Christmas in Carolina

December 28, 2014

  For Christmas Charlie and I spent the day in North Carolina spending our time with his family. This was especially important to us after we found out his grandmother has cancer and we were not sure how many more christmas's we will have with her. We had a christmas feast to literally feed a army. Four days later and there are still left overs. 

Here are some photos of our Batchelor Christmas

Such a treat, our old friend from flight school was able to come eat with us.

Charlie's little brothers were with us through face-time on Christmas haha.

Charlie's grandmother opening her gift

Both of Charlie's Grandmothers

 

Charlie opening up my gift to him... we are going to he Carolina basketball game, someones excited!

Me opening up my gift

Grandmom's beautiful cat loves the Christmas tree

 Love my husband

 

 Aloha Y'all,

Lauren

Home for Christmas!

December 18, 2014

   For Christmas Charlie and I were able to go home to see our families, which was much needed. Military life is defiantly not the easiest, and time with family is precious. We were able to visit my family in Tennessee, it was such a great trip! Of course we had limited time so we had to cram all of the visiting into five days which is no where close to being easy, but the time was still amazing non the less. 

Our fifteen hour flight to Tennessee!

 Ice Skating with the Family 

         

 Movie night at the aunts house

 

 Our yummy food bar thanks to aunt B

 Our First all family photo!

My wonderful grandparents

 Just one of my beautiful sisters

 Cousin love

 Another beautiful sister of mine

 My little brother is getting so big!

 

 It was so wonderful to spend the holiday season with my beautiful family, Charlie and I love them so much and cannot wait to see them again!

Aloha Y'all,

Lauren

25th CAB AVIATION BALL

November 21, 2014

  Today was military ball day! I actually had my first aid training all day and was extremely worried I would not have much time go get ready for the ball, luckily for me it all worked out. The instructor let us out about an hour early and I was able to get ready in time. Of course Charlie had all day to prepare himself, and when I came home he was on the couch watching football haha. It ended up I was ready before him, telling him to hurry up.... that does not happen often! 

  We drove to Honolulu where the ball was being held at the Sheraton Waikiki. We were afraid we were going to arrive late thanks to the Hawaiian traffic you will come to love, but actually arrived early before people had started to arrive. Now this was a big relief because Charlie was in charge for our troop of the ball, so he underline HAD to be there early. 

   The night started after cocktail hour we listened to the welcoming, stood for the posting of the colors, listened to the invocation, raised out glasses for the toasts, bowed our heads as they presented the fallen comrade ceremony, laughed as the poured everything into the grog, ate a delicious dinner, watched the cake cutting ceremony, enjoyed the video presentation, listened to the president's remarks, loved the speech by LTG Anthony Crutchfield, clapped for the soldiers that received an award, enjoyed the benediction, stood again as the colors were retired, and ended the night dancing. Who doesn't love a good ball?

   

Aloha Y'all,

Lauren

Koko Head

November 15, 2014

  This morning me and some of my friends from work packed up and made our way to Koko Head trail. We arrived relatively early to beat the Hawaiian heat. Beginning the trail you look and see TONS of stairs/railroad ties I mean TONS 1,050 to be exact, with a elevation of 1,200 feet. The stairs were made up of an old railroad that was once there. From what I found out the railroad ties were once part of an incline tram system during World War II, used to haul military personnel and supplies to the top of Koko Crater. For me I am VERY short and these steps kicked my butt. Starting out they are relatively close, but they begin to get farther and farther apart. Needless to say we stopped a few times for some water breaks. In the hike you will come to a bridge portion and let me tell you its a bit freaky. Especially when its super muddy and your slipping. I bear crawled it and felt much more comfortable. There is a way to go around it on the rocks, just be careful. I went around it when we were coming down. 

   We eventually made it to the top and continued to the side path that leads you to the very top to see all of the breath taking views. At the top don't forget to check out the prayer box, it is placed in a tree and if your going to do the trail bring some paper so you can put a prayer inside, they have pens beside it. Once you place the first platform you can keep continuing to a another platform that gives you even more views of the island. The views were defiantly worth the pain of the stairs ha. We took a break, and then begin going down. I enjoyed going down! A lot of people rather go up because when you going down you are very high up, and it can be scary. The trick is to go down at a angle, and make sure you take your time it's much easier that way. Do not rush, we slipped multiple times because it is muddy, but luckily caught ourselves. We made it to the bottom and were over joyed we tackled the trail! 

Here are just a few of the photos I took on the hike...

The view from the bottom


The stairs

The view halfway up

Almost there!

The view of Hananuma Bay

 The prayer box

 The girls

 Heading down

*** The above photo was not taken by me. I did not get a picture of the bridge, but wanted to show what it looked like. 

Aloha Y'all, 

Lauren