Holy Crud. Going through all these pictures has been nice, because it makes you remember how much fun you had, but it's also kinda depressing....because it makes you remember how much fun you had! I wanna go back so badly! Could I just live somewhere on Kauai?! Please?!!! Seriously, Hawaii is definitely one place that lives up to all the hype. I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of islandy paradises....and Hawaii is in my Top 3.
On the day that Matt was supposed to Scuba dive, (it was canceled because it was so dang windy that the visibility was positively horrible) I went to the beach with Bryce & Kate and their boys, Brayton and Hunter. It was a freakin blast! We originally stopped at a couple really calm beaches, but the boys went and found body boards and went down the beach a bit to where the waves were a bit more lively. Kate and I watched them for a while, and then we decided to venture out and "jump" the waves. It was crazy fun! The waves were so huge and powerful that most of the time our legs were swept right out from under us, and we'd scream like banshees! It was a riot!!!
Brayton in the middle, behind his body board.
Haha, it was SUPER windy and bright, so we ended up looking completely foolish in this picture!
As we left Kauai, we sailed down one of the more famous and beautiful coastlines in all of Hawaii -- The Napali Coastline. This was the most beautiful and breathtaking sight of the whole trip for me. I couldn't get enough. I've never seen anything like it. If you ever see a picture that looks even kind of like these, you can pretty much guarantee that it is of this coastline. There's nothin like it in the world! I got very snap-happy with my camera...all the pictures that I took aren't even here. Yes, I was selective!
I dare you to honestly tell me that it isn't stunning.
I triple dog dare you!!!!
Just when I thought it couldn't get any more beautiful, the sun decided to just peek out a bit, and give some incredible lighting. I mean, WOW. It's breathtaking, isn't it?!
Apparently there's a pretty strenuous hike that you can do that takes you down the entire strip of this coast, and you can pitch a tent and camp at the end of it on a beach. It's a couple days of backpacking, but I think it would be totally worth it. When the rest of us were doing the zipline, Bryce and Kate did a portion of the hike, and they said it was absolutely incredible. This is why I want to go back someday. I'm totally gonna do it!!!
Kate and Bryce.
It's a double rainbow!! Towards the end of this scenic cruising, there was a baby humpback whale that was swimming alongside the ship that was jumping out of the water and having a grand ol' time. It was so adorable! Whales amaze me. They're completely awe inspiring to me, and they make me giddy when I see them.
Lunch break on a shopping day. This was the day we arrived in Oahu. Once we all had done a little souvenir shopping and had checked into the hotel, we went to see Pearl Harbor. I was so stinkin excited for this. In case you didn't know (and you'd have to be pretty oblivious to not know this) I'm a complete history buff, and for some reason I enjoy learning about WWII more than just about anything. Don't ask me why, because I don't have an answer for you. But I have always wanted to go to Pearl Harbor and go to the monument over the USS Arizona. Big dream of mine. About to come true. Or so I thought....
...It was super windy so they canceled the ferries that were taking people out there. WHAT?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! I was bummed. Royally. Oh well. I'm going back again sometime anyway, right? This picture is of the actual anchor from the Arizona. It's ginormous.
There's a pretty big museum there that is really well done. They have a page of the actual speech that Pres. Roosevelt gave....you know which one I'm talking about. Anyway, it has his hand written corrections on it. And I found it fascinating to see that he had written in the most famous part. It originally said "a date that will live in world history." He changed it so say "a date which will live in infamy." I'd say that was a pretty good change. So fascinating!
The Dole Plantation!! On day number 2 we went road trippin with Tharon and Holly. Which was an adventure of it's own. To say the least. But we got to see all the sights that I was dying to see. I had heard that the Dole pineapple plant was something you shouldn't miss, mostly because the pineapple ice cream was so amazing that it should be illegal. So yeah, that got me there.
They weren't lying. It's incredible!
Holly was reading the sign and trying to teach Matt a thing or two about pineapple. Did you know that once a pineapple is picked, it doesn't continue to ripen? True story. So when you buy a pineapple at the store, be sure it's ripe, because it won't get better if you set it on your windowsill in the sun. Just sayin.
They have a little garden set up so you can see all the different varieties of pineapple that they can grow there. I had no idea there were so many!!! I thought maybe there would be a few different types, but not 12 or so! It was really cool to see how they grow, too. For some reason I thought they grew in the ground, with the spiky green part poking out of the ground. Like a carrot. Not the case. It was very temping to just pick on of the little babies and bring it home. But, I was a good girl, and I resisted.
