We had such a great time in Hawaii. Oooh did we love it! It was so nice to feel the sunshine and soak in the warmth over Spring Break. The kids had a great time and enjoyed the sunshine and swimming as much as we hoped they would. My parents also came and helped out so much with the kids. It really was the perfect vacation. We spent a week in Maui and I think that is now one of our favorite places on earth.

Here are the highlights from each day. I really debated whether or not to put all this in but ended up doing it for the memories. Sorry for a long travel-log. You can skip through it if you want to!

MARCH 19
Our first day out and about was a little overcast and rainy. I thought this was a cute picture of Dave and the kids walking to our first beach, buckets and shovels in hand and flip-flops flapping. Loved those palm trees! The water was a little chilly so we didn't stay too long but the kids were so excited to actually be at the beach. Here is Lexi squealing as she ran along the ocean's edge for her first time.
Some of us got sick for a few days which put a little damper on the trip... we took turns having fevers, aches and croupy-coughs. In the afternoon a few of us stayed and took naps while the others went to the Maui Aquarium. Here are Dave and Kyler by the shark tank which Kyler thought was pretty cool.




MARCH 20
Woke up bright and early and headed for Ka'anapali beach. We loved EVERYTHING about the beach! Here are Dave and the kids testing out the water. It didn't take long before everyone was wet and covered in sand.We built sand castles to our hearts content...Splashing and running through the waves was the BEST! Kyler was a hoot doing somersaults down the beach into the waves. He loved every minute of it!One of my favorite pictures... my baby's cute feet in the sand. Dave took Kyler snorkeling for his first time and that kid is a natural. He caught on so fast and loved it. They saw some big fish and lots of coral. After that we couldn't keep him out of the water! Brenner at the beach. He would not leave his hat on for anything!

In the afternoon we walked around the shops in Lahaina. Right in the middle of the shops is this HUGE Banyan Tree. It is supposedly all ONE tree. Amazing!
That night my parents put the kids to bed while Dave and I went to a magician/comedian show. It's supposed to be one of the best shows in Maui and it was hilarious! I haven't laughed that hard for a long time. So fun!

MARCH 21
Kyler was either snorkeling at the beach or in the pool. Snorkeling was definitely his favorite thing about being in Hawaii! I seriously didn't see much of Kyler without those goggles! He was constantly in the water!Lexi had several favorite things, "Fruit loops every day for breakfast," "swimming," and "the airplane."
Porter spent most of his time paddling around the hot tub in his life jacket, sometimes fully clothed. It made me laugh. When I asked him what his favorite thing about Hawaii was he said of course, "The hot tub." Brenner was a dream the whole time. He took great naps, he loved being held nearly every minute by someone, loved the water and being outside everywhere we went. He was a joy! Here he is splashing his feet in the pool.

In the afternoon Dave, Kyler, my Dad and I went for a helicopter tour of Haleakala Crater and east Maui. It was fun at first and then the last 15 minutes I was trying not to throw up. I get carsick easy so I took some anti-nausea medicine before we went but it didn't help at all! I honestly can't believe I have a smile on my face in this picture because I felt awful. We did see some waterfalls though.
That night we went to a Luau and had a feast while watching a hula show. It was so fun! The kids thought the fire-jugglers were pretty awesome.Here is the roasted pig...

MARCH 22
Drove the infamous "Road to Hana." There are said to be over 600 curves in this winding road along the north coast of Maui. We stopped halfway for some island-famous banana bread and coconut candy. It was a gorgeous drive! Those look like orange leaves along the sides of the road but they are orange flowers that fell out of the trees. Isn't that gorgeous?The kids endured it well...And my wonderful parents were great sports and so much help every step of the way. We were all so glad they came to Hawaii with us.

MARCH 23
Dave, Kyler and my Dad went on a guided snorkel tour of Molekini Crater and Turtle Arches. They saw lots of whales only about 40 feet away! They also swam with some sea turtles and had an amazing time. While they were gone my mom and I took the other kids and went and did some more souvenier shopping in the shops along the beach and got some messy ice cream. Later in the afternoon we swam and lounged around the pool. One of my favorite memories from the trip was that night Dave and I went walking on the beach at sunset. So peaceful, so relaxing and just FUN to be with my husband in Hawaii walking on the beach. I love him! Something kinda funny is we didn't realize the parking lot closed at sunset so when we got back to the car about 10 minutes later our car was locked in! We had to find a security guard to let us out. A little adventure!

