White Christmas!

After an early morning Christmas with the Cornelisons, we hopped on a plane and returned to Seattle to be with the Jacobs. All the sisters with their families were here to open presents and enjoy each other's company. And to mark the occasion, Seattle had a rare snowfall! Gorgeous white flakes gently fell across the undisturbed landscape as Jessica and I rushed out barefoot to catch them all on our tongues! The perfect picture of winter serenity besides those two crazy kids spinning circles out there.

So after we got our bare toes good and tingly, we got all bundled up to take advantage of the photo-op. That's what you get when you marry a photographer.

But it made for some fun photos, and Jess was even able to convince the whole crew to step out for a few quick shots.

Cornelison's Christmas Eve!

Thanks to a very generous gift from the Beck family, Jessica and I were able to catch a standby flight home to be with the Cornelison family for christmas eve and EARLY christmas morning!

We had a fabulous visit. Together we saw a community performance of Beauty and the Beast, we ate delicious food, we walked the local christmas light lane and sang carols and drank hot cocoa (not all at the same time), and most importantly we celebrated my bithday!

We also had the opportunity to join Grandma and Grandpa with all the fam for the traditional Christmas Eve party.

The dinner table had all the "must haves" of the holiday from spicy jalapeno stuffed green olives to Grandpa's famous punch. Grandma's candies were as scrumptious as ever, and combined with the sugar flowing from the pinata and the candy bar game, we'll all be soaring on a sucrose high for quite a while.



It was a special treat to have Great-grandma with us. The Christmas Party really encapsulates all of what is so memorable about the season when we all get together and make extra effort to show our families that we love them! And we'll treasure those moments together until we can all get together and do it again!

Call family Portraits

After attending Brad's graduation we spent the afternoon with the Calls. We all enjoyed a delicious lunch at the famous Uncle Bobo's BBQ, and Jessica shot a Call family portrait session on Sunset beach.

Check out their pictures here.

Also made available for download by the Call family members by clicking the file folder:

Elder Ballard - BYU Hawaii Commencement

We are currently attending BYU-Hawaii's December commencement ceremony, and Elder Ballard has just addressed us. With the help of our tablet pc and WWAN internet, I'm following up on the prompting and invitation he extended to us to "join the conversation."

Specifically, he opened my eyes to my personal online "sphere of influence" and asked us to use the new media to spread the message of the Restored gospel. He spoke of the marvel of the invention of the printing press and its associated bust of revolutionary knowledge & growth. He affirmed that in our day we can participate in a modern day revolution and use its power to spread the message for good.

His invitation is one that would have us generate, contribute to, and correct content that will help answer questions and influence others for good. I feel like there is more that I can do to spread the gospel message that has so blessed our lives, and would invite you to also lend your voice to enlist in the forces for good. We live in a marvelously connected time, and I think that if we'll enlist in the cause championed by Elder Ballard, the voices of many can be heard by those who might be seeking. And being so blessed by what we know - we need to find ever better ways to share.

Katie's Birthday!

Happy Birthday to our Sis-star!

Jessica made a cute - and incredibly delicious cake to celebrate with the sis.

So we filled up on dessert, crammed into an aready filled car, and went out to dinner on our way to the airport! Both Katie and Thomas returned home for the holiday break, and sis reunited with the fam to further celebrate her 19th year on this sphere.

We heart our sister.

Crazy Dayz

Yesterday was a crazy day.

So I woke up and said to Jessica - "Let's go hike stairway to heaven!"

She said - "OK," so we went!

Here we are hiking up to the stairs and getting kinda lost back in the lush vegetation. But we found the stairs, and made it part of the way up, before a security guard showed up. He had other plans - and a bright shiny shrill whistle - so we decided to comply and come back down. He was real nice, and showed us a better way back through the dense bamboo. He was even nice enough to tell us the hours he worked, and when might be a better time to endevor upon the hike.

But being busted, we returned home with only slightly sore muscles and were somewhat grateful to be spared the further beating of that rather tiring trail.

So we took an amazing nap, woke up and deep cleaned the house, and I took off with Chris for some last moments of day-light surfing.

