Chinaman's Hat

 Today we were ready for a new adventure so we swam out to a little island known as Chinaman's hat. It is called Chinaman's hat because of its cone shape, which resembles the peasant’s hat worn in rural China. It is very beautiful to look at from the beach, but you can't see its real beauty unless you explore it close up!





A lot of people take a kayak out to the island, but we snorkeled out to it. It is about 450 meters from the beach to the island and takes about 45 minutes.

The mountains behind us were so beautiful.

On our way back we went shopping(Hawaiian style) for some home decor for our apartment. We picked up some coral pieces that I am going to bleach and maybe paint some bright colors.

 I love my handsome hubby! We love being off all day with each other and enjoying the outdoors. Anything we do together is always fun:).

 Video from the top!

 We met some guys who had been out spear fishing and caught some octopus. The locals call it "taco." We asked if they were going to eat them and they said yes and then we asked how to cook it and they said they eat it raw. I am not sure I am up for eating uncooked octopus just yet. I held one and it was really cool to feel it suction to my hand. Landry bought a spear a while back and really wants to try it out soon.

Aloha from the Allens!

Girl Meets Boy!

5 years ago today I went on my first date with a handsome, brown eyed boy. Landry and I met on a mission trip to Merida, Mexico in 2007. Someone from our team dropped out at the last minute and some guys on the trip called Landry to see if he wanted to take the open spot. He said yes of course because he loves to be spontaneous and is always up for a new adventure. Which now is one of the many things I love about him.
After a week of watching him be a servant to the Mayan people in the village where we were working and seeing how outgoing and friendly he was with the other members of our group I felt a feeling I had never truly felt before. I wanted to be around him all the time. Every night we went on a walk and no matter how tired I was from the long day of work I didn't want the night to end. I felt an instant connection with him.
On our plane ride home Landry passed me a note asking for my phone number. Yea, yea I know it is cheesy, but at the time it was the best thing ever. Then a couple days after we got home he called me and it was really hard to hide my excitement talking on the phone with him. At the time he lived in Alabama and I was at my parents house in Jackson, Tennessee about to go back to  college in Arkansas. He asked if I wanted to meet him in Nashville, Tennessee and hang out before I went back to school. Which is ironic looking back since this is the city we both moved to and where we lived the first 6 months of our marriage.

I can remember trying on what felt like hundreds of outfits and being so nervous on the 2 hour drive to meet him. He looked so cute when I saw him. Probably because I had only seen him in athletic shorts and t-shirts all week on the mission trip. He had planned the whole date which really impressed me. We went to eat at the Spaghetti Factory downtown and then walked around the Parthenon and fed the ducks and then he brought me to this hill that overlooks downtown. It was a great first date.

I am so thankful God crossed our paths on that mission trip.
I pray today that I never take for granted what a blessing he is in my life.

The "ME-DISEASE"

