My first kill!

Hey everyone! 

I just want to take the time to share an important event that happened just half an hour ago. I took down my first cockroach!!

Marcus left for school this morning just past 7 and as I was closing the front door after him a 3cm cockroach slipped inside. At first I panicked, wondering if I should call back Marcus. After gathering myself I grabbed our new Raid insect spray - that we had fortunately bought just last Friday - from the counter and showed no mercy. Soon the cockroach was slipping and sliding around in a small pool of poison. -- I had to make sure it would die.

And it did!

So now.. (After Marcus killed his first cockroach weeks ago - a sudden flip-flop death - when a roach scared the crap out of the both of us and Emil and Lotta) .. 
The pale Scandinavians have at last been broken in.

/Rebecca

Male Ana E Pili Mai Aloha Kaua

Aloha dear family and friends!

Our first real week has now passed, and with real I simply mean a week of school rather than going to various beaches. We had a great opportunity to attend a special fireside in the Cannon Activities Center (which is the schools basketball arena) where Elder Nelson spoke. It was a great experience sitting among thousands of young students and locals and listen to him speak. It was a fresh reminder of how we need to live our lives.

So school has officially started and I've got a pretty heavy workload with an intense schedule and a lot of homework and assignments. I pretty much study 10-12 hours a day, but I honestly don't mind. The professors are super inspiring and nice and they really make an effort to get to know their students. It's definitely a massive advantage compared to being at a bigger university.

We're very blessed to be here, and though we miss family and friends we definitely feel that we are at the right place.

Mahalo!

Marcus

First week in Hawaii

Aloha!

So we arrived in Hawaii on August 28 at 5am after having caught a flight from Las Vegas that departed at 2am. Needless to say, a six hour flight and additional time zone change resulted in a very tired Krylborn family arriving in Honolulu. We were picked up at the airport by the awesome Allison and James DeVuyst (Allison is the grand-daughter of the Hunters who are my Morfar and Mormors best friends). As we drove from Honolulu to our new home in Laie we were absolutely amazed by the beautiful sunrise and the awesome mountains, beaches and the ocean. We love Scandinavia, but this was something different. 

We had barely unpacked before Emil and Lotta Hägglund arrived in Laie to spend a week with us. We were really stoked about having them come and help us settle in and make Laie  feel a bit more like home. Our apartment is not really a mansion size-wise although it is definitely very new and clean, so it was pretty much like having a sleep-over party for a week. 

We had a great time with Emil and Lotta which included trips to Honolulu, hiking Diamond Head, visiting one of the top 10 best beaches in the world, eating shave-ice in Haleiwa, swimming with sea-turtles and jumping off cliffs in Waimea, eating burgers and shrimp at Kahuku Grill, going to the temple, and Emil making a ton of local friends. We really love Emil and Lotta and we´re grateful to have such wondeful friends. 

Mahalo!

/Marcus

Our layover in mainland US

Hey all! 
To continue the story where we left off... Early morning August 19th we left Arlanda and almost 24 hours later we landed in Phoenix, Arizona. Here we had the opportunity to visit with the amazing Archunde family that Marcus got to know in England serving his mission. With them we got to go hiking, had a ton of delicious mexican food and their kids made sure we got our fair share of playtime every day! Fun! 
Later that week we arrived in Vegas, after a scary desert drive through flashing lightning, where we spent the night at the Hard Rock Hotel just off the strip.
Friday afternoon we knocked on my Grandma's door in St George. It was such a blessing to get to spend 4 whole days with this wonderful woman who I've not had the chance to spend much time with growing up. Nothing says vacation like sleeping in, cereal for breakfast, eating out and access to all of Grandma's massage equipment. She and her sweet husband Kent also took us to Zion National Park where I'd not yet been. It was so beautiful!
On Tuesday morning we got in the car and drove back down to Las Vegas where we spent the day with my Uncle Ben and Leanne and my cousins in their chokingly beautiful house before heading out to the airport to finally go "home" to Hawaii.

Welcome to our blog!

So... for quite some time we've been talking about writing a blog to share the experiences and adventures we'll have in the 8 months we will be living in Hawaii. Due to our visiting friends and family, friends visiting us and simply getting settled this quiet Sunday night is our first chance to actually do it. 

Let us explain the background story real quick. Since before we got married we have been considering the possibility of spending a few semesters abroad while Marcus was finishing his schooling. After looking at schools in England, Spain and even Denmark (!!) we started considering taking the leap and going for one of the BYU schools and of the three it turned out that BYU Hawaii was our best option. Marcus did all the paper work, applied and on March 23rd we got married, not sure yet where we would be spending our first year together.  
Not too long after he got a letter in the mail saying he had been accepted for the fall and winter semesters at BYUH! 

We were going to Hawaii!