"This is our land!"..."Yes it is!"

It's an understatement to say that we're enjoying being back in Michigan and catching up with friends and family here before heading to the Quad Cities for the holidays. It's so wonderful to be back! On repeat in my head is a scene from one of my favorite movies, Moonrise Kingdom. The two main characters are twelve year-olds who run away from home and set up camp in a cove which they claim as their own and name Moonrise Kingdom. As they enjoy their freedom they jump off of boulders into the cove to swim, one yelling, "This is our land!" and the other responding with "Yes it is!". I can relate to their crazy happiness in feeling at home. 

So what have we been up to in Michigan? A lot of course. We've had dinner with my parents. We've tried a 20 year aged beer with some lovely friends. We've had a few more dinners with even more friends. We've rock climbed at our climbing gym multiple times. I've gotten a much needed haircut. We've been to Lansing a couple times. We've bottled a beer and a cider. We've learned how to make pots on a pottery wheel with some good friends. We made it to an extended family Christmas Party. We've gone to church with friends. We've had some brunches. We've caught up on people's lives and scheduled more meet ups to come. We've baked our cherished homemade bread. We've made Christmas cookies. We've figured out health insurance for next year. We've done our Christmas shopping. We've gone back to O'Hare to pick up my sister. We've watched the new, highly-awaited Star Wars movie. We've caught up on TV shows. We've even had a bit of time to relax. 

No, we don't know yet when we're leaving for the next segment of our trip. At some point in January we're California, Utah, and Colorado bound. But for now, we're just feeling oh so content being back in the Midwest. 

Moose In A Box sugar cookies

Getting ready to bottle a Ghiradelli Stout

Sam Adams Brew Reserve aged for twenty years!

Rounding out the clay before throwing it on the wheel

Jesse starting to form a pot

Brandon shaping a pot

We had some successes!

Glazing some professionally pre-made pots

FAQ - What Have We Learned?

We've already gotten a good number of questions about our travels so far, but the question of "What have we learned...?" has been the most frequent and hardest to answer due to the number of different ways you can come at it. We'll cover the other questions too in a different post, but I thought we'd spend some time just on this one question for this post. 

• Overall
• The biggest take away of the trip was importance of our friends, family, and community. We missed them more than we thought we would, especially near the end of the trip.
• The importance of hospitality and generosity. Some of the best experiences we had were due to others' generous hospitality. It's something that we want continue to model and improve on in the years ahead.
• Personal
• We learned less about ourselves and each other then you might think. We did reaffirm some things we were pretty certain of from before, but for the most part, maybe due to our age, we've reached a stage where we know and are comfortable with who we are
• We still sometimes need our own "me" time
• We still still need to work on being less selfish 
• We still prefer staying places longer because we get exhausted and stressed very easily when we're jumping around too much. We don't like change, and there are just too many details to figure out when you're constantly on the move.
• We liked blogging more than we thought we would. Katie especially found it fun and even therapeutic. 
• We developed more of a taste for wine given that the beer selection in Australia and Thailand was either poor or very expensive.
• Katie has grown more fond of cats thanks to some recent positive experiences. 
• We really liked having a grocery store or two that was within a quick 10 minutes or less walking distance. We may look for such a luxury in the future.
• Skills
• How to drive on the opposite side of the road 
• How to drive with two people on one motorbike 
• How to cook Thai food 
• Katie can use her physical therapy skills to help with my occasional dental problems 
• How to surf on fake waves
• How to better surf on real waves too
• We got pretty good at playing Hanabi 
• Travel
• How to navigate the Melbourne and Sydney public transit system
• Finding a budget airline like JetStar can be extremely helpful when piecing together a multi-flight trip on a budget. 
• Don't sit near the bathrooms on an airplane if you can help it
• If people are being obnoxious on your flight, it is better to do something about it, like politely asking them to stop, instead of holding it in and being bitter/annoyed all flight.
• Having a working map/gps on your phone that works offline is extremely helpful when traveling.
• Finding a church to temporarily plug into is a great way to make some valuable connections in the areas you're visiting.
• Always double check your directions/address/contact information. We learned that lesson the hard way.
• Airbnb is awesome (thus far)
• Wool clothing really does work well for traveling light.
• General
• Australia's craft beer scene is really young
• Australia doesn't have pumpkin puree
• Australian footy is really fun to watch
• The Melbourne/Sydney public transit is great 
• Deep water solo rock climbing is awesome!!!
• It's definitely cheaper to eat out in Thailand than to make your own food. And it's super delicious too
• Thai massages are quality
• Medical/dental stuff really is quite cheap in Thailand. We can see why medial tourism is so big there.
• Hawaii doesn't have sand flies... yet. They used to not have mosquitoes either, but they were accidentally brought over in the 1800's. But even so, they weren't as bad as we're used to.
• Chromebooks are just okay. They work well for doing stuff on the internet. But they do not work that well offline. So even though that situation of being offline is really rare these days (probably even less than 5% of the time) I would still not consider them a good replacement for a normal laptop, at least not for our needs.
• Things we wished we would have learned or are still working on
• The secret to work/life balance
• The secret to never being stressed
• The secret to always being happy/content in all circumstances 

