Kauai Part II

I'm back to try and finish my Hawaii stuff. It's old news now, but I want to get it done for me. There are a ton more pictures I could put on, but I am calling it good.

Wednesday was perfect weather and we spent the day at the beach. Mike and Kimber were worried about taking us to Barking Sands because they thought we would all die in the waves. But we went anyway, and everyone survived. The waves weren't that bad that day. It was a fabulous beach and no one was there except a few locals.

Matt on the boogie board

Here is Mike cleaning out his shorts after spending an embarrassing amount of time digging a hole in the sand
After lunch we went over to another beach. Again there were only a few other people on the beach. It is so great to have a perfect beach all to yourself.

Here is the gang playing out in the waves. I attempted a few and thought I was going to drown, so I gave up and just laid out. But these guys were pros and were out there forever.


Friday we took a 5 hour boat cruise up the the Napali Coast.

We saw lots of dolphins
Here are some pictures of the Napali Coast. I wish I had a better camera. The pictures don't do the beauty justice.




So pretty. Think Jurassic Park. Parts were filmed here...
This is so mean of me. It was ironic because Matt was pushing for us to do the 7 hour boat ride, which we vetoed, and he was the one that was super sick. I couldn't help but take a picture of him in his misery.
We had a sweet baby blue Grand Marquis as one of our rentals. Here is Kimber modeling it...
Saturday we went to Kipu Falls. Ther are these cool falls that have a rope swing. There was a real live Tarzan there. You can see him sitting in the tree in this picture. He scaled the tree in about 5 seconds. After I took this picture he started bouncing on the branches and then did a back flip into the water. We thought he was cool, but apparently he did too. Then he turned into a cocky show-off.
It had rained a little that morning so the water looks kind of gross
Matt on the rope swing
Kipu Falls

The boys were trying to be like Tarzan after going on the rope swing and decided to climb trees to get back up instead of taking the ladder.

After jumping off the falls
Mike
Paul
Out to dinner Friday night. Here are our wonderful friends who made this trip so much fun!

Mike and KimberPaul and Ali
Jeremy and Shauni
And of course, US!
I think we went to Crazy Shirts about 6 times. Here is Jer sitting on the bench outside waiting
Sunday was our last day there, and it was our 10th Anniversary! I can't believe that it's been 10 years since we got married. In some ways it seems like just yesterday, and in some ways it feels like forever ago. But I'm proud to say that 10 years and 3 perfect kids later we are even happier than we were on our wedding day. I'm so lucky to have Matt as my husband. And I'm so glad we got to go on this trip to celebrate! Here we are on our anniversary standing on the beach at our hotel. (If I had a scanner I would scan in pictures of us on our wedding day and you could all see how we look much older now. Probably best it's not a possibility. It makes me sad how much I've aged.)
This is the beach we ate dinner on
Us at dinner
And here is the whole group at dinner Sunday night right before going to the airport for our red-eye flight home. Ugh.
What a perfect, relaxing vacation. Thanks to our fabulous friends for coming and making it such a fun adventure. And thanks again to Lindsay and John (and everyone else who pitched in) for taking such good care of our kids while we were away!

Kauai Part I

I've been working on this for a week now and have been so overwhelmed by all the fun and pictures I wanted to include that I finally decided to split it into two posts. Here is the beginning of our adventure...

Matt and I have been planning this trip since our honeymoon in Oahu really, but the real planning began about two years ago. We have a few other couple friends (The Croslands and The Keiths) who were married within a few months of us, so all of us were going to be having our 10 year anniversaries the same year. Then we invited The McGowns along because they are so much fun! I honestly thought it would never happen, and that Matt and I would end up going by ourselves, but everyone actually came! It was seriously the best, most relaxing vacation. Thanks in huge part to my sister Lindsay and her husband John who came to watch the kids for the whole 8 1/2 days. I didn't have to worry about things at home, so I could just relax! Plus for those of you who have been to Kauai, you know that the island is just the perfect place for nothingness!

We got in late Sunday, November 1st. Meet up with everyone and settled in to our hotel.

Here is the beach that our hotel was on. Pretty much picture perfect! We spent Monday hanging at our beach and had great weather.

This is the grounds at our hotel. Notice the tiny spot of white that is a swan swimming in the pond. So perfect.
Mike and Jeremy playing PSP (I think that's what it's called.)
There are chicken and roosters EVERYWHERE on the island. Adie would have thought it was cool, but it's pretty annoying. Especially when they are waking you up at 5 am.
Monday night at Bubba's getting hamburgers. Matt is totally closing his eyes, but I think it's cute of everyone else so I had to include it!
Tuesday the weather was not so great. We decided to head west. We drove up to see Waimea Canyon, which is the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It was still pretty cloudy up there. We could see the canyon some, but of course none of my pictures turned out. I just googled it though and the pictures are amazing, so if you're interested in what it looks like you'll have to go that route.

