HAWAII-week 1

Hawaii anyone?!?

Reader beware, this is going to be a long post, just because while we are living in Hawaii while me and the kids are home we have no computer and by the time Jon gets here I just don't have the energy to pull the computer out and blog. So I have decided that I will post pictures on a weekly basis. That way I can keep a record of what was happening around here and then my camera won't get to full of pictures. So anyway here it goes!!

We flew out of Salt Lake City airport on July 4th at 3pm. We didn't get to Hawaii until 3:30am (Utah time) so in Hawaii it was 11:30pm. That was by the time we drove an hour to our house. Needless to say we were all exhausted as you can probably tell. This is us waiting for Jon to go and pick up the rental car and come back to the airport and pick us up. Bailee and Kenadee fell asleep outside on a bench waiting.

Curtis didn't last very long either. He got his blanket and fell right to sleep waiting for his dad. This is all of our stuff. I had no idea how much stuff it would take to move for 2 months. And I am wishing that I had packed more-like spices and more boxed food. I can't believe how much the food over here cost.
Here is the inside of our house, this is obviously the kitchen, the only thing missing is a dishwasher, which is a pain in the butt, but we are making it work. I went to Sams and bought a lot of paper products which helps with my sanity. The kitchen is really nice, and it really has a beachy feel to it with the distressed cream cabinets and stainless steel appliances and the granite coutertops. The floor throughout the whole house is large tiles, which feel really good on those hot days after coming back from the beach. Here is the family room/childrens bedroom. The couch folds out to a bed so each night two of the kids get to sleep out here. They actually seem to enjoy it-go figure! Here is looking down the hall. The door that you see straight ahead is the bathroom and then to the right is Jon & I's room and then to the left is the other 2 kids bedroom. One of the two bedrooms which are exactly alike just that Jon & I's has a TV in it. This is the boys dresser and then the girls are out in the hall in a large armoire. You can't see the cupboards but it is the half wall that you see when looking down the hall. This is the bathroom, not huge but we are making it work. The shower is really nice it is all tile with river rock bottom. Which at first took some getting used to but now I really like it! This is the view from out front door. That house that you see is another rental property, and it is really nice and it has it's own private entrance to the ocean. I will share a story about that later. Here is Jake standing in our front door. From where I am standing there is a wooden fence that fences in the entire two properties. Which is really nice because if the kids are out there playing they can't get out to the road. If you know where the PCC is (Polynesian Culture Center) we are directly across the street. So if you are in the neighborhood stop by and say hello!!! If you follow the path to the right that is our garage and laundry room-it is outside (to get to) but at least it is all on the same level!!! Now you will probably start seeing a lot of pictures with the kids and lizards, because we have already caught four, but this is our first one so we had to get a picture. They were so excited to actually catch one! Now I am showing you these two lizards because we caught them together one night and I had the kids come inside the house so that I could get a picture and well one bit Kenadee and she dropped him-yes in the house and then Bailee dropped hers-yes again in the house so right now we still have two lizards living in our house with us, and just tonight I say one in MY bedroom. I don't know how I feel about that?!? This beach is just down the rode from us so one day we decided to go and check it out. It is called POUNDERS BEACH and let me tell you why. The waves are really big. This is one of those beaches that people go to to boogie board. We don't have boogies boards so we just play in the waves. The kids after we got home decided that the waves were to big and to dirty (with sand) that they don't want to go back to that one anymore. I think we carried half of the beach home with us in our swimming suits!!

Curtis loved that there was a ton of sand to play in!

Jake loves to run towards them and then when the wave is coming back towards him tries to run away. He has been so much fun to watch-he is also getting a little bit more daring about going out into the waves. He doesn't like it when the waves crash in his face so he has decided that he likes to wear a tube around his middle to just float on the waves. The boys getting ready to play in a big wave. I really thought that the salt water would bother them, but it doesn't seem to faze them in the least. They always surprise me. The little girl to the right, was just a girl on vacation that the girls made friends with while we were playing on the beach. I don't think we even got her name, but they had a good time together.

All of the kids are so good to help with Jake, I think he just got taken out with a wave and Kenadee was right there to help him get back up. As you can tell he doesn't seem to mind.

