Hawaii with the Fam

Once again, it's been a long time since I have added to my blog, but I'll pick up where I left off.

At the end of May my family headed to the Big Island, Hawaii. It was my first time going to Hawaii and I was not let down. Rather than give a travelogue, I'll just post some of the best pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Hanging out at the beach.

Waipio Valley Overlook

Akaka Falls

A waterfall at the Botanical Gardens

A really cool flower at the gardens, this photo has not been touched by Photoshop.

A lava tube at Volcano National Park.

Getting ready for some snorkeling.

This guy is the chef at the breakfast diner in 50 First Dates. He runs an entertainment company and his family does Hula. Josiah, Andrea, and Brian volunteered to participate in an activity and learned how to act.

Digging up the roasted pig.

A luau at the Marriott.

Visiting the Kona Temple.

We signed up to do a sunset dinner cruise, but there was a huge storm so we had to dress up in garbage sacks and hang out at the pier instead.

The last day of our trip was my favorite. We hiked down into the Waipio Valley. There was a beautiful black sand beach and a ginormous waterfall. We met some people who were kayaking out into the ocean to spend a week in the next valley over. Their friend gave us a ride back up to the top in the back of his truck. I want to go back and exerience Hawaii by kayak.

There is a crab in here, can you see it?

The Crazy Month of May

I'm going to misquote Julius Caesar and say "Beware the Ides of May". What a crazy month! It definitely had some highs and some lows.

At the beginning of May, my dad finally went to a doctor and had some tests done. He found out that he had cancer and needed to start chemotherapy right away. The type of chemotherapy that he needed to undergo required him to remain in the hospital for a week at a time, with a two week break between sessions. On the morning of his first chemo session, as he was just finishing getting hooked up to all the monitors and tubes, he got a call from my grandpa saying that my grandmother had passed away unexpectedly. It was a pretty rough morning for my dad and family needless to say. We were able to postpone the funeral long enough for my dad to finish his first round. He got out of the hospital the morning of the viewing. When we arrived at the viewing, we found out that my uncle's stepson had been in an accident and was being rushed to the hospital. The next morning at the funeral, we found out that he had passed away. Aunt Holly, Aunt Cindy, Uncle Jared, and my dad all spoke at the funeral and gave wonderful tributes to my grandmother. I learned so much about her that I had never known. It made me sad that I had not spent more time learning about the person she was. I regret not having spent more time with her. It is sad that you learn more about a person at their funeral than you did while they were alive.

Although there was a lot of sadness surrounding the deaths of my grandmother and my Uncle's stepson, my family had a lot of things to be grateful for. The hospital where my dad receives his treatments is only a few blocks from my house and so I can visit him often when he is there. He is always on the 9th floor and it has an amazing view. This is a sunset taken from his room.

So many neighbors and friends have expressed their concern for me and my family. I am so thankful to be surrounded by so many wonderful and amazing people. My dad will start his 4th and last session of chemo this coming Monday. So far it has been a pretty long and painful process for him, but it has been working. The tumor he had in his abdomen is completely gone.

During May, I was also able to take my motorcycle safety class. I finally got my motorcycle!! It's great to ride around on and so far I have managed not to hit anything and to not be hit.

May ended on a high note with our family trip to Hawaii. Luckily my dad's doctor felt that life is meant to be enjoyed and gave him permission to go. It's getting late now so the Hawaii trip is going to have to be it's own new post.

Moab Relay Marathon

I am on such a roll! Three new posts in about a week, I might actually get caught up, and anyone who actually bothers to read this will know what has been going on in the life of Shanno.

In April I headed down to Moab to run a marathon relay with Rebecca, the Crazy Alaskan, and Prucilla. For those of you who don't know Rebecca, there are many reasons why she is called "crazy". Not only is she from Alaska, which automatically makes her crazy, she also thinks that running uphill is fun. She considers a marathon a "walk in the park" and she regularly eats caribou (just not on Sundays). It was her idea to do this relay marathon. As usual I neglected to train, but still had a great time. The course was beautiful! Rebecca ran the first leg, which happened to be the longest with the most uphill sections. I ran the second and Prue ran the third leg. This was the longest distance Prue has ever run and she cruised through her leg of the race no sweat! The group who put on the race do not rank very high on their ability to communicate and organize, so unfortunately we were unsure of exactly when the race was going to start. The problem with this is that Prue and I didn't show up at the transition point until after Rebecca had already been waiting for 20 minutes in the freezing cold. But even with this delay our team took 12th place!
Anyone who has run long distances knows how important it is to load up on carbs the day before the race. We have perfected this skill. This is a sample of our "carbs".

Prue had to drive down separately, so while we waited in the hotel for her, we got a little creative with the towels.
Another necessity for a race is a fake tattoo. We were able to obtain some high quality ones at the local gas station.


After the race we cruised down the river road to the "Indian Ladder" where we indulged in our "crack" habit.

Going Up

This is the view from the top

Chillin' at the top

On the way down

One more crack

After our "experimentation" with crack, we headed to Arches and saw, believe it or not... some arches.

Thanks for an amazing time gals! Next year let's go to Alaska - I'll practice being crazy :)

DC 1/2 Marathon

The National Marathon and 1/2 Marathon were being held the last weekend of March and it was a great excuse to finally go out and visit Emily and Brett. Brian and Heidi also flew in from St. Louis and Brian's MTC Companion, Doug, flew in from Alabama. It was the opening weekend of the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the Kite-Flying Festival.

DC is such an incredible city. There is soooo much to see and I think I only saw about 1% of it. The first day there Emily had to teach her 4th graders and Brett had school so the rest of us were tourists and went site-seeing around the Mall.

This is the National Archives Building where the Declarartion of Independence is held. There was an enormous line to get in, so we just looked at it from outside.

This is Brian "sticking is to the man", sort of.

WTF? This is art?

This is 3-D, but does it bend in or out?

The Smithsonian Castle

This is inside the Aerospace Museum. You could spend all day in here and still not see everything.

This is Doug riding the longest escalator I have ever seen. It is at the Metro stop near the National Zoo.

Heidi is such a cute pregnant lady!

Getting ready to embark on the "Asian Trail". Is this what it takes to become Asian?

These next pics are for you Prue, I thought you would appreciate them.

This is where all the tree-saving poop comes from.

Brett at George Washington Law School.

This is us after the race. So far, this was my favorite race. There were about 6000 runners. We ran past the capitol and along the mall and then through the some of the neighborhood areas of DC. It was really cold, but my legs just went numb. This was Brian's first 1/2 and he killed it. Brett was under 2 hours and I beat my last time by about 15 minutes, so we were all pretty happy.

After the race we walked down to the Washington Memorial to fly a kite, which didn't go so well. It was really neat to see so many kites though.