Cute puppies

There are no contrived pictures, even Ricky in a towel. He did that by himself after I put it on his back :) such cuties!
(My hands were only up to block the light, not the screen. Without it you couldn't see the doggie LOL)

Sigh

Well it is about dang time that I updated everyone with news.
Last week Dahm was in Singapore. So far no more unexplained tattoo's that I am aware of. However, I don't trust him at all anymore so there's that too. He took about $1480 out at this port ALONE, including most the paycheck and additional money from the savings account. And silly me, he talked about saving a lot of money while he was gone >.> I hate to sound resentful, but I'm really tired of the flip flop "I'm gonna do what my buddies do and everything they do is cool no matter what it is," attitude. I am really over it. But all I can really say is oh well, because he sees it as his money still. He's so stupid since we came here. I didn't realize that the humidity would leech out his brain cells. I try not to think about it too much because I get angry and upset and fed up, and he doesn't get a chance to try and fix it.
But he has to make some big choices when he comes back. Either he's going to change or he isn't, and I don't have the time, effort, or the capability to try and change him.It just sucks thinking that I might have to reset and go back to square one. At least I know one thing will never change, my parents and my family love me beyond belief and I know I can always count on you for that :)
Thank you mom for saying prayers for me, it really helps to know that I'm not the only one praying and worrying about everything. I know I have my own personal flaws (like becoming EXTREMELY hangry when I don't get my dinner), but I know that it can't just take me doing my best, it has to be both of us or neither of us. So I'm just trying to enjoy the time I have here on the island and I'm trying not to stress too much because I know I'm in capable hands. So I'll just teach Primary and go to church and hang out with Sam and the missionaries.
I was talking to Sam about how Nikki had the audacity to ask me to watch her dogs after never paying me for watching them in the past. She was like, "Well you could always tell her you need money up front," but the problem is that she owes me a lot of back pay XD and even if she DID pay me up front she would STILL owe me. So I'm not in the mood for that. I'm not into friends who only call me when they need something :p I need real life friends lol
I made a new friend on my street, she's really sweet (and Jamie's age ish I think) and her name is Rebekah. She's got a bunch of medical issues they're trying to sort out, she's tired all the time and practically has a caffeine addiction because of it haha. What's really cool about her and Sam is that they both know I don't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol and they both totally respect it and don't give it another thought. They're really nice and good friends. Sam forgets sometimes and the sweetie always asks if I'd like to try some of her Starbucks drinks. I'm going to go over to her house for dinner tomorrow, she's making lasagna out of zucchini noodles and she's hoping it will taste really good.
I also feel like I've got a slight cold, it's not a pleasant feeling of headachey, back of the throat nonsense, but it's barely there so I'm hoping it'll just go away and I won't have to figure out how to get a doctor's appointment now that I have Tricare. Bluh. I have flute lessons with a sweet little girl Katelyn who told me last time that she wishes she could go to the beach with me before school starts because she thinks I'd be a lot of fun :) what a cutie! She's doing pretty well in her lessons, she has issues switching between D and E flat, even though the only difference between the two is the pinky placement. So far she's learned notes B flat, C, D, E flat, F, and last lesson we learned G. She's almost got a scale! haha :) Pretty awesome for like, six lessons.
Cocoa keeps trying to weasel her way onto my lap whenever I use my laptop. It's cute, but it's also annoying. I never want to refuse snuggles to either dog though, they're so very good and they deserve so much more attention than they get sometimes. So POOF my work doesn't get done when she's around hahahah. I've made a lot of cool stuff for my busy-ness and it's looking pretty cute. I still have a lot to go. But it's exciting and fun and it takes my mind off a lot.
I'm thinking about visiting in either September or October, just depending on how everything goes here. I'll probably have to leave the dogs here, but now I've got another friend on my street I feel safer doing so. She's really sweet so I bet she'd be willing to water my plants and stuff while I was gone.
I haven't been doing as much I guess as I thought. Sam and I hang out every week and we go to the store together and shop and stuff.
I should probably go to bed, I have flute lessons in the morning and it's already midnight :o
I'll try to get on soon and tell you how much fun Ricky had at the park and all the other happy stuff and pictures that I don't have time to put up before bed. For now I need to brush everyone's teeth (which the dogs have grown to love haha)
Goodnight!