This is our down time when we are not hanging out at the beach. I am just glad that the girls let him use theirs, or else we could have real problems on our hands. Now here is my story about the private entrance to the beach right out our back door. There are some stairs that lead down, but this beach isn't your typical beach, there isn't a whole lot of sand and where these stairs come down it comes down right into the water. So we are going down and the waves are coming up onto the stairs, not really waves but water running over the bottom stair. So the three older kids go down and get in the water and Jake starts to kind of freak out and wants me to carry him. So I pick him up and have the bag of all of our beach items-thank heavens I didn't take my camera this day or else there wouldn't be any pictures of our entire stay. Anyway I have my left foot on the 2nd to last stair and go to step with my right foot on the bottom stair and yep you got it, I fall and I fall hard onto the bottom two stairs, still with Jake and the bag in my arms and land with bag and Jake on top of me in the water. It hurt like the dickens- and this is the bruise that I have to show for it. This is the only one that I can show you because well the other large one is on my hiney-but yes this happened the very first day of going down to the beach. It is pretty embarassing putting on the swimming suit and walking around with a ginormous bruise on my leg. Oh well, I don't know anybody yet! This is the beach out our front door. We found a safer way to get to it that you don't have to go directly into the water you can get on the sand first. This is a look of me standing in the water and taking a shot of the little beach that we have. You have to keep everything on the rocks so that when the waves come up it doesn't carry your stuff away. Jake was done swimming at this point and said he was cold so that is why he is wrapped up in a towel!

Our days are typically we wake up eat breakfast head to our little beach and swim for 2-3 hours, come home for lunch and a nap (if I can get Jake to cooperate) then either go to a different beach (that we have to drive to) or just head out our front door and spend another 2-4 hours swimming and playing. Then go back home for dinner and hanging out at home waiting for our dad to get home from work. Then it starts all over the next day! I know rough life but somebody's got to do it RIGHT?!?!I am sitting on the rock next to Jake taking these pictures. The day that I took my camera down to our little beach the waves were crazy big. I loved watching it crash against the rocks and had to get some pictures.

I am standing at the top of our little beach looking down, so hopefully you can get the full picture of our little beach. We met the family that was here for the week from Southern California and the kids made friends with their son & daughter named Trevor and Emma.

I had to get a picture of Jake's hair, his hair has been sooooo curly and it stays really curly even with all the salt water in it. I can't say the same thing for mine, that is why I took a picture so I could remember what his hair looked like. I absolutely love his hair!!

Kenadee and Jake done swimming for the moment and are just watching Bailee swimming. She swam for a straight 4 hours this day. That night she slept for 12 1/2 hours. Not only are they sleeping better (except for Jake) they are eating a ton of food. They eat so well here, I am not sure that is a good thing considering how much food is!

After a long day of playing and working- Jon is getting up and leaving the house to get to the temple by 4:30-5am (Hawaii time) and then working till between 6:30 (earliest) to 8pm, and working a half day on Saturday. He comes home just exhausted but still has time to play with the kids. He is so great I don't know how he is doing it.

Well today we hung around the house and Jon got off at 12:30pm today and we ate lunch together as a family and then drove to Kaneohe to take Curtis and the kids to see TOY STORY 3 for Curtis's birthday. It was a great show and we really enjoyed it. Well that is all for our first week in Hawaii more to come next week. I will let you know how our first experience with church goes tomorrow!! Aloha everyone and enjoy this next week, because I know we will!!!

Our own little Yard sale (online)

I will have to post later about Bailee's 9th birthday and Jake's 3rd birthday, but right now I thought that I would just let you all know about our own version of a yard sale. I have for some reason had the bug to start getting rid of some things so I thought I would post them here and on KSL and see if anybody was interested. I have books, lots of books, shelf, storage, chairs so far. I am sure as I go from room to room I will find more stuff. Hopefully I can sell enough to convince Jon that we could go for a new kitchen table, to go with the new kitchen we are getting done soon. Anyway enjoy looking and if you happen to want anything just let me know!!

DiAper FREE!!!!

