New Hairscut

On May 28th Eric finally decided to "prove" to me that he wasn't too much of a pansie to shave his head... A few weeks before, we had been at Greg and Jalaine's (our best buds) house and got talking on the subject of shaving heads (Greg's been shaving his for years) and I told Eric he was too pansie to do it. Well, those were fightin words and it eventually turned into a nice little bet over the following days. Eric had never shaved his head before in his life, and my comments DEFINATELY pushed him over the edge this time! Come 12:30 am, Eric finally decided to man-up and do it... Greg was delighted to do the honors....

And this was the end result... now i can't wait for it to grow back so he doesn't look like such a "tough-guy". It's taking some getting used to for the both of us... We'll just hafta see if he keeps it up now.

Scion United 5.17.08

In May, Eric and I had an awesome opportunity to be a part of Scion's new advertising campaign. Our car was selected to be one of the 500 to attend a so-called "top secret" event in Boulder City, NV. Their new campaign is all about showing the different customizations that people do to their cars. We caravan'ed down to Vegas with a couple of our other Scion friends, Drew and Tevita.

Scion paid for EVERYTHING once we got there... we were hooked up nicely with a sweet room at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Henderson. They also gave us $160 in pre-loaded Visa cards and turned us loose for the weekend to party while they used our car in video and photo shoots. We even got hooked up with some sweet SWAG in our hotel room after we checked in. The custom-made bags made out of recycled Scion billboards were fulla goodies like waterbottles, sunglasses, stuffed toy cars, sunscreen, visors, magazines... you get the idea...

My favorite part of the trip was definately loungin by the pool, workin on my tan and reading a good book.

Saturday was the main event, and we were bused out to what looked like a government test facility set up in the middle of the desert. There were all sorts of vendors there with TONS of free stuff for us (like t-shirts, stickers, shift knobs, and other cool stuff for the car and whatnot). Color Me Mine even had a tent set up where we could paint our own xB's and take em home! It was so much fun... and HOT!

One of the booths was gettin real crazy with buzz-cuts.... Eric was a bit hesitant to step up, but Tevita went all out with his head, and ended up getting a lot of attention because of it. If we only knew that Eric was gonna shave his head a few weeks later maybe we'd have done it too. Looks like he'll hafta settle with his new tatoo instead...

Some of the companies even had raffles and drawings for BIG prizes.... and we actually won a set of BRAND NEW WHEELS! It was crazy at the TRD booth when they called our ticket number, we couldn't believe it, we never win anything!

They fed us and had a few words from the VP of Scion, then we headed into another tent for the main event... which was a private concert by Redman and Flo Rida...

It was such a blast. The next day we decided to venture a little bit further into the desert to see the Hoover Dam (neither of us had been there before and we were already pretty much there). It was a blast to spend the weekend out and away from our monotonous routine and get to meet new people. We have had so much fun with our car and met a lot of cool friends because of it.

Hogle Zoo

To start the summer off, Eric and I decided to go to the Zoo. It was so fun, we felt like kids, especially because all the adults at the zoo had a couple kids with them - we were the only ones kidless! Eric was more excited than I was to see all the animals, he was especially excited to see the monkey's. I really enjoyed the zoo, but I always feel so bad for the animals when they are in cages and behind bars. I wish they had more room to run and do whatever they want instead of being behind glass in a closed room...

We only lasted for a couple hours because we got tired and hungry - since the food at the zoo is so expensive for what you get (and not very good for you), we decided to go to TGI Friday's for a real big, juicy burger (still not so healthy but better than the tiny burgers at the zoo)!

Philippines Vacation

We celebrated our 2 year anniversary in one of Eric's favorite places on Earth, the Philippines! It was so much fun to be back where he served his mission from 2002-2004 and see old friends as well as make new ones. We had this trip planned since October and waited so long that by the time our departure date arrived it seemed sorta surreal. Finally, March 10, 2008 we took off for a two week vacation in paradise.

SIDE NOTE: Sorry the layout's the same, we tried to make it nice with pictures on the right, center, and left but it messed everything up so we went simple, all out pictures are down the middle (it takes up a lot of room too). I'll try to get better at posting pictures with future posts!

