Ten Year Anniversary Coming Up

Can you believe it?? I am five months away for being married for TEN years!! time seriously flies. i just can't believe that I've been married for that long. if you knew me in high school and my thoughts on family and marriage then you would die of a heart attack if you found out I've been married this long and have two kids. i found out recently that my best friend in high school has been married and divorced after only a year of marriage. i no longer keep in contact with her because our lives are on different paths and we've grown apart. but it just amazes me that i am where i am in my life. i know i owe that to the gospel. it's taught me a lot and i have such a great husband that settles me down. he knows how to deal with me when i get all cranky and i just love that he is so patient with me and loving. I'm so blessed. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm really happy and have a great family. it's not something i would have ever guessed for me. anyways... from my last post, you can gather that we are going to Hawaii (again) for our ten year. we have gone to Oahu quite a bit in our marriage. mister studly's aunt and uncle lived there for a few years and so we would go and take advantage of staying with them and we would go during the cheap months for airfare and such. people always are shocked to hear that we are going to Hawaii. i mean they think "how can you afford that?" well, having family that lived there really helped and through our years of going, we have found ways to make our dollars stretch. we don't get caught up in the touristy things and money traps that a lot of people do. we shop at the swap meet for any souvenir items and our hotel is super cheap. it's actually a condo on the north shore and so we have access to laundry and we have our own kitchen so we can pack lunches and eat breakfast and go out for dinner whenever we feel like it. one thing that i'm not doing this year that i have done in the past is pack an extra suitcase full of food. i usually do this because you used to be able to bring a couple bags without charge on the airlines, but now a lot of them are charging for extra bags. we're flying on Alaska and luckily they do not charge for the first bag, but do for the second. i used to just pack a bunch of snacks and drinks and cereal and stuff so that i didn't have to buy it there. it would really save us money. so this year we are going to need a little bit extra money to purchase food there. but don't worry... i will do some research before i go and bring some coupons! HA! anyways, we eat at restaurants that are super scary looking where the locals eat that are much cheaper than going out to fancy touristy restaurants. we have a nice time and once you get there, depending on what you do while there, everything else can be free. you just have to plan. this time, since it is our ten year anniversary and a BIG deal, we have decided to do a couple tours. the one I'm most excited about is the shark tour. we got a great deal on it. we get to ride in a boat (I'm sure I'll be barfing the whole way, but it's worth it to me) out to place where there are sharks. then they lower a cage into the water and you climb in and get to watch the sharks. i will be taking so many pictures, you better believe it!! also, we found this pass where you could buy it for a couple of days and you get free admission into certain places that we have not been before. so we're going to jam pack those two days full of sightseeing. I'm sure we'll be exhausted but we want to get the best our of our power pass or whatever it's called. so with that pass, we will get to go to the sea life park, the bishop museum, the kauloa ranch tour, the water park and a bunch of other things. those are the things we most want to do so we will jam those in and spend a few hours at each thing. those are things that we have always wanted to do but never wanted to spend the money. if we would have known about the power pass thing, we probably would have done the already. so we're really going to be doing a lot of new things this trip which will make it extra special. also, mister studly friend Donny will be there during our trip so we're setting aside a couple days to hang out with them. they are there for a wedding (i think). mister studly is great fiends with Donny and has been since childhood. they moved to Minnesota a few years back. imagine seeing some one nearly every day for your whole life and then WHAM, they move so far away. at first, i will admit that i was a little bit jealous that they were going to be there at the same time. i was like "hey.. this is OUR time. our ten year anniversary!" but unselfish Cory had to have a talk with selfish Cory and straighten her out. so we're just so excited to go. we talk about it every day when mister studly gets home from work. we're both just super excited!! it's going to me awesome. I'm going to miss the kids but I'll cope. thank goodness we are in the day and age we are where i can call fifty seven times a day on my cell phone to check up on them. my mother in law and father in law will be staying here with them and I'm sure my mom and sister will come take them and give them breaks. so they're going to be well taken care of. moma just loves her nana and papa too. it's been so nice that we've been able to see them so much lately.
anyways, that's the latest news. we're just really excited about our trip. TEN YEARS!! WOW!!