Jean and Ross

Friday, October 3, 2008

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

My Grandpa Hawkes turned 87 yesterday and I just wanted to post a few pictures just to brag about how wonderful my grandpa is. He told me he was going to ride 87 miles on his bike this week although I have to find out still how many miles he did ride. He is a great patriarch and example to our family.
Here he is with Liz, picking corn in some random field in Nebraska so we could try it Grandma and grandpa kept up with our tireless travel schedule while visiting Nebraska and South Dakota. A huge buffalo somewhere in Nebraska
Grandma and grandpa, our wild west ancestors
We always spend Christmas with grandma and grandpa. They have always been there for me for all my major events growing up and I still can count on them to support me. And they spoil us every christmas

Grandpa perfomed our sealing at the Oakland Temple. That meant a lot to me

Grandpa at our family reunion in Utah- searching for wood to make whistles

Carving whistles. He seems to know something about everything. I love to sit and talk to him because he always teaches me so much

Playing the Wii. He is pretty good at it

Sitting through Ross' long graduation. I appreciate their willingness to come and support him. I think it is funny because they are all going through each name just waiting for Ross' turn.

Wow, it looks like grandpa was really hungry. This picture just reminds me how he and grandma and always there to celebrate every birthday. All growing up, that is the routine- sunday dinner and then cake with grandma and grandpa to celebrate our birthdays.

Happy birthday Grandpa! I love you!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Happy Anniversary!

Ross and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary over the weekend. It has been adjustment to have a husband in school because or schedule is much less free than it used to be. So my big plans to get away for the weekend didn't happen. Instead, we spent the day in San Francisco doing some of the tourist things we have never done. Might as well take advantage of the beautiful surroundings in which we live. So our first SF experience was paying an hours wages in parking fees. Then we took a "duck" tour which is a sea and land tour. Our tour was called the Bay Quackers. And they provided us with duck beak whistles to scare all the people we drove by. It was silly, but that is part of being a tourist. Our "duck" drove us through the main highlights of San Francisco such as Chinatown, Little, Italy, the piers, Union Square, the Financial district and the ball park. Then we drove into the water and we very slowly- those ducks are so slow, hard to believe they used them in World War II- (which they did for the invasion of Normandy) Anyways, back on track. So we slowly cruised in the bay near the Giants ballpark and the Bay bridge. We had a beautiful view of the city and also saw a California seal and some harbor seals. Then back to the land tour. I actually learned several things that I didn't know about SF- and I have been there many times.

Our "duck"- they were originally built in World War II (by women according to our guide)

Ready for the tour.

View of downtown San Francisco from the Bay. We had a really nice day in the city. No fog!

Our guide- a military officer from Sweden. I guess the military isn't paying well enough. He is sailing us toward the ramp. The entering/exiting the water was the coolest part

Ross took his turn driving the "duck".

Bay Bridge and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island. Typical bay day- lots of sailboats

We also hung out around Fisherman's Wharf. I love all the activity there. We ate at Scoma's which is a famous seafood restaurant in SF. More for Ross since he loves seafood. I actually tried scallops, crab, lobster and prawns.

That night, we went on a Ghost Walk with a local paranormal expert. I have been on ghost tours in Savannah and Charleston so I figure that San Fran must be haunted too. Here is our guide. He took us around the Pacific Heights area- which was not burned down by the 1906 earthquake so the ghosts are still there. It wasn't too spooky or anything but he did tell some interesting stories

Haunted House- made even more so by the full moon. It seems that the ghosts were all women- wonder why? We tend to become more attached maybe

This hotel is supposedly haunted and Ross walked around taking lots of pictures to see if he could capture an "orb" or supernatural presence in his picture. I say this is just a glare but Ross thinks it is an orb or as our guide calls it a "energy ball." This orb showed up in a lot of the pictures.

So we had a fun day together to celebrate a year of marriage. We ate our wedding cake with my parents the next day. I was happy that the part saved was chocolate and it didn't taste too bad after a year in the freezer. We have been very blessed this past year and everything has worked out better than we had hoped for.

My other news is that I am starting day shift tomorrow. I got tired of living in a haze and sleeping most days. Now I am trying to adjust to sleeping at night which has been harder than I thought. But I am looking forward to being awake when everyone else is and hopefully catching up with friends. I hope my body can handle the long 12 hour days.

Oh, and Ross did add more Philippine pictures- he just mixed them in with his previous pictures on the blog from August. So check out those pictures for new ones.

