Hu-Veye-E (or Hawaii)

***SPOILER ALERT*** Ok not really spoiler alert but I do want to give fair warning that this post includes a bazillion pictures so look or scroll or do what you need to do.......

Whenever I think of the word Hawaii I think of my brother's wedding. The photographer lady opted out of the customary "say cheese" in favor of "say Hawaii." The way she said Hawaii was so funny to me at the time and now I cannot think of Hawaii-only Hu -Veye -EE.

Anyway, the most fabulous boyfriend/husband in the world took me on an adventure last week to Hawaii. We had been meaning to go for several years but I was ginormously pregnant or nursing a baby or Brent was working way too much.....SO finally we had no excuse not to go and just went for it.

We decided to go for the less touristy route and headed to Poipu Kauai. Every single minute of the six days was awesome. It rained nearly the whole time but no worries-we did come home sunburned from the 15 minutes of sun we got. Not that we delight in skin cancer but it would be a serious shame to go to Hawaii and not get ANY sun...

The first day we spent time at the farmers market trying all kinds of foreign fruits. Who knew there was such a thing as egg fruit? And it was about as appetizing as it sounded. The pineapple on the other hand was phenomenal as were the bananas. We also hit the beach in the rain and froze our noggins off but had fun in the HUGE body surfing waves. A highlight was gettingPukadogs for lunch. Hot dogs will never be the same to me. Coconut and polish dogs are a must have- a little slice of heaven with spice. We also stopped at spouting horn-like old faithful but smaller and every 30 seconds.

Sunday we went to church and then drove through Waimea Canyon (the grand canyon of Hawaii). Again the rain and fog decreased the visibility but WOW what amazing sites anyway. After getting totally car sick we made it back to our condo and slept for like 11 hours by accident-it is amazing how much sleep you can get when not woken by kiddos ready for breakfast at the crack of dawn...

Monday we did an awesome zip line tree top adventure. The platforms were literally 70-90 feet up in the tree tops (some were as tall as 200 feet). And once the fear of jumping off the platform wore off the adrenaline rush was great, especially when I realized I didn't really know how to stear. Usually, since having kids, I completely avoid anything remotely risky. BUT zip lining in the trees was totally worth it. That afternoon we hit the beach in the rain again and it was awesome! People were running for shelter, but hey we were in the ocean and already wet. There was no lightening so we body surfed on the HUGE waves again. It's probably the most fun I have ever had in the ocean, rain and all. We ate that night at a cool luau. Brent was so amazed by the hip action of the hula girls that he kept looking for some mechanical hip shaker thing.-He figured there was no way anyone could really shake it like that for reals. It kind of humbled me and my Zumba shakes....

Tuesday we hiked an AWESOME trail. (The Na Pali Costal Trail). We only hiked in a little ways of the 11 mile, two day hike. It was pouring and muddy and slippery BUT SO SO SO Beautiful and totally worth it! Someday I want to go back and do the whole thing. Although if you are lucky enough to ever do this hike watch out for skinny dippers in sea caves...Ya, YIKES! Since there was so much more rain than usual (according to locals) the waterfalls were huge and breath taking. -Like literally breath taking.

Wednesday we hung out on Captain Andy's Catamaran and went snorkeling. It was still raining and overcast but it did warm up for a few minutes and we got our amazing sunburns after leaving the sunscreen in the car...The water was a little murky but the views of the cost line was AMAZING. Several movies have been filmed here (Jurassic Park, the new Pirates of theCaribbean) and it is obvious why. The beaches were isolated and pristine but the green mountains raising thousands of feet right out of the water was where the serious awe was.

Thursday morning we flew to Oahu and visited Pearl Harbor. For some reason it was way more depressing than I pictured it being. It was so interesting to me that the presentations were very unbiased. I expected a very "Americans kick butt" presentation but it was very fair/open to the Japanese. Not what I imagined, but then again there's a huge population of Japanese and Chinese in Hawaii. In a way Japan was attacking their own. That afternoon we toured around the island stopping at macadamian nut farms, pineapple plantations, the Polynesian Cultural Center,BYU Hawaii (I had happy thoughts of my sister in law) and the Mormon temple. We got boat loads of shrimp from a hole in the wall truck and it was WAY delish. We finished the day atWaikiki Beach watching the surfers. After seeing all the tourist traps and people I was REALLY happy we opted to spend most of our time on Kauai (Thank you Melinda and David for the input. It couldn't have been more perfect).

