Happy Updates

Just some mid week insight on myself...

So last night I attended service at the Temple of Aaron. It is technically the second one I have been too but this one I did alone since Alex teaches on Wednesdays. Well...he teaches at the synagogue so he was partially there. :) I did pretty well if I do say so myself. A large majority of the services is spoken/sung in Hebrew so there were times I got lost. It will take some time before I can follow fluently, but that is expected of converts. The rest of the service all had English translations so I had that part down. :) I wasn't even too shy either, I was speaking out where I could. Since it was a smaller prayer service the Rabbi had everyone introduce themselves in the beginning. I cant remember any one's name but two people called me by my name during the service. I need to work on my memory. :)

I have to say that this is the most excited and interested I have been in religion my whole life. So many things have clicked with me since deeply looking into Judaism and doing all the reading and research. I feel pretty drawn to it. Everyone within the Jewish community has been so inviting and open. I feel extremely welcomed with complete strangers and it feels wonderful. Alex tells me over and over "that is the way the Jewish community is", and I love it, everyone knows everyone.

Topic change...

It is pretty well decided that Alex and I will be doing a Hawaiian cruise for our honeymoon!! I know so people are saying "another cruise", "you wont see the islands", "planning the honeymoon already", etc. To those people...calm down. First hell yes another cruise! We are both cruise whores and I don't see us ever passing one up. The great thing about the cruise we are looking at is that we have at least 12 hours at each island and even overnight stays at two of them! That makes it appealing for sure but wait...there is more.

We have known we wanted to do Hawaii simply because it is a place neither of us have ever been and we both want to go, on top of that it is a romantic destination. We started looking into prices for a week hotel, airfare, etc and we were climbing into the $2500 range to start at. That doesn't take into account food, fun and the travel expense to get to the other islands. I did some research and found that the ferries are being removed due to pollution complaints and all the "go green" pushes, which means the only way to get from island to island is to fly!! Well there is another expense. I figured the islands were pretty close together too but nope...wrong. Some are several hundred miles apart. The flights would range from 30 minutes to a couple hours depending on where we wanted to stay so we would be wasting time flying and possibly hotel jumping. We came to the quick conclusion that all that would suck! So the cruise makes it convenient since we are taken everywhere so we are not wasting time, cheaper since food, sleeping and some fun are covered and we still get to go to all the islands for at least 12 hours without flying. The cruise and airfare will run close to $2500 and the only thing we need to worry about is some excursions and trinkets we will buy. We are pretty sold.

That is all for now, check back later!