I can't believe it's August!!

Wow, the summer is really flying by!!! July was a pretty busy month for us. I went to Hawaii for a week to go to a conference with the American Society of Plant Biologists. I will post lots of pictures later but I will give a quick run down of the trip. We (my advisor, me and a post-doc from my lab) left Gainesville Thursday morning around seven and arrived in Honolulu 14 hours later at 3 in the afternoon. We spent the first day checking out the area around our hotel and getting situated. The hotel we were staying in was HUGE! It was actually a "village" made up of 6 towers that were all around 30 stories tall. In the middle of the towers there were a lot of shops, fountains, and statues. My favorite thing to do every morning was to go walk down to the beach at around 6 ish (it was hard to get adjusted to the time change so I got up a lot earlier there than I would have liked) for my morning call to my honey. While I would talk to him I would walk around and the first morning there I found a little place where they had about 6 or 7 little penguins. Just up the walk way they had flamingos and parrots too but the penguins were definitely my favorite.

The first full day we were there we went on a hike through a crater called Diamond Head that used to be a volcano and up to the southern lip which looked out over the ocean. The view was BEAUTIFUL but it was a steep climb getting up there. At the top you could see all of Honolulu and Waikiki beach. After the hike we drove up the eastern coast of the island and stopped at a lot of scenic places to take pictures. We ate lunch in Chinatown in downtown Honolulu and then walked to see the capitol and Royal Palace where the Hawaiian kings and queens used to live before Hawaii became a state. 

Saturday morning we went to Pearl Harbor which was really cool. We got to tour a real WWII submarine which was one of my favorite things we saw the whole trip (besides the penguins). It made me appreciate all of the sacrifices that the soldiers made for our freedom seeing the tiny space and conditions they had to live in. Next we rode a boat out into the harbor to visit the USS Arizona memorial which is a battleship that was sunk in the bombing of the harbor and is still on the bottom of the harbor. It was also very neat to see. Last we toured the battleship the USS Missouri which was the site of the Japanese surrender at the end of the war. If I had seen it before the submarine, I would have thought that the soldier's sleeping quarters were small and cramped but compared to life on a sub these guys had spacious accomodations. 

After all the site seeing it was time for us to head off the real reason we were there - the conference. We listened to lots of talks and I had a poster that I presented there as well. I walked around on the beach a lot but only went swimming once - kinda sad. It was actually my first time ever seeing the Pacific ocean. It was a good trip but I was very glad to come home at the end of it.

 

We left Hawaii on Wednesday afternoon and got into Gainesville around 8 Thursday morning. John came to pick me up and take me home. On the way home he asked if I wanted to go home right away or if we could drive down a little farther before we went home. It didn't take much to figure out from a question like that that there was something he wanted to show me so I said that it was fine. We drove down to 34th Street which has this wall about 100 yards long that has at least 50 coats of paint. It is basically one huge graffiti wall that anyone and everyone uses to paint messages and memorials on. When we drove by John pointed out one section that he had painted while I was gone that said "I heart Courtney" in red paint. He had been wanting to paint the wall forever and with me out of town for a week he finally got his chance. Most people would probably not find it too romantic but I thought it was cute. 

Anyway, that same afternoon that I got back from Hawaii, we closed on our house! It was a busy day to say the least! My dad also came into town that night and we went over to the new place to make a game plan of projects that we wanted to get done first. Over the last two weeks we have been working hard to get a lot done but no one worked harder than my dad. He was there everyday for at least 10 hours a day doing electrical, plumbing, carpentry you name it he did it. We also had John's parents and sisters over to help one Saturday with some cleaning and yard work. We are still a long way from being done but we can definitely see (and smell) the progress we are making (John ripped up all the carpet which was really really stinky and now it smells SO much better). 

We have taken lots of pictures and will post them all once we get a chance with all of other things going on. We are going to a friend's wedding this weekend which I am excited about. I haven't gotten to see a sealing other than my own so it will be cool to be able to see that. Then next week my parents and sisters will be in Orlando and we will get to go visit them and stay at their resort for a weekend. And during all of this we somehow have to get our apartment full of stuff over to the new place. Life is busy but we are very happy and blessed.