3.06 - hawaii pics and *special announcement*

I'd planned on uploading a crapload of our pics from hawaii to the blog with neat little captions and stories under each one. however a) I don't have enough time and b) jodi beat me to the upload.

so without any further adue (sp?) here are the pictures, along with a very special announcement....

03.25.06 - opening for Natalie Grant

there are usually a couple of weekends a year when all the stars and planets are aligned just right and several events seem to fall within the same few days, forcing me to choose which is most important for the moment. this weekend, I had to choose among two conferences and two different gigs, time with family, and working on our house.

... I chose to share the stage with three great guys, in a club in Scottsdale, Arizona, as the opening act for a national artist named natalie grant. we had a great turnout of wahba crazies and played our little hearts out. here are some more photos...

natalie and wahba.

natalie singin'.kurt jammin'.jonathan feelin' it.vocab malone brings the house down, joining us on "ancient of days."me.singer/songwriter, trevor morgan.jodi eating.rochelle (in her wahba shirt).nicole (in wahba shirt).

wahba and natalie's husband/producer, Bernie.

great gig week

we are amidst a 4-gig week....

tuesday, we were fortunate to be invited back to asu chi alpha for some fun acoustic worship. shaun and candi & the chi alpha crew were mighty warm and fuzzy. it was our first gig with jonathan (of ember fame) playing bass with us too - he totally rocked it!

tonight (thursday), the full-on, E-lectric, so-hot-right-now band did some semi-loud worship with the rock @ asu. I say semi-loud because we had it mucho loud during warm up, but were asked to "keep it down a bit" since we were on campus... in a classroom... with other people actually trying to 'have college' nearby. nonetheless, kurt, josh, jonathan, and I rocked them straight to worship-land (i'm joking, of course). it was good rehearsal for our up-and-coming BIG GIG this saturday night.

all in all a fun week with lots of prep/rehearsal for saturday's gig. jodi's mom is coming to town this weekend too. and it should all be a bit less stressful for everyone since Duke is out of the NCAA tournament (jodi blames you, Marlow!).

in other news, andrew is fasting from his blog (and possibly the internet - gasp!) for lent. mad props, bro. maybe someday I'll muster up will power like yours.

back on dry land

in case you haven't heard, Kauai is flooded! we flew there Thursday. got our rental car and realized how bad it was. then drove back to the airport and flew into Honolulu again the same day!

all in all, we spent about 5 hours on the island of Kauai, where there have been terrible downpours, dams overflowing, several deaths & missing people, rescues by helicopter, etc. for some reason, they're still letting people fly onto the island without warning them.

anyhoo, we're back. we're dry, and we're happy. we've had two straight days of sunshine and fun on Waikiki beach. and we head back to the PHX tomorrow afternoon. L8R!

better day

wednesday was good. bought lots of gifts and goodies at the swap meet in the aloha stadium. even mailed a "coconut postcard" off to two very special people.

Pearl Harbor was finally good to us (third time's a charm). the movie they showed at the exhibit was really intense - I'd recommend it to anyone who visits. the words "pearl harbor" carry so much more meaning for me now. it made me realize how war is simultaneously so ridiculous, yet so necessary sometimes.

despite the rain, Oahu was a great island. the best thing about it was that, every time we made a wrong turn in our rental car, there was still something beautiful staring us in the face.

here are the top three things to avoid in Oahu:
1. coral - ouch!
2. rain - boooooo!
3. getting to Pearl Harbor too late in the day.


these are my top recommended things to do on Oahu:
1. get a tempura mahi sandwich at kakaako kitchen in Ward Center, downtown honolulu. trust me.
2. drink a hinano.
3. hike! Manoa Falls, Diamondhead, Waimea waterfall.
4. watch the movie at the Pearl Harbor exhibit.
5. go to the swap meet (only on wednesday mornings) at the Aloha Stadium.
6. be lazy on these beaches: Lanikai, Kailua, Sunset and Pipeline.
7. eat lots of pineapple.

rain, go away!

constant and sometimes heavy rains have put a little damper on our week in Oahu. tuesday went like this:

we hiked to manoa falls in honolulu - killer! such an amazing hike through an actual tropical rainforest. the trees were so beautiful and the falls took our breath away (pictures coming soon). the hike was great... until it started pouring rain.

we did lunch in downtown honolulu at the ward center where I ordered a tempura mahi sandwich that blew me away. we took a shot at Pearl Harbor again, but it was packed and all shows were booked because... it was raining.

we wanted to snorkel or hang out on a beach - but it was raining. finally ended up at kailua beach where we discovered a surf contest. it was so weird - there were over 100 surfers in the water, but no waves. all of us on the shore sat and watched for about 45 minutes until, one by one, all the surfers came out of the turquoise water without catching one wave.

hopefully we'll have more luck for our last full day in Oahu.