As I mentioned in my previous post, my mom, brother Andrew and his friend Felix where here visiting us for most of the month of July. Boy did we have a full house! In Nashville before I married Landry my roommate and close friend, Sarah and I shared a 600 and something sq. foot, one bedroom apartment. We had two twin beds crammed into our room and we thought it was really small. Then Landry and I upgraded to a 900 square foot one bedroom apartment in the same complex once we got married. We really loved our place (mostly because it was our first place), but we felt like it was really small, especially with all of our stuff in it(mostly landrys :)). And we compared ourselves to our other couple friends with houses or town houses much larger than our place. Well now we live in a 515 square foot place, which is smaller than anywhere we have ever lived in. On top of that we have had WAY WAY more visitors than we ever had before. So I know God is getting a good laugh about us thinking we had a small place before.
My brother and his friend slept on an air mattress in our living room floor and my mom slept on our couch right beside them. We have one small bathroom, no air-conditioning or dishwasher so needless to say it was challenging living in such tight quarters for this long of a time.
So here's where my post title comes into play...the "me-disease". I would like to say I caught this disease while my family was here, but I think that is not being truthful. I have had it a very long time and tried to cover it up or act like it wasn't there. But man o man did it explode while they were here. I found myself always thinking about myself. How am I going to have enough time to get ready for work? What am I going to eat for supper? I want to do what I want to do on my off day from work....and the list goes on and on. Instead of focusing on my company like a good hostess should do I began to focus on me and me alone.
I did not realize how self centered my life has become until I had to focus on someone other than myself for the first time in a long time. Since Landry and I have moved to Hawaii I have not had to focus on many things except working and hanging out with Landry. But thank goodness God is giving me a wake up call.
Right after my family left Landry and I moved in with a family from my church. Their mom asked if we would stay at their house for 10 days while she had the chance to go see their dad who has been in Afghanistan. I wanted to help them out, but selfishly in the back of my mind was the "me-disease" flaring up again. I wanted my alone time with Landry, I wanted and empty house and to do what I wanted with my time. Do you see all those "I's" yep it was coming back. But God told me not to listen to those selfish voices to listen to his. When I asked Landry he immediately said yes and I am so thankful for his constant selfless attitude reminding me to change mine.
Philippians 2:3-4 says "Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others. Those verses are pretty plain and simply. God wants me to put others first. We stayed with these three teenagers and we were blessed. They were amazing, they cooked dinner for us most nights and we played games and watched movies. They had such servant attitudes towards us. Morgan the oldest put most of the meals together with help from her siblings and she would always leave some for us when we got home from work. Bailey was up for going anywhere and doing whatever, no matter if she enjoyed it our not. She has a very caring nature. Gavin was always asking us what movie we wanted to watch or changing the channel to something that was interesting to us. I am so thankful we got to know them better.
The next step to my journey of less of me and more of God was a book I just finished reading today, Kisses from Katie. http://youtu.be/zfXgCx3f_1c Here is a link to a video about Katie's story. You can also visit http://www.amazima.org for more videos and information about her foundation.
I heard about this book via facebook. I had read several post from girls inspired by this story. Though I often read about new books something was pushing me to read this one. I believe God lead me to this particular book at this particular time when my heart is open and ready to stop the "me-disease".
I immediately went on amazon and purchased the book when it arrived a couple days later I started to read it and could not put it down. Usually at night when Landry comes home all I want to do is hang out with him and no matter what was on my agenda I drop it to get to be with him. But sorry Landry this week I have had my head in a book most nights.
It is a story about a teenage girl from Tennessee who moves to Uganda. She has lots of disadvantages to the outside world. She is young, she is a female, she hasn't gone to college yet, she doesn't have a lot of funding and on and on. But she says yes to God's call and puts complete trust that he will provide what she needs.
"Uncertainty is everywhere. But I am living in the midst of the uncertainty and risk, amid things that can and do bring physical destruction, because I am running from things that can destroy my soul: Complacency, Comfort and Ignorance/ I am much more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy." This is one of my favorite quotes from the book. It hit me hard when I read it. But I REALLY REALLY needed to read this. We are constantly surrounded with people and a society that has a self-seeking outlook on life. We want bigger houses and nicer cars and cuter clothes and more stuff. This SCARES ME! Because notice I said we I am definitely part of this.
I know this post seems rather like a sermon, but I had to let it out. I want to make a change. Luke 16:13 it says "No servant can serve two masters."...it is referring to God and money, but I am realizing I can not serve my earthly fleshly desires and my eternal God.
So what's next?....I don't have an answer for that yet! But I want to say yes to serving God and his people. Mark 8:36 "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"
Matthew 9:37 "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."
My prayer today is for whatever God asks me to do I say yes. Lord, please heal me of my disease. You alone have the cure. I want to be more like you and less like the world.


We sang this song at church a couple weeks ago and I had never heard it, but I thought the words were really good so here it is....

The things that I love and hold dear to my heart
They are just borrowed they're not mine at all
Jesus only let me use them to brighten my life,
So  re-mind me , re-mind me dear Lord

Roll back the curtain of memory now and then
Show me where you brought me from and where I could have been
Remember I'm human and humans forget
So remind me remind me dear Lord

Nothing good have I done to deserve God's own son
Im not worthy of the scars in His hands
Yet he chose the road to calvary to die in my stead
Why He loved me I can't understand

Happy 4th of July!