PI - Day 1

It took a total of 18 hours in the air to finally arrive in Manila. We first flew to LA where we then caught our flight to Manila by way of Hong Kong (now I can say I've been to Hong Kong, the airport counts, right???). The 14 hour flight to Hong Kong was exhausting, but we couldn't have asked for much better seats in economy class.... we sat in the very back of the plane where the rows become 2-deep instead of 3, so it was nice to have a row to ourselves.

We're in Hong Kong! I see it!

We're keeping ourselves entertained during our 2 hr layover in Hong Kong!

Eric is streching out before we get on another flight to Manila.

When we arrived in Manila we were met by Joseph's older brother, Noel. Joseph was one of Eric’s favorite Filipino companions who now lives here in Utah. He was so accommodating to us and made our trip run so smoothly.

Manila is a HUGE city, and the streets are littered with billboards and huge buildings. We snapped a few photos on the way in and around town. It was good that Noel was driving us around, if we had gone with a rental or chosen to brave the public transportation scene, it would've been absolute mayhem.

Noel took us to the Patron House across the street from the Manila Temple where we met April Abao, Eric's 2nd to last companion. He set us up with a room for a few hours so we could shower and change into some temple-appropriate clothes.

Attending the Temple was a great experience. The Maharry's (a missionary couple from Eric's mission) are currently serving as Temple Workers, and they treated us to lunch right as we got there.

One of Eric's good buddies from home, Marc Price, is the AP in the Quezon City Mission, and he was able to sneak away and stop by the Temple while we were there also. Needless to say, we had quite a few familiar faces within our first few hours! As an anniversary gift, Joseph had arranged with Noel to treat us to a full massage at his favorite spa in downtown Manila. It lasted over an hour and was the greatest massage ever, and so relaxing, especially after all our time spent traveling.

After our massage it was time to gear up for a long night. We took an overnight bus (about 10 hours) to the town of Banaue. Banaue is home to the famous Rice Terraces, which many people claim to be the 8th Wonder of the World. From what we had read it was supposed to be worth the long trip there, and it definitely was!

We tried our best to get some sleep on the bus, the seats weren't in the best of shape, and the mountainous road to Nueva Viscaya isn't exactly "smooth", but arriving in Banaue at 6:00 am and having a full 2 days to recuperate made up for the rather uncomfortable night.

PI - Day 2

When we finally arrived in Banaue and got off the bus, we made our way thru the mob of "tour guides" ready and waiting at the bus stop for the opportunity to become any foreigner's new best friend.

We chatted with one so-called tour guide named Gideon, and he accompanied us to People's Restaurant for some breakfast and a chance to stretch out. Gideon was rad and arranged for a trike to take us to our hotel, which was another 30 minutes away, at a decent price.

The cool mountain air and the view off the balcony at People's were refreshing. We finished our banana pancakes and Milo (hot chocolate) and got back on the road to Uhaj.

We arrived at the Uhaj Native Village Inn and we were the only guests there. The road there is only partially paved and pretty gnarly, especially after some rain. But the secluded atmosphere was just what we needed to relax and take in the beauty of the terraces. The local kids along the way didn't hesitate to greet us as we passed by ;) they were so cute!

Since the Inn is quite a ways from the city, there aren't too many jeepney's or trikes that make the trip up during the afternoon, so we vouched to stay at the Inn all day and just sleep, play cards, relax, enjoy the views, and EAT!

This Inn is incredible as each "suite" is its own native Ifugao hut, built and maintained by the local Ifugao people. The huts at the hotel are outfitted with a few modern upgrades, like lighting and power outlets, but still give you a unique cultural experience.






We hung out at the viewpoint most of the day. The young ladies at the Inn had asked us what we'd like for dinner and what time we'd like to eat. At 6:00 right on the money, there was a candle-lit dinner for two ready for us in the restaurant.




We ordered Chicken Adobo for two and it was super grub. We took a short walk down the street after dinner, but it was really too dark to see much of anything other than fireflies. We crashed kinda early that night so we could get up and catch an early jeepney back to the town of Banaue. We ended the night with a toast...to an AWESOME VACATION!