The last couple of sessions out at Crouching Lion have been awesome. The winds have been down, and in the evening its been getting down right glassy out there. And with the head-high swell we've been getting its made for the prettiest little break I've ever surfed. I snagged a classic ride - one for the scrapbooks. And at the end of the evening took the last one in over the reef. But it was kinda shallow (as in only lots of exposed coral heads) and my back fin snagged the reef and I got gently tossed into the water and scored a few spines from our black spiny urchin friends in the foot. (See picture)

But, I braved on, and paddled in to shower and join Jessica as we went to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner round two - sponsered in part by Ted's Bakery and their $5 pie sale! We went to Brad and Kerri's and they had just pulled a beautifully cooked turkey out of the oven - seasoned with Jamaican Jerk! So we had our Jamaican Jerky Turkey, giant costco baked potatoes with cheese and bacon-bits (the real kind), stuffing, white corn, and pumkin haupia pie! Oh my.

Happy Electricity-less Day!

So, our power went out Wednesday - from midnight to 9:00 pm!

We had a night of pretty wicked storming which left a fine mess all over the road as Jessica and I drove to teach Seminary at 5:30 that morning. Only to find that the power was out not only in Ka'a'awa, but at the chapel as well - and pretty much the rest of the island. Which left both Jessica and I jobless and rather free to spend our holiday in traditional electricity-less fashion.

So we called up Brad and Kerri - cooked up baked beans and smokies on our propane hiker's stove, surfed, and had an evening barbeque. At which barbeque Brad managed to down 4 burgers - 1 full pound pre-cooked weight. Well done!

We had so much fun we figured we should knock down some trees more often.


Surfing out at Bunker's with the Call's

Kaneohe Christmas Parade

We woke up early to make our way down to celebrate with the rest of the windward side of the island at the "Peace on Earth" Kaneohe Christmas Parade. It was fun. They had the floats, marching bands, no-name government officials and city counselmembers, and Jessica's favorite - lots of horses. She would have naturally fit in well with the "angels" on horseback dressed in long flowy white dresses.

We watched while sipping a shared Egg Nog milkshake from Jack in the Box. Nothing but the finest. We cheered for the kids who played, marched, sang, and did tae kwan do. And Jessica was even able to snag some goodies from one of Santa's Elves.

All together it made for a fine kick off of our December month.

Our Anniversary!

To celebrate our anniversary this year we decided to take a vacation from our vacations!
So we hooked up our home theater, bought tons of goodies, and layed around all weekend!

We did actually manage to get dressed and venture out for a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory! It was amazing! We ate until we couldn't move, and brought home an entire Godiva chocolate cheesecake. Such decadence.


Afterwards we walked around the Waikiki strip enjoying the holiay sights, sounds, smells, and shopping!

So here we are all dressed and dandy ready for our evening out in Waikiki.

Camping Out

We wanted to go camping - but Jessica kinda also wanted to not miss some of the great deals. So we compromised. And we went camping at Best Buy!

It was a lot of fun - we camped out with all our gear in the parking lot, ran around shopping in our pajamas, and we came home with an awesome home theater projector. Just in time for the big UH game! Go Warriors!

Thanksgiving!

What a memorable Thanksgiving we had!
Jessica cooked up a storm beginning Wednesday night and made some delicious fixings for our feast!


Brad and I went down to Kailua early Thursday morning to retrieve our turkey which had been cooking all night in an imu (underground stove - dig a hole in the sand, line with banna leaves, stick in hot rocks, cover with leaves, cook it up!)

We were hosted at Brad and Kerri's and were joined by Katie and Thomas, as well as Brad's sister Haley and cousin Gina with their dudes in tow.

After a rousing round of Thanksgiving pictionary, we feasted on our favorite sofa Suzy. Following dinner we retired to the TVA courtyard for a frenzied marshmellow fight. And ofcourse after getting sugar coated, we had to close out the afternoon with a castle-beach surf session to get us good and cleaned off.

From whence Jessica and I took off to go camping! But that is another post.

