We are en route..

To Southern California..We had the chance to make another pit stop in Nor Cal along the way! We headed from San Carlos, CA (staying with Evans sister) to Brentwood, CA where we stayed with my College Roomies family, the Dudeks. Renae Gonzalez (Dudek) was my college roommate at Cal State East Bay (formerly known as Cal State Hayward) and soccer buddy for 2 years until I transferred to BYU-Hawaii. She and I have kept in contact after all this time and I am so grateful to be apart of her life still. She's pretty awesome! Her family too! We made this pit stop because Renae has a bun in the oven and she was having her baby shower yesterday. Even though its just a baby shower, it was pretty cool to be there and see her at this stage in her life. She is due end of May with a baby girl, Payton. Evs and I are so excited for her and we had such a great time visiting with them, for the few days we were here. We went to the movies, ate good food, yummy frozen yogurt, visited, hung out and talked about all the good times and things to come. Another cool part about being here for Renaes baby shower was that one of our roommates, Tamara, from our Sophomore year in college was also coming. She has a 2 year old daughter that is adorable and that neither of us had seen. It was so so great to have a little reunion with her, introduce her to Evs and catch up with everything going on in her life. We had such a great time and are so glad we were able to make this short visit to see some family and great friends. We are lucky to have such great people in our life.

We are en route..

To Southern California. We made a pit stop in Northern California for this leg of the race (I love Amazing Race). We flew into Oakland, CA on Tuesday night from Hawaii. When we picked up our bags at the baggage claim, some lady made an observation," Wow, it sure looks like you're moving." I said, "Yep, we sure are." She said, "Well I hope its for a good reason, because who would ever leave Hawaii.." (thank you captain obvious..) We stayed with Meghan (Evs sister) and Rob (the bro-in-law) our first couple nights here and then had dinner with them last night. We also had a chance to visit one of my close friends, Shawna Brown. We were able to spend the evening with her and her daughter Lacey. We went to dinner and then walked around the mall and we had such a great time visiting. It was awesome to see how much Lacey has grown since we saw her last and how fast she is growing and jibbering..making animal noises and attempting to walk. Babies grow too fast!

Aloha Oe Q-170

Yesterday we got on a plane. Hawaiian Airlines flight 48. It took off at 12:35 pm. We checked 4 bags and had two carry ons. We didnt get really sad until we had to say goodbye to Momma Stubbs. We cried a little bit as we waited to board, then we were okay, just a little sad. The flight was good. I slept most of the way thanks to my neck pillow and Evs just played games on his iphone until the battery was low. California is cold, like 50 degrees being cold, not 68 degrees being cold. Farewell to our first home in Hawaii, Apartment Q-170. You were so good to us. You somehow attracted Cain spiders, geckos, cochroaches (until we got the CHALK, to uninvite them), and a weird breed of ants that led trails to our unopened plastic zip lock bags, had pow wows on the top of the fridge, on the inside of the cupboard door, underneath our towels..etc..Q-170, you werent small but petite (450 sq ft). The lawn mower guys always managed to get very close to the back jalousies and cut grass would spray inside the window sill and all over the floor, this happened once a week. But dont worry we usually just cleaned it up and complained afterwards. We had lots of people over and made lots of yummy meals. We had movie night very frequently, either rented from the $1.05 machine or watched a movie we owned. Evan had lots of friends over to play the Wii (Fifa 2010, Call of Duty, Wii Resort, NCAA Football..) We had a few frequent visitors, Elissa and David Robins (before they moved to Utah), Dana and Chris Bradshaw, Becky and Tyler Waldron, Courtney and Garrett Sandberg, and Naomi and Kalea Cannon. We shared two walls with neighbors. We were only a half a mile from the beaches with clear blue-green water. We could see the Laie Temple from our door and it was a 5-10 minute walk. We used to have foster fish, 5 of them. One died and 4 were adopted by wonderful families. Brigham Young University Hawaii was a 10 minute walk for Evs to go to work and school. We traveled to town often to visit our Hawaii parents and family. We went to dinner with them often and I am so thankful for them always finding a place to eat that had Chicken, they were always so kind to my picky eating habits. We stayed the night at Mom and Dad Stubbs when I had to work on Saturdays and Evan had his internship in town. We had Cynthia Bugarin, Anthony and Michelle Greco, Josh, Britt, and Rubi Greco, Heather and Chris Taylor and Braddy Beckstrom all visit us and spend a few nights. We "survived" a tsunami scare, tsunami and hurricane warnings, and the effects of the earthquakes that occurred in the South Pacific and Asia. We have many wonderful memories of Laie, Hawaii and all the beauty and the Aloha spirit you feel, the ono grinds (plate lunches, shave ice, malasadas) and BBQ smell on Saturday mornings. We are moving on and it makes me sad that we had to leave our first home, but We know that its where we are suppose to be and we are ubber excited to start a new chapter, Riverside, California here we come! Aloha Oe Hawaii we will visit soon.

