Xterra Trail Run

Yesterday Landry and I ran our first 10k and also our first trail run. I am not a runner. I enjoy exercise and doing pretty much anything active, but running has never been something I like to do. However since living in the beautiful aloha state I have found a true love for hiking. Hiking has been one of the best things for Landry and my relationship. We can walk and talk for hours. We love being outdoors and have found it to be a great activity to do together. Some hikes have beautiful views or waterfalls that make the trek worth it, while others are more about challenging yourself and feeling a sense of accomplishment. Hiking is obviously great for the body, but I have found it also to be great for my soul. I love being surrounded by God's beauty, from the green grass and all the beautiful different trees to the chirping birds.

I say all that to say that while I do not enjoy running on the concrete or tredmill or on a track, I love running through the woods on a trail. One of the first trails Landry and I did when we moved to Hawaii was Manoa waterfall trail. It is a pretty easy beginner hike, but it is on the rainy side of the island and it is usually really muddy. On our way back from the waterfall it began to rain on us and we decided to run and it was so much fun. We felt like kids splashing through the puddles and not caring how muddy we got.

Manoa Trail

Soaking wet from the rain.

 

Trail running is very different from normal runs because you have to constantly think about your next step so you don't trip on a root our a rock. With my mind focusing so much on all the obstacles in my path I forget all about how much I hate running and it becomes more like a game to me.

Landry watched something about the Xterra trail run on the discover channel before we moved to Hawaii and he had his mind set on running in it. Like I have mentioned before I am not a runner and as for Landry he rarely exercises except the occaisonal basketball pick up game and the once a week hiking we do. But Landry signed us up for the 10k instead of our normal 5k. Neigther of us have ever ran more than 4 miles and we did not train for this race because it was a last second decision to do it. I am glad we did it, but I wish I would have trained since this is no walk in the park type of run. There was lots of hills and I thought my legs were going to fall off, but we finished it and felt proud of ourselves. It took us about an hour which is definately not a record setting time, but not shabby for first timers.

Team E.X.T.E.M.E.

Team xtreme is a group of military guys that help wounded soilders. Before the race started they skydived to the starting line. Then they ran the entire 21k half marathon. They took turns caring the soilder with no legs that is on the ground in this picture on their backs for the entire race.

Yes we even stopped to take a picture during the race. Landrys main focus was snapping pictures of the scenery and mine was to make it to the finish line before my legs collapsed.

 

Team xtreme is a group of military guys that help wounded soilders. Before the race started they skydived to the starting line. Then they ran the entire 21k half marathon. They took turns caring the soilder with no legs that is on the ground in this picture on their backs for the entire race.

Sorry for all the pictures of my backside running, but like I said Landry was snapping lots of photos. Since he was behind me thats all the pictures we got.

After the race we headed to the north shore to take a nap on the beach. There have been lots of surf competitions lately and we were hoping to catch one, but the waves were not high enough. So we took a couple pictures of the set up which was pretty cool to us.

 

This is Waimea beach one of our favorites to go catch some good waves. We can body board for hours here and leave with swimsuits full of sand.

 

Psalm 8:3-9

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!

