Hawaii

Rob and I arrived home from our wonderful vacation to Hawaii on Thursday. Since I no longer have to go to work, I thought today would be a good day to sit and blog. I'm sure all of my three readers have missed me. :)

We flew from Cincinnati last Tuesday morning and were greeted in Honolulu (located on the island of Oahu in case you were wondering. Believe me, I had a hard enough time keeping all the islands straight!) by Rob's parents, Bob and Lori, and his sisters, Lauren and Kayla. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel right on Waikiki Beach and in the midst of the main shopping/restaurant district. I'm not kidding when I say there was some intense shopping going on in this district -- Coach, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc., etc. I guess this area caught on to the fact that people are more likely to spend money on vacation.

Needless to say, being unemployed we skipped the shopping part of Waikiki Beach. Instead, we spent our time hanging out on the gorgeous beach, hiking a dormant volcano called Diamondhead, drinking smoothies (and sometimes a little stronger drinks ;) by the pool, eating out, going to Pearl Harbor, and visiting the North Shore. Here are some pictures from this part of the trip.

The view down the beach out the back of the hotel

The sisters hanging out by the pool

Waiting for our seats at the restaurant the first night we were there

The four of us with Rupert the Fish (he travels with the fam) on the top of Diamondhead. We made it!

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

The family at Pearl Harbor. We're complete with our audio guides. And yes, Pearl Harbor is very beautiful and sad at the same time.

Pineapple fields on our way to the North Shore

A snorkeling cove on the North Shore

On Saturday we flew over to the island of Kauai which is much more peaceful and less touristy than Oahu. We stayed at this amazing hotel with these really neat pools. The beach by our hotel was pretty rocky and the surf was rough, but the hotel made up for it with a salt water lagoon and labyrinths of pools. On Kauai we relaxed, but also went on a snorkel boat ride up the Na Pali Coast, a very remote and beautiful coast, and went to a luau at the hotel.

Racing each other in kayaks in the salt water lagoon. Can you guess who won? Clearly the triumphant sister

A view of the pools from our hotel room

Swimming in the pools. (I don't know the person to the left of me with the weird goggles....)

Being silly after dinner one night

On our way to the luau

Fire throwers coming into the luau

The Hawaiian sky over the luau

Lauren & I got invited up on stage to dance some hula. Let's just say I have a little too much Mennonite blood in my body to be any good at that!

Hanging out on the trampolines on the Capt. Andy's catamaran on our snorkel boat tour. On our way back we all rode on the trampolines and got soaked and bounced around in the waves. It was so fun!

The dolphins who came to play with our boat

All of us on the boat. You can see the coastline in the background

On our way back to the hotel from the boat ride we stopped at Waimea Canyon which is also known as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific." It was so deep and beautiful.

Playing Settlers in the airport on the way home. Rob and I have totally brought Lauren and Kayla over to the wonderful world of Settlers!

Me and my best bud

Overall, it was a great Bedinghaus vacation, as they all are. We had some funny moments, some good conversations, and of course great memories. One of the things I love the most about the Bedinghaus family is they are very intentional about making memories together. We will not quickly forget finding a bathroom for Kayla or Lauren's broken suitcase. :) Mahalo Hawaii for a great time!

Morning Glories

In my opinion, morning glories are some of the prettiest, friendliest flowers out there. Every morning when I walk out the front door I see them growing on their trellis and they always seem to sing out, "Good morning Kate! It's a lovely morning!" 

Due to our wet spring and cool summer the morning glories have been slow to bloom. I finally saw the first ones this week. Today though Rob was mowing when he came in to tell me there was a "morning glory fiesta" in our compost pile. This is crazy because I did not plant seeds out there, but there are more flowers blooming out there than where I actually planted seeds! The only thing I can think of is that the dead plants I pulled up last fall and deposited in the compost pile dropped their seeds and grew again this year. We certainly have the loveliest compost pile around! 

The compost pile looking quite decorated. 

The other morning glories growing on our trellis 

Last Days

Just wanted to post a quick update on what has been going on with us these past few weeks. Both Rob and I have until Friday at our jobs and then we are voluntarily unemployed. I'm definitely not looking forward to the loss of a paycheck, but the thought of sleeping in on a Monday morning....well, that's a lot nicer to think about.

It is so strange to think about leaving a job I have spent more time at than anywhere else for the past two years. Seriously, I'm there more hours than I sleep every night (sidenote: it is quite amazing that we humans have time in our lives for anything else besides working and sleeping when you really think about how many hours of your day you devote to those two things!)

But I digress. I don't think the reality that I'm leaving this job has set in yet and perhaps it won't for a few more weeks. It's definitely bittersweet because I've enjoyed this job and have learned so much, but I can tell it's time for me to move on and let someone else have a chance to push Grant County forward. When I started I didn't even know what the words "economic development" meant so I guess just being able to define that means I've learned something. :)

It's been a good journey and I'm ready for the next adventure. For a long time (as most of you know) I was very upset and anxious about moving to Bloomington. But through a lot of prayer and processing I have moved into the camp that this is an exciting challenge for us with lots of potential for growth for us. Plus, living over 6 years in Upland...well, the cornfields do get a bit old after awhile!

The other thing about all this is we're not leaving Indiana! So I'll be sure to keep you posted on all our upcoming adventures in this great state. Thanks for coming along with us.

June Photos

Finally our Internet is back up -- whew -- the poor AT&T man was here today from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm driving around Upland trying to figure out what was wrong with the cables. Apparently there was some construction, and well, you get the idea. As much trouble as we've had with our AT&T service, it was true customer service that the guy was here that long on a holiday! 

