Ringing in 2013

Happy 2013!!!

A few months back we decided to do something a little different for New Year's Eve. Instead of staying in town and going to the same parties we usually do, we thought we would get out of town. Not only would it give us the opportunity to do something new while ringing in our first New Year as husband and wife with just the two of us, but it would also give us a drama-free New Year's Eve. Sounded like the perfect way to start off 2013 to us! 

On our way. 

We headed to Redmond, where our timeshare has a great location, for a few days in the snow. A few days with no plans at all, except to relax and enjoy our time together. And that's exactly what we did! No obligations, no stress and no drama. Again, perfect! 

Holiday Letter 2012

Dearest Friends, Family, Readers of Our Blog & Stalkers-

I can't believe 2012 is already coming to an end! What an amazing year it has been! And we are still alive! (Those Mayans can go screw themselves. Guess we better start paying off that huge amount of wedding debt we accumulated...) So many amazingly ridiculous adventures were had in the Hayes Evensen Ohana. Yes, I plan on bragging about it and filling you in on how great our life has been over the past year. Yes, I am fully aware that many hate these showy smoke and mirrors holiday letters, but this year I am fully jumping on board. In other words, like usual, I continue to not care what others think of me or how good life is with my happy little family. Besides, I am always happy to have another reason to talk about mine and Drew's AMAZING wedding on the beautiful island of MAUI!

First off I'd like to share this year's holiday card that I love so freaken much! I think the pictures really tell how fabulous our 2nd trip to Maui was. (Yes, that is some major bragging.) Didn't get one of these beautiful holiday cards from us this year? That's probably because we cut you from our holiday card list after sending you one for 2-3 years and never getting one back. Or it could have gotten lost in the mail. More likely though, we took you off our list. Cheers!

All Things Wonderful Holiday Card

Turn your family photos into holiday cards this season.

View the entire collection of cards.

All We Want for Christmas....

Is gift certificates to Hawaiian Airlines! You had to see that one coming! We've been asked about what we would like for Christmas a few times and couldn't come up with much. You see we have more than enough stuff (are still working on getting rid of more) and don't really need anything besides some more supplies to finish restoring the house. As much as we love getting house projects done, it's not very much fun to always say we'd like stuff for the house. Plus, we love our trips to Hawaii!

Hawaiian Airlines gift certificates are always a great gift idea!
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Grateful!

2012 brought us a bounty of reasons to be grateful. Getting married this year meant numerous opportunities to spend with friends and family and no end to parties that were had. From bridal showers to our cock n hen party to our rehearsal dinner to our Portland wedding celebration (pinky swear photos are coming soon). The reasons from those alone where more than enough reasons to be thankful. But, the reasons just kept coming.

We are so blessed for our amazing friends and family who traveled over 2000 miles, each way, to be a part of our big day. We loved being able to share Maui, an island we both love, with all of them. Even better, we were able to pledge a lifetime of love, happiness and trust to each other on a beautiful beach under a coconut groove. It was truly one of the best moments in our life together.

Surrounded by ohana on our perfect wedding day.
photography by Sara Sanger 

Tikis in Paradise: Welcome Hukilau Part 'Ekolu

Ok, we were just joking around when we said that the party got really crazy after the parents left. We got all that craziness out in our 20s and early 30s. Well, unless you call getting crazy playing with sparklers. We aren't talking about the sucky sparklers they have on the west coast either. We are talking about the old-school metal sparklers that leave tracers. These sparklers were the real deal!

Since our Welcome Hukilau was on the 4th of July, we put together cute little sparkler packets for all our our guests. Yes, we really did think of everything. We used these great templates that I downloaded from Twig & Thistle. Used the straw tags, too. Didn't end up using the matchbox covers because Mama's Fish House had their own cute matches and it saved me a little time. We gave each of our guests a sparkler packet and everyone had a ton of fun with them.

Loved finding REAL sparklers to use for these. 

Tikis in Paradise: A Day at Baldwin Beach

On the 4th of July, we kicked off the first day of a full wedding week of activities! It was perfect starting it with a holiday bang. We headed to Baldwin beach for the day and invited everyone to join us before the Welcome Hukilau that night.

Now we picked Baldwin beach because of it's location, the safe lagoon they had that was great for keiki (Hawaiian for children) to swim and its big white sand beach with plenty of room around the lagoon. Or at least it had been that way for years and had been that way the last time we were there in January. Not so much that way when we showed up that day.

None of these trees were on the beach before. 

Tikis in Paradise: Aloha from Paradise

Aloha! We are doing well and having a blast in paradise! Everyone has been joining us the last couple days on Maui and we officially kicked off the wedding week on the 4th of July with a welcome party. It's been great seeing all of our hard work finally start to come together.

Of course, now we are really busy with all things wedding. But, we promise to post as we can and continue to give you updates on our trip and wedding. Especially since our amazing wedding photographer, Sara Sanger, is already sending us links to our pictures! So excited to already be getting to see some of those. A little sneak peak for all of you from our trip to Baldwin beach yesterday:

Almost everyone joined us for a day at Baldwin Beach. 