I'm sure there is more I could add, but that's already a pretty decent list. Apparently we learned a lot. So I'll just leave it at that for now. If you have any questions and/or want to learn more from our experiences, feel free to let us know. We'll be happy to give any advice that we can.

Cheers!

How We Did Packing for Nearly Three Months of Travel

It's hard to know what to pack for nearly three months abroad. We mulled over what to pack for awhile and packed and repacked again and again. In the end, we came up with this and wondered if we'd have any regrets. 

I'm proud to say that we used everything that we brought with us, except the two following items: 

• Padlock: We brought the padlock was in case we ended up staying in a hostel with a locker for our belongings, but we didn't end up staying in a hostel
• LifeStraw water filters: We had access to safe water everywhere we stayed. They've proven handy for drinking out of Lake Michigan instead of hauling a heavy water bottle to the beach. 

There were some specialty travel items that we brought with us, and we were curious if they'd prove their worth. They did. 

• Wool clothes: Wool clothes are supposed to be moisture wicking and stink proof, allowing you to wear them for several days in a row. Some travel friends had recommended them to us, so we decided to try them out. We got a dress for me and a t-shirt for Brandon on sale from Icebreaker. Brandon wore his shirt for a week straight rock climbing in Thailand. This was an extreme test to put the shirt through, so it did stink by the end. Thankfully, washing it helped. I wore my dress off and on throughout the trip and only washed it once. Both items worked out well enough that we may invest in some more wool items in order to pack less clothing on future trips. 
• Undress: Brandon alerted me to the Undress after seeing their kickstarter online. Essentially it's a dress that allows you to change from one set of clothes into another in public without being naked. The best way to understand it is to watch the video here. I found it especially helpful to change in and out of my swimsuit when camping in Hawaii. Instead of paying $80 for the dress, I showed my talented sister the simple design and video, and she was able to make a knock off version of the dress! It's been invaluable. 
• Keens: Brandon is a religious Converse Chuck wearer, but the physical therapist in me could not allow him to wear those all over Australia and Thailand. He grudgingly tried on some more supportive alternatives and agreed to buy a pair of Keen sandals to bring on the trip along with his pair of Chucks. He ended up almost exclusively wearing the Keens, and there were no complaints of back or leg pain over several miles of walking. Needless to say, this made me quite gleeful. But, I'll leave it at that. And, now that we're home, we're both happily back in our Chucks. 