Anyways, here's some photos to go with our June Whirlwind....

A gorgeous sunrise -- thankfully my brother Ben was up early to catch this shot -- I definitely was not awake! 

The fam minus Luke & Logan....we missed them! 

Rob and I went back to the spot he proposed to me two years ago! Amazing. 

Can you tell we're excited to be there? 

My parents on their way to a wedding Saturday after the beach. Such a nice looking couple! 

Our one year wedding anniversary was Monday, but we were still in PA at Hershey so we ate our cake Wednesday night. The inside was still good, but the outer icing tasted like the freezer and was quite hard. I still thought it was pretty cool we saved it for a year! 

The Whirlwind that was June

I read another friend's blog yesterday and she commented about how June is perhaps the busiest month of the year. I'm sure it only gets worse when you have children and have to do things like buy teacher gifts and attend graduation parties, but even without children our June has been full! Hence the lack of blog posts too. :)

I wish I had some photos to put up here about our trip east to Ocean City, New Jersey, but unfortunately our internet at home is broken so I'm writing this from work and alas, no photos.

We did have a great time though hanging out with my family for a week despite some very weird cloudy days in OC. It was the strangest thing -- four days of clouds hanging out over the ocean while it was bright and sunny just a few miles inland. We made the most of it though and relaxed, read, and played games as a family. As always, it went too fast. This year though Rob and I took two extra days off work to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary on Monday. It is crazy to us that we have been married a year already! It honestly seems like yesterday we were doing all our plans and so excited to do life together. It has been such a great year and we're excited for many more to come.

For our anniversary we bought a hotel package that came with two tickets to Hershey Park. I grew up going to Hershey, but Rob had never been so we made a day of it Monday and had a blast. It wasn't very crowded so we were able to ride all my favorite roller coasters, some several times. It was a really fun day of hanging out and having some good time together.

So here we are and now it's July already. Why is it that summer always goes so much faster than months like February and March? I think it's a conspiracy designed by the cruel winter...

I'll try to get some photos up here soon!

Strawberry Jam

My Aunt Tut makes the best strawberry jam. I don't even like strawberries, (I know, gasp like everyone else who does when I say that....it's a texture thing ok?) but even I love her jam. White bread is transformed by this jam, I'm telling you. If possible, Rob loves this jam even more than I do or anyone else in our extended family for that matter. He could eat the stuff by the spoonful.  

Like a kid waiting for Christmas he has been waiting for the Upland Strawberry Festival so we can make jam. See, you can't make this jam with just any strawberries. They have to be the- straight-from-the-garden-fresh strawberries. The thing about this jam is that it's basically crushed strawberries, pure white sugar, and a pectin substance that gives it the jelly texture. That's all. 

So Saturday rolled around and we headed off to the Strawberry Festival in "downtown" Upland. Besides the strawberries it is a fun little festival with craft tents, people selling local honey, strawberry shortcakes, and of course the delicious (note sarcasm there) fair food such as deep fried vegetables. Does anyone else see an oxymoron there? 

We had the great priviledge of hosting our dear friends Noel & Ashley this weekend so they accompanied us to the festival with their delightful dog, Hagrid. 

Here we are on our way to the festival. Ash is planning to conquer the strawberry world as you can tell. 

On our way home from the festival with our strawberry loot. 

Ash carrying the cherry tomato plants I bought 

We got home and began the jam process. Thank goodness Ash was there to take pictures -- our hands were messy! It was a great, fun morning and as you can see, we made quite a lot of jam.

Strawberries waiting to be turned into yummy jam 

Ta-da! The finished product and one very happy Rob

We even had enough strawberries left for Rob to decide to make more jam on his morning off today. I came home to three more jars and a clean kitchen. What a husband! He has decided we must make it last as long as possible, so if you want your own jar....well, you might have to fight Rob for it, or go make your own. 

Oh and over the weekend we also went to Cincy for Rob's cousin Ross' high graduation party...Congrats Ross! 

Ben Yoder Comes To Town

This past weekend my younger brother Ben flew from Pennsylvania to visit us. He had been living in Argentina since August so we really had not seen him since our wedding in June. He had been great about keeping up with us through email and phone calls while he was gone, but being together in person was so much better. We had a great time having him here until Sunda morning when we all went up to Fort Wayne where our other brother Luke is living for the summer. Ben stayed there until Tuesday and then flew home. 

The cool thing about Ben living abroad for 9 months was that he really grew up. And I can say, as an older sister you know, that when I freely admit that my little brother has grown up, well, that's saying something I guess. So he is still the Ben we knew before, only better and cooler and older. There's just this maturity about him and a different outlook on life that is great and I was glad to see. Cheers to you Benja. 

And here's some pictures of the fun stuff we did over the weekend: 

Ben (before he cut his Argentinean hair on Saturday) brought us a bottle of wine actually called Benjamin. He had backpacked this wine all the way from Argentina for us! It was excellent too. 

On Sunday Rob and I went to the wedding of Rachel Dodge & Eric Peterson in this beautiful bridal glen in Fort Wayne. (Not kidding, it was actually called a "bridal glen.") It was a beautiful ceremony. Rachel is the person we give credit to for introducing us so it was great to see her marry her soul mate too. 

The kiss! 

The reception was at a restored train station in downtown Fort Wayne. Rob joined the striped tie club there with Matt & Ben. 

Rob and I with the happy couple

So after the wedding, Logan (Luke's girlfriend) had her graduation party (thankfully also in Fort Wayne) so we got to spend some time with them later. All of the sibs (plus two additions!) together again at last

Clearly some people were a little partied out. Looks like Sunday afternoon nap time....