HAWAII!

Well, we went to Hawaii! It was awesome and beautiful and warm and fun and felt so good. Here are some pictures!

Right outside the airport--we were definitely excited to be there!

First beach on our way to our house, we couldn't resist getting out of the car

DELICIOUS taco truck

One of the pets at our house. One of the mornings we watched him eat his breakfast as we ate ours. yum. 

This is one of those crazy lava rock places where the waves crash up really big... after the fact we regretted getting a little too close to the edge, but luckily nothing crazy happened. 

Billy is somewhere in that splash

Billy did a little bouldering...you think that's a white back, you shoudla seen the bum naked bum of some guy on the beach who decided it was a nude beach...yikes!

I found noni in hawaii!

There was a cool mini golfing place that was like a tour through Hawaii's botany history and it was so fun! Mini golfing in tropical paradise, what could be better? And we each got hole in ones so they gave us free gelato afterwards.

Bonsai tree! Grounds gave us a little bonsai tree a while ago and Billy discovered a love for these little plants, so we were pretty excited to see this one on the course

We went on this walk to this stone dam

It was pretty cool

We hiked near the Waimea Canyon, but instead of hiking towards the canyon, we hiked towards the ocean

Tons of sweet plants and pretty intense hills... it was so fun

And the view from the coast we finally reached was INCREDIBLE! That little pink dot out there is me! It was crazy! 

And just looking at those cliffs of the Napali Coast was amazing. There were helicopters and birds flying beneath us. Pretty crazy! pretty cool!

Intense hill

Canyon overlook

Tree Tunnel

We took a tour of some botanical gardens and it was SO COOL. We were planning on going cus Billy is a plant lover, and it turned out to be totally worth it. These tree roots we're standing in are the exact ones they used for Jurassic Park when Dr. Grant and the kids find the dinosaur eggs. Cool!

This is the exact spot where they had the eggs

Bamboo

Crazy horizontal palm tree! 

This dog, Sissy, would come visit us every morning right on time to get some breakfast scraps. We also had another dog follow us home on one of our runs, but it was ok. He was nice. 

We hiked the Napali Coast. It was so fun and so cool!

So pretty!

I was so happy. I haven't been so active and free and able to run around like crazy and not just sit in my cubicle and do nothing but think in such a long time and it felt so good. We were just out there on the Napali Coast when just hiking and breathing and sweating and i was just with Billy and so it was a happy time. 

The beach at the halfway point

Cool jungle hiking!

SWEET waterfall, I think like 300 feet or something

It was so paradisaical swimming in that little pool under the waterfall--really cold, but so cool. We just would float on our backs and it was like the clearest blue sky above us with just these sheer, green cliffs. 

This is Tunnels Beach, I'm sad we didn't have an underwater camera because we saw way sweet fish--big, small, every color under the sun (or the water, as the case may be), skinny like a needle, fatter than you would imagine and overall freaky. But cool! And we were just swimming along when we all of a sudden came to this huge drop off, just like in Finding Nemo! Whoa, it was so freaky, and it made us realize how powerless we are in the water because swimming away from it in a panic was a futile effort. 

We went kayaking down the main river, Wailua and it was fun, kinda more touristy than we thought, but it was still a good adventure. We kayaked down the river maybe like a mile and a half (I don't know, my kayaking clock isn't as good as my running one) with our guide Kawika and some other peeps

Then we got out and hiked

To another sweet waterfall. Gotta admit, though, the other one we went to was better. But it was still an awesome Hawaii waterfall

Our last day we boogie boarded and then rented bikes and rode the coast, which was also fun

This was our little house. So joyous!

Hammock, bbq grill, picnic table

So there you go! Hawaii was so fun, i was looking forward to that trip so much and it exceeded my expectations, mostly because I just got to be with Billy all day every day and that guy is a champ.

And then we went to San Fransisco for Thanksgiving with the Lindes, Dale & Leisa and Mom and Dad. 

Thanks, Lindes! 

That is all. This weekend we are excited to go meet Emery Danielle hopefully, and in the meantime we are just enduring school and work and adjusting back to the things we did so long ago. 

Congrats, Carters!

Birthday, Anniversary, Pirates!

October is a joyous time! Not only are there two happy celebrations for the Hiatts, but the mountains are beautiful and there is an abundance of candy all month and beyond!

Billy's birthday was a rollicking success. I complained for weeks in advance that I didn't know if I could really surprise him very well becuase I don't know enough about the things he wants like dirt bike boots or pipes or whatever to get them on my own, but after he commented several days in a row that he wanted a new vacuum, I thought I would surprise him with that!