A spoonful of sugar

Since moving to Oahu we have been trying lots of new sports.. We enjoy living close to the beach and want to take advantage of all the fun activities the ocean offers. When we first arrived on the island we both were excited to try out surfing. We bought a groupon and took a lesson. After our lesson we were feeling a little too confident. We both caught almost every wave and thought we were on our way to surfing the 30 foot waves on the north shore. Yea well, that is until we rented some boards a couple days later and tried it on our own. I have decided the surf lessons are meant for tourist. They don't really teach you any techniques or how to catch waves on your own, they push you into the waves and all you have to do is stand up. This makes you feel like you are a professional and gives them a chance to snap a picture that they will charge an arm and leg for you to purchase. I am not trying to be negative about surf lessons, because they are fun and I suggest all visitors to give them a try. All I am trying to say is they do not really prepare you for getting out there on your own. Like I was saying we rented some giant 11 foot boards(the bigger the board the easier it is to get up and to balance) a few days later. It was pretty much a disaster. We were clueless about pretty much everything. Paddling out we got hit by a lot of waves and knocked off our boards and then when we were a pretty good ways from the beach we started trying to catch some waves. We couldn't figure out the timing very well at first, so Landry decided he would try to push me. This is when it became very comical. As we were turning trying to get ready and wave came in and since Landry was so close to me his giant board hit me in the back of the head....well I did catch the wave but I never stood up because when I opened my eyes I couldn't see anything. I blacked out for a couple of seconds and it really scared me. Needless to say the rest of the time we were out on the water I felt a little shaken up and we never really caught any waves. We were down, but not ready to give up. So we rented boards 4 or 5 more times and still felt discouraged.
Landry works with several guys who enjoy surfing and surf a couple days a week in the mornings before work. They are always trying to get us to go out with them, but I have been avoiding it due to the fact I was afraid it would be extremely embaracing from our previous experiences. Well a couple of weeks ago I was off and Landry did not have to be at work until noon so we decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours. We had just arrived and were lathering up with sunscreen when one of Landry's coworkers pulled up. He was meeting two other guys to surf for a couple of hours. He asked us if we wanted to give it another shot and said the other guys had 2 nine foot boards we could use. So we said why not. We drove to another beach down the street called White Plains beach. It is a family friendly military beach and is supposed to be good for beginner surfers. We have been wanting to surf there for a while, but you can only rent boards if you are military at this beach. They waves were perfect for us that day around 1 to 2 feet. We both had a blast. We were getting the hang of timing and when to paddle into the wave. 2 days later we went again with them, but there was only one other guy with a board so we shared it. Landry swam out with me on a boogie board. I caught around 4 waves and stood up on 2 of them. I asked Landry if I looked like a surfer girl and he said yea until you stand up. I was having so much fun and Landry only got to get on the board a couple times before it was time to leave. We are looking in to buying a used board on craigslist so we can go to this beach and practice whenever we want. Try, try, try again...

A few weeks ago we had a fall festival at our church. As always I was rushing around at the last second figuring out our costumes and getting all the necessary supplies. Thank goodness for pinterest. I began searching for couple's costumes and ran across a really cute picture of Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweeper. It looked simple enough to use some clothes we already had and to just buy some accessories.

 There was a costume contest(which I missed because of traffic), trunk or treat for the kids, some finger foods to eat and a lot of games set up in different classrooms. Landry and I played corn hole with some of the teens and adults. It was a very fun and festive night.

The following weekend we ran a 5k race called the color run. I had seen several peoples pictures on facebook, covered in bright colored powder. When I heard it was coming to Honolulu I told Landry we had to sign up. It was a bit pricey, but overall I think it was worth the money for all the fun we had.

There were over 8,000 participants.

We wore our clear, nerdy glasses. We wanted to wear something to protect our eyes from the powder, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see too good in sunglasses. We bought these glasses last year when we lived in Nashville to ride on our scooter. Man do we have some great memories wearing these goofy things.

This was definately not a serious 5k. A lot of people were walking. It is all about just having a good time. And we definately had a good time!

As Free As We'll Ever Be

Lately I have really been enjoying this stage in mine and Landry's life. We asked a lot of people what they thought about us possibly moving to Hawaii before we started applying for jobs. We asked our friends, family and some people we respect that are older and wiser than us. We got the same response from almost everyone across the board...."do it while you can!"(oh yea and of course a lot of ya'll are crazy) That is the main reason we made the move. We wanted to live in a new place and experience all new things together. To use our years before we have kids or a house or lots of responsibility.
Last week we had some friends from Tennessee come visit us. I hope to share more photos later on. Every time we have company I fall in love with the beauty of the Island all over again. Seeing the excitement in their eyes reminds me of how we felt seeing all the sights for the first time. They left on Wednesday night and we had the next day off together.
We decided to wake up early and go to lanakai beach to watch the sunrise. It was still dark when we arrived at the beach and we were the only ones there. It was so peaceful hearing the ocean and seeing the smooth sand free of foot prints before the start of another day. We could not actually see the sun from where we were, but we did see the sky begin to brighten and change colors which was still pretty.

Lanakai beach is one of my favorite beaches on the island. The sand is extremely soft, like powder and you can see three small islands from the shore. We have swam to one and kayaked out to the other two. There is always lots of wind surfers at this beach which is pretty fun to watch







We left the beach and went to a little hole in the wall restaurant, called cinnamon's for breakfast. We got two pancakes each and eggs and sausage. They had tons of pancake choices. Landry got one guava chiffon and one red velvet with white chocolate syrup and I got one banana pancake and one apple cinnamon. They were huge and delicious and we had to bring two boxes home.

After that big breakfast we were in a sugar comma and ready for a big nap! We didn't want to go back to our apartment because it has been extremely hot lately(we have no a/c). So we decided to drive to the north shore and watch some surfers while we nap. The waves have been getting bigger here since it is soon to be winter. Earlier in the week some of the waves on the north shore were over 20 plus feet.