April 10th, 2010=Success

Evan Thomas QWS Stubbs, my cute, adorable, hardworking husband GRADUATED! Row 27, 9th to last person to be called to receive his fake diploma. His last semester of college he scored a 3.85 GPA (6 A's and 2 B+'s). Good Job Babe! I love you! Evs graduated with a BS in Exercise and Sport Science. He will be attending California Baptist University starting in May for his Masters in Athletic Training.

Senior Night Banquet-Evs, his cute date and our great friends, Dana and Chris Bradshaw.

The morning of the graduation!

He DID it!

Our sister Meghan flew from California to be with us too! Thanks for the visit Megs!

Evs parents threw him a graduation dinner with family and a few close friends at Royal Garden Chinese Restaurant in the Ala Moana Hotel.

Much Mahalos to everyone who has helped support, love and encourage Evs along the way!

Family came and went..and soon so will we..

Josh, Brittanie, and Miss Ru came to visit us in Hawaii last week. They brought with them, Braddy, Heather and Chris. We had a full house. Our small 450 sq foot studio/wanna be one bedroom apartment, 20 gallon water heater, and 1 bathroom housed us all. We were snug and loved every minute of it, except when Josh farted and well..thats obvious you want to run to save your life..but we all inhaled the fumes because thats how we rolled. They arrived late Wednesday night and I met them at the airport and greeted them all with flower leis (which we recycled later at Evs graduation). I then met them at the car rental place to bring them the car seat that my wonderful and amazing in-laws let us borrow for Miss Ru. We headed to Laie around 10 pm and I led the way getting us to Laie in approx 50 min. (long day for our visiting family/friends). Evs had beanie weanies with rice ready to serve for our hungry crew and wowed them with his amazing cooking skills. We set up camp in our lil apartment, two air mattresses side by side and a couch for Braddy (which he didnt complain about after the second night when Josh and Brittanies air mattress deflated and would not stay pumped more than 15 minutes) and tried to call it good for the night. Miss Ru didn't have a clue really what was going on, but did not want to sleep. I was so happy to see her cute smiley face, that I volunteered to take her on a stroll at midnight to help her fall asleep. Once she fell asleep I made my rounds to secure her REM state of sleep and hoped she would have good dreams. Once getting back to the apartment I debated whether to just leave Ru in the stroller or take her out..STRIKE..I should have left her in the stroller. She woke up and we couldn't get her back to sleep. Poor girl her sleeping schedule was so wacked. Anyways..I think she finally slept for a whole like 2 hours or something. I woke up and heard her jabbering away so I took her outside on the swings and Josh joined me. Then we went on a walk as the sun came up. It was neat to be with my brother and his little girl. Time spent well. We did so many things when they were here, not to mention loaded up on shave ice, mochi ice cream, and custard malasadas. Even though one of the air mattresses ended up having a unrepairable hole because Josh popped it j/k=) we still managed to have good laughs about waking up to a random noise {insert noise here} (rrreeehhh..air mattress getting pumped up) in the middle of the night. Regardless of a few nights on the hard floor or on our hard springy bed, they were still able to enjoy snorkeling at sharks cove, Hanauma Bay and Waikiki Beach, surfing at Castles, shopping at the swap meet and international market, sight seeing along North Shore, pineapple fields, and town. We were able to get them discount tickets to hit up the Polynesian Cultural Center too. We ate good grinds spam, eggs and rice, enjoyed many laughs, and celebrated Rubi's first birthday at the turtle Bay condos in Kahuku with a Tinkerbell Party (that she picked out). We played us some fun friendly games of monopoly (which I won without cheating, sorry Braddy, thanks Josh) and farkle (which I came back at the end to steal the title of sole farkle winner), and the guys played a long boring game of Risk which Josh won without cheating. We ate more good grinds at Boots and Kimos and Stortos, attended Evs BYU-Hawaii graduation (Josh and Braddy yelled loud for him when they werent supposed to yell), the guys helped us move out of and clean our little apartment (LIFESAVERS!!) I am so glad they were able to make the trip, we had a blast with them here. The weather had a mind of its own, so I am sad that we werent able to do everything they wanted to, but glad we got to spend lots of time together. Gotta love family! They left Wednesday April 14th, with all their goods and 5 additional bags and a box of ours. We miss you all already and cant wait to see you for Rubi's California birthday party. ALOHA OE' OHANA! Lots of photos not in any particular order..

Braddy getting out the meat of the coconut

Happy FIRST BIRTHDAY MISS RUBI!

Ru in her birthday Pa'u.

Leonards Malasadas!

Cleaning our apartment!