As I have mentioned in some of my last post hiking is one of our favorite things to do here in Hawaii. There are several reason why we enjoy it so much...1. IT IS FREE!!! This is a huge bonus for us here since everything is expensive and our funds are always running on the low side. 2. It is good exercise and fun at the same time. 3. It is beautiful. We have climbed tall mountains with a view, hiked in the wooded straight paths just enjoying the greenery and one of our favorite types of hike is a waterfall hike. We like to jog on the way and then jump in the cold water after we are nice and warm. There is a beautiful water fall hike in Pearl City where we live, Waimano Falls. Last week we brought my youngest brother Andrew and his friend Felix and my mom to this hike. The waterfall was way stronger than usual due to the rain. I will be posting pictures soon of that hike. Oh yea by the way they are all staying with us for almost a month on their summer vacation.

We have been wanting to do this one hike in particular pretty much ever since we first arrived on the island. It is called stairway to heaven or Haiku Stairs and it has that name for a very good reason....

It is almost 4000 steps up the side of the mountain. One of my previous post I showed some pictures from a hike called KoKo head and it is only 1000 steps and is a pretty intense hike so needless to say I was a little worried about all those steps.

Landry and I have been waiting for a good day when we were both off work with no plans and we really wanted to hike it with some friends. The more the merrier on this type of adventure. OH YEA...I forgot to mention this hike has been shut down and is illegal to hike. Which makes it a little more of an adventure. It is not dangerous, I have mostly just heard that there has been lots of complaints from the surrounding neighborhoods about the noise level so they closed it down. So you have to get to the trail before the security guard shows up.
So my brother Andrew, his friend felix, Justin Jones(a friend from church), Ron(one of my co-workers) and Landry and myself all met at the wal-mart parking lot last night at 1 am to go on this hike. Landry and I both worked yesterday and were planning on taking a nap before we met up, but my excitement kept me wide a wake.
We got to the trail around 1:30 and parked our car on the street in a neighborhood. Right when we got out of the car a lady yelled out her window....I am trying to sleep! So we quieted down and headed up the dark service road with our backpacks full of snacks and water and our head lamps on. We knew how to get to the service road but not how to find the stairs so we spent the first 45 minutes getting our legs nice and warmed up as we stumbled around in the dark looking for the trail.
We had heard that the guard gets there at 2am and we thought he was gonna be there and we weren't going to be able to go. But luckily no guard was there and the long hike began around 2:30 am. It was pitch black and I could only see the steps right in front of me with the light of my head lamp. The nice thing about this hike is there are rails on either side to help pull yourself up with. But of course in the middle of the night they were pretty wet and the steps were pretty slippery.

 

Some necessary, thug poses in one of the buildings we stopped in on the way up.

 

 We arrive at the top around 4:15 am and it was Cold and Windy. People had told me it was cold up there, but I just thought in my head yea cold for Hawaii is probably not really that cold, right? But they weren't joking it was cold and we were determined to wait at the top until the sun came up around 6 am to see the view. Landry had text Justin to tell him he might want to bring a long sleeve, but he didn't get the text so he wore shorts and short sleeves and he was freezing. The smartest member of our group was Ron, with two pair of socks and jeans and a long sleeve shirt and a jacket.
When the sun finally came up we could not see anything!!! We were so high up we were in a cloud and we had to climb down quite a bit to get a clear view.

The view finally started to show through the clouds.

Beautiful mountains above the H-3 highway.

The steps were really steep at some points.

Ron

Justin and Landry

Felix and Andy

Landry and Me

The Crew...

We came home and crashed half of the day and then we are headed out to see some fireworks tonight. Happy 4th of July.