There are only a few additional things we wish we'd brought with us: 

• An extra sweatshirt: Melbourne in September-October was cooler than we expected. We made do, but I almost bought another layer at a thrift store. 
• More quickdraws: We have 13 draws for climbing, but some of the taller routes we climbed required 15-17 draws. It would've been nice to have more draws so we didn't have to downclimb to retrieve and reuse the draws so much
• Lightweight pants: The temples in Chiang Mai required women's knees and shoulders to be covered. I had climbing pants (too form fitting) and jeans (too hot), but lightweight, airy pants would've been better. I bought a cheap pair in a market for $3, and they've already fallen apart.  
• Rash guards: The sun in Hawaii and Australia is really strong. Even with liberal use of sunscreen it's safer to have a rash guard/swim shirt if you're going to be at the beach for a substantial amount of time. We ended up buying some online and shipped to our friends' place in Hawaii for our return. They worked so well, we'll probably wear them most beach days now. 

Overall, I don't think we did too bad packing! Hopefully we can continue to experiment and refine our list for future travels. 

Leftover Pictures From Hawaii

We have a few random pictures from Hawaii that didn't make their way into a post. Most of them involve food, so I guess a post on food is warranted. The majority of the time we were camping, so our diet consisted of apples, bananas, peanut butter, and nutella from the grocery store. We also frequented North Shore Tacos near our campground. But when we stayed at Brian and Becky's house and had access to a kitchen we took full advantage of it. Before they arrived we managed to make tacos and lasagna. The next weekend we had the chance to use Brian and Becky as guinea pigs for a Thai meal consisting of lemongrass ginger iced tea, papaya salad, and massaman curry. We don't have any pictures to prove it, but it was a success. I'm sure we'll be trying another Thai meal soon. 

Trying a peanut butter stout. We were very happy to return to the wide variety of craft beer in the United States. 

Hawaii has many places to get delicious Acai Bowls, a Brazilian influence

You can't leave Hawaii without trying Hawaiian Shave Ice. We tried Island Snow (which President Obama has frequented) and had a shaved ice with passion orange, strawberry, and mango flavors.  

It wasn't hard to approve of Paniolos, the Hawaii version of Qdoba, Chipolte, or Pancheros

And, the one leftover photo remaining that doesn't involve food. We took some Christmas pictures for Brian and Becky on the beach and stumbled across this awesome sand castle. Brandon sneakily snapped this picture when I was admiring the beach views. 

Surfing the North Shore

While the intense waves of the North Shore of Oahu in the winter months are not ideal for snorkeling they are perfect for surfing. The Triple Crown Surfing Competition is in full throttle during our time here. The Triple Crown is made up of three surfing events--The Pipe Masters, The World Cup of Surfing, and the Hawaiian Pro. The Hawaiian Pro finished before we arrived, and the Pipe Masters didn't start until after we left. But, we were able to see some of the Vans World Cup of Surfing. 

Each of the three parts of the Triple Crown seem to last for about a week and a half. However, the competition doesn't run everyday, because it depends on the waves. So, the hope is that in the week and a half scheduled for the competition there enough good wave days to complete it all. 

Brandon called a surfing hotline each morning to see if the Vans World Cup of Surfing was on, so we could see it. On Wednesday morning it was on, so we headed to Sunset Beach. The trick is to find parking around the beach area. There is minimal parking lot space, so cars line up and down the street. We went earlier in the morning on a rainier day, so we didn't have too much trouble. After you find parking, you just walk right onto the beach and watch the competition. Yup. No entry fees. No tickets. No security. Just find a spot to plop down on the beach, preferably not in front of a cameraman with his fancy, professional camera. Pretty laid back. But, I suppose that suits the surfing scene. 

It's surprising how much you can see from the beach even with the surfers fairly far out in the ocean. If you want close ups of the action, you can watch a big screen on one side of the beach with close camera views and replays. Watching the competition on television is going to get you the best views, but seeing it in person was exciting. 

We do not know all the surfing rules. But, from what we could tell, there were four competitors per heat. A heat lasted 20 minutes and each surfer's top two scores were averaged to determine their final score for the heat. The top two surfers moved on to the next competition bracket/level. While we were watching, Jack Freestone managed to surf a perfect 10.0 score on a wave. Pretty awesome. Obviously he was the top surfer of that heat. Though we're not quite sure what makes a perfect 10.0 score. 

