mahalo

In another post to follow will be the sailing adventure of Brian across the Pacific... until then is our fabulous holiday at his destination. We, the kids and I with my mum, flew out to Hawaii to await the arrival of our sailors.

We went to the Big Island of Hawaii and stayed in a house in Kona. We traveled over to Hilo to meet up with them the day they arrived. We beached and traveled the island to see all the sights we could while we were there. It was Brian's first time to Hawaii so I wanted him to experience all that he could. He did NOT like the driving around the island, and he did not LOVE the locals life... but He did love the beaches and the time that we had to explore together as a family.

 

One day we traveled to see the Volcano National park, and then up to Akaka Falls and Waipio Valley. We ended up doing the whole island that day!

Natalie had to stop on the side of the road for her Coconut. She had been asking me for it the whole trip. I am not sure where she saw that she could drink out of a coconut, but she insisted that she had to do it while in Hawaii. The kids all tried it and none of them liked it. It was short lived, but at least they did it!

We beached it a lot. The first beach we tried to find was a doozie. We got dropped off by Dad who had an errand to run and we ended up having to walk 1.5 miles with all of our beach gear, all 3 kids, and Nana across hot sand, and lava rocks. It was not a well beaten path and it was hot that day. We got a good work out in and saw many sea turtles up on the sand that day. Needless to say, after that we stuck to the state beaches that had easy access!

The house we stayed in was up on the hill, which was great because it was away from a lot of the bustle of town. It was about 15 minutes from Kona and from the beach. We were able to swim since we had our own pool, and Courtney was able to nap almost daily...otherwise she would look like this:

Lots of lizards and gecko's for the kids to chase. Nat ended up catching about 5 and loved to hold them and "play" with them. The babies were the easiest to catch and apparently the easiest to kill... She accidentally killed about 3/4 of them. She brought one over and said, look mom he is sun tanning, totally innocent that she had killed the poor guy. She later layed him down and told me he was sleeping. I moved him and tossed him out. I didn't want her to be sad when she realized she had killed the thing.

The night we went over to Hilo to stay and wait for the boys in the morning, we ended up staying at the most beautiful bed and breakfast. The reservation was made online through Expedia and they messed it up. This place only allows 3 people per room and we were shocked when we arrived to one king bed and nothing else. I went to ask where the couch was that we were told they had... The owners were not happy about having 5 people in a room. They would have been even more upset had they learned that Courtney peed on a pillow and in the bed. We cleaned that one up and I just hoped they wouldn't catch it. Regardless, it was amazingly beautiful and if breakfast wasn't 40$ per person, we would have eaten the banana pancakes in the morning.

This picture below is so sweet to me. We had gone out on this rock wall to wait for the sailors to come into this bay. We spotted them coming from across the bay and this was the kids pointing to where they were. They kept hugging each other because they were so excited to see Dad!

We stopped at a few little shops and deli's/bakeries along the way around the island and each time, they were surprisingly Delicious! Brian got a hot pastrami everywhere we went and fell in love.

We also stopped at the lava tubes while we were at the Volcano National park. This was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was beautiful and amazing. On the way in, I was holding boots hand and tripped and fell, breaking my sandal...and pulling Boots down with me. I was fine, he scraped up his knees pretty bad. I wasn't allowed to hold any more hands that day. Sorry buddy! Momma is clumsy!

It was such a  fun family vacation and I am so glad that we got to experience it as a family and with my  Mom and Dad. They only changes I would have made would have been doing more! 2 weeks is a long time, but it went so so fast and it felt like we weren't able to do everything we wanted. We did end up going in ALMOST every day for a snow cone aka shave ice. They were Delicious. Brian now has dreams of opening up a Hawaiian Shave ice place here in Dallas. We shall see right? Seriously though, they were incredible.

Cant wait to go back to another Island so Brian can see more beauty of Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii was pretty, but it is not the prettiest island at all. Lava rock is only cool for about 1 minute... then you get over it and want to see Maui or something! I am not complaining, It was wonderful and amazing!

This is NOT happening

I am not crying. 

I am so happy and sad, and filled with different emotions today! Boots is off to Kindergarten. Natalie is off to first grade. Natalie was so excited to show him the ropes and tell him all about school and show him where to go. They even didn't want us to walk them in, Natalie wanted to help him find his spot in his class. 

He is such a little joy to have in our family and I am going to miss his sweet little face and helping hand around the house during the day. Courtney is going to miss her partner in crime, and her "family" playing buddy. They are best buds. 

I hope they both make friends and be a good friend to the kids around them. I hope they are polite and listen to their teachers. I hope they smile and are kind. I hope they aren't shy, but I hope they aren't obnoxious. Most importantly, I hope they have fun!

