Bucket List Item #82 - Get a 3rd tattoo - CHECK!

I have a thing for turtles and I love sea turtles and I'm a really big fan of the Polynesian and Hawaiian tattoo styles. I have a wave on my right leg and I really like that one so I knew I wanted something similar when it came to this tattoo. 

We knew we were going to Hawaii this year so I started looking for what kind of design I wanted last fall. My best friend Christine also has 'a guy' for tattoos and hooked me up with the friendly price (thanks Chris & Kory, my tattoo artist). I email Chris, who emailed Kory the few designs that I had in mind but at the same time I wanted something original, and that's exactly what I got. 

When I showed up Kory hadn't drawn anything. I told him what I wanted and off he went. Originally it was going to be one turtle with wavy kinda stuff around it. Then one turtle turned into three turtles, one big one and 2 smaller ones. But we were having problems coming up with small turtles that we both liked. 

 In the end we decided to go with one big turtle (the top one) and one slightly smaller turtle (the bottom one). I also really wanted some hibiscus flowers in there as well along with some other tribal/girly looking designs.

 It took about 2 and half hours but totally worth it. Tim was taking pictures of my pain as I was getting tattooed. When Kory got down around the ankle it hurt really bad and about the last 20 minutes I hit my pain wall. Those last little finishing touches were brutal, but worth it. The whole thing is black and white, there is some gray shading in there as well.

It's healing up nicely. I'll take another picture when all of my skin stops falling off. Right now it is also pretty itchy and I'm doing my best not to scratch it but it looks awesome. I'm totally in love with it. I want another one. Maybe I'll get that big sting ray on my back that I have thinking about for a few years now. We'll see, until then, I'll enjoy this one.

Bucket List Item #79 - Go to Pearl Harbor - CHECK

 Pearl Harbor was one of those really cool things to see and do but also extremely sad to walk around and think about what happened there. But that being said I'm pretty proud to say that I'm part of a military family.

 We had to split the doing Pearl Harbor into two different days because we arrived to late to get free tickets to go to the USS Arizona. Pearl Harbor is run by the Parks and Rec Department of Hawaii but the Navy is the one that takes visitors to the USS Arizona and they only do so many trips a day and if you don't get there early enough you won't get tickets. We got there about 8 a.m. the second day and our assigned time to see the Arizona still wasn't until 12:15 p.m. So a word of advice, go early or the tour groups will grab all the ticket and you won't be able to get to the Arizona.

 So the first day we went and did the Mighty Moe or the USS Missouri. It was a pretty awesome battleship. It is so much bigger than you actually image, well at least to me. Most of these pictures are from my phone as I just wanted to get them posted but Tim took some pretty awesome ones with the big camera.

Here is the Arizona from the dock of the Missouri. It was a beautiful day when we went. The sun was out but it wasn't blazing down on us so it wasn't to hot.

Before we went out the the Arizona they make you watch a short film on why Japan bombed us and what happened on December 7th. It was very sad to watch all the footage.

 We were also asked to be as quiet as we could when we were on the Arizona in respect for the fallen men that are still entombed there. When you get out to "the bridge" and look down and still see the sunken ship you just want to cry to think of all those poor men that are down there.

 Another thing that I learned was that if you were a survivor of the Arizona that you have the option to be buried down there with the other fallen sailors. They will have a special ceremony after the memorial is closed and divers will take the urn of the deceased down to the hull of the Arizona and place him inside. I thought it was a nice idea and option.

The Arizona also has a shrine room. The park ranger was telling us that it has all of the names of the fallen Navy sailors and the Marines that were on the ship at the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. Again this was both cool and sad at the same time. RIP and Happy late Memorial Day to all the fallen.

Bucket List Item #18 - Go to Hawaii - CHECK

 We are home from Hawaii so it is time to update the bucket list as I have marked a few things off. First and foremost, we went to Hawaii. The trip was awesome! I could not get over how clear the water was and the colors that the water turned in the sunlight.

 This picture was taken just outside the airport. I was looking for a 'Welcome to Hawaii' sign but we couldn't find one so this one had to do.

 The flower of Hawaii is the hibiscus and it is my favorite. I tried to find all the different colors while I was there. I think I ended up finding about 5 different colors. Still love the red ones though, the yellows were pretty awesome also.

 I also couldn't take enough pictures of palm trees. It has been a long time since I saw one. I think our honeymoon to Key West was the last time I saw palm trees. I love them!!

This was K-Bay. It was named as one of the top ten beaches in the world. The white sand and the teal/blue water was totally beautiful and I can see why it is on the list as one of the top beaches of the world.

