Hawaii - Marriott Ko'olina with Dave & Judy

We went to Hawaii with Dave and Judy the first week of December.  It was a great little getaway and break from the craziness back home.  Both Stanton and I missed the kids SO much during this trip, though...not like us!  :)  We're getting to that phase where we would love to experience a lot of these things with our kiddos instead of leaving them home.
They were in great hands with Adam and Angie, my mom, and Jim & Rachel, though, and did really well.  Thanks to them for helping with the kids while we were gone!

We didn't do a whole lot of new stuff on this trip, so I'm going to just throw up pictures without much explanation.  Of note - we stayed on the leeward side of the island - opposite of Lai'e, where we usually stay.  It was so different - a total desert except where they water (sprinklers...in Hawaii - crazy!).  It had its own beauty and it was really cool to see a different part of Oahu.  Henry started rolling over with greater consistency on this trip.  He was fun to have along - he changed it from a vacation to a trip, for sure, but I'm glad we brought him! 

We got a kick out of Dave & Judy's technology in the seats ahead of us. 
Henry had a rough flight out (he was a total gem on the redeye home - thanks to some awesome seat maneuvering from Stanton).  We ended up walking around with him for a good portion of the flight to Honolulu.  We met lots of nice people as we made the rounds....one was Nancy - in this picture with Stanton.  She was a doll and talked to us in her seat and at ours for a half hour or so.  Total sweetheart.
As you can see, Henry's ears were really bothering him as we descended.  Stanton sucked on them to help relieve the pain - I tried nursing him, but he had nursed so many times on the flight (just to try and keep him quiet) that he was just plain sick of it by then.

 Henry perusing the activities available at the resort.
Oh, Judy got stuck on the elevator for an hour at the resort!  That was an adventure for her.  :)

 The Marriott was a gorgeous property.  Totally different from the Hukilau house, for sure.  It was really fun to stay there.  You can see the Disney resort down the way - it's the all brown one in the back.  Really neat.

 Dave, Judy, Stanton.

 Dole Plantation for a whip (no more cinnamon almonds *sniff).  Haleiwa to visit Surf and Sea for a new t-shirt or two. 

 We drove to Laie to visit a friend of our neice Jessica's.  His name is Spencer.  We ate at Tita's and had garlic shrimp.  It was divine. 
While we were there, our battery died.  It wouldn't even take a jump from this nice cook's pickup truck.  We had to call the rental car company and wait for them to bring us a replacement.  It was a long afternoon.  Henry and I took a few walks to pass the time.

 We took a beautiful hike in the nice part of Oahu - the part that President Obama visits when he goes home.  :)  It was a great little hike and provided a gorgeous view from the top.  Judy stayed behind with Henry, which I so appreciated.

 Whoops, the two view shots are from that same hike. 
We headed to Honolulu to eat at Cheesecake Factory and walk around Waikiki.  I had to check in on the kids, of course.

 Flea Market (actually called the Swap Meet at Aloha Stadium), shave ice in Haleiwa (with a t-shirt, of course), and the Cheesecake Factory.  Oh, and we bought these fun hand carved musical frogs for the kids.  The wood echoes like a croak when you rub the ridged back with a wand.  They are really cool!

 Dave and Judy took 3 mile walks every morning.  I was up and going in time to go on a few with them.  Fun to be with them.  Stanton stayed home and did P90x most mornings while we walked.

 Playing with the underwater camera.  Not bad! 

It was a great trip.  We really appreciated Dave & Judy inviting us to go along.  They are SO dang fun to travel with. 

Odds and Ends

Some various pictures and videos I want to remember.

 The girls and I made cupcakes the other night.  I seriously never do stuff like this with them, so it was very fun and special for them.  And we made the most amazing frosting pretty much ever.  It was time consuming, but so good.  Oh, and so was the cake recipe.  Another time consuming, but delicious recipe.  They were very cute and I was very pooped by the time we were done!  They are awesome girls.

Pictures that make me smile and/or laugh out loud.  Clock-wise from top left:  Brigham after Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (HAHAHAHA!!!!!), Brigham fell on the floor rough-housing and banged his lip hard, giving him a nice fat lip...boys....and isn't that hat funny?, Lily was being a dog who was sweeping the floor -- I'm just glad she wasn't 'sweeping' the way our real dog does it....with his tongue..., Cannon doing his Chippendale impersonation....this was before Church last Sunday...he is such a unique, hilarious child...., and finally, this was how Stanton found him in bed when he went to tuck him.....I love those little readers!