MARCH 24
We went back to the beach and just soaked it all in one more time. I could have used a few more days relaxing in the sun. We played in the waves and built more sand castles and snorkeled some more. Dave and I swam with a sea turtle! That was a highlight for me since that is the first one I've seen so close. It swam right underneath us and we followed it for a little ways. So neat! We saw so many whales blowing in the distance. It was a great morning at the beach, I wish we could go back. We had to check out of the condo so we dashed back to pack up and then since we didn't fly out until that night we drove to Wailea and up the side of the big volcano. We also stopped and got some fresh pineapple and a coconut to bring home. The pineapple passed at the airport but we had to leave the coconut there. I was so sad! I thought that would be a fun show-and-tell for the kids to take to school. Kyler also posed by these gigantic leaves. Hawaii has so many gorgeous flowers and beautiful trees. It was beautiful everywhere! Before we went to the airport we stopped at Krispy Kreme and got donuts. What a great ending!

We flew all night and got back to a blizzard in Idaho on Wednesday. We were hoping all the snow would have melted while we were gone but no such luck. It was a great vacation but it's also nice to be home. We can't wait to go back someday!

Last night we made a Leprechaun Trap. We heard rainbows lure them in so Lexi drew one with a pot of gold on the front. We also heard Leprechaun's don't like to obey rules so she wrote "Don't Come In!" over the rainbow. Isn't that sneaky? The roof wasn't secure so when the Leprechaun stepped on top he would fall in and we would catch him! Lexi carefully placed a trail of gold fish crackers leading the way to the trap (love the face she pulls in most of our pictures). After decorating some green bowler hats the kids went to bed almost too excited to sleep for what they might find in the morning.We woke up to find that the Leprechauns had definitely visited our home. It was quite exciting to see that they had turned our milk green, turned the toilet water green, drawn shamrock's on the windows, turned our couches backwards, put the barstools up on the kitchen counter and opened all the kitchen drawers. What a funny surprise!

We didn't catch a real-live Leprechaun in our trap, but we caught the Lucky Charm's Leprechaun! It's a once-in-a-lifetime deal at our house to have sugar cereal for breakfast so that was quite the joy in itself.

Since Leprechaun's are cobblers they found the kids' shoes and filled them with St. Patrick's Day shirts and a few treats. How lucky is that?

Aren't they cute in green? I love these three!

Brenner's swollen gums finally gave way to his two top teeth this afternoon! Hooray! He loved the green balloons and squealed as he attacked them. I'm just glad one didn't pop in his face the way he was squeezing them. Cute baby.

We ate our green dinner (green eggs and ham, green rolls, peas, broccoli, celery, grapes, cucumbers) around our green table. The green in the eggs kinda freaked the kids out.

The kids made this green pudding for dessert. I thought it was such a cute idea that they could squish and mash their own pudding in a baggie but they weren't as thrilled about it as I was. The color green must be an iffy color to eat because Kyler would only eat one bite and the other kids didn't even dare try it. I ate my whole serving and told them it was good but it still didn't convince them. Silly kids. All in all it was a fun day!

(I got most of these ideas from Tip Junkie. She has tons of fun ideas.)


Well.... our bags are packed and we are heading here tomorrow.
Can't wait to soak in some sun in HAWAII!!! See ya'll soon!

Because I am using this as our family journal of sorts I want to catch up on a few things we've been up to... (That's a warning that this will be a LONG rather uneventful post!) The days zoom by so fast but here are a few moments from of the last couple of weeks in our ordinary wonderful life...

Lunch With Kyler -- I picked Lexi up a little early from Kindergarten so we could go to lunch with Kyler since she missed the opportunity last time we went. She and Porter thought it was the BEST thing ever, especially when they found out it was popcorn chicken. They talked about it for days after. Lexi said she can't wait to be in 1st grade next year so she can eat lunch at school every day. You might notice our amigo in the picture. I don't know who he was, just a boy sitting at the table. He watched me like a hawk and everytime I took out the camera he was right there in the back ground. I finally gave up and just let him be in the photo. He gave a great smile so I guess it's all good! Kyler was in such a hurry to eat so he could get outside to play at recess. Swinging is his thing right now. He told me later that he actually does back flips out of the swing when it's time to go back inside. I don't know if I'm thankful or not to know that! Why is it a mother's job to worry so much?

Sugar Cookies -- The kids begged to make sugar cookies on Sunday after church. Things were rolling along smoothly and they were great little helpers until I turned my back for seriously like 30 seconds and turned back around to see my boys bathing in the flour. I guess they got tired of rolling out the dough. Sadly it put a quick end to our cookie making adventure as I shooed them off the counters and out of the kitchen. We were almost done anyway so they had done a lot of cookie making already. This story does have a happy ending because I let them back in the kitchen after things were cleaned up and it was time for frosting. And then we all ate way too many yummy cookies. I guess the only solution is to stop baking! But wouldn't that take out so much joy? I sure hope there is baking in heaven.