Well you already know that this boy is quite the independent little man. As you all know we were in the throws of the dreaded yet exciting POTTY TRAINING. Just have to say who said that bribery was a bad thing?!? Jake was doing great going #1 on the potty, he loved to run to the potty and go and they wave goodbye while he flushed it away, now #2 was a much harder problem for him. A couple of days ago I was being a mean mom and wouldn't let him wear a diaper anymore, and I could tell that he had to go #2 so after trying all day to get him to go I finally caved and put him in a diaper (reasoning better not get him to plugged up from holding it, that would just cause greater problems) so I have him in a diaper and tell him to just go in his diaper and then we would try again tomorrow. This is where his little independent streak comes in-I am telling him to go in his diaper and what does he do, runs and puts underwear on and then goes into the bathroom takes off the underwear and proceeds to go #2 in the potty. Now this is also where the bribery comes into play-I told him once he goes in the potty that we would go and buy him a BUZZ LIGHTYEAR! So at 7pm he decided to go and immediatly wants to go to the store to get Buzz, I did stand my ground and we went right after we dropped the girls off at school. So now I am proud to announce that we are officially done with diapers. It has been just short of 9 FULL YEARS of diapers at our house, and I can honestly say I am not sad to see that part of my life go!!

Congratulations little man!! You did IT!!

Our independent little stinker!!!!

Don't let that sweet little innocent smile trick ya-this little man is quite the independent little stinker. I have been trying to potty train, but honestly haven't been that strict about it being he is the baby of the family. Anyway I have been trying to get him to go on the potty but doesn't want to & wants a diaper back on. So VERY early this morning at 4:15am I hear the toilet flush upstairs (not a good sign since we have a bathroom downstairs by all the kids rooms) so I wake up and see the light on in the bathroom, so I go in and guess who I find-yep a little naked man who decided that he needed to go to the bathroom!! Very excited that maybe he is grasping the whole idea of going on the toilet, but not to excited that he decided he wanted to start at 4:15 in the morning. Good news though, he actually woke up with a dry diaper and wanted to go again this morning!! HOPEFULLY by the end of the week we can be diaper free, here's hopin'. I guess I should be happy that he wasn't going thru the cupboards this morning and sneeking into food, but that is a whole other story!

Latest going's on in our cRaZY life!!

Dance Recital

Bailee & Kenadee

I put them in the same place just for my sanity reasons. That way dress rehearsals are easier and dance recitals, but they both enjoy their classes and there favorite part about dance which those that know me they don't get this from me, is being on stage performing. They LOVE it!!

Kenadee was a little bubble bee, she got her antennas at the recital that night.
Here are some shots of her dancing (these pictures are really from the dress rehearsal) at the recital I took video, but same dance so there you go.

She is our little dancer, she has done it now for 3 years and loves it.

Bailee is in a Jazz class, she did that one because of a friend of hers that wanted her in her class.

Final Pose for Bailee, the great thing about Bailee is because she is soooo short she is always in the front, so I can always get a better picture of her.

More Dancin'

Kenadee Braces

I took her in for an evaluation and the ortho decided that she needed to do braces on her top teeth because of the way that they were starting to move backwards and going to be causing her jaw problems in the future. So we decided to do braces to pull them forward. She was so brave getting them put on, after she said that it didn't hurt at all.

What a CutIE!!!

BEAR LAKE

Our favorite place to go with our family, now when I say our family that includes my entire family. We play games, Rock Band this year (thanks to Stef & Rich), eat, swim, eat, and more swimming. Now that the kids are getting older and easier to watch in the pool we spend hours at the pool. Thank heavens for an indoor pool.

These two are the best of friends. I don't know what we would do if we didn't have Hunter to play with Curtis. They get along so well!! Cousins are great, reminds me of growing up with my cousins and swimming in my grandparents pool.

Now for the girls! Even the girls get along, the one on the left is my adorable niece Jade who is Jakes age. We have a bunch of water bugs, we had to beg and bribe to get them to get out of the pool sometimes. The good thing about them swimming so much is that we didn't have a whole lot of fighting when it was time for bed, unless you were my 2 year old, but that is another story!!!!

Bailee was such a great helper with the younger ones in the pool! If they would drift to far she would go out and get them or dive for the toys that they would drop.

Here are the CRAZY girls. My sister and I have decided that we would rather have the boys than the girls because they are soooo animated and loud. Still we are very grateful that they get along so well.

Curtis off in his own little world playing some game with a diving torpedo, and he wasn't afraid to dive down after it.

Speaking of crazy this one is purely crazy, I think that he forgets that he is only 2 and can't swim. He has learned that he can't go in the big pool or the hot tub without his tube around him. He has really learned how to get around in that tube this year. The only pool he could go in without his tube was the kiddy pool which is only 2 feet deep. Crazy but cute, good thing he is cute!!

Thanks Mom & Dad for taking us again to Bear Lake, greatest trip ever. Love to spend time with my siblings and their families playing games, being crazy and just eating as much as we can. Thanks everyone for such a great trip this year!!!!