June Activities in Pictures

Swam in Aunt Rachel's pool. Next we want to try out Uncle Brian's.

The kids decided that there family vacation should be at Lagoon. Great place for little kids, (as you can see).

Emma's favorite ride. It is funny how 4 year olds think they truly are driving.

Oh the face on Tyler. :)

Visited Grandpa Stucki. Mostly cousin Lucy hogged his lap, but Mason got a little love, too.

Basketball camp at Weber State.

Clark Planetarium. This was Mason's favorite "ride". (All three flight's).

Playing news anchor...

Emma asleep in the car. (How does she sleep like that?)

Kyle's graduation from UVSC.

Exhausted at the end. These 3 musketeers sleep in Tyler's bed every night now.

:)

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

We've just gotten back from Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Ogden. Lot's of funny pictures to come. But for now.....I just want to sit. (And do laundry, pay bills, grocery shop, bath kids etc.) But mostly just sit.

Hailey's Baptism

I finally got these off of Mom's camera. (I couldn't find mine on the BIG DAY! Horror of horrors.)

Beautiful Hailey in her beautiful white dress...

...w/mom...

w/Dad...

and another random picture that Mom gave to me that is too cute to not share. :)

Other non-Hawaiian news.

Nathan was given the job title of a vice-president at Zion's. Nice. Of course there are more than one vice-president at Zion's, but still. Looks good on the resume. And we just learned a few days ago he got accepted in the Executive MBA program at the University of Utah. He must have gotten in by the skin of his teeth because he applied without taking the GMAT (usually an essential piece) and right before the due date. It's a two year program once a week (Fridays) where he will have to drive to SLC. We are going to go ahead with it instead of a law school because of the lesser time constraints it will take on the family. (We will actually get to see our husband/father. Yea!). But we are pretty sure taking the LSAT, getting a great score and being offered so many scholarships was a defining factor in getting accepted to the U of U, so it wasn't for naught.

Last one for sure. We made "Where's Waldo?" pictures for the kids on the sides of the road.

Last one, I promise again.

The views were insane in Kauai. Here was a wild-life bird preserve on the North Shore.












The front entrance of our hotel...















I didn't dare get into this ocean. HUGE waves.














But right behind them we found some cliffs and ocean caves. Got to play mermaid. :)












Nate (of course) had to go down into the scary part/road-less-traveled to look for crabs.
















The back of our hotel...











awwwwwww

Last one, I promise. Hawaii part 3: Reality hits like a semi truck

On the way home from SLC Mason had THE nastiest "glue"-iest poop bomb from his knees to his neck. (You missed it by 30 minutes Mom. Count your blessings!) He was loving the clothing-less freedom.









I was surprised by the clean kitchen when we got home. Although Emma restored it quickly to it's typical state. She made TWO "secret recipes" with all my seasonings, dish soap, and some fabulous Bath n' Body lotions.










Grandma Linda is so cool. She even tagged her name in chalk on the back patio.














Lastly, did Mason take his first step while we were gone?....




























yup

Hawaii part 2

Yesterday we went snorkeling at Ke'e and Tunnels Beaches. We saw tons of beautiful fish at Ke's, including dozens of huge turtle's. We swam right up to them took underwater pictures of us petting them. One even started rolling his eyes back and started falling asleep. They were super friendly.

These are the ocean/wind made tunnels.



















Kipu Falls was where we had our bags stolen the day before. We decided to go back the next day and create some better memories. We were the only ones there this time and it was awesome.
































After a few days of eating ham sandwiches and bowls of cereal in the hotel, (we had to cancel most credit/debit cards) we decided to go and eat a super nice dinner. Nathan wanted a prime rib and I talked him into instead buying 4 different appetizers of weird stuff so we could try some amazing chef creations. He didn't like ANYTHING and ended up with...(wait for it)...







