Tomcat Tree Trimming

I've been trying to post this blog entry for over a week, but I keep trying to use the new blogger interface with no success, so I've had to revert to the old interface (again) just so I could get this post posted!

Have I ever mentioned how awesome my fella is? Well here's a short list of some of what makes me fall in love with him every day:

The kids need to learn to tie their shoes. Makenzie's teacher said she only helps the Kindergartners tie their shoes until Christmas, after that they're on their own. So Mike made a practice shoe for them to hone their skills. And the kids loved it and practiced and practiced and guess what? They can tie their shoes now!

When my dad passed away, the fire department gave me his helmet. And for the past 10 years I always wondered why there was a big black triangle on the front of his helmet and mentioned to Mike how it would be nice to even just get a generic fire department patch to put on there since dads helmet is on display and the next thing I know, Michael had found out what truck my dad was assigned to at his station (that big black triangle is where you're supposed to put your truck#) and arranged with who knows how many people to get me that patch, for Truck 36. Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

As Michael hung Christmas lights, I employed our children and neices in yard clean-up (where we subsequently found out that someone had stolen Mike's backpack blower and weedeater, not cool). I promised the kids a trip to the candy store if they could fill the yard waste tote. I've never seen a more productive group of children in my entire life. Needless to say I dropped $25 at the candy store later that afternoon.

Our happy home :)

In the above picture you might notice that our star has fallen... It's the thrid time it's happened, so we've kind of just left it. Along with the clumpy arrangement of the ornament placement (I can't rearrange what 2 energetic girls so thoughtfully hung). But the star's placement is the sole work of... Pickles.

Here he is innocently admiring an ornament.

Here he is contemplating Natalie's baby ornament (maybe wondering where his "kitties first christmas" is).

"What?"

I thought this series of pictures looked familiar... This one is from last year when Pickles was just a little kitten.