Mel @ Sea

Well, the title says it all. I am leaving this blog to your imagination due to a complete lack of picture taking in the last few weeks. Don't get me wrong, I still take 500- 1,000 pictures a day for work, but in my off time, I have been slacking when it comes to capturing the memories of my day to day life. So, step into the imagination station and enjoy this very wordy blog post. Rewind, to 1979, Louisburg, Kansas. My uncle moved out of the house after high school, leaving my mom with my grandparents. What better way to fill the extra space than to host a foreign exchange student? Enter, Rika, a Japanese teenager ready to explore what America had to offer. She spent a year with my family and remained close with them after returning to Japan. Fast forward, June 2011, Honolulu, Hawaii. Rika has moved to Honolulu with her husband and we were able to meet up. The last time she saw my family was in 1983, but she immediately drove toward me as I stood on the pier waiting to meet her. Sh...

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Whew, between training a new photographer on the team and saying goodbye to Theo, I am just now settling back into a normal life. Since we left off, I have competed in an Uno tournament, tried Poi (Hawaiian specialty), witnessed the most awkward wedding in the history of weddings, survived a sinus infection, and went to NCL's prom. As usual, my life is one event after another, with a little time to sleep and eat in between! Theo and I started June off in the best way we found possible, do the tourist thing. Rather than going to the local dives we know and love, we headed straight through the busy gift shops occupied by all the tourists and grabbed lunch at Bubba Gumps. When lunch was finished we both agreed we had saved just enough room for a small dessert, and the mud slide pie sounded like the perfect little tasty treat. Much to our surprise, the mud slide pie is practically the size of a wedding cake! We tried our best to demolish the mo...