Yes, we are kids at heart.
I think Tharon enjoyed himself. :)
The pineapple express!! And no, I'm not talking about weed. That's really what it's called! It was a nice little tour through the grounds. Probably not worth the money though.
They have a HUGE garden maze there that you can run through to find certain checkpoints, and once you find them all you get a prize. It's gargantuan. Seriously. It holds the world record. We did it for a little bit, and found about half of the checkpoints. Pretty incredible.
Holy crap!!! Matsumoto's shave ice! Thank you to the 2 people who recommended that we go here. I couldn't understand what all the hype was about when it came to shave ice in Hawaii. I mean, we have sno cones here, and they really aren't all that great! So what's the big deal!? Oh my. My my my. You have no idea. It is amazing. They shave that ice down so incredibly fine, and have made dousing it with sugar mixes into an art. PLUS, they put sweetened condensed milk on it, which might sound a little iffy, but it's positively delicious. It was truly delicious!
Temples make me happy. And camera happy. And this one was no exception. It's so incredibly beautiful. The start of the long water feature out front has this statue thingy, and it says Maternity across the top. We asked one of the people in the visitor's center what that was all about, and he explained that it represented the blessings that are passed down from generation to generation, like the water going down all the levels, all the way out to the ocean, for all eternity. Because where the water ends, a road begins, and it goes all the way out to the ocean. Pretty dang neat. I had no idea.
Straight shot out to the ocean.
Haha, yeah....we'd been in the car too long! He wasn't truly being angry, just joking, but it was still hilarious!
This was at the outdoor mall by Waikiki beach. It was so pretty. And I felt way too poor to be walking down the street, because all the stores were super ritzy. Like Armani, and Burberry, and, well, Apple. Let's be honest, I can't shop there either! It's definitely a place where rich people go to shop.
Hunter and Matt getting ready to go body boardin. This was our last day. Boohoo! We went to the beach because our flights weren't until about 9:00 at night, so we had some time to kill. We decided to do something relaxing.
Kate.
Matt and Holly decided to bury Brayton. And, well.....we're a little irreverent, so he was given some huge sand boobs, and a little stick weiner. It was absolutely hilarious! We were all laughing so hard! Until Brayton jumped out because he thought he felt a crab tickling his leg. He then realized that it had just been his own hand. Ha! Funny!
This trip was an absolute blast. And i didn't get sunburned at all until this last day. Arg! I was so upset. At least it wasn't too bad of a sunburn, and it didn't hurt at all after one day. I truly want to go back to Hawaii multiple times throughout the rest of my life. It is one of my most favorite places!
It was fun to spend time with the whole family and see so much of this Earth's beauty. It's a blessing that we are able to see what we have, and go to the places that we have. We're really lucky, and we know it!
If you ever get the chance to go to Hawaii, DO IT! You won't regret it, I promise!
Sheesh, someday I might blog about something that JUST happened, but for now I'm stuck trying to remember things from a few months ago. It's such a pain, so you'd think that would be the motivation I would need to stay on top of this, but no. It just takes so much time that I can't talk myself into doing it some days....I need a blog fairy to do it for me. ;)
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May 17th was Alex's 18th birthday....WOW! We celebrated by having hobo dinners made with steak chunks, and his favorite cake -- Funfetti! It was one of the funnest birthday dinners ever.
I wrapped his present in a paper bag with a plastic bag bow, because I figured he should get used to poverty now that he's going to be a college student. :) It was a flash drive, which I figured would be fairly useful. Ha!
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HAPPY EASTER! Ha! Of course, Jake was too little to care or do any of the fun activities that come with the holiday, but that didn't stop any of us from spoiling him. I got him this adorably handsome suit for the holiday. We didn't put the tie on him because we thought it would probably be a little uncomfortable on his triple chin, which is unfortunate, because it was cute. Good thing he still made it look good! He's a little baby model, I tell ya!
He loves goofing off with his dad....I'm beginning to think they're two peas in a pod. Life will get interesting, I'm sure. :)
With Uncle Adam at Grandma Great's....being super excited about the little bunny that she got him. I told you, we all spoiled him miserably! I think he will go through attention withdrawals when we move away for Matt's grad school....eeek. We'll not think about that until we have to!