Sigh -_-

Well I have a feeling that everything is about to start and get crazy again.
Dahm just landed in Guam, so he's there and everything and all. Ricky needs to go to the vet, his ear is super bluh and he's scratching it way too hard. So it's gross. I've been cleaning it out, which I thought would help, BUT I think it might be something I can't fix. So YAY he gets to go to the vet now. If everything is ok through the weekend, I'll take him on Monday (or try to get him into another clinic on Saturday if they have any vacancies). And if anything gets worse I'll take him directly to the 24/hr clinic no matter what day or time it is and I'll pay the extra crap for him to be seen at the place I hate. Oh well.
Today I went to waimea bay with sam, and we ended up being gone from like 10:30 ish to like 5:15 (on my end, I had to drive to her house from there), so now I'm ultra tired and I have a little singe-y skin from being outside for a couple hours after showering  at the beach and forgetting to reapply on my shoulders after we got out of the water. BUT it's not too bad so I'm alright and no worries there. But we have plans tomorrow AM and I start flute lessons with a little girl tomorrow PM. So I have to figure out when it will all happen *cough today*
Sigh.
Dahm and I were able to talk a bit. I had just gotten the first email from him two days ago which was the first one in ten days shy of two months. But he knows there's a lot going on that he needs to fix, but he had to get off the phone pretty much right after that.We'll see how it goes. Not going to stress what I can't change right?
Cocoa started her doggie period today, poor little thing. She's been super clingy and begging for loves, but I thought she might just want more cuddles than normal. It's a couple weeks later than it was last year (because I keep better track of her menstruation than my own XD) so I've just been waiting for it to happen and keeping tabs on her and I was going to take her to the vet in a couple weeks to make sure she was ok, so it's kind of a relief.
It seems like all of the sudden my life goes from nothing to gradually EVERYTHING AT ONCE! AND I STILL don't have the ink for my printer that I ordered A LONG TIME AGO so I have to take care of that crap :p ugh.
Oh well. >.> I was sad we didn't get to talk on the phone today mom! I miss you! I love you all!

Hiya Hey!

Hey there! I was planning to write a blog post long before this BUT! I had gotten my nails done and it was nearly impossible to type with them on! I removed them around the two week mark, even though the man who did my nails did an amazing, incredible job that I loved. At that point, I started accidentally hurting my fingers pretty badly so I knew it was time for it to be finished. LOL. I don't like paying people to remove stuff for me, but I messed up on one nail and it tore some of the soft nail beneath it off. After a couple days now my finger feels much better though :)
So I've just been working on packaging my products, making them, and designing a logo, labels, and table design. I am going to try and have everything done by the end of this month (as far as stock and packaging, and only if the stuff I ordered from Amazon gets here in time), and my goal is to try and get into craft fairs by the middle of July. So next month I'm going to make a couple simple crochet items, set up an Instagram, Facebook, and Etsy page, and get my GE license so I can legally sell my items in Hawaii. It's going really well and I have a bunch of stuff already that is great! :) It's pretty exciting.
I've been hanging out with the sister missionaries lately, they take me with them sometimes to go talk to investigators they have. Honestly, I've been much happier lately. Everything feels like it's back on track for me. I'm stable here at the moment and the dogs and I are pretty happy. I also have been hanging out with my friend Sam, we had a game night at her house awhile ago for her birthday and she had a couple people from work over and they were pretty nice and funny! We went to Ala Moana today so we could go to Barnes & Noble, and then we got some yummy gelato (she got a smoothie, I got Macadamia Nut and Hawaiian Salt Caramel, yes, Salt Caramel. Not salted. Just salt.) It was a pretty good day! I also dropped by Party City on the way back for some small boxes. I also found some tiny spoons and some ABSOLUTELY adorable, tiny heart shaped containers for some more crafts! AAAAH so cute! (I'll have to upload pictures from my phone)
There is a letter drop going out to the guys at their next port and I came up with a brilliant idea on what to send (and I let Sam steal it because I'm nice, but it was totally my awesome idea). So today/tomorrow (it's past 12 pm now) (oops) we're going to the mall and taking photos in those photostrip booths and I'm going to spell out Dahm with one letter in each photo! (and maybe do another one with a message or something) BRILLIANT :) hehe yay me. It has been a very creative month for me LOL.
AH! and there is a free concert Saturday night on base and I'm TOTALLY going!
I've had some issues with energy lately, but I'm trying to get on a good sleep schedule (oops again) and to eat more veggies and fruit. I've also been trying to spend more time outside and I've been consistently taking vitamins :)
The dogs are good, I'm getting their shots done this Saturday! And I'm also going to make a pie for the church for Father's day. I'm still making part of Dad's gift, but I'm sending out the card today so it may get there the day after... But I'll still call!! <3
I have been thinking lately about how I've been hoping this deployment will be good for Dahmahnic and how it should be good for me. All I know from thinking lately is that I can't control who he is when he comes back, but I can control who I am and I know I want to be the best me I can be, for ME. We'll just have to see where it all goes from there I guess, if he is willing to be the best person he can be then everything should be fine. It'd help if he'd send me an email once in awhile, but like I said, I can't control his actions and I don't want to. I'm just going to do me and not be apologetic for having a good time now or for being me. That is all. (lol)
I love you guys :) I'll make sure to get pictures of everything and upload them soon. I'm pretty excited for everything and I cannot wait to make it all!

