|hawai'i, love, health & holidays|

Seriously had an amazing vacation to Oahu with Brandon!  The weather was perfect, the ocean was beautiful and my company was loving.  :)  All of our photos are on Facebook (here's the link: Hawai'i Album) , so I'm sure you've seen them, but here's a few of my favorites!

Hanauma Bay (AWESOME snorkeling if you can handle feeling suffocated, lol.)Pin It

Cute shot at North Shore!

The view outside our hotel room.  Seriously beautiful!

Well, what can we say... Everyone was doing it!

Another shot at North Shore.

Cute little Makapu'u Lighthouse!

LOVE is a great thing and continuing to grow and understand your loved one is a wonderful feeling!  I recently came across this book called "The 5 Love Languages".

I wish everyone would read this book.  It's so fantastic!  Even couples that think they couldn't be any better, think again.  This book will seriously change your marriage for the better.  It's been a NY Times best seller and between his old version and his new version has over 1,000 reviews from some happy book readin' people!  You can take the quiz for free *here* and find out what YOUR "love language" is.  :)

Planning on HEALTHING up after the Holidays?  I highly suggest this program:  LiveFit Trainer  Great workouts and great results.  Check it out!  Also, here's a recipe that I am LOVING!  It's a Pumpkin Protein Bar.  Tastes like a pumpkin cake but good for you!!!  I usually add a little extra protein powder and pumpkin OR applesauce for more protein and moisture.

Pumpkin Protein Bars

A couple things to note:

• I don't add the Xylitol or any sweetener.
• I typically double all the spice amounts because I like it spicy!  :)
• You can use coconut milk, cows milk, hemp milk instead of Almond milk if you want.
• If you can't find oat flour at your store you can make your own by just grinding up oats (not the quick cooking kind) into a powder.  It won't be as fine, but works just as well!  The kind at the store is Bob's Red Mill brand.

I'll be doing a blog post tomorrow on some of my favorite vegetarian/vegan cookbooks and websites for recipes!  In case you wanted to venture into Meatless Mondays or a night or two where you feed the fam a delicious health conscious meal.  :)

The HOLIDAYS are here and it's my favorite time of year!  I haven't gotten much into the decorating the last couple years because Shon isn't living with us and Brandon is gone most the time.  It's kind of lame for me to "try" and enjoy it by myself.  We had out Thanksgiving Day dinner a few days early because Brandon had to head back to work today.  (Day before Thanksgiving)  It was nice though!  

Then we decided to put our lights up, well... I asked Brandon if he would do it for me (I had to hang them myself last year, that was a sight I'm sure!).  They looked fabulous and then.... we hit up Lowes and found these really cool icicle lights shaped like actual icicles.  They are 5" and 7" long.  (You can't tell on the video, but you can in person that they look like real hanging icicles.)  So we got up on the roof, Brandon hung them and I held the ladder.  :)  I didn't want him to fall, but I got to stare at his cute butt the whole time.  :)  Then he added the twinkle netting on a couple of the shrubs and a huge snowflake up on the front of the house.  We need to add another 4 twinkle net lights (gotta get them before they don't sell those ones anymore and we can't match the color.)  But here's a video of it.  It's not very good quality, but you get the idea.  :)

I'm thankful that Brandon will only be gone to work this time for 3 weeks and then home for 3 weeks!  I can't wait.  Christmas together again this year, I love it!  And I love him!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

But before I go, here's a few things I'm thankful for:

- A husband that loves me and is willing to try and figure me out the rest of our lives!  :)  And who is a VERY hard worker to give us what we have.  <3

-  Family that wants to talk to you.  LOL

-  Not living somewhere that has a minus sign in front of the degrees in the winter time.

-  Great friends you can count on and talk to even though those are far and few between.  Makes me REALLY love THOSE ones that I do have!

- A fantastic Son!  Whom I'm thankful all the time that that he turned into such a funny, smart & responsible young man!

-  And let's not forget our two lithe boys... Bonloe and Boaz who make me laugh all the time and keep me company when Brandon is at work.

-  To top off the list again, I want to say I sure love my Husband!