It was really surprising to me the break down of the ethnicities in Hawaii. Only 5% of the population are actual native Polynesians. The other shock was all the feral cats and chickens. SERIOUSLY they are all over the place!

But the best part of the trip was coming home to three beautiful girls who we missed like CRAZY! Trips are fun but coming home is the best.

Pictures are in a reverse-ish order since I couldn't figure out how to effectively move them...sorry..

The best part of a trip-three hula girls.

One of the things that made me laugh out loud in the middle of a store-spam flavored macadamian nuts...spam is big there for some reason....

Waikiki Beach at sun set-at least it would be if the sun wasn't hidden behind the clouds.

Mormon Temple in Laie

Best Shrimp EVER-seriously on the side of the shack it boasted of being on the food network...

Self Explanatory...

USS Arizona between the palm trees.

On board the USS Arizona Memorial-made me curious to see the world trade center memorial.

So crappy picutre because of all the clouds ect- but picture green like the wizard of oz meets the blue of BYU thrown together in the most majestic boat cruise ever-then you'll know what the Na Pali Coast looks like.

This is our 15 minute burst of sun for the trip-awesome catamaran tour/snorkel...

This is when they turned off the motor on the boat and busted out the sails...Brent was a happy man. He's loved sailing ever since enjoying the Pontiac Yatch club in MI.

Some famous (I don't remember the name) waterfall close to Hanalee.

Snorkling post Na Pali hike on the beach at the trail head. It had a very cool reef and if you swim too close you will lose skin on your knee and salt water does kind of hurt a wound...

Brent diving deep.

Oh look-Amy rearranged someone else's love message to make her own...I hope they weren't offended to see their love was transient... :)

Cool Rocks on the Na Pali trail

Crossing the small creek to get to the other side of the trail...only it had been raining and was swollen to crotch deep water with a swift current...Don't ask if any of us wiped out...just ask how far up we were wet....

Just in case someone was faint of heart after having climbed the first set of switch backs this view was there to strengthen their resolve. Amazing!

The girls with the mechanical hips at the laua.

All you can eat buffet of all kinds of yummy Hawaiian stuff-this is the anticipation pose..

Zip line-The face says it all.

Brent pointed the camera down just to show how high up we really were...It doesn't do it justice...

Brent braving the one handed zip.

Orange helmets-not that they would do a lot falling from 90 feet up....

Waimea Canyon drive and lots of clouds...impressive none the less.

A shout out to the island mascot-not really but these were honestly EVERY WHERE!!!

Poipu Beach-Beautiful even in the rain...and very uncrowded.

The view out of our bedroom window/glass wall-it sounded even better than it looks.

Brent getting his Pukadog on....if you don't know Brent this is his "wow this is REALLY good" face.

Brent pretending to be Hawaiian or maybe latin?

Me too...

Self photography at spouting horn...

Spouting horn...

We saw this sign on our first day and I thought it was hilarious. After a few days I got it-they were serious about their feral problems...

And in closing I just want to give a shout out to my fabulous mom for loving my girls while we were gone. When we got back Jocelyn ran straight to my mom and hugged her legs not wanting her to go. Cami, Taryn, and Jocelyn probably love her more than us and I think that is great to have a loving relationship with Grandma. Another shout out to Brent's mom for helping us on our way so generously. It was a much needed stress relieving trip thanks to her.

THE Cupcake party

Somehow Taryn came up with a plan to have a cupcake party. She got this idea and ran wild with it. She found just the right cake mixes (funfetti and strawberry). She also found strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla frosting just like she wanted. But the most important part was the sprinkles and glitter for the top (yes she wanted and found silver and gold eatable glitter). I have never seen that many sprinkles on one floor or such huge frosting piles or such huge smiles.