Matt and I with the Canyon behind us.
Everyone, except Paul, at the canyon lookout.
Mike is so pretty!
This is our view on our hotel patio.
Getting shaved ice on Tuesday. That day was a lost cause. It was so rainy all day. I was beginning to worry our trip would be a rainy mess!
We decided that Wednesday we were going to kayak on the Wailua River no matter what the weather was. We woke up and the weather wasn't too bad.

Here are a few picture of the beautiful views as we were beginning our adventure.

Jer and Shauni (Paul and Ali in the background.)
We kayaked to the trail to hike up to Wailua Falls. Here is Mike trying to be Tarzan.
The hike was super muddy thanks to all the rain. We had some rain while we were hiking too.

Ali is six months pregnant, but was such a trooper. She did everything, and had such a good attitude. Here are Mike and Matt helping her across the river. Contrary to how this picture make it looks, her husband, Paul (in the background) was so sweet to her the whole trip and was always concerned about her and helping her.
Along the trail
Here is Kimber at the waterfall. It was very impressive. Matt helped me to get behind it, but I didn't go all the way through because I was kind of freaking out.
Matt and I at Wailua Falls
By the time we were done with the hike it was raining pretty steadily, but we decide to kayak a bit further to see the fern grotto. Here is one picture of it. The things that happened in the fern grotto must stay in the fern grotto, but let's just say that I laughed so hard! I did that a lot on this trip.
Then it rained on us the whole kayak trip back. Luckily the rain is warm, but I was still cold for a good 4 hours after.

We spent several night playing games at the hotel.

I love this picture of Mike with his beautifully combed hair!
So that gets us through Wednesday. Hopefully I can finish up the rest of the trip soon!

Halloween 2009

We had lots of fun celebrating Halloween this year. Here are a few of the highlights...

Our ward Halloween carnival

Adie had a kindergarten program that was so cute. The pictures are a bit dark, but you can make her out in the crowd.

After the program the school had the Halloween parade. As soon as Adie walked past Andrew ran after her. It was so cute.
The kids and me on Halloween, ready for some trick or treating. Adie really wanted me to paint her face white with black spots to match her outfit, but I think it made her look a little like a skeleton face or something.
With my sister Lindsay, her baby, Caleb, and sister Stephanie.

All I Want for Christmas...

is my FOUR front teeth!!!

The hole just keeps getting bigger!

Hair

I personally think that there is nothing cute than a little boy with a mohawk. Yesterday I decided to attempt one on Andrew after he smeared yogurt in his hair. It worked! To me it is the male milestone that is equivalent to when I could finally get the girls hair into a ponytail. He looked so adorable that I am now going to give you an over kill of pictures of his cute face.

Notice the gash and bruise. He constantly has one of those on his forehead.
I love this picture. I don't know if he looks stoned or just perfectly pouty, but I just want to kiss him on his lips!
Though he still drives me crazy most days, I sure love him and think he's so cute! In the last week and a half he has finally started to talk a little more. He will say Mama if I ask him to, he learned "boo", tonight he said "bath", he makes a decent attempt at "juice" and "cookie." So I think it's starting to come. He will also try to mimic our mouths when we are saying word to him. I hope that communication will soon alleviate some of his frustrations!

Chocolate Factory

I love that the girls use their imaginations, especially Adie. Adie has to read 20 min a day now for school. Reading picture books wasn't cutting it so we took them to buy a few bigger kid books. First on the agenda - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They've also seen both movie adaptations, so they knew what it was all about. But after the first night of reading Adie came upstairs telling me all about the chocolate factory we were going to open at our house and how she would be in charge of making new inventions. Her latest idea is a sheep that grows cotton candy instead of fur. So last sunday morning she started making "blue tickets" to wrap in the chocolate bars she was going to make. Finally that night we gave into her and let her and Isabelle dip a bunch of things in chocolate.

They made their first chocolate bar. She had me write "Matt Wonka" in it with a toothpick.
Then she placed the blue ticket on it
She had Isabelle wrap it in tinfoil, and they took it along with some dipped goodies over to our neighbor to be the first invited guest to our chocolate factory!

I Love That...

...Isabelle says "shortly" instead of "surely" (and it's her favorite fancy word, so she says it A LOT!)

"Mom, there are shortly a lot of trees here."

"It's shortly a nice day!"