 Our dear friends, the Noelle and Bryan, came up for dental visits.  Their daughter Genevieve spent the night with us and even tended the kids!  She is so cute -- such a little talker and so fun to have here.  The kids really enjoyed having her here.

Stanton and his staff have several different theme days at their office.  This one was Hat Day.  I bought that moose hat in Alaska, much to Stanton's chagrin.  Well, who got the last laugh?!  The kids LOVED his funny hat and so did the staff.  They have the funnest office.  I thought some of the hats they came up with were super fun!  Can you spot Stanton's other hat...one that HE bought much to MY chagrin?!  Karen (5 from left) is wearing it.  It has a flap that goes down over the neck.  Not.  Attractive.  but super functional, so who am I to judge?  :)

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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I accidentally merged these two videos together.  Oh well.  The first is a bashful plant in Hawaii.  One of my favorite things to see in the Aloha State.  I sent this video to the kids while we were gone. 
The second is a video Stanton secretly took of our scripture study.  Too bad I saw him at the end...but you can see how irreverent it usually is...at least we're doing it, right?!  :)

More Hawaii

This is why we take pictures!  I forgot to mention the Battleship Missouri tour we took on the Sunday we were in Hawaii.  Oh man, that was incredible!!!  One of the major highlights.  We could have easily spent another hour exploring.

 Some other random pics from Haiku Gardens, restaurants, the PCC, and the Dole Plantation

And pictures from our excursion out to Goat Island -- the island (connected by a reef under the water) near our house.

Hawaii!

In January, we took a wonderful post-Christmas trip to Hawaii with two of our dearest friend-couples, Brian & Linda Westfall and Kyle & Angie Farley.  It was so fun.  We overlapped by a couple of days with Dave & Judy and Jim & Rachel, which was awesome.  I LOVE vacationing with family, so it was awesome to be with them for a couple of days.

Since this was the first trip for both the Westfalls and the Farleys, we did a lot of the tourist things that we don't hit every time we go.  It was really fun!  I have to admit, though, that Stanton and I did not take very many pictures...at all. 

Some of the highlights of the trip were Pearl Harbor, the PCC, Byodo-In Temple, Haiku Gardens, Hanauma Bay, eating out a TON, shave ice, surf competitions, visiting the Laie temple visitor's center, hanging on the beach, reading the Maze Runner series, lots of ice cream, more shave ice (I love you, Matsumoto's!), the Dole Plantation, and lots of relaxation.  We are so lucky to have awesome friends.

Here are pictures from the trip!

So....We Went to Hawaii...

...in MAY.  I always dread writing up the posts about huge trips.  We had a great time and enjoyed bringing Chloe & Lily this year.  They were so much fun and made this the funnest trip we've ever taken to Hawaii.  I'm super glad we didn't opt to bring the boys.  We'll wait until they're a bit older before we take all 4.  They had fun with Duren & Deyette (Stanton's accounts manager).  They were so great with the boys and made them feel like they were on vacation, too.
Since I'm so late in doing this and have so many fun pictures I want to include, I'm going the collage route again.  No date order--just recaps of the fun things we did.

This really was the trip of a lifetime.

On Vacation

Stanton & I just got back from a week in Hawaii with Stanton's folks and our little Cannon. It was a great vacation.