In our normal lives back home we would be beginning to look forward to the holidays. But since it is warm outside year round I feel like I am skipping all the seasons. It is just summer year round. This year instead of getting excited about wearing cute scarves and coats and drinking hot cocoa and looking at Christmas lights we are looking forward to waves, big waves. We are hoping to catch some of the surf competitions even if we have to get sick all of a sudden and miss a day of work.

The waves were only around 10 feet Thursday, but they were bigger than we have ever seen so far. We had fun watching some brave surfers. They had the red flags out and it said no swimming. After a couple hours of napping we headed home to get ready.

Landry got us tickets to see Cirque du Soleil. I have been wanting to go to this for a long time, but the tickets are always so expensive. We found a coupon online and were able to get our tickets for around 45 bucks each which is really cheap for this show.

The show was absolutely amazing.

Life is good for the Allens! It is so easy for me to get caught up in stressing over little unimportant things. I am trying to soak in all the memories Landry and I are making in Hawaii and in our first years of marriage. My prayer today is that I will continue to see how special this time in my life is. I want to fully in joy every stage and season of life that I am in.

I Love Thursdays!

I look forward to making it until Thursday every week. Thursday is the one day my husband and I have off every week together and we have complete freedom from sunrise to sunset. This is usually the day we go hiking, to the beach, or something active and outdoors. But this Thursday I requested to have a "normal" day. I know this may sound strange. Pretty much for the past 7 months of living on this Island nearly every off day we are go, go, go trying to pack in everything we can into one day. I am normally either sweaty from a hike or salty from the ocean. Which I am definitely NOT complaining about. My very selfless husband is always asking me what sounds fun to me to do for the day, so I decided I wanted to wear regular clothes and have a day like we would have spent together in Nashville before we lived on an island.
So we went to a couple shops and then ate lunch at Chillis. Then we headed to the windward side of the island to go to a farmers market.

We had so much fun walking around outside and looking at everything. That had lots of unique flowers. We went with a classic flower for our purchase.

This charming sunflower was only three dollars. I always want to buy flowers to put on our table because it makes me feel happy to see them. For some reason I really didn't want to buy any, but Landry was relentless in convincing me we needed to get this one.

Can you pick out my goofy husband in this picture?? He was waiting on our dinner. We had a chicken gyro, a side salad, and a piece of watermelon. I haven't tasted watermelon since last summer in Tennessee and it tasted like a sweet piece of the south.

Here is another flower picture. Landry normally does not want to waste money on flowers that die, but he really was in the mood to buy some this day for some reason. We almost bought some of these ones as well. I am not sure what type of flowers are in the orange bucket in this picture, but they smelled just like honey suckles.

We had a great "normal" day.
We purchased one sunflower, three mangoes, romaine lettuce and bananas. Everything was fresh, nutritious and delicious. 

Peace and Patience

Yesterday the two sermons on Sunday morning and evening really pulled on my heart strings. For the past several months since beginning my new job I have struggled to keep a positive attitude in a negative atmosphere. I work with 4 other tailors at my job. Two of which are older ladies with complaining spirits. Every morning on my 45 minute drive into work I try to focus my mind on keeping my attitude Christ like for the day. When I arrive I am refreshed and ready to conquer my day. Some days I am strong and I don't let things get to me, but other days I am quiet and withdrawn out of fear of saying something rude.

One lady is constantly telling me how tired she feels. She is tired if she talks too much, tired if she has to do too many fittings and always complaining that her work load is too heavy. Even when I wake up feeling good a couple hours after listening to how bad she feels starts to bring me down.
The other lady is more direct at putting me down. She tells me I didn't refill the iron with water, I left her machine messy, if something is a re-do on an alteration she always says I did it. When I first started working with her I was in complete shock at how hurtful her words were. Now I am used to the harsh words and her attitude of blaming others, but it still strongly effects me daily.

I say all of this to preface why have been studying the words peace and patience, two of the fruits of the spirit. In Galatians 5:22-24 it says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy , peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." I feel as though it is not a coincidence that the words peace and patience are side by side. You must possess one to have the other. If you have peace in your life you will have more patience with people. If you are patient with people you will have more peace in your life.