Then I realized I didn't know what kind of vacuum he would think would be good so I told him i was going to surprise him with that, but I didn't know how to buy one on my own so botched.

But then I braved up and realized that I could still surprise him if I did get a vacuum, so I did!


And some other stuff. I wanted to get him 25 gifts, but no such luck.

Anyway, it was so fun watching him open all the stuff, especially the vacuum and...

...the awesome camp stove! Woot! That was obviously a surprise to me too!

Billy vacuumed after presents and our previous vacuum obviously did not suck. Or did it? In any case, it was nasty. This whole thing was full after one brief sweep of our house.

 

Yikes.

So then it was anniversary! (also note that it was Elise's bday the day before and CJ's bday the day after, thus, another reason why October is joyous.)

For our anniversary we watched Eric in his first 5k!! Nothing could make me happier! It was awesome! He rocked it!

Then we hung out with the Carter's and ate breakfast at mcDonald's and went to Scheel's and partied! That place is sweet.

Then that night we went to drive the Nebo Loop and discovered this awesome mini-bryce canyon. The picture does not do it justice, but it was sweet.

And it was fun to hang out with Billy in the mountains, just another day in our blissfully fun and thankfully eternal relationship. I love Billy so much! There are no words sufficient to describe what he means to me and how much I admire his wisdom, tenderness and, more than ever, his unshakeable courage.

And his dimples. What a guy! We sure are lucky people to have each other.

Also, we went to Tucano's with Billy's mom & Melo. Joyous!

Then this weekend we were part of a pirate-themed murder mystery with Rob and Sarah and it was crazy! We pieced together some costumes for One-Eyed Wanda and Dirty Wiggins. Sarah is the QUEEN of throwing parties, so their whole house was totally decked out and it was awesome. They made everything, including this sweet banner you see in the back.

 

It was fun! Rob is the one that got murdered and Billy ended up being the judge character of sorts, so even though we didn't know any of the people, it was still entertaining and joyous. And I wasn't the murderer--phew! Arrgh!

Work is crazy because my department workforce shrunk but the workload remained, so we are running around like crazy, but it is good. Billy's season is winding down a little, but he is still working on some pretty sweet jobs and diligently doing all else and absolutely everything for me.

See, joyous October!

Zoey Jae

Perhaps in time, when you and I are as brave as Zoey, I'll share some thoughts about her life and the eternal impact it has had on ours.

For now, suffice it to say that our three days with her perfect spirit gave us the broken hearts Heavenly Father requires, allowed us to glimpse the overwhelming and incomprehensible joy of being a parent, brought us closer to each other and to our Savior than we've ever been and cemented our grateful testimonies that the little family we started one year ago will be united for endless years.

And thus, overall, this is a good experience.

We love you so much, Zoey Jae!

Surprise!

At the beginning of this pregnancy, Mom told me with something of an absolute assuredness that it was going to be a boy. And shortly thereafter Billy's mom went and bought a ton of boy-oriented material to make boy blankets and when we asked her what would happen if it was a girl, she just scoffed and told us with something of an absolute assuredness that it was going to be a boy. And shortly thereafter I started having dreams all about this baby boy. And I only ever called it a boy. And we thought of a bunch of boy names and few girl names. And we were pretty much sure it was a boy. 

We had our ultrasound last week and as the nurse was scrolling around showing us various vertebrae and femurs and skull structure and stuff (so cool, by the way! I had no idea they could get such a clear and amazingly precise image of the baby) I kept saying things like, "Oh, look at him just kicking around! He's got the biggest forehead in the world! But also...I guess she could have the biggest forehead and  maybe she is moving a lot!" 

And then without warning and without any kind of surprise inflection, the nurse calmly informed us that, "See those little folds between the legs...that means it's a girl!" And me and Billy were like....Whhaaaaa!!!? and laughed our crazy heads off!

So, it's a girl! That little creature I've been calling a boy this whole time is going to be our very own Hiatt girl! And, of course, despite our initial shock and feeling like we are getting to know our baby all over again, WE. ARE. THRILLED! (and scared out of our minds!) I get more excited every day to have a girl--I was a girl and it's been great! And it's already weird to me that i ever thought she was a boy.

