Airman Denney

Adam sent an email to some of you about this, but for those who didn't get it, here is what he said:

I am sending this email because I have recently committed to be a part of the U.S. military, and I want you to know more about that. Jenni and I will soon be leaving Hawaii where we have lived for the last three years. We do not know what base I will be stationed at.

I joined the Air Force on June 28, 2010. I signed a contract and enlisted for 8 years. 6 years is an Active Duty Obligation. 2 years is in the Air Force Reserve. When I am in the Reserve, I may be called to active duty in a period of war or national emergency declared by Congress. Now that I have signed my contract, I will serve in the Air Force for at least 8 years. I am currently in the rank of E3, Airman first class. Members of the Air Force are referred to as Airmen rather than soldiers. I will be working in the intelligence field. I will find out my specific job and when I enter basic training in August. Basic training for the Air Force lasts two months and is at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I will begin Active Duty in basic training in 3 to 6 months.

I chose to join the Air Force because I love my country and want to serve it. It brings me great joy to know I will serve my country and make a positive difference in the world in my own sphere of influence. I still support the mission of BYU Hawaii, which is to help bring peace internationally to the world. My commitment is to act in such a way that will make my family and my country proud. I do not consider myself better than anyone because I am no longer a civilian. I esteem you all very highly and love you.

The oath I took was the following: "I, Adam Charles Denney, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Many laws, regulations, and military customs will govern my conduct and require me to do things under this agreement that a civilian does not have to do. My enlistment agreement is more than an employment agreement. It affects a change in status from civilian to military member of the Armed Forces. As a member of the Armed Forces of the United States, I will be:

1. Required to perform all lawful orders and perform all assigned duties.

2. Subject to the military justice system.

3. Required upon order to serve in combat or other hazardous situations.

4. Entitled to receive pay, allowances, and other benefits.

Sincerely,

Adam

That was his email. We are still waiting to hear back (in 3 to 5 weeks) about which job he is going to get. That will determine where we end up after he finishes Basic Training.

Graduation Party/Moving

I wrote this a few weeks ago and am just now posting pictures and posting it, so some of the stuff is outdated:

This is kind of old news, but Adam has officially graduated! He finished his last class on June 2nd, so we had a party for him. My friends and I have been talking about having a "mocktail" party (non-alcoholic drinks) for a while, so we decided to do that. We made margaritas, pina coladas, sangria and strawberry daquiries. The pina coladas weren't the greatest, but everything else turned out way good.

Then, on June 4th, we had to move out of our apartment. Our home teacher and his wife are out of town, so they let us stay at their place for a while. We'll be moving around all summer to stay with different friends. It is actually nice (at least for me, Adam was a little more sentimental about it) to finally move since we've been at that apartment for 2 1/2 years, which is longer than I've lived anywhere since graduating high school.

One of the sad things about moving is that we had to get rid of our lovebirds, Limu and Lili(ko'i). Fortunately, our next door neighbors wanted them and they are taking good care of them.

Other than that, we've just been hanging out, getting rid of unnecessary items, and preparing to pack our stuff and ship it to Deb's house. We're trying to get rid of as much as possible to make the move a little less costly.

Adam was supposed to have his physical and swear for the Air Force on June 10th, but there was something going on at the AF Base that day, so they had to change the date. We're still not sure when that will be, hopefully soon. He has chosen his top 8 careers, numbers 1, 2 and 3 being Linguist, Weather Apprentice, and Aerospace Physiology Apprentice, respectively. From what everybody has been saying, with the score he got on the ASVAB, he should be able to get his 1st choice with no problem.

Kaua'i

As you may have read in an earlier post, Adam went to Kaua'i for a few days with one of his classes. He loved it so much, that he wanted to take me there, so we went for 4 days during his Spring Break. It was amazing! We didn't want to come home...ever. I thought Oahu was beautiful until we drove around Kaua'i.

