Ocean views....

The resort....

We stayed three nights at Turtle Bay....


I loved the lobby of this resort. There are no walls. It flows into the out of doors.

Waiting for the elevator.

A room with a view.....

Fun in the sun....

Beach hopping on mopeds - it's the way to get around. We had a blast.




I think we were at Keikis. What lovely sand!!!

Lorien found a beach friend on Pipeline. He just came over, scooted right up and went to sleep. He wasn't the only guy on the island to try his luck with Lorien.

It's about time.....

...for a new post!! Lorien and I have been in Hawaii for the last eight days. We couldn't have had a better time!


V for Volcom! Pipeline it is.

Jason and Michelle, our fabulous hosts, with Lorien!

More to come. Lorien's blog.

This "Guy" has something going for him...

Quote from Guy Larson who runs the "Y" everyday enthusiastically (in spite of difficulty and pain) because of an illness with his lungs.

"Life is, in so many ways, what you make of it. It's not that life is without its challenges, but if you truly turn yourself over to the Lord and strive to face the challenge with faith and a determination to do what's right...he will turn that challenge into a blessing in disguise. I'm just real grateful to be alive....When your faith is strained to the point where it feels like it's breaking that's when your faith really grows."

(Daily Herald - Nov. 2, 2008)

Election afterthoughts....

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."~ Kurt Vonnegut

While President-elect Obama is not from my high school class (he would be about 10 years younger!) the sentiment that those your age (or younger!) have actually grown up enough to run something so world-impacting as a country none-the-less is a little jolting. Actually, I truly do hope our newly elected president will effect positive changes for our country.

The Spirit of At-one-ment

I've just read an essay that has changed my life. (M. Catherine Thomas - Living the Spirit of At-one-ment from Selected Writings of M. Catherine Thomas.) When something is significant for me I like to read with a red pencil in hand. I finally got to the point I practically had to sit on my pencil because I was underlining the entire thing.

This essay is about relationships - with God, and with others - and how the atonement of Jesus Christ is all about bringing together into One that which has been separated. I can't find the essay online so here are a few quotes:

"...the word rendered atonement by the early biblical translators could have been more accurately rendered re-at-one-ment or reunion. Christ wrought the great Reunion."

"The opposition to at-one-ment can seem formidable when we realize how easily in times past we may have traded the spirit of at-one-ment for disturbance."

"As I have watched myself and others, it is sobering to realize how readily we trade inner peace for something less, for some sort of upset; how readily we take offense and then escalte the disturbance around us--in home or office or even church..."

"The Prophet Joseph focused the idea: 'The policy of the wicked spirit is to separate when God has joined together, and unite what He (God) has separated, which the devil has succeeded in doing to admiration in the present state of society.' "

"Is it possible that much of the emotional pain we have comes not from the love we weren't given in the past, but from the love we ourselves aren't giving in the present?"

"Truly we receive what we send out: "For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again and be restored" (Alma 41:15). If we don't like what we're getting in a particular relationship, we may need to check out what we're sending into that relationship."

This is hardly a taste of the goodness of this essay. My hope is to retain in rememberance enough of what I've read to think and act differently at least to some small degree.