Sunset Sunday from Waikiki Beach

To follow the Hawaiian theme, the sunset pictures for today's sunset sunday are from my 2008 trip to Oahu. Enjoy!

Sunset in Waikiki Beach

For my friends

Deleting old emails always  is always nice because I end up with reading nice and forgotten messages. I wouldn't be the same person without my friends and for that I am grateful.
This one is from one of my favorite websites: www.dailyom.com 




May 4, 2009

Gifts We Give Ourselves
Friends 


Good friends enrich our lives in so many ways. Through a magical combination of similarities and differences, friends offer us the opportunity to know ourselves as we are and help us grow into who we want to be. Our similarities attract us to each other, comforting us with familiarity when we see ourselves in them. When we are drawn to those we admire, the same recognition is at work, unconsciously acknowledging that these people possess qualities that we ourselves possess. By acting as mirrors, friends help us define who we are by reflecting our selves back to us. 

Friends also help us know ourselves through our differences. Differences allow us to see other options and make choices about who we want to be. Sometimes we are drawn to those who appear to be our opposites, and we learn to accept the parts of them we love and the parts of them that don’t resonate with us, thus allowing us a valuable learning experience. By expanding our understanding to include others’ experiences, friends help us accept others. By understanding when someone’s life differs from our own, we can learn about ourselves in contrast. There are times when we see in friends what we don’t like about ourselves. That mirror reflection may be hard to take, but a good friend helps us find ways we can change and supports us in that choice. 

Part of the joy of friendship is the feeling that we are accepted just the way we are, with no need to change. It is a gift they give us, and one we can give back every day. Ultimately, we choose friends because they make us feel good about ourselves and life. Through tears and difficulties, friends help us find the laughter. When we find those special people who offer us that perfect combination of comfort and stimulus to grow, we are very fortunate. Friends, those wonderful companions that walk with us through life, help us define and refine who we are and who we choose to be every day.

Dreaming of Hawaii

For our honeymoon we decided to go to Hawaii! It was not our top choice for places to visit this year BUT since our wedding is in August a trip to Europe would cost a fortune, south america will be cold, staying in Colombia and going to San Andres and Cartagena was too expensive, and the caribbean will be in mid-hurricane season.

We will be flying to Honolulu using our beloved American Airlines Miles. I'm now looking for hotels in Maui and Honolulu. It is a challenge to find a decent price for a hotel in Maui. They are either a luxury resort for at least $500 per night or very old looking condos. The condo idea is good, but I want a nice pool!!!!!!! if I could have an infiniti pool I will be a very happy person. So if anyone can help me with a recommendation for a nice hotel in Maui it would really make my day.

In honor of Hawaii I will post some of my favorite pictures and a short video from the trip I took with my family almost 3 years ago. I can't wait to be in paradise again.

ALOHA!!

First day in Hawaii - We were so HAPPY to be there! 

Hawaiian green sea turtle

Waikiki Beach

Mom & Sister learning the Hula

my parents @ the Luau

Our last night in Hawaii

The hula dancers @ waikiki beach 

A good Sun-Day

Today was the first beach worthy weekend of the year. My sisters and my nephews called me at 10:00 am to pick me up! I wanted to go to the beach but I needed to sleep late today! I had lunch outdoors with a friend and we took the dogs to the park next to the bay. The sunset was beautiful. I only had my phone to take a few pictures. I love sunsets maybe too much. I might do a post of my favorite sunset pictures. Maybe I will start making "sunset sunday" posts to help me get in the habit of writing again!

Last week was a extremely busy and stressful week at work. I'm trying to blog more than once a week but when I had time I had to either go to the gym, or run errands, or plan the wedding, or just jump into my bed and wish that the night never ends.  Tomorrow I might have one of those all-nighters at work that I usually have before a project deadline. The deadline is on Tuesday so I'm mentally prepared for a 24 or 36 hr day at work. For doctors or nurses this might be normal but not for me. 

This was also the first weekend of 2011 that I felt productive.  I finally found my wedding shoes, I did my first spinning class of the year, I had the first manicure and pedicure of the year, and we took our first of four marriage classes. The class wasn't bad the only problem is waking up saturday morning to go to a class at church. We are not religious but our ceremony was going nowhere and we decided to do the classes and get married the way we were raised: catholic.  I have to many opinions about religion to fit into this post but all I can say is the class wasn't as bad as I expected it to be! 

Maybe next weekend I can go to the beach. I haven't felt this good on a sunday night for a long time! I always have the feeling that the weekend was not long enough to fit all the plans I had. Today I fell good that I did all that I had planned for and more! Sundays like today make monday a little less painful.

a quick update...

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog. I've been non-stop and when I stop I just want to sleep.

At the end of December I was out of town traveling and I completely abandoned the blog writing. I went to Cali, Colombia with my family and my fiance for 2 weeks. It was a great trip! The Cali Fair was great!!! I hadn't been to one since 2004. It was definitely worth the high season price we paid to be there in December. We also coordinated some things for the wedding but there is a lot left to decide. The reception site that we picked has an on-site wedding planner and the one that knew EVERYTHING about our wedding quited (or got fired) the week after we went to see her. We picked the menu for the reception, flowers, and the band+DJ. I will contact the new planner when the date gets closer. Just in case they change her again.

As soon as I got back to Tampa I bought my wedding dress. It is very simple and delicate just the way I wanted it. I started an strict diet last week. It has been hard but I know it works. Dieting is probably the most exhausting task of all.

After months of trying to go to my friend's wedding in Buenos Aires we decided that it was too hard on our budget to take a trip less than 3 months before our wedding. I'm very sad that I cant be at her wedding. Plus I will also miss another friend's wedding in Paris. After stalking the aa.com website for a long time I found seats available on the dates that we need. We will be spending 10 days for our honeymoon in Hawaii. We booked the tickets with American Airlines miles! We also booked tickets for Cali today. Looking for hotels now. I also finished the wedding website. It was a lot of work but I love it! I'm making the guest book because the ones that you can buy are ugly! and I love scrapbooking so it is a fun project! Did I also mention that I've been working crazy hours? Also, my fiance and I started watching Grey's Anatomy since season 1 and we are totally addicted.

I'm back to the blog therapy. I might be driving all my friends crazy complaining about how crazy my life is getting. I will write more about Colombia and the trip in other posts! lots of pics to share :)