After spending time getting camping permits, we went snorkeling at Po'ipu Beach. It was like swimming in an aquarium with huge fish all around. There was also a huge variety of fish.

After snorkeling and visiting Spouting Horn for a second, we drove up about 4000 feet to our campsite in Waimea Canyon. I didn't realize it could get that cold in Hawai'i. It rained for a lot of the night, but our tent is pretty good and kept us dry and kind of warm. The campsite was pretty, and we saw the stars more clearly there than anywhere before. Beautiful! Waking up to roosters wasn't the best experience ever, but it got us up and going the next morning so we could see more things.

The next morning we went another 500 feet up the mountain to the very top. When we got there, we had the most amazing view ever. We could see into the valley and part of the Na Pali Coast from where we were.

After spending a while at Waimea Canyon, we descended to explore the other parts of the island. From there, we found a nice place to sit and eat lunch and dry out our camping gear. After lunch, we went to Kipu Falls where we jumped off the waterfall and rope swing. It was soooo much fun other than the rope burn I got. We went to look for our next campsite after playing there for a while. When we got there, we decided it would to look for someplace else to stay for the night. It was on a pretty black sands beach, but there were tents of homeless people camping there permanently. When we went by the bathroom, we heard a ton of laughter, both from men and women. Apparently that was the place to hang out, drink and do who knows what else. Finally, after driving for a while, we ended up camping here:

Much better. The next day, we drove up north more and stopped by Wailua Falls on the way. It may not look very big, but for scale, the two little shapes in the water to the right of the twig sticking out are people swimming. We also stopped by the Kilauea Lighthouse lookout and watched the birds fly around.

After Wailua Falls, we went exploring some more and found our favorite beach on the island. I'm not sure what it is called, but it was pretty secluded other than the locals surfing there. There is a pretty waterfall on the way to the beach. We spent quite a while at that beach on Wednesday then again on Thursday before we left.

Here's Adam at that same beach with our rental car.

After spending time at the beach, we went to the Na Pali Coast to go hiking and snorkeling. Since it hurts my knees too much to hike very long, we only went about a half mile up the coast, but it was still a beautiful view from there. The snorkeling only lasted about 10 minutes before the lifeguard kicked everybody out because of the strong currents.

Here's another random waterfall we saw from the highway. There are waterfalls everywhere there.

On Wednesday night, we met up with some friends and stayed at the resort they were staying at. Then, in the morning, we went to Queen's Bath, a natural elevated basin that you can swim in when the conditions are right. They weren't right when we got there, so we didn't swim.

After that, we went back to our favorite beach for a while, back to Po'ipu Beach for some more snorkeling and a sweet underwater photo session (pictures coming soon) and back to Kipu Falls for some more waterfall jumping.

We also spent quite a bit of time on this trip driving around down random streets and exploring, which often brought us to some cool surprises. It was a pretty awesome trip. Not only did we get to go to a beautiful place and do a ton of fun stuff, but we got to get away together from everything and everyone for the first time in a long time. If any of you ever come to Hawai'i, I would highly recommend coming to Kaua'i for a week or so. We took many more pictures on Adam's phone that were deleted when the people at the Apple Store reset it because of problems he was having, but the pictures don't do it justice.

Adam's Graduation

On Saturday, April 10th, Adam finally graduated from college. He still has 5 pretty easy credits left to officially graduate, but he will have that done by the beginning of June. He will be receiving a Bachelor's of Science in University Studies with an emphasis in Biology and Chemistry. Elder Quentin L. Cook was the speaker at his graduation. Even though he is not completely done with school yet, it was a very exciting day for him.



Since the campus was pretty full of people taking pictures, we decided to wait until the next day to do a photo shoot around campus and at other locations in La'ie. Here are some of my favorites:

In front of the La'ie Temple


Our front door - G125

Our front yard

Temple Beach

Where Adam had many of his science classes

BYU-H Security Office

Biology Lab

Library

David O. McKay Building

Our Stake Center

Front enterance to campus

Congratulations Adam!