The Blessing of Friendship

   A year and a half ago I married an amazing man whose personality is very opposite of mine in many ways. Landry is one of the most friendly, outgoing people I know. On the other hand I have a rather introverted personality. If we were both put into a big room of strangers, I would feel very uncomfortable and maybe meet one new friend to make the time pass. Where as Landry would come out knowing everyone's name and something about each person and he would love getting to know new people. So I am figuring out that God had more than one reason he matched us together. God knew I like to stay in my comfortable bubble and not reach out BUT that is not possible being married to Landry. At church Landry always goes to the front to talk with whoever goes forward whether he knows them or not and whether the church has 100 members or 1200. I always think in my head someone else will go,because it makes me uncomfortable which is a really bad Christian attitude. Luckily for me that attitude has been broken over and over again as Landry drags me to the front. I have learned from him that it is NOT about ME! Who cares how I feel it is about making other people feel loved and cared about.
   Since moving to Hawaii God smashed my bubble. We came here knowing no one but each other and if we wanted to make friends I had to reach out. It was not hard here though as I have said before the church we attend is so welcoming and loving to new comers. Since it is a mainly military congregation and is use to lots of turnover. Some of our friends, Justin and Sarah Jones, just left last week and they really taught me how to be a friend. They invited us over for dinner right after we met and it made me feel instantly closer to them. While I was looking for a job I had a lot of alone time on my hands. Every week Sarah would text me and invite me to hang out with her and her 1 year old daughter or a group of moms that get together and it made me feel included and took my mind off of finding a job. She taught me how to open up and let people in. I have learned a lot about how to be a friend in the last 5 months. You can be a friend to someone no matter what your differences are. I have learned a lot from people of different ages than me, women with kids and different backgrounds.
  
 Last week Caleb and Heather Kersey came to visit us and we had so much fun reuniting with them. I lived with Heather for a little while and Landry and Caleb have been friends since college. We have a lot of fun hanging out with them as a couple. We had so much fun showing them around and catching up on whats been going on with them since we left Nashville. After they left last Sunday in church I was reflecting in my head and thanking God so much for their friendship. I thought what a great gift from God friendship really is.

So here are some things I am learning about being a friend:

*Stepping out of your comfort zone to make new friends is really worth the risk.
*You never know how much your friendship will mean to someone.
*You get more back than you put in usually.
*I need to think less about how I feel and more about how others feel.
*Opening up your home to people is a great way to break down barriers and to make everyone feel comfortable.
*I am so thankful God gave me a husband that shows me how to be a friend daily.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

The New Girl

I have been really bad about keeping my blog up to date, though I often think of things in my head to write down they seem to never make it out of my brain and onto the page. We have now lived in Hawaii 4 months and it is starting to feel less like an adventurous, vacation and more like where we live and work. Speaking of work after this week I will have been working at my new job for a month. I finally got a job as a tailor for Men's Warehouse. Moving here I knew it would be a big lifestyle change, but I didn't think about how much I would have to change. I have been outside my comfort zone way more than I thought I could handle before moving here. Starting my job as the "new girl" reminded me of how uncomfortable it is to starting out in a new place. You feel like everyone is watching you, especially in my field where they are making sure you can actually do your job right and not mess up someone's clothing. It is stressful trying to make a good impression and let people see your true self. But I am so thankful to be done interviewing and job searching since that is probably my least favorite thing to do and we are so grateful to have a second income to help out with the high cost of living here. I am learning that good relationships are so important in the work place. If you can learn to care about the people you work with it makes the day so much better and even when you feel like your job is meaningless the people make it worth while. I definitely experienced this in my last job. Me and my co-worker, Gloria became best friends over the 2 years we worked together. We had several differences....she is around the age of my mom, she is from another country and English is her second language, we have different religions and backgrounds, but I learned so much from her. She taught me an amazing amount about sewing, but more importantly she taught me how to work hard and she always wanted to push me to be better. I miss her so much, especially starting a new sewing job. I am praying that I can be a friend to my coworkers and we can help each other out when working gets hard.

Now to the good stuff...my off days with my husband!! A couple weeks ago we went to this place called Shark's Cove on the north shore.

It is a really good place for snorkeling. You climb down a rocky area and into the shallow water. Then when you swim out it opens up and is about 10 feet deep and crystal clear with tons of beautiful fish.

A pretty nice place to catch some rays:)!

There are a bunch of little shallow pools of water that we walked around in and you could see the fish swimming around your feet. 

In florida, we always seem to find starfish, but here we have never seen one so I was really excited that we found this little guy. I looked online on how to preserve it. We soaked it in alcohol for 2 days and then you are supposed to bleach it white, but it turned out to be a pretty orangish red color so I decided to keep it natural.

Then we found the most beautiful tree swing on the other side of the water. You can swing and look out at the beautiful ocean so cool!

Okay okay the last picture of the day....I LOVE TURTLES! Everytime I see one I go crazy and make Landry dive down and try to get a picture with me beside it haha!

 

ALOHA!!