...lettuce stuffed into a tomato. It was some fancy salad and I took the first bite and ate all the salad dressing and the bacon bits. This was seriously his entire dinner. I almost fell of my chair I was laughing so much. Afterward he said he never felt so healthy. We went home and ate ham sandwiches. :)














We finally found out the reason there are so many chickens. (At any given time there you can see 2-3 on the side of the roads). There was some huge storm in the 40's and all the hen houses were blown away and the chickens displaced. There are no snakes and mongoose on the island so no natural predators other than the random SUV. Now they are protected by the government.










Pearl Harbor Memorial. I thought a lot about veterans while I was here. It was definitely a soul-moving place.












One night Nathan and just walked and walked without stopping....












We found a little protected cove and actually swam in the ocean at night. I thought I would never do that. The pictures show how clear and turquoise-y the water was.










The 18th hole at Turtle Bay. This picture makes the ocean hard to see but it was right behind us.

I promise we are here.

This is a picture of me in Hawaii. Pointing to the insanely gorgeous "popcorn" flowers on the tree behind me. (Um, let's just say I have had it with blogger. Even in Oahu Hawaii I have trouble uploading pictures.)
Despite my picture problem, did you miss that? WE ARE IN OAHU, HAWAII!!!! Our late 10 year anniversary celebration is in fact a vacation of a lifetime. After a brutal airplane flight, (so very very long), we arrived to a feast of the senses. Truly the Hawaiians have figured out how to make the ocean insane shades of blue, the flowers every color of a crazy vibrant make-believe rainbow and the sand white as snow. Even the chickens running around everywhere are beautiful. (Can't escape chickens for some reason). We took the long way in our rented convertible, (highly recommend this in Hawaii), and were amazed that a city could smell so sweet. Seriously even the dump we drove by smelled and looked like paradise. If I couldn't be a Utah mom I would be a Hawaiian bum.
We stopped at a random hole-in-the-wall dive and enjoyed THE most succulent melt-in-your-mouth pork and super soft, warm, sweet pineapple. In fact we have had pineapple with every meal. And this is no Dole's pineapple in a can.
We then took a "nap". (I say "nap" because it was more like a half night's sleep. Like I said, the flight is brutal). We napped 5 hours and then stayed up until 1 am walking along the beach here at the Turtle Bay Resort. (Which would be 5 am Utah time). So basically I have no idea where my internal clock is which really doesn't matter since Nathan and I resolved to NOT look at watches and clocks the majority of the trip. When our bodies say eat, we eat, (preferably pork and pineapple). Sleep? Let's take a "nap". Swim? Only twenty yards away. Today we snorkeled with turtles, an eel, schools with at LEAST 100 fish and some crazy looking sword mammal-ly type things. Afterward the Turtle Bay Golf Course was calling Nathans name so I sat in the golf cart and read yummy books while Nate played. We fried quite a bit by this time but it was so peaceful. 30 minutes of silence passed with neither of us talking many times. Lovely lovely lovely.
I really wanted to put some pictures up because I told my sweet children that I would "talk" to them through this blog so they could see what we were doing. I miss them-as in crazy miss them! Grandma Linda is taking great care of them I am sure. (Mahalo mahalo mahalo Mom!!!) I could never enjoy a week long vacation if I was worried about my babies, but I know Mom is doing a fabulous job. We received a text that said they were sleeping in the clubhouse out back until a 3:00 am rain shower. I am sure they are having fun with Grandma. :)
I think it is time to sleep now. Sweet hubby of mine is already out and I need to catch up on my zzz's so I can keep enjoying the good life and ruin 7 months of gym workouts in 7 days of borderline gluttony and laziness. Nathan is trying to talk me into going into a shark cage tomorrow. Yea right. In his dreams...

Hmmmm.

Apparently I shouldn't be a little scared, but a lot. (See previous post. Nice segue huh?) 

One Saturday was all it took to: 

1) Have a neighbor boy break his arm in our backyard.

2) Have Hailey spike a fever and throw up all night.

3) Enjoy the first wasp sting of the summer. (Emma; foot)

4) Find this one minute after I put Masey-boy on the floor and turn my back.