Hawaii in December

We had a trip to Hawaii planned for June, however it was postponed until December and we just got home! We had a great time, however I recommend going to Hawaii in the summer. Out of 6 days, we had 4 sunny and 2 rainy. The ocean is really harsh in the winter too. The waves crashed on the shore and there was a strong current and undertow so all the signs said no swimming, snorkeling, etc.

We took about 400 pictures or so. Kind of ridiculous, but hey, that's what digital is for! Here are some of them.


The view from our hotel room the afternoon we arrived. Before






Here is the view from our room 6 days later when it was raining. The water was pretty brown from all the mud sliding into the ocean. After




We hiked the Waimea Canyon to the Kalalau lookout. The clouds were pretty crazy. One minute you had a beautiful view and the next it was covered by clouds.








At Shipwreck beach we saw a reef shark swimming really close to shore and catching some waves. Here is a pic of his front fin.




We drove to the end of the road at the north part of the island. We hiked 4 miles roundtrip to Hanakapi'ai Beach. After that we spent some time at Ke'e beach which is at the entrance to the hike. Here are some pics that show views from the hike, a rainbow on our drive out, and a really cool cave that had a great sandy floor and was incredibly huge.















Here are the Wailua Falls that were brown due to the heavy rain the night before.



These are the Opaeka'a Falls.


Kylie loves leaves so when we saw these gigantic ones, we had to take a pic.

We're Back to Blogging

I know it's been too long for me to not blog. For those of you who know my work schedule, 4th quarter is pretty killer. I work way too much and don't spend anytime on the computer for fun stuff like blogging. Even though it is still fourth quarter right now, the workload is not as crazy at the moment, like it was in October and the first part of November. I can finally take a breath and spend a few minutes blogging. Yeah for me!! My stress level has gone down and I'm much happier to have more "me" time.

Even though this post doesn't have any pictures, I plan to put some up soon.

1st Birthday Cake

We celebrated Gavin's 1st birthday today. His birthday is the 25th, however we were celebrating some other family birthday's and figured we'd do it together even though it's a week and a half early. Here are pics to show the events of his cake eating. He had us all laughing. It was a fun time.

Here he is all nice and clean.
















I thought this was really cute. He and his cousin Rachel having a cute little moment while we sang to him.





Gavin's 1st taste of his cake.













He liked the first taste and has decided to use both hands now.













To make his eating more efficient he puts one hand in his mouth while the other hand is getting ready with more cake.
















Now he has started the pounding. Notice the blurry arms due to speed! He is having a blast just pounding away at his cake. Cake is flying everywhere and people start backing up to get out of his way.













He was putting fistfuls in his mouth and cake was going up his nose. He kept sneezing it out. One of his sneezes was really powerful and sprayed cake about a foot or two.













He is digging in to make sure he has reached the bottom of the cake.
















This is what is left over from the 8inch round cake that used to have chocolate frosting on it!
















Here is one happy boy who is very pleased with his 1st cake!!

Comfy Counter

Kylie was helping me make Gavin's cake today so I let her sit on the counter to help me pour the ingredients into the bowl. She wanted to watch a movie so I turned on Leap Frog's Letter Factory. We finished mixing the cake mix and as I put it in the oven and cleaned up, she continued watching her movie. Next thing I know, she is as comfortable as can be just like she were lying on the floor in front of the t.v.

Frockly T-Shirt Giveaway

Frockly T-Shirt Giveaway

First Day of Pre-School

Kylie had her first day of pre-school last week. Her cousin Brian is in her class, which makes it so fun for her. She loves it!

He Shoots, He Scores, He Cheers!

Gavin loves to play with this little basketball hoop. He also loves to cheer for himself! He can get pretty loud. I get a kick out watching him!

Beach Fun

We spent a couple hours at the beach the other day. Kylie had a blast making a sandcastle with her daddy. The outfit that Kylie is wearing is an outfit that I wore as a child! Fun times!

Chocolate GoaTee

Gavin was eating chocolate graham cracker fish

Fingerpaint

Kylie had a blast fingerpainting at home!

Gorilla Crawler

When Gavin started moving around in June he army crawled. At the beginning of July he spent one day crawling the normal crawl. Then the next day he started doing the little gorilla crawl. He has not crawled on both knees since that one day. He also has a little sit spin where he sits on his buns and turns himself around with his legs. You can see him do both the gorilla crawl and the little sit spin in this video.

Grass Valley

After Lake Tahoe, we drove two hours to visit the Papa family.
We put the kids in a little pool out back, but Gavin's swim diapers were buried too far in the car for me to dig out. His regular diaper was filled to the max with pool water. Pretty Sweet!


We stayed at a couple of hotels on our way home. One in northern cali as we were visiting the Papa's and one on our way home in Selma to break up the trip.

Emerald Bay - Lake Tahoe

Emerald Bay was really pretty. We dropped Tyrus, Jeff, and Katelynne off at a beach a few miles north of Emerald Bay. They kayaked from the other beach and met us at Emerald Bay. We had a nice relaxing time at the beach. The hike up and down though is ridiculous. It took us about 45 minutes to hike from the beach up to the parking lot. Jeff and Tyrus were carrying the kayaks and it was really hard. Finally a couple of guys caught up to them and offered to help. It was really nice.
You'll notice a pic of Kylie and Jeffrey wearing life jackets on dry land. That is when we are hiking to the parking lot and trying to lighten our loads. Rachel also wore one the life vests and carried a bag. Sherrilynne had about a million bags that she carried. Alyssa carried Jeffrey and he fell asleep. Katelynne carried the oars. I pushed Gavin in the umbrella stroller (which was loaded with bags also) with one hand and held Kylie's other hand to keep up her pace. She walked the whole distance except for about 5 minutes towards the end where I carried her and still pushed the stroller. It was quite a hike, but lots of fun.

Here is a pic of Kylie at Chevy's Restaurant enjoying her birthday hat.

Here is a pic of Gavin in one of his favorite positions!

Rise and Shine! Nathan, Kylie, and Brian waking up with the help of some cartoons!

Gavin and Daddy enjoying the water.

Happy Birthday to Kylie

Kylie turned three a little more than a week ago while we were vacationing in Lake Tahoe with the Kettley family. She had a Mickey Mouse Party with her cousins. They played "pin the nose on mickey", freeze dance, and we had a pull string pinata. She wore Minnie Mouse ears and her cousins wore Mickey Mouse ears. We had ice cream cake, Mickey Mouse sugar cookies, and some goodie bags for the cousins to enjoy.

Here is Amanda and Rachel with frosting on their noses while Brian, Kylie, and Jeffrey are enjoying the goodie bag favors.

When we sang Happy Birthday to Kylie she was so excited. She put her hands in the air and had a huge smile on her face. It was so fun for me to watch her excitement.

Happy Birthday to Kylie

Here are some pics of freeze dance, the pinata, and gift opening.