We did a lot of this...
I read Persuasion by Jane Austen. I hadn't read that one and it was so enjoyable. That's one of my favorite parts of Hawaii -- being able to just sit outside and read a book. It helps that we've been a few times before because we don't have to spend the entire time sightseeing. The relaxing is my favorite part.
We did do a little sightseeing, though. I hadn't seen a few things on the east side of the island so we went over there. This is me at Blowhole -- when the waves crash here, the mist shoots up through a tunnel in the rocks -- it looks like Old Faithful. It was a neat place. We tried to hike Diamond Head, but it was closed (when is Diamond Head ever closed?). I still haven't done that, so I'm hoping we'll get to in May when we go for Stanton's AAPD conference. I'm also hoping to snorkel at Hanauma Bay on that trip -- it just didn't work out this time.
Our friends Spring and Allen Bean happened to be there the same time as us. We met up to shop at the Flea Market, eat at the Oceanarium & PCC, and play in the ocean behind the house. It was fun to hang out with them.
This was definitely our eating out trip. Because of the house Stanton's family has there and the huge group we usually go with, we end up cooking meals at the house most nights. This time we were a much smaller group (just Stanton & I and Dave & Judy) and groceries were as expensive as eating out. We ate king crab (Oceanarium buffet) two nights (heaven!!), prime rib & snow crab (PCC & Hale'iwa Joe's) two nights, melt in your mouth ribeye steak (Ruth's Chris), and the best veggie salad ever (Pizza Bob's) two different afternoons. We also had breakfast at the Hukilau cafe in Lai'e one morning -- I had this fried rice omelet that was out of this world. I'll definitely be making that one at home -- who ever thought to eat fried rice for breakfast? I'd like to personally thank them, whoever they are.
I didn't take any pictures at all of the restaurants -- can't believe it. But it was a lot of fun. Eating out like that makes me grateful to come home and make a meal, strange as it seems. In fact, for dinner last night (this is after a red-eye flight from Honolulu and a morning spent picking all the kids up from their various babysitters...), I made chicken soft tacos -- complete with home-made whole wheat tortillas and brown rice and beans. Nothing like a week of no dishes and eating out to make you feel all domestic again. And I needed that -- I was in a total dinner rut.
Let's see, other trip highlights...we went on a glider ride over the island. I should have known it wasn't going to go well when our flight number was...
We got to the glider (which is really quite amazing -- a plane tows you up to about 5000 feet and then lets you go and the pilot just uses rudders and the wings to catch the wind at take you all over the sky. We saw some really beautiful scenery from up high) and were excited to get in.
Once we got in, the pilot took a little snapshot of us.
Yeah, we look happy. Stanton really is. But I'm not and I'll show you why:
Stanton got in first and when I looked at what room was left, I about hyperventilated. And then there was the whole 'I can't move my legs!' situation. If you know me well, you know that I have leg issues to begin with. Not being able to move them and stretch them was about enough to make me call the whole thing off before we left the ground. But I decided to be a big girl and suck it up. I had the claustrophobia thing pretty well under control by the time we got going. We got about 3000 feet up and then the nausea hit. And wow -- it hit. I was taking long, deep breaths through my nose, trying to get my stomach to return to its proper place in my abdomen, but it just insisted on staying right at the edge of my throat. I was getting pretty panicky -- looking around for an empty bag (yeah, right, there wasn't ANY room for an empty bag in that little thing) when Stanton smiled and said, "if you're going to throw up, just make sure you do it down your shirt." Cute, I know. Well, I hung on for as long as I could, but 15 minutes into our 30 minute ride, I had to ask to be taken down. It really was a bummer, as the view was incredible. C'est la vie.

Cannon was an angel, as always. He rode in the back of the van and either slept or gooed most of the time.
It was a lot of fun to get to know him a little better. He is becoming very interactive and will smile with his entire face (I love to see a baby's eyes smile). Spending some one on one time with Cannon was probably the best part of the trip.

The kids had a great time visiting their cousins and aunts and uncles. Chloe stayed with my sister, Lori. I think it was really fun for her to be the little sister for once. She had a great time with Todd, Kate, & Jack, and even got to see Grandma & Grandpa Rose while she was there. Thanks, Lori & Brad. Chloe loved it!
Lily stayed with Stanton's sister, Julie. She called her "Juliewebb" (Lily has a name thing -- she calls her nursery music leader "Oh Here We Are Together" and has little names like that for most people she meets). She loved being with Juliewebb and really adores her. I think her cousins might be glad to get back to normal, though. Wednesday (the day before we got home), Lily came into the kitchen with her wrists and ankles bound in duct tape and a piece over her mouth. Julie was, obviously, shocked and went to investigate. She asked Amanda, her 10 year-old what was going on. Amanda said, "Mom, I just couldn't take it anymore!" Lily is Lily is Lily is Lily and she wore the girls out with her screaming, I think! But she really had a great time and felt pretty special to get to stay at Aunt Julie's. Thanks, Julie & Scott! We love you!
Brigham got passed around a bit -- he started out with Shaynna, my good friend. Chrystal picked him up shortly after and took him to Tremonton to stay with my Aunt Christie. He spent Thursday - Sunday there and had a blast. He got to go out to the farm and see the tractors (Christie mentioned he was especially partial to the green ones -- no surprise there!) and the cows -- he loved that. After a fun weekend there, he came back to Hyde Park and stayed with Ann, Stanton's sister at Dave & Judy's. He had a great time with Katie & Allison and just went along with whatever games they wanted to play. Ann took them all back to her house in Syracuse on Wednesday and he was there till yesterday when we picked him up. All reports are that he was a good little guy and very mellow. I love that part of his personality. He really adapts well, which I hope continues in the years to come. Thanks Christie & Scott and Ann & Don. We appreciate you making sure Brigham was happy!