lost and wet on Oahu

yesterday, we hiked to the top of Diamondhead. amazing scenery and a decent hike. my left foot is almost completely healed from the kayak/coral incident a few days ago. my right foot and leg are still pretty sore and banged up. I guess coral injuries are supposed to take forever to heal and, consequently, leave some serious scars. looks like I might be winning a round or two of scar wars some time in the future. yes!

after Diamondhead, we trekked over to Hanauma Bay to snorkel a bit, but the parking lot was full. each time we drove past, one car was leaving and they'd let the vehicle in front of us enter... but not us.

so we went to Lanikai for some beach time - where the water is an incredible turquoise and the sand is like powdered sugar! then headed home to get ready for our luau.

our venture with the luau was pretty much a disaster. we Mapquest-ed the wrong directions and ended up in the middle of downtown Honolulu during rush hour. after 2 1/2 hours in our rental car, we finally arrived at the world famous Paradise Cove Luau about 2 hours late.

once we got there, it proceeded to rain. we were handed ponchos to wear while they did their song and dance and showed us how they cooked a pig underground for the traditional Polynesian meal. as the rain picked up, we were all shuffled into a giant tent. where about 300 of us were supposed to find new seating arrangements according to their random tablecloth-color-code.

the whole scene was really disorganized. we ended up waiting about 45 minutes before everybody was seated, then another 45 or so until we actually started dinner. we weren't really blown away by the show either. not trying to be a hater - jodi and I were just a little underwhelmed.

on the drive home, we stayed awake by alphabetically listing names we would NEVER want to call our future children. among the list of names: Ashley, Ashlynn - pretty much anything with "Ash" in it - Precious, and Trystal (mix of Tristin and Crystal).

hawai'i adventures

the past two days have been so much fun, and full of a few crazy moments.

the first (and more wacky) adventure came two mornings ago. cooper took jodi and I on a kayak trip across the channel to coconut island. gilligan's island fans: this is the island shown at the beginning of every episode.

i'm not used to kayaking - and I'm very out of shape. so the trip across the unsually choppy water was a bit straining for me. on the way back, I overturned my boat!

jodi tried to get close so she could grab my paddle and I could climb back in. she had a tough time steering and ended up circling me a few times. by this time, cooper (who had smoked us all and had to come back to help) talked me into swimming toward the nearby coral so I could stand up and hop into my kayak.

they ended up losing control of my empty kayak and spent about 15 minutes trying to bring it back to me. meanwhile, I'm getting TORN UP on some coral. I ended up with more than a few little skin tears and punctures on my feet and legs. we all made it back safely, and yes, laughing at ourselves.

otherwise, we've seen and eaten some amazing stuff. fresh fish tacos, amazing fish and shrimp plates at various local island favorites. we've seen natural blowholes, dolphins, a lighthouse, and we've hiked to the waimea waterfall - which Kate and Sawyer swam in during an episode of Lost from season 1.

this week, we'll explore a little more of Oahu, we'll hit a real-deal luau, then skip over to Kuwai to see some more beautiful stuff. aloha!

aloha...

... from the aloha state. yep, Jodi and I are taking a much needed vacation to Hawai'i. we figured that while our friends, Cooper and Teresa live here, and while we live in AZ, it's pretty much now or never for a visit to these beautiful islands.

everything is so green and lush. even the palm trees look healthier than in Arizona (where it still hasn't rained in like 150 days).

and last night, we managed to find Hinano beer! not like I'm any connaisseur of beers or anything. but when we honeymooned in Moorea, I fell in love with Hinano. seems they don't import it to the continental US - believe me, I've hunted for it.

in other news, the Marlows are moving... to Sacramento? and we're negotiating with a record label too. we'll keep you posted.

george jones

this week, brandon called and invited me to go see country legend George Jones and meet him in person! apparently this guy had top 40 hits in every decade from the 1950's through the 1990's. and he's charted more singles than any other artist in any format in the history of popular music. crazy stuff.

I was a happy boy when he played "She Thinks I Still Care", which has been covered by Merle Haggard, John Fogerty, Hank Williams Jr., and Elvis. the lyrics are killer. and check out these pics....

brandon and george.

george and wahba.

03.01.06 - campus crusade

the gang at ASU-CRU kindly invited josh and me back for some rowdy worship up in the M.U. imagine over 100 college students in a hot, sweaty room clapping and singing their hearts out.

as usual, we did our "multiple choice" worship song at the end of our first set. this is kind of like choose-your-own-worship-adventure, where we put the names of three songs on our visual display and let them pick which one we sing.

let's just say we all had a hard time picking which one to sing. they pretty much wouldn't let us end the night without doing all three of the multiple choice songs (and "all of the above" wasn't supposed to be one of the options). none of us wanted to stop!

CRU is definitely one of the liveliest and most welcoming college ministries to invite us to worship. thanks to all of you who came out to sing - all of you blessed His heart.