While the surfers could catch as many waves as they wanted in 20 minutes there seemed to be a priority system, so that a surfer who had not caught as many waves was given first chance to take the next good wave. Announcers told the surfers how much time was left in the heat and what score was needed for each surfer to move up in the rankings to move on to the next level. Two wave runners were out near the surfers relaying information, watching for sharks, taking close up pictures, and ready to provide rescue or first aid if needed. 

In an exciting coincidence, we saw the final heat on television while eating dinner Thursday at North Shore Tacos. Mick Fanning of Australia won the heat and became the Vans World Cup Winner. 

The day after the World Cup Winner was named, we saw the bandstands being torn down and moved from Sunset Beach to Banzai Pipeline Beach. Banzai Pipeline is just down the road from Sunset Beach and is where The Pipe Masters is held. We'll miss the competition, but we did get a look at the beach with its pipeline waves. 

Sunset Beach with professional sports photographers and surf set up

Big screen with close ups and replays

Spectators just sitting on the beach near the big screen

A surfer heading in for the next heat

A man doing a traditional Hawaiian dance to bless the surf 

Two wave runners on the left watching the surfer surf the white water (you can see the surfer near the center of the picture)

Banzai Pipeline where the Pipe Masters will be held

With inspiration from the pros, we decided to take surfing into our own hands. Our campground had surfboard rentals, so we did a half day rental since we figured that was all our bodies could take. We had tried surfing for the first time over a year ago in California. So, while we had some idea of what to do we were not expecting great things. After some trial and error we improved and did better than we had in California. Brandon even got up and stood for a full 10 second run into shore. It was impressive. I was pleased to get up and stand two times, but then promptly fell off. 

We had so much fun that we wanted to surf another day before leaving. Disappointingly the campground could not find a key to the surfboard locker, and we were afraid we would have to forgo our last surf day in Hawaii. But, I scanned the beach and found a guy who had been out for awhile with a beginner board and was taking a break for a few hours. After a little conversation he generously let us borrow the board for free for a few hours. Yay! Apparently when he comes to Hawaii for a week he goes straight from the airport to Costco and picks up a board for $100. He then sells or gives away the board when he heads home. Pretty savvy. 

The second day we surfed the waves were not as good, but I managed to get up two times and Brandon had a few good runs. We are definitely improving, but it is clear that good wave conditions makes for better surfing. We are definitely looking forward to trying again in California. 

Brandon looking like a real surfer

Carrying a surfboard around when you have short arms is cumbersome work

Brandon waiting for a wave

And he's up!

And, he's still going! 

Me getting up on my knees and ready to stand up

Me briefly standing in a Statue of Liberty pose and then falling immediately

A blurry, but more successful stand for me

We're Back in Michigan!

After a long but survivable day of travel we're back in Michigan! Woot! We made it home safe and sound around 5 am. Our flights were good and felt relatively quick compared to some of our other travels. Our second flight was quite turbulent, but it just added to the adventure. The most difficult part was driving back through the middle of the night, but we made a few productive stops, including one to a Meijer (!!!) to pick up snacks. We also both had a few excited beyond excited moments from slap happiness and lack of sleep. For Brandon it was seeing that Michigan now has a Taco John's again at exit 23! He obsessed gleefully over this new discovery for at least 30 minutes or more. And, let's be honest, he's still excited. For me, my overly happy moment came when we arrived home and I jumped in bed with our super thick comfy comforter and my one-of-a-kind pillow. We slept well and are getting some little errands done today. Needless to say, it feels amazing to be back, and we're looking forward to catching up with lots of friends and family. The people are definitely what we've missed most. 

Flying from Honolulu to rainy Seattle

Seeing Chicago and Lake Michigan from above before landing and driving to Grand Rapids

Hiking Kuli'ou'ou Ridge Trail

Brian and Becky have kindly introduced and shared their Hawaii friends with us. So, on our return trip to Hawaii we've been able to hang out with these cool people as well as Brian and Becky. One fun thing we were able to do with these new friends is hike the Kuliouou Ridge Trail on Oahu. The trail is 5 mi round trip with many switchbacks bringing you to 2000 ft above sea level. And, the nearly 300 degree view from the top is spectacular. "Spectacular" doesn't really cover it, but it's the best I can do right now. And, of course, the pictures don't do it justice. 