It's sad sometimes how life has a way of changing your plans. I truly don't think this is a lesson I will ever learn to handle well. It's too difficult sometimes. Because if something wasn't important to you, you wouldn't make plans for it, right? So it always hurts when things don't go your way. Especially once you're an adult. Kids don't know the meaning of "unfair." Yes, usually I can look back and say to myself that I can see how it all worked out in the best possible way. But it never feels that way when you're actually IN it. You know?
Anyway.....On April 2 we gave Fergi to some friends. There were many reasons why we couldn't keep my little buddy, the one who kept me from falling into a deep depression for a couple years because I wanted to be a mommy so badly and it wasn't happening. (Another example of life not going how I had planned it.) Our living situation wasn't allowing her to have that great of a life. With a little baby, I just didn't have the time to sit outside with her for a long time to let her run around and stretch her legs, and I couldn't just let her roam free either. She spent a lot of time cooped up, and that made me sad.
Matt will be going to grad school soon, ( we hope...unless life decides to change that as well! haha!) and the odds of finding a place to rent that allows you to have pets without charging some exorbitant amount is very slim. So we decided that the best thing to do would be to find her a good home. Luckily THAT went according to plan, and we found a wonderful home for her, where she is spoiled rotten! :) This mother-daughter duo Matt actually met while he was on his mission. Margie and Tessa! They loved Matt then, and still do. They now live in Las Vegas, and were wonderful enough to even make a drive up to Provo to pick Fergi up from us. Two wonderful gals, and we're so grateful for them!
That's the only thing that makes me super happy about this situation. I miss my little doggy like crazy some days....but it makes it ok to know how loved she is.
Holy Crud. Going through all these pictures has been nice, because it makes you remember how much fun you had, but it's also kinda depressing....because it makes you remember how much fun you had! I wanna go back so badly! Could I just live somewhere on Kauai?! Please?!!! Seriously, Hawaii is definitely one place that lives up to all the hype. I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of islandy paradises....and Hawaii is in my Top 3.
On the day that Matt was supposed to Scuba dive, (it was canceled because it was so dang windy that the visibility was positively horrible) I went to the beach with Bryce & Kate and their boys, Brayton and Hunter. It was a freakin blast! We originally stopped at a couple really calm beaches, but the boys went and found body boards and went down the beach a bit to where the waves were a bit more lively. Kate and I watched them for a while, and then we decided to venture out and "jump" the waves. It was crazy fun! The waves were so huge and powerful that most of the time our legs were swept right out from under us, and we'd scream like banshees! It was a riot!!!
Brayton in the middle, behind his body board.
Haha, it was SUPER windy and bright, so we ended up looking completely foolish in this picture!
As we left Kauai, we sailed down one of the more famous and beautiful coastlines in all of Hawaii -- The Napali Coastline. This was the most beautiful and breathtaking sight of the whole trip for me. I couldn't get enough. I've never seen anything like it. If you ever see a picture that looks even kind of like these, you can pretty much guarantee that it is of this coastline. There's nothin like it in the world! I got very snap-happy with my camera...all the pictures that I took aren't even here. Yes, I was selective!
I dare you to honestly tell me that it isn't stunning.
I triple dog dare you!!!!
Just when I thought it couldn't get any more beautiful, the sun decided to just peek out a bit, and give some incredible lighting. I mean, WOW. It's breathtaking, isn't it?!
Apparently there's a pretty strenuous hike that you can do that takes you down the entire strip of this coast, and you can pitch a tent and camp at the end of it on a beach. It's a couple days of backpacking, but I think it would be totally worth it. When the rest of us were doing the zipline, Bryce and Kate did a portion of the hike, and they said it was absolutely incredible. This is why I want to go back someday. I'm totally gonna do it!!!
Kate and Bryce.
It's a double rainbow!! Towards the end of this scenic cruising, there was a baby humpback whale that was swimming alongside the ship that was jumping out of the water and having a grand ol' time. It was so adorable! Whales amaze me. They're completely awe inspiring to me, and they make me giddy when I see them.
Lunch break on a shopping day. This was the day we arrived in Oahu. Once we all had done a little souvenir shopping and had checked into the hotel, we went to see Pearl Harbor. I was so stinkin excited for this. In case you didn't know (and you'd have to be pretty oblivious to not know this) I'm a complete history buff, and for some reason I enjoy learning about WWII more than just about anything. Don't ask me why, because I don't have an answer for you. But I have always wanted to go to Pearl Harbor and go to the monument over the USS Arizona. Big dream of mine. About to come true. Or so I thought....