Dolphins!

This was unreal - absolutely incredible.

New Galleries

Check out the newly posted galleries featuring Jessica's work on our webpage:

http://www.shoeboxofphotographs.com/

Clam-Sucking Daterfaces

We stole away on another romantic escapade this evening...venturing an entire 100 yards from our front door!

Jessica was at her moon photographizing again - this time from the beach out infront of our home. We then walked back across the street to the Crouching Lion. We enjoyed the most amazing game of darts I've ever undertaken, followed by the most amazing bucket of clams I've even eaten, only to be topped by a competitive game of billards - which was altogether un-amazing because I lost.

However - the clams were really quite spectacular. And with Jessica's employee discount the entire evening, games, clams, drinks, tip and all were under $10. Which just made it all the more a delicious date.

30% More Moon . . . Limited time only

With the romance of a larger, brighter moon - we've been out enjoying many a moonlit evening the past three nights just Jessica, her camera, and I.

Our designated location Wednesday and Thursday was shooting from Kualoa out over the water towards the small off shore island known as Chinaman's hat. She captured a few interesting images of the moonlit sea with some long exposures.

Friday evening she shot from our beach.

They're all the more remarkable when you take into account the fact that it is night and pitch dark out while these are taken besides the bright glow of the moon.

The moon is at its biggest and brightest of the year tonight - so take someone you love by the hand, drag them out to a dark corner somewhere, and take a whole bunch of pictures!




If you want to read more about the moon - follow this link, Apparently it is supposed to be 14% larger and 30% brighter! http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=7255788

Library Lovin'

We went on a date Wednesday night.

You might wonder . . . what could two lovers do on such a mid-week eve. Well, it just so happens that we wondered the same. And we decided to go to the library!

So we are now the proud possessors of brand-sparkling new library cards!

Jessica was very excited to find the extensive craft and cooking section - as is evinced in the expression captured in this completely candid photo.

And then, we went out for ice cream! But kinda ended up getting chinese food instead. It just smelled so good.

In what has now become one of my favorite date pictures of all time, I managed to capture the view from my side of the chopsticks as Jessica and I were chatting.

Such was our crazy night of library lovin'.

Fertility Pumpkin!

As I sat enjoying the beauty of our carved pumpkin this evening, I had a thought, and a quick search produced the desired resolution...

And yes, if you were wondering as was I, it is true that upon googling 'fertility pumpkin' in google's blogsearch - yours truly is the FIRST result.

So everyone who has been crawling the internet in search of fertile pumpkins, has inevitably found our entry.

Now that's a marvel.

Try it out - http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=fertility+pumpkin
However, after this entry gets posted, the search might instead find this entry. We'll just have to see.

Our Family Portrait

Aptly named the fertility pumpkin - this masterpiece of jack-o-lantern carving came into creation last night.

Here's the how and why . . .

At our Halloween party, Brad and Kerri carved their pumpkin with a stick figure mommy, daddy, and baby. Not wanting to be left out - Liam suggested that we should carve our family portrait . . . and after a few minutes of collective brainstorming, this design was submitted by Jessica - and received unanimous consent!

And so this winky little fella will grace our front porch this season, properly representing our growing family and the hope of things to come!

First year to Eternity

Marriage...is what brings us together...today!

A few mason-jar memories of those happy moments - preserved for posterity, and proud parents alike.

Cornelison Family

While visiting for Jared's return - Jessica took these family photos, and managed to be in them too! Pretty impressive. And what a good looking crew!

This first shot was taken in our back yard - after an exciting day of yummy mexican food - with real mexicans! And don't forget about our return-missionary shopping spree - check out those snappy sweaters!

This second shot was taken at Woodward Park, before we successfully undertook the pumpkin patch corn maze - in a Cornelison celebration tradition for pop's birthday.

The latest craze

We've succumbed.

While we're obviously not the first to embrace a craze - our lives certainly aren't lacking any craziness.

And now that we have our own blog - we can't help but feel a little trendier, a little hipper, and perhaps even a little crazier.

Hoorah for the latest craze. Hoorah for our blog.