Going away always makes me happy to come back. The kids are (mostly) playing well this morning -- pretending to be in Hawaii, going camping, cooking dinner, etc. I want to be a nicer mom and (mostly) have the patience to be better with them. Being away reminds me what a blessing it is to be mom to these incredible little people.

Luau Pictures....

If you're just DYING to see pictures of our fun Hawaii party, click here. Thanks, Emanate, for being official photographers that day!

Aren't all these grandkids just kissable?

Playing Catch-up from a FUN Weekend!

This was a party weekend! We had our Hawaii Reunion Party on Friday, Grandma Barbara's birthday party on Saturday, Mitch's homecoming on Sunday, and Lily's birthday on Monday! Whew, what a weekend! For the sake of organization, I'm going to do each one as a separate post. Browse at your leisure...

Aloha!

We had a party at our house for all the family and friends who went to Hawaii in February.

We first played Hawaiian Pictionary. So fun to play pictionary with the Allens! They are all competitive (yes, I fit right in!) and it makes for a very entertaining show!

We ate Kalua Pork, tons of great fruit, salads, and desserts.

We had a flip-flop pinata for the kids (my first pinata of my whole life!). It was so fun to see them get into to smacking it! It was made of cardboard, so we didn't bother with blindfolds. The challenge was just getting into the darn thing! Chloe was particularly excited about this part of the day's events...she asked me several times a day if it was time for the "pinyathta" (I'm trying to figure out how to phonetically type out a perfect Spanish accent. Anyway, she was saying it with a perfect accent). The kids (and some of the grown-ups) had a great time smashing into the flip flop and enjoyed all the junk inside, too.

After the games, we went down to the basement and watched everyone's pictures and movies from the trip. It was a lot of fun to relive the perfect vacation and a lot of fun to just be together.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a ton of pictures, as I was hosting the party. Hopefully I can get a few of the pinata smashing from Jim & Rachel and post them on here. For now, these will have to do!

Ahhh...Hawaii

Well, we had a great trip to Hawaii this year. We left the kids with a babysitter (thanks Adam & Angie!!) for two weeks and lived it up like single people! While we were there we stayed on Oahuvisited Kauai with Jim and Rachel. We went whale watching (it was awesome!), snorkeling (swam around with a sea turtle for a while), watched some incredible waves and equally incredible surfers on them, played in the ocean, layed on the beach, visited the flea market, read books (4! what an indulgence!), ate amazing food, and enjoyed each others' company. It was definitely a trip to remember.

A really great part of the trip was that when it was over, we were totally ready to come home! To snow! More truthfully, to our kids! It was so great to see them after such a long time away and they did not disappoint!!! They were thrilled with the Hawaiian dresses/shirts, flutes, ukelele, seashells, etc we brought home and have really played with them a lot since we've been home.

The best part of coming home was finding that our babysitters had potty trained Lily! The day after we left she started telling them she needed to tinkle and by the time we got home she was wearing panties! It was so great! I think when Brigham is about 3, we'll do another of these trips!

A few pictures from the trip...

*With Jim & Rachel on Kauai -- the scenery was incredible on this island
*This is me on Dramamine
*Nate & Emily



*Because of the rain, we saw more waterfalls than we've seen before. Amazing!
*At the Pali lookout. Stanton decided to grow a beard during our trip. It got shaved when the girls were scared of him when we got home!
*Dave & Judy

*Striking a pose with Julie & Rachel. This is at a temple ruin, which makes it even more sacreligious!
*Don & Ann
*Scott perpetuating the Mormon polygamy myth

And a few from our return...



*Some very cute keiki
*Lily & Chloe as hula girls
*Brigham "Don Ho" Allen