Natural arch on the way up the ridge made by a crazy tree 

View of the Kuli'ou'ou Valley from about halfway up 

Our cool hiking group after making it to the top! 

View of Maunalua Bay

View of Koko Head Mountain and the town of Hawaii Kai down below

Panorama of east side of the island with the two Moku Islands to the far left

Steep stairs near the top of the ridge

Noticing some interesting textured pine tree trunks on the way down 

Needless to say it turned out to be my favorite hike I've done in Hawaii! The only bummer of the trip was that we didn't get to hang out more with our hiking group after the hike. We had wanted to grab some beer with everyone at nearby Kona Brewing, but we had only an hour and a half to make it all the way to our campground on the North Shore before the gates locked at 7pm. We hurriedly left after the hike and made it to the campground with 12 minutes to spare. Even ending on a hurried note, it was still a great day though. 

Remembering the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Our last full day in Hawaii was today, December 7th, which you might recognize as the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We heard that there were a number of events in the area remembering the attack and honoring veterans. We did not get the chance to attend any of the events today since we had made other plans before we realized the overlap of this day with our time here. But I still think it's pretty cool that we got to be in Hawaii during this time. If you are interested in seeing what type of events they had here you can find the schedule and possibly some video here: http://www.pearlharborevents.com/ . I plan on checking out some of the live stream videos when we get back from our trip.

One reason I have an interest in these events is because back in my college years I had the chance to do a creative project relating to a historic event for a class. I chose to make an animated video of the attack on Pearl Harbor. So I thought it was worth sharing considering today's events. I was really into the anime at the time, so this was my attempt to mimic lots of different anime animation styles. I hope you enjoy.

( http://www.screencast.com/t/M2E1ZjU2 )
Note: It may take awhile to load.

The sun setting over Pearl Harbor today which I'm sure is a very different picture from 74 years ago. That's kind of crazy to think about.

Some of What We've Been Up to in Hawaii

We're alive. We just haven't had internet access for the last few days. We've been camping on the North Shore of Oahu and been exploring that area of the island. 

Beach at Malaekahana Beach Campground

Beach walking to the state park 

Taking a break

Fish and pulled pork tacos

Our new favorite taco place on Oahu 

Exploring the Polynesian Cultural Center, which we're still not quite sure what it is. We didn't buy ticket, so we may have been there illegally (we're not sure), but no one questioned us. It was after hours, so no cultural displays were going on and there were no crowds. We had the "islands" to ourselves. 

Fancy waterfall. The grounds were beautifully kept. 

The island of Fiji 

A grass turtle in the sidewalk 

Brandon mimicking some serious statues 

Looks ancient, but isn't

A very muddy, slippery hike up to the North Shore pillboxes with Amanda

Inside the first pillbox

View out of the pillbox

View from the top of the pillbox. You can see rain over the ocean in the distance.

Near the second pillbox

The second pillbox

On top of the second pillbox

View of the North Shore from the pillbox

View of Vans World Cup Surf Competition

Shark's Cove looking very different in the tumultuous winter months than it did in September

In September this was completely flat, calm and perfect for snorkeling! 

We found a quieter cove at Shark's Cove and did a little snorkeling. Some vibrantly yellow fish were the coolest things we saw. 

Swinging in the trees at a random beach we found

Brandon overlooking the ocean

In the morning, the hens and roosters roamed the campground waking everyone up. In the evening, the cats came out. They were too skittish for Brandon to pet. 

Fish tacos from the food truck at our campground

I think we've finally hit our stride and are appreciating Hawaii more despite being anxious to be home. Beach walks, taco eating, swinging, hiking, snorkeling, and breaking into the Polynesian Cultural Center are just a few of the things we've been doing. Stay tuned for surfing posts!