Our Sunday morning sermon was presented by one of our elders. The title of the lesson was happiness. O boy, do I want to be happy and so do most people in this world. He said, as Christians we should be the happiest people on this earth. Man, that statement really hit me. A lot of days I let more co-workers extreme unhappiness steal my happiness. I want to shine my light before others, so that they may see my good works and give glory to God (Matthew 5:16). How can I be an example to my co-workers if my attitude is just as negative as theirs. He told us to practice an "Attitude of Gratitude." To write down one thing that makes you happy every night before you go to bed. What a great idea to train your brain to think about happy things. Proverbs 17:22, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." He also said the less we talk about the negative the less they become important. I want to be an encouraging person. I want others to draw to me to feel relief from the stresses that this life causes.

It is tempting when someone puts you down to fire back at them with hurtful words. Here is where the word patience comes into play. I am constantly praying for patience and the words from Psalm 37:7-8,11 strongly speak to me right now. "Be still before the Lord and wait Patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace." Wow, I found this verse this morning and it has the two words that have been running through my mind peace and patience. My human nature has wanted to be mean and not friendly to those who have hurt me with harsh words. But my God tells me differently. He tells me too be patient and to wait on him. He will give me the peace I need. I can not show Christ to others if I look just like everyone else in this world. By being a peacemaker in a stressful situation I think is a great way to look very different from people of this world.

Our evening lesson did not go hand and hand with the morning happiness lesson, but it spoke perfectly to my current situation. His lesson was on the apostle Andrew. There are only 13 scriptures that mention Andrew and he is not know as one of the "great" apostles, he was just an ordinary person. In John 1:40-41 we see he brought his brother Peter to Jesus and Peter did many great things, but Andrew was the one who brought him to Jesus. Also in John 6:8-9 Andrew was the one who brought the boy with the fish and bread to feed the 5,000 to Jesus. The point of his lesson was you don't have to be able to preach like Peter or Paul to bring people to Jesus. He said our desire as Christians should be to bring others to Christ. The biggest thing that hit me from his lesson was this statement he made, "We might be someones only connection to meeting Christ." Woah, Woah, Woah that is very scary to me. How many people have I come in contact with that God put in my path specifically so I could share him with them. I fail too often at speaking up and telling people about what is most important, my Lord.  Why this lesson spoke to me and my situation right now is I feel I truly might be some people I know right nows only connection to Christ.

So my prayer is to continue to seek peace versus anger. To be a happy person and to practice gratitude. Most importantly to be fearless in telling others around me of the peace and freedom I receive daily by walking through life with Jesus.

Cruisin' on the Coast

Our last day was pretty full of excitment. We took a 7 and a 1/2 hour boat tour of the Napali coast. The ride out to the coast took about an hour and a half and I was cold so we sat inside the boat. Breakfast was included and Landry took full advantage of the food. They had bagels, banana bread, coffee cake and fruit. I am pretty sure Landry went back four times to get more food. He has no shame.

The port we left out of was "Port Allen" how fitting!

The giant mountains falling into the blue water was so beautiful. We made our way to the front of the boat to get as many pictures as possible. One thing that really pulled us into doing the tour was the sea caves. They are exactly what the name sounds like, caves cut into the mountain filled with ocean water. Our boat went inside two and we saw some people kayaking in one of them.

The Forbidden Island of Niihau is the other reason we wanted to do a boat tour. It is an Island that can be accessed by boat or helicopter. The Holo Holo Charter that we were on is one of the few boats with permission to go to the island. Our captain said there is around 60 people that live there. They have no electricity or running water and they have a boat that comes out once a month with supplies for them.

The water around the island is so clear and great for scuba diving and snorkeling. We stopped for an hour to snorkel.

 I came around the corner and I was about 5 feet away from this Hawaiian Monk Seal. I have seen them on the beach, but never in the water. I got Landry's attention and while he was taking some pictures I turned my head and saw my first ever shark!! I tried to be calm and not yell shark to Landry because I did not want to scare everyone in the water. Here's a video Landry got. We think he was a grey reef shark around 6-7 feet long. He was 20 or 30 feet below us, but we could see him pretty clearly because the clarity of the water was so good.

After snorkeling we had lunch...sandwhiches, veggies and pasta salad. Everything always taste so good after being in the salty water for a while. Then we headed back in and the captain warned us that it was going to be a pretty rough ride and he was not joking. We sat on the outside on the very back row of seats. I had one hand holding under my seat and a foot on the seat in front of me. Every wave my whole body was coming up off the seat. It was really bumpy and 3 or 4 people started throwing up. Luckily we took some medicine the night before and on our way to prevent sea sickness.
We were tired and sunburned when we made it back to shore.We took a nap in our car and then washed off in one of the beach showers. Our flight out was at 9pm and we were home by ten and back to work the next morning.
Our first island hop was a success!