Elder's Quorum Sledding Party -- such a blast! Freezing!!! So great to have snowmobiles pulling sledding trains back up to the top.
The kids loved every minute and got to roast hot dogs after the sledding and have piping hot chocolate. Porter kept dropping his hot dog in the snow with his poor frozen hands. But it was still lots of fun! We love our ward.


Jump-A-Thon - Kyler is really a great little jumper! You can tell it's getting toward the end of the school year with all his pants starting to get worn out in the knees. Go Kyler! It was fun to go watch him jump away. He is such a good little soul.

Reading - Lexi is becoming a great reader and loves to get out her book as soon as she gets home from Kindergarten. I love to hear her voice as she sounds out the words. It's so cute.



Fire Station Field Trip -- Boy was Porter ever excited to go to the Fire Station with his preschool class! Here they are learning about "Get out and stay out!" which they all got to practice shouting.Then they got to practice "Stop, Drop and Roll." It cracked me up.Trying on a real Fireman's hat and coat was definitely the highlight!

9 Months Old -- and the monthly bear photo. It is amazing to me how quickly the months pass by. He is always on the go and not still for long. These pictures captured it perfectly, now you see him, now you don't! He finally started crawling last weekend. Hooray for Brenner! He works so hard at it and his poor little knees are always red. He loves to pull himself up to standing on things. He's always so proud and smiles and smiles and makes a lot of noise until we notice. He is very noisy! He loves to poke our eyes or stick his fingers up our nose or in our mouths. He loves to eat. When he has a cracker or something he always tries to share with us and puts it up to our mouths. He loves bath time and playing in the water. He's funny because he splashes like crazy and then looks up at me like I'm the one that got water in his face. We took the kids swimming last weekend and it was Brenner's first time in a big swimming pool. He loved it for about an hour and then was so worn out he fell fast asleep. He gets quite silly when he's tired and giggles and giggles at everything and then we know the storm is coming and in just a minute he switches from laughing to crying and then we know it's time to put him in bed. He's at the clingy stage where he only wants me and I love it. I love to pick him up and feel his cute little arms wrap around my neck in a tight squeeze and I love his slobbery open mouth kisses on my cheek. Love this little guy!Oh, and his new thing is to pull himself up by my pant legs while I'm standing doing dishes or cooking dinner. Slows me down a bit but I can't resist this cute little smile peeking up at me.
A few other things I've been up to...

Wheat Bread -- I finally used my wheat grinder! I seriously love that thing. We've had wheat pancakes quite a few mornings (I must admit Dave is the pancake maker around here and I love waking up to the smell of pancakes on Saturday mornings!) I made wheat bread last Saturday for the first time with a fabulous recipe I got from my SIL Katie. It turned out great and we ate a whole loaf right out of the oven! Are there many things better than homemade bread and jam?

Spring Cleaning -- I've been cleaning out closets and cupboards and it feels so good to sort, organize, throw out and give away! I also put up some new pictures of my 4 sweet kiddos because poor Brenner wasn't on the wall yet. After 9 months I thought I better get him up there too. It's been so long since I've done much decorating in my house so I was excited. There is something so satisfying about changing things up in your home every now and then.

Exercising -- I finally started exercising again and I am so happy about it. There is something about gaining control of one area of your life that helps you gain control of other areas. When I exercise I also eat better during that day, I make myself get things done (like laundry, etc.) The other morning I ran for 25 minutes straight. 2.64 miles. Then I walked another mile. That is probably such a small thing for most of you but HUGE for me. I was very proud of myself that day. Then I ran outside yesterday in our frozen tundra and it was very invigorating. The neighbor's dogs ran with me all the way down our road and back so I had some good company, which I thought was funny. I need to get going this morning and get my buns on the treadmill. It always feels so great to get that checked off for the day.

Adobe Photoshop -- I just finished taking a class at nights at the high school. I appreciate Dave who stayed home and got the kids in bed on those nights so I could go learn something I've been trying to figure out for over a year. Hopefully soon I can dazzle you all with some digital scrapbook pages. Hopefully!

Okay, I've crammed enough down your throats for now huh?! My apologies for such a long post if anyone out there made it through it. Each day is so good full of so many moments, some happy, some hard, but I feel so blessed and so thankful for all these moments in my life with my sweet family. They are truly my joy.

Happy weekend!