Sorry no pictures. But all ultrasounds look the same and indistinguishable anyway

The other good news is, girls can still like dinosaur blankets and ride dirt bikes and maybe even build paver patios (and they can definitely run marathons), but at this point it doesn't matter because, if nothing else, we learned from this experience that any expectations or pre-thoughts may as well be shelved now because there is just no guessing what is going to come of this little girl! And what a thrilling anticipation of joy that is for us!

I've got a definite bump now, which is so fun, and the ladies at work are just dying with joy every day for me. Though I don't know what I will be saying in 3 months, I love being pregnant, and me and Billy laugh every day at my bellybutton that is no longer the crater, but is slowly transforming into Pikes Peak.

And enough about me and pregnancy and baby. Billy is building this SWEET water feature. What? He's so cool!

It is not done yet and he still has to landscape around it, but it looks and sounds so cool!

And he is rocking the school/ownabusiness/eldersquorumpresident/cleanfootballstadiumtill3inthemorning/alwaysprioritzingme deal--so much busier than me, but we are as happy as can be. And I love my job! I built a website! And do other stuff like that.

R!

It was the end of summeR! (thus the title of this post. Is my creativity fading because I'm not going back to school?)




Just know above all else that the saddest thing about this post is I couldn't get pictures of Billy's SWEET paver patio he made. Next post. It looks so good and his clients LOVED it. Loved it. Loved him. Automatically loved me. Loved my unborn child. Just because they were so impressed with Billy that everything associated with him was automatically worth loving.

But here are some other good pictures and updates (sorry about the weird font changes and stuff; we've been without internet and so everything about blogging is just hit-and-miss these days):

It was my birthday! Billy spoiled me like crazy all day! And Sarahho and her new and charmingly persistent friend Jordan decorated my car, as only Sarah could, complete with toilet paper and underwear. (This picture also doubles as a baby bump picture. It actually gets much bigger than that as the day wears on:) )

 

Notice, also the AWESOME skirt Summer made for me! I literally wore it for three days straight. Such comfort and joy!

I just wanted to be in the mountains with Billy for my birthday so we went camping and it was so fun, and the leaves are just starting to change, so it was beautiful.

I also enjoyed an initiating birthday trip to Tucano's. Yum!

Yesterday Billy started on this water feature project for these people in Orem. He dug that whole hole (6.5x4x1 feet. crazy) in like 3 hours. What? I couldn't do it.

I won this thing in a machine. Reminds me of that creepy croaky frog we had in our basement growing up that I just hated. But it was still cool to win.  

Notice also the sweet purse that I made yesterday.
And last night Billy finally convinced me to buzz his head! I was so nervous, especially after I made the first stripe, but he still looks dashing and friendly, so long as he smiles (haha but really he looks just as good and happy as ever!)

First day of school! Sad! Weird that I did not go. Instead I am just a real adult person just going to work and not looking at a single syllabus all day. I feel fine about it. But am sad that we will have to start doing homework soon instead of just sitting around and talking about the business and babies. Or probably the latter will happen while we pretend to do the former anyway.  

(not such a bad buzz, eh?)
Other notable events of the recent life:

Mackenzie Gregerson is leaving on her mission TOMORROW! The Lindes are so lucky to have that person coming to their neck of the woods!
One week from today and we will know if baby baby is a boy or a girl!!! Oh man oh man oh man! So excited.

Billy was able to feel the little guy/girl moving for the first time this week and it was even cooler to see him feel it move than it was for me to feel it move the first time, or close anyway.

That's all, I think. It is rainy here-weird! But life is good and more ebullient than it's ever been 

BEST MARATHON EVER

Still not quite sure which of the contributing elements made this marathon the most blissful, but it was definitely, hands-down, no doubt, not even a question in my mind, my favorite marathon yet. 

(lots of reading here, so don't feel obligated to do it all. But i gotta get it down somewhere)

Here are 26.2 reasons why:

1. Billy and I got to road trip, which meant a day off of work, billions of bathroom breaks, fast food and other fatty snacks, a breathtaking sunset as we pulled into San Jose and hours and hours of just hanging out with Billy! It was so fun. 
2. When we arrived in San Jose, we got to hang out with the Lindes for awhile, which was great because we haven't seen them since our wedding (too long!) and they were as funny as ever. 
3. In the morning, the kids ran around, screaming for a nervous LaDon to "get up, Dad, you have to run your race!" and eating marshmallow cereal. Daniel was wary of me and Billy at first until he made a connection and then we were bonded. 
4. San Jose was so cool! We drove past acres of a landscaper's wildest dreams until we got to Huddart Park (only like 20 minutes but 8 highways away from the Linde's house) and it was so pretty! 
5. There we were greeted by a group of the most intense trail runners I have seen since I ran the Ascent, the majority of whom were running the 50k. 
 