Monday, August 25, 2008

PS

I mean to comment on everyone's blogs but I am a little behind in reading them all. I will though. But I just wanted to say that I think you are all awesome- cute kids, wonderful parents, strong church members, intelligent, creative, funny. I get inspired reading about all that you do. I wish I could see you all more often- I have been blessed to have had you in my life at one time or another. So I just wanted to tell you that you are all my examples!

I love vacations....

For those dying to see more pictures, Ross took about 1000 of them so it is taking time to sort through them all. Plus, he started his first week of nursing school on Monday which has been very time consuming. He goes to school Monday through Friday from 8-4 in what they are calling "boot camp". I am glad that he is taking school very seriously but it leaves me with time on my hands since he doesn't have much time to lounge around with me. But the Olympics have kept me occupied this week. And also trying to figure out some sort of a sleep schedule.

So my impression of the Philippines- I enjoyed meeting Ross' mom and family. They all treated me well and were very kind. They were trying to feed me all the time which sounds like a good thing except I wasn't always sure what it was they were trying to feed me. It was a little stressful to make sure I didn't offend them but to discreetly avoid eating certain things. I don't have an iron stomach. Ross is from Cebu City so we spent part of our time there. Ross said it has changed in 14 years- I think he and Cebu have changed. He said that it used to be greener and less crowded. That was my first impression- so many people, cars, jeepneys, taxis and tricycles on too small roads. People work very hard there for what we would consider barely any money. But they seem happy to just be working and make do with what they have. That is one of the reasons why I love to travel- it always teaches me about gratitude and perspective. It is easy to feel ungrateful sometimes and wish I had more. But then i see the situations that other people live in and how happy they are regardless. I have too many luxuries to count. I did miss some of those while I was in the Philippines- like warm showers and comfortable mattresses. I will admit that I would not want to trade my life in America for a life there. But I enjoyed seeing a new place and meeting new people.

Ross and I went to the resort of El Nido in the Palawan islands for our last five days. This was one of the most beautiful places that I have been. We flew there on a small plane and landed on a lush barely inhabited island where they greeted us with singing and snacks. Then we took a 45 minute boat ride to reach the resort. We stayed in a water cottage which was on stilts above the water and had beautiful views of the resort and the surrounding islands. The employees were there to meet our every need. They had a long list of available activities and we just told them what we wanted to do and they arranged it all. We did a 15 minute introductory scuba dive- my first time. It hurt my ears as I expected but it was cool. We spent a lot of time snorkeling because the reefs were amazing. The reef around our resort had hundreds of fish and even some huge fish- like half my size. And then we had access to the surrounding islands and beaches. There were times when we were surrounded by hundreds of fish. The coral was beautiful as was the other underwater life. So that was my favorite part. I could have stayed in the water for hours just discovering all there was to see. But watch out for those territorial fish because I got attacked a couple of times- these tiny fish came right at my face. Pretty brave I thought.

The resort was all inclusive so we ate so much. I think i was on Michael Phelp's diet. But I wanted to try everything. We kayaked, explored hidden lagoons, relaxed on the beach, went sailing and fishing, and had lunch with just the two of us on an isolated beach. A five course lunch. This place was fantastic. The scenery was stunning and they treated us so well. So we would recommend it to anyone. We definetly want to go back. Our time there went by way too fast.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Philippines Trip

"The bigger the summer vacation, the harder the fall."

After 14 years

Ha! Ha! Oh no! We dont care if you get hit by a crazy taxi driver as long as you dont "text message" while you cross the street. Did you know that the Philippines is Rank# 1 in the world as the Top Prolific Sender of Text Messages? We don't care about Olympic Gold Medals because we are number#1 in text messaging.

Lapu-Lapu- The First Filipino Hero

We spent 3 relaxing days at my Uncle Boy's beach house in San Remigio

Nice and green. Grass so smooth you can sleep on it!

Jean posing in front of a non-motorized "banka"

Just Beautiful!!!

A family looking to gather some shells and fish for dinner. I am so grateful for where I am.

Their catch- mostly pufferfish( I guess the ones that are still puffed up are still alive)

At the Magellan's Cross in Cebu near the 100 yr. old Santo Nino Catholic Church

Dang! I need to remember to change my shirt;-)

Peace!!! Kids outside the Church selling P1.oo candles($0.20). I bought 6 candles and gave them P30.00 for being so cute. It makes me sad how life has to be for a young child to be forced to sell candles. They should be in school