Daddy gave them each a fathers blessing this morning before they left, and then took them out for donuts on the way to school. They were a little mad that they didn't get the pancakes that I promised them, but they will get over that fast! LOVE YOU KIDDOS!! Happy First day of school!!

The awesome years...

Each year, Brian and I plan an anniversary trip together. We go away for a few nights and don't bring the family. We attend a NEW temple that we haven't been to before and there are NO kids allowed. We have made this a tradition and we will continue to do it each and every year. It is a wonderful experience for us to rekindle and get to know each other better. You would think that after 8 years there wouldn't be too much more to learn about a person right? You are wrong. But we always have so much fun on our trips and I look forward to them so much!

 

This year because of budget reasons, we decided to do our anniversary as part of our trip to Hawaii. Usually this is a no no, since we aren't supposed to have family there with us...obviously this was a little different. We knew that we would be in Hawaii anyways and neither of us have been to that temple.

 

My wonderful parents offered to watch the kids while we had the whole day out for our big anniversary day. I was in charge of planning it since 1. Brian was on a sail boat and 2. Brian has never been to Hawaii before. I wanted to do something fun and adventurous but I know that Brian is scared of heights and doesn't LOVE to do anything too risky. Helicopter rides were pretty pricey on this island (like 450$ a person) and we had already gone as a family to see a lot of the sights) So I found an awesome zip lining tour at the north tip of the island. It was way up in the canopy top of the trees and it was incredible. It was 4 suspension bridges, 9 zip lines, and 2 repels. We had a blast. Our group was awesome and the tour guides were great. Brian loved it cause he was able to make everyone laugh with his jokes. We were silly and just got to experience something so new to us both! THIS is why we love our trips. We get to see each other in new environments and do new things together that we normally would never do elsewhere. SO fun!!

The longest line was over 1200 feet long and the tallest we got was about 250 feet up.

 Then we headed to lunch at this little cafe on the side of the road. I use trip advisor to find good places to eat and this was a little gem! Brian got the hot pastrami sand which almost everywhere we went on the island so this was no exception! It was Delicious and very cute and quaint.

 

 Next we headed to a beach. MY plans are always different than Brians, even when I try to plan the whole day. The first thing that changed was this stop. I wanted to go snorkling and he thought snorkling here would be dumb since one day we will snorkel the great oceans! COME ON BRIAN! So we layed out and played in the water. It was nice and relaxing to beach without being on the constant look out for the little people!!

That night I had a luau planned for us to go to at the nice hotel there on the island. We popped home to shower up and while I was taking the few minutes to get ready Brian overheard Boots say something to Nana about wishing he could go to a luau. As soon as we got in the car Brian confronted me about it. This man loves his food and he doesn't like to spend money when he may not like it or if he knows he wont like it. I wanted him to experiene the culture and the beauty of the islanders but he was not interested in the menu... so we headed up to Ruths Chris for some great steaks. Ya we can get that back home, but if it makes my man happy!

Since it was such a jammed day of going around the island, we had to save the temple for another day. We got up nice and eary in the morning and headed out to the Kona Hawaii Temple. It was gorgeous and awesome! We were supposed to go through in Tongan, which I was really looking forward to, but they changed it to english last minute. What a wonderful place to be and go.

So here is to another fabulous year with the man of my dreams. The one who makes me a better person and the one who loves me for who I am. He lifts me up and supports me in all that I do. He loves me through the good and the bad and he is ALWAYS there to listen and give advice. He is charming, loving, kind, generous, loving, handsome, charitable, thoughtful, hard working, and I couldn't ask for anything more. Happy 8th anniversary Brian my love!! It was fun and I cant wait till next year.

Reading pass

In kindergarten last year Natalie earned a free pass to go to Six Flags over Texas. She did this by reading a certain number of hours, I think it was 360 hours or something. The pass was good from June until July of this summer and I realized yesterday that it was going to expire. So I took her to Six Flags today and we spent the entire day there having fun. 

She is so brave and every ride that she was tall enough to go on, she went on. This included the 400 foot swings - that is the tallest swing ride in the entire world. It was insanely scary, my palms were sweaty, but she didn't even budge. She had so much fun smiling and screaming on every ride. There were only about five or six rides that she was not tall enough for so hopefully next year she will be tall enough to go, because I know that she will be brave enough to go! 

It was a blast. I hope that boots and nat will earn their free pass next year and we can take them both! I love rides, especially scary ones, so it is so fun to have been able to have a buddy! 

My favorite part Of the day was our chats. She asked me about being in love and boyfriends and we talked about how old she have to be before she was allowed to have a boyfriend. We talked about why people break up. And that you don't always have to be in love with your boyfriend. She asked me why some people only have one mommy or one daddy and not both. And she was really concerned that she would already be a mommy and not know who she was supposed to marry! She is darling and I love her so much. She is growing into a beautiful fun, but still sassy, little girlfriend of mine and I love it!