She invited her three little friends from preschool and two other neighbor kids. She really loves these girls and talks about them all the time. The other day when she realized she wouldn't get to go to kindergarten with them (we live in different school zones) she just started sobbing. She is such a passionate child and truly feels so much strong emotion. We'll just have to make sure we have a lot of cupcake parties in the future....

Haven't I seen this before?

Yes I have seen this before. The last time I let Taryn use the stamp pad and she only partially put it away.We gave it a try again and surprise! We got the same results...Don't worry it won't happen again. Once is funny, twice not so much and we will learn from the consequences this time...You would think Jocelyn would get over her infatuation with eating non food items some time soon....BUT clearly she is really happy about it so maybe not.

Easter holidays-way after the fact

Easter weekend was a fun affair here this year. Two sisters and their kids came to town to play and the in town cousins played and the neighbors played.Basically everyone played and had a good time.

We went exploring one morning on a hiking trail. Brent and I saw it awhile ago and wanted to try it but hadn't found the time. Then the neighbor lady told us it was a great one so we had been dieing to go. Brent had to work but the girls and the cousins/sisters went and it was really fun. There were even green areas mixed in with the red rock. It is definitely a repeater hike.

We also had an Easter egg hunt in grandma's back yard. The older cousins helped me hide the almost 200 eggs. Jocelyn quickly learned what she was supposed to do and the older kids hid and re hid the eggs several times so the could find and re find...

After that we checked out the Art in the Park festival thing that they do here every year. I get a kick out of it because it brings a different demographic of people to town than is usual and I love the variety. They offer free face painting and hair do's from a beauty school in town and lots of free craft projects too. Local bands play and some are great and some are funny....(in a nice way ish....)

We also rode bikes (and cousin Luke spanked it!), had picnics at parks and BBQs and painting a lot of toe nails and finger nails....What a great weekend! I am starting to realize that as much as we love the hiking and outdoors and weather here, the best part of living here is getting to see family often. The girls know their cousins and cant get enough of them. What lucky girls they are.

The Easter egg hunt

Lots of riding of wiggle cars and check out the finger nails!!!

The art festival-entertaining kids by taking pictures while they wait and wait and wait in the face painting line.

I will call this picture "peace out" and leave it at that......

The faces finally painted.

Jocelyn and her great buddy who lives behind us. They are so little to be such good friends but they really show interest and affection towards each other.

The whole egg hunting gang

Jocelyn's first experience with Cadbury...I guarantee it won't be her last....although next time I might insist on a healthy breakfast before I let her dig into the chocolate and then not want anything else all morning...

Cami and Taryn love love love the Easter Bunny. They came jumping in on our bed at the crack of dawn telling us the good news that he came. We made them promise to wake us before checking out their baskets...again I might rethink this strategy....

Digging a hole to china at the park volley ball court...I am sure the park maintenance people LOVE us. (We did make them fill it back in.) And it is fun to see that the games and imaginings of my childhood aren't lost, just replayed with my kids.

Jocelyn feeling territorial about her gold fish....Don't even try taking them....

The hike and hikers....

It must have been good because everyone is still smiling after the fact.

This and That.....

It's been a while...We have started doing P90X every night which significantly impacts TV watching and blogging time....not a bad thing....BUT we have been busy with other fun things like....

Playing at the park

taking naps...

Again the park

Cami's science fair project-the night before it was due :) .....She got second place and was super proud of herself...I help with the everyday homework but I totally handed off the science fair to Brent. It worked out great-especially for me! ps if you boil one egg and compare it to a raw egg they have different properties-like buoyancy.....

Cami's multi school choir concert-singing the wild wild west and slinging guns. I had to laugh because just the day before I had read that a kindergarten kid got suspended for making a gun with his fingers and pointing it at some other kid during a game at recess (cops and robbers or hunters or soldier or something like that I am sure). Here hundreds of kids are TAUGHT to gun up and shoot at the crowd of on lookers....

Again more park....

And just in closing I am pretty sure I have the worlds cutest kids. Sure they have their moments but most of the time they are just good easy kids and I couldn't be luckier...