6. I was SO EXCITED TO RUN A MARATHON and especially with LaDon
7. It was so fun to run with LaDon, especially because not even Dad's fiercest hot air balloon breathing could compete with LaDon's breathing/running/camelbak-swishing/general-conference-listening/conversation-making/song-outburst-singing noises
8. THE TRAIL! This could count for the rest of my 26.2 reasons of why I loved this marathon so much. It was shady, soft, cool, and beautiful, weaving through Redwood trees and pattering along mostly alone because there were not that many runners. The first 6 miles or so were uphill and at the summit of that the sun was just starting to stream through these huge trees and there was still all kind of morning mist and it was just BEAUTIFUL. I was so happy!

 9. The course! Usually I'm not a fan of out and backs, but this was perfect, 6 miles of up hill, 5 miles across, 4 mile loop and back around. It was just grand.

 

10. The good thing about the course was since it was an out and back, we got to the water stops twice, which meant we got to see Jamie and Billy and the kids 4 times! Definintely, definitely the highlight of me and LaDon's race
11. Water stops were awesome. Not only were we the crazy celebrating people at them, but the food was dang good and plentiful. 
12. At about mile 11 or so, I started feeling my little baby pattering, pattering, which was one of the first times I'd ever felt it for sure and also so so fun and endearing to know I was just running a marathon with my little guy/girl. That actually made for some pretty good bonding during a race which I ran mostly alone in one of the most serene places I've ever run. Just me and my pregnant belly, trodding along. 
13. The 4 mile loop I mentioned before had a water stop right at its beginning so you get there then loop around then you're back to it, so when I got there we took off again and then who should join me a few minutes later on a last minute decision but Billy! I was so happy! It was so fun to run with him, and we even peed on the side of the trail and mooned LaDon haha. 
14. Speaking of peeing on the trail, I probably did 7 or 8 times. But never in my pants!
15. The temperature was perfect. 
16. There were no mile markers and no watches the whole time. Such freebird running, I loved it!
17. Usually the last 5 miles or so are PAIN AND AGONY. But this time I was full of positive thoughts and energy and surrounded by such blissful earth, I didn't even think about how far I'd already run (even though there was a considerable amount of pressure and pain in my entire baby-holding area)
18.Nevertheless, I successfully tricked myself into thinking I had 3 miles left when I really only had like 200 yards left at the end. 
19. The finish was so quaint. Just a few stragglers in the park, but also the first spectators of the race, so I got my own personal Krista cheers all the way through the line
20. 5 hours! That's longer than I've ever run.

21. Baby was fine:) I was pretty nervous there about mile 16ish or so just 'cus you never know. But that little guy was as happy as could be
22. 1st place in my age group (of all 2 of us haha). 14th overall (of all 40 of us haha) 5th woman overall
23. LADON!!! LADON RAN HIS MARATHON! That, people, was definitely the highlight! What a trooper. Definitely a hard marathon, especially for a first marathon, but LaDon did it! I've rarely ever been so proud of anything in my whole life. What a champ. You can see the kids in this picture finishing with him--I don't think they (or you, even, for that matter) have any comprhension of what a tremendous accomplishment this was.

24. Afterwards we stuffed our faces and only suffered one major head bonk (Daniel :( )

 

25. Pregnant marathon! Pretty cool experience. Would definitely do it again, especially if it were in this area of the world

 26. Long ago, when I ran my first marathon, LaDon laid on the grass next to me and kept saying, "Krista, we gotta do this together sometime. We gotta run a marathon together." and we've always planned to do it and always talk about doing it and I always promised I would do it, and now we actually did do it! The months of training preparation that preceeded it and every mile of it was great becuase me and LaDon were just running a marathon together like we always wanted to and Billy and Jamie got to be such a good part of it for all of us. It was so fun, I cherish it to the ends of the earth and I was so so proud of LaDon.

.2 The drive home was a sad affair since Billy did the whole thing on his own, despite my best efforts to stay awake. But still, such a fun adventure with Billy and we were so happy to hang out with the Lindes and see LaDon run his first marathon. 

So, until February, the marathons are done! 

Just kidding, but at least for awhile, until one of you wants to run a sweet one with me and Billy, we will go wherever and love it! 

Thanks for reading. Elise got married, so expect a report of that in the near future. And we find out what baby is in two weeks!