...It was super windy so they canceled the ferries that were taking people out there. WHAT?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! I was bummed. Royally. Oh well. I'm going back again sometime anyway, right? This picture is of the actual anchor from the Arizona. It's ginormous.
There's a pretty big museum there that is really well done. They have a page of the actual speech that Pres. Roosevelt gave....you know which one I'm talking about. Anyway, it has his hand written corrections on it. And I found it fascinating to see that he had written in the most famous part. It originally said "a date that will live in world history." He changed it so say "a date which will live in infamy." I'd say that was a pretty good change. So fascinating!
The Dole Plantation!! On day number 2 we went road trippin with Tharon and Holly. Which was an adventure of it's own. To say the least. But we got to see all the sights that I was dying to see. I had heard that the Dole pineapple plant was something you shouldn't miss, mostly because the pineapple ice cream was so amazing that it should be illegal. So yeah, that got me there.
They weren't lying. It's incredible!
Holly was reading the sign and trying to teach Matt a thing or two about pineapple. Did you know that once a pineapple is picked, it doesn't continue to ripen? True story. So when you buy a pineapple at the store, be sure it's ripe, because it won't get better if you set it on your windowsill in the sun. Just sayin.
They have a little garden set up so you can see all the different varieties of pineapple that they can grow there. I had no idea there were so many!!! I thought maybe there would be a few different types, but not 12 or so! It was really cool to see how they grow, too. For some reason I thought they grew in the ground, with the spiky green part poking out of the ground. Like a carrot. Not the case. It was very temping to just pick on of the little babies and bring it home. But, I was a good girl, and I resisted.
Yes, we are kids at heart.
I think Tharon enjoyed himself. :)
The pineapple express!! And no, I'm not talking about weed. That's really what it's called! It was a nice little tour through the grounds. Probably not worth the money though.
They have a HUGE garden maze there that you can run through to find certain checkpoints, and once you find them all you get a prize. It's gargantuan. Seriously. It holds the world record. We did it for a little bit, and found about half of the checkpoints. Pretty incredible.
Holy crap!!! Matsumoto's shave ice! Thank you to the 2 people who recommended that we go here. I couldn't understand what all the hype was about when it came to shave ice in Hawaii. I mean, we have sno cones here, and they really aren't all that great! So what's the big deal!? Oh my. My my my. You have no idea. It is amazing. They shave that ice down so incredibly fine, and have made dousing it with sugar mixes into an art. PLUS, they put sweetened condensed milk on it, which might sound a little iffy, but it's positively delicious. It was truly delicious!
Temples make me happy. And camera happy. And this one was no exception. It's so incredibly beautiful. The start of the long water feature out front has this statue thingy, and it says Maternity across the top. We asked one of the people in the visitor's center what that was all about, and he explained that it represented the blessings that are passed down from generation to generation, like the water going down all the levels, all the way out to the ocean, for all eternity. Because where the water ends, a road begins, and it goes all the way out to the ocean. Pretty dang neat. I had no idea.
Straight shot out to the ocean.
Haha, yeah....we'd been in the car too long! He wasn't truly being angry, just joking, but it was still hilarious!
This was at the outdoor mall by Waikiki beach. It was so pretty. And I felt way too poor to be walking down the street, because all the stores were super ritzy. Like Armani, and Burberry, and, well, Apple. Let's be honest, I can't shop there either! It's definitely a place where rich people go to shop.
Hunter and Matt getting ready to go body boardin. This was our last day. Boohoo! We went to the beach because our flights weren't until about 9:00 at night, so we had some time to kill. We decided to do something relaxing.
Kate.
Matt and Holly decided to bury Brayton. And, well.....we're a little irreverent, so he was given some huge sand boobs, and a little stick weiner. It was absolutely hilarious! We were all laughing so hard! Until Brayton jumped out because he thought he felt a crab tickling his leg. He then realized that it had just been his own hand. Ha! Funny!
This trip was an absolute blast. And i didn't get sunburned at all until this last day. Arg! I was so upset. At least it wasn't too bad of a sunburn, and it didn't hurt at all after one day. I truly want to go back to Hawaii multiple times throughout the rest of my life. It is one of my most favorite places!
It was fun to spend time with the whole family and see so much of this Earth's beauty. It's a blessing that we are able to see what we have, and go to the places that we have. We're really lucky, and we know it!
