RM&PH engagements.

This is the real deal. These two are gettin' murried!
August 3rd is the date, and I'm so so so excited for them :)

 so smiley :D

This one is my favorite!

(below)

 

stunning.

aaaaaawwwwwwwwww

so cute!

 

this is kind of a blooper...i don't know how to take good jumping photos haha

 I love hand pictures!

at the laie elementary school

swimmin' with da turtles

we had a little fun :)

Happy engagement!

Sneak Peek: Rebecca and Paden

I had the privilege to shoot some engagement photos of my lovely friend Rebecca and her fiance Paden :)
They met in Hawaii through a mutual friend, and have been in love since!

Here's a little sneak peek :)

so. in. love.

stay tuned! 

:)

march.april.MAY.june.july.

Here's a little something about me:

When I'm feeling tired and stressed, I tend to reminisce and go through my old pictures of my friends back in Japan.
Except they're not in Japan anymore...
Actually they're all over the world.
Philly.
Maryland.
Boston.
London.
Germany.
And pretty much wherever else you can think of.

This one picture brought a tear to my eye...I miss these girls.

Mei, Christina, Hannah, Namu, Sara, May, Bebz (left to right)

Just a little background of how I know them...

Fuj- Met her in 8th grade. I don't remember exactly how, but we became super tight on the Cheer squad freshman year! She is now a professional cheerleader for The Crystals. She's super good at dancing, and extremely HOT.

Chris- Have known her since 5th grade, but didn't really become friends till about 8th grade. She has always been such a good support, and has a smile that can brighten your day. She is so sweet, and has a 2 year old boy! I can't wait to meet him some day. He has the cutest smile ever--he gets it from his mommy!

Hannah- Oh hannah. I simply love her. She is HILARIOUS, and probably helped me become more outgoing. Once again, met her in 8th grade...The first day she rode Bus 2 I thought she was 17 (and as a little 13 year old, I was intimidated), but I found out soon after that she was my age and AWESOME :) We've been great friends ever since.

Namu- The smart one. She always has great advice, and knows exactly what to say. She also hogged the mic at karaoke--with me. She now goes to UPenn, and will probably become the president of the world someday. I remember the time she had her own place in Roppongi, May and I would frequently go visit her since she was all alone in an amazing apartment (bigger than our little tva apartment...)

Sara-  She's been such a great friend to me since 5th grade! I invited her to my birthday party, and we became friends. forever. She even came the distance to be a bridesmaid at my wedding.
I remember all those times we made those Japanese chocolate chip pancakes the morning after "sleep" overs--who sleeps at those things--I just recently made some, and it reminded me of her. I miss those fun times!

MAY, my best friend in the whole world (hence the post title)--I've known her since 6th grade, when she invited me to her birthday party (I think because she felt obligated to since she and some other girly were talking about it infront of me--somehow I got invited haha). She's always been there for me, and I know will always have my back.
She's been such a huge part of my life. I love her!

I feel like I'm writing for the senior yearbook page again.
I hated that cus we only got like 150 words to write to all of our friends, when really I could have written a book about all of them.
I know it's been a while since we've all been together, but...
I love these girls with all my heart, 
and I'll never forget them.

ps...look how much we've grown since 9th grade!
(I was a little reluctant to post this since I look goofy, but whatev. it's necessary)
notice Mike Chang in the background--don't remember how he got in our pic, but love it nonetheless

pps. sorry I suck at keeping in touch ya'll. I'll do better, I promise!

The Shem Burger.

Amidst all of the final papers and test craziness...we had a birthday celebration!

Lindsey Neff's 21st birthday :)
We were all supposed to meet up at Castles...but David and I were working, AND it was pouring rain!
It wasn't really the prettiest day, but we definitely had a good time getting to know the Neff's better and the other couples at the partay.

We went to Kahuku Grill for dinner, and oh my gosh...it took FOREVERRR to get our food, but it was probs the best burger I've had in a whole year

The Shem Burger.
guacamole. bacon. cheese. beef patty. grilled onions. lettuce. tomatoes.
mmmmmm...I can eat that every day.
I'd gain like 500 pounds though.

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to photo it since I chomped it down too fast.
I definitely got photos of the birthday girl and her hub though :)

Ben and the Birthday Girl!

Sarah and Zach

Chase and Lisa

Kaycee and Cade

Me and my hub.

"I mustache you a question!"--Ben

Zach...?

The super delicious coconut banana cake + icecream

The Romeril's were so nice to get this for her :)

Kahuku Grill date nights/birthdays are the best.

 

Happy Birthday Lindsey! 

live high.

