[Jake Speaking]

Why is Del Taco important?

Well, let's start from the beginning. It was a cool morning and I had been in school since 7:00am. It was near the end of my second class of the day at 10:15am. Stephanie called me and disturbed the entire class as it was in the middle of a lecture. I know what you're all saying, "why was my phone on?" Well who cares why, she has my schedule so she knew I was in class so I refuse to take responsibility. Ok, ok, ok... maybe a little. :) She wanted to go to lunch... NO, I didn't talk to her while in class! I waited until it was over and called her back. Stop interrupting my story with your incesent request for details to preserve continuity.

As I was saying, she wanted to go to lunch. Mind you it is 10:30am but what the heck, I will go just so I can have something to do. (You see, I needed something to do because my next class was not for another two hours).

She comes to pick me up and we proceed to the greatest fast food joint on earth, Del Taco. Unless it is those few times when they poison you (Jason, you know what I am talking about). Regardless, Steph stops me at the door and says shes wants to tell me something that I might want to hear in private. She says, "I'm pregnant, I took like four pregnancy tests from three manufacturers and they are all positive". We then kissed and hugged for like ten minutes. After that we left Del Taco, both admitting that we weren't ever really hungry.

That is how I was told I was going to be a dad.

Aloha and Mahalo

So let's back it up a bit, shall we? Our adventure begins in the Hawaiian Islands, more specifically the big island of Hawaii, more specifically Waikoloa, or the Hilton at Waikoloa Village, Room 7031. It was a lovely room, with a lovely view of the Pacific Ocean.

For those of you who are fans of Dog, The Bounty Hunter, you may recognize this photo as the very place Dog made an honest woman out of Beth.

With basal thermometer and ovulation predictor kits in tow, we set out to make a baby. Of course we had no clue if we had accomplished our task, but we were certainly happy with our efforts.

While on the big island we decided to take a 50 minute helicopter tour over the live volcanos. Jake was the official photographer as I proceeded to puke my guts out for a solid 48 minutes and 16 seconds. I know this exactly because out of the corner of my eye I could see the stop watch that ticked down the minutes to the end of our journey. I can now appreciate that little glimpse into hell as I do not believe it is possible to ever be that sick again. This has prepared me for any morning sickness I may encounter.

Anyhow, we had a lovely trip, saw all of the sights and spent some quality time with our good friends Katrina and Marcus. We really didn't give a second thought to whether we accomplished the goal we set out to attain. We remembered when we returned home as at least a half a dozen people reminded us of our bold declaration when we left Idaho that "we would not come home from Hawaii unless we were pregnant". I think secretly we just wanted to stay in Hawaii for as long as possible. We clearly didn't recognize our own power!

And now if we may be serious for a moment...building rock piles is a serious problem in Hawaii. There are signs everywhere warning of the dangers of piling rocks. What if one were to topple off the pile and hit your foot? Or what if, heaven forbid, you were to accidently lose your balance and fall onto your pile of rocks? If you hadn't built a pile, you would have only fallen on a single rock, or several rocks grouped together but not stacked. I think this is good practice for every state in the union. Hawaii is on to something.

The Beginning of Something Beautiful...

Welcome to our blog! We felt that we wanted to capture this time in our lives, but neither of us are really into writing things down. Plus we also felt that this would be a fantastic way to keep in touch with our many friends and relatives who don't live in Boise. So that would be pretty much everyone although Jake has a friend here and I have about 3, give or take a couple.

So feel free to leave a comment if you are so inclined, and enjoy the adventure. I know we will!