An Update...finally (very pic heavy)

Sorry for the long hiatus from posting but we have been super busy and at the same time super lazy. Too tired to really do anything after all that we have had going on. Shortly after my sister and father left my SIL and BIL came into town for a week. We had a great time with them. Tim was their tour guide and took them all over the country. I will try and go and steal some of Tim's pictures from when they were here as I didn't have any one my computer.

Once SIL and BIL left we were on our way to Scotland for camping a.k.a. Operation Fluffy Bunny. What a gorgeous country!!!! We left Friday morning around 8 a.m. for our 8 hour drive. It was worth it though, even if we were only there for 2 days. We had friends with us. They are pictured bel0w, AJ (who is awesome), Dutchie, and Dalyah. They only got to stay 2 nights because the Air Force is stupid and we'll just leave it at that.

This was our camp site. We were right on the loch. We camped on Loch Linnhe. We were a short walking distance from the water.

It rained a little the first night and a lot of our stuff got wet. This was the clothes line that was in the site. Most camp sites don't have stuff like this, I thought it was pretty cool.
This was mine and Tim's tent, along with the puppies. It is huge but it was just the right size for all of us plus gear. We stayed pretty dry in there after we figured out where our tent was leaking from. Gotta fix that before our next camping trip.

This is Awesome AJ and Dutchie's tent. They had the "Wall of Gayness" in the middle of their tent or really the "Wall of Non-gayness" However you want to look at it. After this weekend Tim has decided to retire this tent as it got all of their stuff soaked all weekend. That tent has many many miles on it.
This is a view of our entire camp site. We had the tarp up there for keeping our stuff dry when it rained when we weren't there. It worked pretty well. As long as the wind wasn't blowing to hard.
This was our Loch. This picture was taken from our campsite. Image, we got to wake up to that for 3 days. How cool huh?

We didn't really have a third tree close enough to tie the other rope off to from the tarp so this is what was mustered up. Tim gets pretty creative on these trips.
Tim sporting his "camping gear". Sexy isn't he.
On Saturday we went to Loch Ness to find Nessie. We put the dog here so that we could go and look out into the water. they weren't really that happy about it.
We stopped on the way home at a different location on our loch. It was a little hazy out but I still felt I should post the picture.

Dakoda swimming and Tim trying to get him out. Dakoda would just swim up and down the loch till he was shaking he was so cold, but still wanted to continue to swim. Crazy dog!
Dalyah sitting.
Mountain, yes that is snow on the top.
AJ walking Maggie, or really Maggie walking AJ.
A rainbow with the boat and mountain. Very pretty. There was someone living/working on that boat. The tide came in a couple of days later and made it very easy for him to leave if he wanted to.
AJ fishing, really just casting, none of them caught anything. They all seemed to have fun regardless.
Tim walking on the bank of the loch drinking his scotch that he bought in town that day. He found better stuff on Sunday.
Tim was more or less walking up and down the bank with the dog who was swimming again. That dog loves to swim.
Sunset on Loch Linnhe

One of my favorites

On Sunday Awesome AJ, Dutchie, and Dalyah had to go home, so Tim and I were on our own with the puppies. We first walked around town. We went and saw the ruins of this castle (will try and post pic, Tim's camera again) and just when I thought I was going to be done, I decided that we should go to the Ben Nevis Falls that the lady at our camp site told us about. It was worth it.

Tim is at the stage where he will do just about anything for a good picture. Here he decided to go crawling around in the rocks to get pictures of the rushing water. The pictures came out good which is all that really matters in his eyes.
Can you still see him in there? He's there. The best part was that there was a Japanese tourist group behind us that we pasted earlier and they were all taking pictures of him down in the rocks. They saw me and gave me a puzzled look and I just pointed to the direction of Tim and they all started to take out their cameras. Too funny. Gotta love those Japanese people.
This is right by the Falls.
Taken from the ground. I just thought it looked cool.

The Ben Nevis Falls.

The last night in Scotland was pretty fun. We were left with some beer that we didn't really want to carry home and there was no way that we were both going to drink it all in one night either. So we decided to offer it to our Scottish neighbors Ronny and Rosey. What a fun couple! We went up there just to bring beer and ended up staying the entire night. We were suppose to go to bed at 8:30 so we would get lots of sleep for our long drive home but bedtime turned into 1 a.m. It was worth it though. Ronny even let Tim try and play the bagpipes. What a sight! I wish I had a camera with me. Ronny ended up giving us a Scottish flag to hang up and a bottle of ale that is only found in Scotland. Those Scots are pretty nice people.

That is all for now. I have other news to report as well but that will come at a later date, I'm to tired as it is a long story as well. Maybe this weekend. If you ever get the chance to go and travel do it, you won't regret it one bit!!