Just a few moments ago, whilst cleaning the house, Jason Damato had beautifully sang a song called, "Life you love" (though Pandora radio hehe)

You've got to live the life you love

You've got to love the life you live.

  

Sometimes it's difficult to love the life you live. 

Trials come, and all you can do is pout--but really you've got to think of how blessed you are that something worse didn't happen to you. 

So, while I washed the dishes, I had all of these deep thoughts in my head (I think my hands stopped while I was thinking because I still have like half the dishes in my sink)

Moral of the story: Be thankful for the life you live, and love it.

Just thought I'd share my thought of the day with you :)

life is wonderful.

David and I had an extremely marvelous week. 

 During the week of March 25th~April 1st we...
-had the Roberts' over for dinner
-ate PINEAPPLE fried rice (twice)
-watched General Conference
-went to Costco on saturday (sad for the wallet, happy for the fridge)
-had a bake-off at the Carlston's home
-oh yeah, I guess we did some school stuff too...

So...I usually fall asleep during a couple of the talks given in General Conference, but this time, I only dozed off to ONE talk. Yes, I'm proud of that. BUT I guess I should try my best to be 100% attentive all the time. :)
 I really enjoyed listening to this year's GC because I felt a really strong connection to many of the topics. I especially enjoyed Uchtdorf's "stop it", "don't judge me because I sin differently than you!" he talked lots about not envying others and STOP gossiping (that could be pretty hard for us ladies hehe).
R. Nelson's, "could an explosion in a book factory create a dictionary?"--when talking about the absurdity of the big bang theory, Perry's "Are you a Mormon? If not, you should be!"
If you want to watch or listen to General Conference, go to: 

<http://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2012/4?lang=eng>

You get to hear the words of a modern day Prophet! And it's forreal! :)

We also walked around the temple last week...it's just so beautiful

I still can't get over how perfect his mustache is...

 David, making our GC sticky buns! :) yum!

 drool...

this is kinda random, but below was my lunch today!

doesn't it look delish??

English muffin, portuguese sausage, egg, and cheese. drool. again.

Yesterday we had a "bake-off" at the Carlston's house which pretty much led to all of us gaining like...five pounds.

ugh.

But it was so great because we got to meet some new people, and eat our stomachs away :)

I baked some cinnamon rolls or "cinnabon clones".

(will post recipe at the bottom of post)

 These were probably the best cinnamon rolls I have ever had in my life.

There were two awards, "yummiest", and "best presentation"

I won the yummiest teeheehehee.

The reward is "dinner with the Carlstons" 

Can't wait!

I took tons of pictures cus it looked so good!! 

 "come to mama"

"say aaaaaahhhh"

So satisfied!

Cinnabon Clones

Serves twelve
 

Ingredients:
1 cup of warm milk (45 degrees C)
2 eggs
1/3 cup of butter or marg (soft or melted)

 4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (I use 405)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 package fast acting yeast

1 cup of brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
1/3 soft butter

Cream Cheese frosting:
  7oz (or roughly one package or Philadelphia cream cheese) cream cheese
1/2 cup butter/marg
 2 cups Confectioners Sugar

 1 tsp vanilla flavoring / essence

Directions:

1.Mix the sugar, butter, and salt. Add in eggs one at a time 

2.Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a bowl

3.Pour yeast mix into the sugar mix

4.Add flour (a cup at a time)

5.Mix it until there are no more lumps, and then use your dough hook to knead it for about 2-3minutes

~your dough is almost ready~

Now, let is rise for 1.5 hours until it has doubled in size.

**Make sure you lay the dough out on a floured surface**

Roll the dough into a rectangle,

spread a ton of butter all over, but leave a strip at the top so you can seal it up nice and tight later

After the butter, take your cinnamon and brown sugar mixture and spread it all over.

*the more, the better*

Roll the doll tightly, seal it, and cut it into however many pieces you'd like :)

Before you place the rolls in your pan, sprinkle some of that cinnamon/sugar mix in there, I learned from my experimenting that the rolls taste so rich if you do this.

Place the rolls into the pan

Wait for another 30 minutes to let the rolls rise.

Bake them for 15-20 minutes.

It all depends on your oven though--for me it was exactly 15 minutes

While the rolls are in the oven, start your cream cheese icing!

1.Stick the butter into your kitchen aid until it's light and fluffy. 

2.Add the cream cheese

3.Add the sugar little by little

4.Lastly, add the vanilla

Leave it in the fridge till you need to use it!

When you take the rolls out of the oven, make sure they cool down a little first before pouring your cream cheese icing on them. The icing will melt if your directly pour it on when the rolls are a billion degrees hot. 

Alright ya'll, bon appetit!