Happy Valentine's Day! 2012

This is the one and only Valentine's that Drew and I will be engaged. Next year we will be married once Valentine's rolls round. It always amazes me to think that the next time we will be celebrating different things that we will be husband and wife.

The orchid has sparkle to it so Drew says they are vampire orchids. Get it?

We said were weren't going to get each other anything this year, since we have so much to pay for. But, Drew still got me a beautiful new orchid and a bottle of wine. Good thing I got him some chocolates. hehe

Happy Valentine's Day from Tiki Bob!
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New Year's Eve at Trader Vic's Portland

How was your New Year's Eve?

Every year we go to our friends, Justin and Greg's house for New Year's Eve. They have a really big party and lots of our friends go. It's always a fun way to ring in the new year. This year we did a little something different. Oh, we still went to their party, but before it we went to a special New Year's Eve dinner at Trader Vic's Portland. 

We got dressed up all fancy. I wore the beautiful vintage dress I wore in some of our engagement photos with a vintage sweater over it. I just love the way the bright yellow looks with the soft lavender. Don't you? 

Drew wore his great vintage hula dancer tie I got him for his birthday a couple years ago. It's perfect for dinner at Trader Vic's. The manager, Sage, really loved Drew's tie.

DIY: Hawaiian Christmas Gift Bags

I'm so excited that we finally get to share these with all of you! We had to wait until after we'd given out all of the bags. The last one we gave to our Maid of Honor and her daughter this weekend.

Taking the idea of our destination wedding welcome bags to a new level, we decided to do Maui Christmas gift bags as presents this year. That way people could start experiencing the islands now and we hoped that it would get them even more excited about visiting Maui in July. At the very least, they got some of our favorite Hawaiian goodies!

First we started off by having reusable canvas shopping bags printed up with our wedding logo at VistaPrint. They were a great price and they turned out really nice. An even better price considering we had another VistaPrint Groupon to use for them. We got one for ourselves, as well.

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Our Last Christmas

Or Why We Are Taking Time to Enjoy Our Engagement



No, no, we aren't splitting up.  Drew will not be singing Last Christmas to himself next year. (Both one of our favorite Christmas songs, by the way.) What I am talking about is that this was our last Christmas together before we become husband and wife.  Since we've hit the one year mark until our July wedding, we are having a lot of lasts.  But, for some reason Christmas felt different. It made our upcoming marriage more real.

Happy Christmas!

From our ohana to yours, we wish you a very happy Christmas!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.

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I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new. -Will Carleton

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve started out with meeting our friends Jon and Traci for happy hour at The Alibi. We wanted to make sure we ate enough food before the many parties we were going to be attending that night and The Alibi has a great happy hour food menu. We were more than stuffed on food and Hot Tubs, the drink special for the night before we hit our first party at our friend, AlexSandra’s house, followed by a second party at our friend Sarah’s house and lastly the final party and midnight toast at our friend’s Justin and Greg’s house. We enjoyed getting to see so many friends and be a part of all the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Here’s to 2010!

Started New Year's Eve with dinner and drinks at The Alibi.

Some of AlexSandra's vintage New Year's Eve decorations.

Love the fridge at Sarah's.

Sarah made Fish House punch. The ice may have been a little too big.

Great champagne bottle cheese ball made by Sarah!

Pouring the champagne for the big countdown.

Deb's getting ready to pop the Dom Pérignon for us lucky few.

Waiting for the countdown.

3...2...1! Happy New Year!

New Year's kiss!

Here's to 2011!

Floating bubble chair now needed for Knotty Cakes Ranch! Found at Justin and Greg's neighbor's house. Now where can we find one...

Christmas 2010

What a great first Christmas we had at Knotty Cakes Ranch. We all got up early and had our own Christmas morning, just the three of us (and animals), before having to get moving on brunch and others started showing up. We all got gifts we loved and enjoyed our quiet morning together before the Christmas hustle and bustle came through the front door.

Christmas morning.

Looks like we were good this year!

To hold us over until brunch we had some gingerbread cupcakes and Tom n Jerry.

Amanda giving Radish some love.

Now that's a heavy stocking.

YAY! A vegan beef stick!

Nice 'stash.

Not the ring that was hoped for...

Foot arch supports? Santa = Fail!

It sucks when there's nothing left in the stocking.

Nice Forbidden Island calendar.

Drew's new coat.

Drew loves Chi Chi.

Perfect gift!

Our gift from Amanda was in the freezer.

YAY! It's-It's! Amanda actually found some in Oregon.

Chi Chi had no problem opening her gift.

Chi Chi wants her gift now!

Cupcake wasn't too excited about opening his gift.

Cupcake is so good about Chi Chi always attacking her.

Chi Chi's Christmas collar.

Very happy with the Christmas brunch we made for everyone.

Sitting down to Christmas brunch.

Can we eat, yet?

Even more presents under the tree! Time for present opeing round 2.

Suzie, Matt and Amanda waiting to open presents.

What is it?

Could it be?

YES! Skates! Leopard print!

Lise was happy to hold Chi Chi the whole time we were opening presents.

Love the huge tiki carved spoon and fork set from Matt and Suzie.

Drew, Suzie and Matt.

Drew did good with the gifts this year. Great new velvet painting.

New salt and pepper shakers from Gramma and Grampa.