Oops, forgot this

Forgot to add my name and Alexander's bookmark. The left line is the temple name and the right line is Alexander's name. She also wrote down the kanji she used and what each character meant :) pretty cool, even though it wasn't two, sweaty fat men duking it out.

The Byodo-In Temple

So today I went to the Byodo-In temple to finish off Flat Stanley's trip. I didn't know how long I was supposed to keep him or how often I needed to do stuff, so I thought I'd end it with something cool that I could just pretty much take photo's of. It is located in the Kaneohe area, which is around 30-40 minutes away. I thought there was going to be a sumo demonstration there because there was a typo on the website, but there was actually a sumi-e demonstration - which is basically old Japanese style painting and kanji writing. But I got my name done and I bought a bookmark for Alexander to send back to him when I ship Stanley back. Urgh so much mailing, I'm going to just go to the post office tomorrow and get absolutely everything shipped at once!
Here's the letter I wrote Alexander's class:

Dear Class,

Do you remember how I told you that there is a lot of Japanese culture in Hawaii? Today we went to the Byodo-In temple to experience some firsthand! I wish we could have taken photos of the whole drive there though, it was amazing!! We drove through the mountains, LITERALLY! We had to tunnel through to get to the Kaneohe (kah-nay-oh-hay) area where the Valley of the Temples resides. Most of the Valley is actually a cemetery filled with memorials and remains of people of multiple faiths and beliefs, but nestled at the end is the Byodo-In Temple. The temple itself is actually a smaller replica of the original Byodo-In temple in Japan, which is very old and so famous, the 10 yen coin now has a picture of the original temple on it. Here, we saw wonderful wildlife and learned about the temple and Japanese culture.  Inside the temple, everyone has to remove their shoes because in Japanese culture, shrines and temples are considered holy. You wouldn’t want to bring dirt (and anything else that’s gross on the bottom of your shoes) inside would you? It’s also a sign of respect for the culture and for the shrine itself.

Upon crossing the bridge to the temple, we rang the Bon-Sho, or sacred bell. It is said that when you ring this 6’8” bell that the unique sound will clear your mind of negativity, create happiness, and give you blessings and a long life. SO OF COURSE WE RANG IT! J

We also got to feed some koi fish. For fish, they have incredibly long lifespans, on average about 50 years. Some of the larger fish we saw were probably around 25 years old! But there were a lot of smaller fish that I’m sure are much younger. The oldest Koi supposedly lived 226 years, but there hasn’t been another koi fish to live that long. We also saw black swans. The signs said that peacocks and turtles also made the Byodo-In temple their home, but the only other animal we saw today was a Siamese cat!

The statue of Buddha was very large, way taller than any grown up, and people had brought flowers and lei to put on the stands in front of it. You could also light a stick of sandalwood incense in “purification and prayer” if you wished. Since I’m made of paper, I shied away from it, but Hailey lit one for the both of us. There was also a meditation area where you could go and think and have some peace. In the old tea house, you can buy all sorts of souvenirs, including miniature bon-sho bells and incense for your home.

We had a lovely time in the zen gardens and we saw a tiny shrine and were able to see into the “jungle” of the mountains in Hawaii. Talk about relaxing and beautiful!

Until I see you again,

Flat Stanley J

You guys are getting way more pictures though!

I hope you like it! Love you all.