Miss-Matched

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to jam pack a Saturday with lots of events for the young cousins who live here. The bowling alley was a fun place to start, and the kids had so much fun together and really got into the game. Then they all went with (brave) Roland to get food and play at our house while the moms got to have a sisters' lunch at Olive Garden. Soon Tina and Jana took Mase with their kids to see the new Star Wars movie, which inspired a lot of lightsaber action at our house this week! (: Needless to say, all of the kids were pleasantly exhausted by the day's end. These bowling pics are mainly for the proud Grandma of all of these little guys:








The REAL reason I posted about our fun cousin day was just so I could document the funniest moment of the day. One of my sisters, who shall remain anonymous, displayed a look of utter HORROR as she glanced over at the pile of shoes we had removed to replace with bowlng shoes. I expected to see a big bug or even a mouse but I quickly realized why she had had such a strong reaction to the sight.



You see, the pair of shoes in the middle (you might not recognize it as a PAIR) were what she had worn to the bowling alley. She was mortified when she realized her mistake, but not half as mortified as her teenage daughter would have been if she had come bowling with us. (: We made fun of her for a couple of hours and made even
more fun of her when she ran home to change shoes before going to the Olive Garden.

I noticed she took awhile to pack up her stuff and return the bowling balls to the correct place. While the rest of us were anxious to remove the scary (both in sight and smell) rented bowling shoes, she was reluctant to part with them because it meant she had to put her mistake back on display. (:

My kids got three new cousins!

These three beautiful girls were all born within the last couple of months in our family. Just wanted to post how excited we are for the girly cousin group and the new friends for our kids. Congrats to Lori, Sharalee, and Cari!


Shayla Raine


Lilah Grace


Alexis Dawn

Souvenirs, anyone?

Ava washes her hula girl's hair (think she's jealous??)



Mase gets silly with his new ukulele




And finally...

AVA LEARNS THE HULA

Late night snack advice

With Ro at work until late these days, I snuggled up to finish my book after I put the kids to bed. After awhile, I decided I wanted a little snack. Even though I know late night sweets are not the smartest diet choice, I grabbed a little piece of chocolate and opened it up. I was in the middle of thinking about how I should NOT be eating this when I glanced at the wrapper. Since it was made by "Dove", it had a message on it.

"Don't think about it so much."

Ha. Okay, I won't. I laughed to myself, finished that one and decided to grab another. This one said:

"Do what feels right."

Of COURSE they are not going to put messages like "Think about your big booty before you put something in your big mouth" on their chocolate. Dang marketing geniuses!

Last one, I promise!

I remember my Travel and Tourism Professor at ASU telling me "Sometimes when you get home from a trip, you need a VACATION from your VACATION." I didn't really get that until now. Luckily, my mother in law sent my kids home with clean, folded laundry (spoiled, I know) and I had done all of the laundry in our condo while we were there, so I wasn't swamped. But it is HARD to get back into normal life when you get home. Especially when that normal life includes 110 degree weather and a husband who works every night until 11pm.
So there are my excuses, and I am finally posting the last segment of our amazing trip to Hawaii.

One of the funnest things we did was our "water adventure day". We spent a good six hours doing all sorts of fun things in the ocean and with boats. The highlight of my trip had to be watching Ro hold onto this tube when the driver of the boat was continually taunting him and trying his best to throw him off.


Notice the expression on Ro's face as I go flying off...


We even stayed on after the tube looked like THIS:



Then we got on this banana boat, and I made the mistake of assuming it was going to be easy to stay on. It was not. Especially after the lengthy tubing episode that made my arms feel like rubberbands.

We made it!


Here is Ro diving into the middle of the ocean when we were on an anchored boat/dock waiting for our speedboat ride.


Parasailing was the BEST! It was a very windy day and we had the ride of our lives. It was especially refreshing when we got dipped in the ocean before we got reeled in. LOVED it!







Right after our parasail came to an end. I felt SO accomplished that I had the confidence to finally wear that toupee on my head. (:



Great fun... great day... GREAT TRIP!!!!!





And on our way to the airport on our last day, Hawaii even said goodbye to us like this:

Hawaii, Part 2

More fun stuff from our vacation:

We ended up exploring Waikiki, but only for a few hours because we were happy to get back to our private getaway, where the tourists were not EVERYWHERE.
We shopped and got some cute souvenirs for people, especially the kids. They were happy when we showed up with Hawaiian outfits and ukeleles for them, and they LOVED their candy leis. The excitement grew when we pulled out a "shark tooth" necklace for Mase and some Shark cards. (He is obsessed with the movie "Sharkboy and Lavagirl"... once I even picked him up at preschool and the kids all said, "Bye Sharkboy!" in all seriousness.) I'll post some pictures of their camping trip and them wearing their "My parents went to Hawaii without me!" clothes when I get them.



We ate some FANTASTIC food, and here is Ro enjoying garlic shrimp from popular (but still a little shady) shrimp truck. I read about it before we left and this one has a lot of fans out there (You know you want to eat from that truck, Tustin! :) We ended up there more than once and the garlic butter shrimp was VERY tasty. And then here he is at a yummy little restaurant eating macadamia nut pancakes with ice cream on top. Uh, no wonder I don't fit into my clothes anymore since we've been home...




We tried to go snorkling at Haunama Bay but it ended up closed because of this:


How funny is this interchangeable sign? Imagine the other possibilities besides jellyfish... CLOSED, due to: sharks, strong currents, too many Asians... Oh, Just kidding! You know that Asians love to travel. The funny old Asian lady at work that always tells me I'm too fat told me I could NOT go on vacation without at least $10,000 to spend.

The final segment of my LONG vacation posts will be of our exciting tubing and parasailing adventures. SO much fun, but I must admit that I am still sore from the ruthless banana boat riding. (:

More to come if you can bear more tropical love pictures! (:

Trip to Paradise, Part 1

I don't know how to even start this one. Wow. Seven days of SO much fun, including exploring an island, action-packed water sports, and the necessary relaxing on the beach. And more importantly- hanging out with each other without any added stress (Hmm mmm... jobs, bills, kids...) and remembering how it was when it was just the two of us. We knew the kids were having so much fun camping and being spoiled rotten by Grandma and Grandad (THANKS A MILLION!) and we were free to retreat into our own selfish vacation mode.
First off, we had to say the big "goodbye"... kind of tough, but no tears were shed.

We left these guys in good hands and they were excited for their adventure.

Then it was time to head to the airport. We were giddy like little kids going to Disneyland.

We had to do something to make us feel "islandy", so we started our love affair with tropical drinks before we even left the Phoenix airport. Ah, I may as well skip ahead and show you a selection of our lovely liquids (as I start to salivate.)




Yummy! We finally arrived after a delirious time on a couple of planes, and Ro was very excited when he upgraded our economy rental car to a Jeep. It was so much fun to ride around the island with the top off and dance to our Ipod tunes while we stared at the ocean.


The condo we rented was on the North shore of Oahu and absolutely perfect! There were NEVER more than five people on the beach out back and they were always at least 20 yards away. It felt like we had our own private beach (and pool, too- seemed like nobody ever used it but us.)




The next day we explored the Polynesian Cultural Center. We had an awesome time and Ro enjoyed reminiscing about some of the cultures he was exposed to on his mission to Australia (New Zealand, Samoa, etc.)



(Mase wanted to know why Daddy was with "GIRLS" in this picture... hee hee)


We took a tram tour to the temple and it was beautiful. This is the view from the front of it and you can see the ocean out in front.

That made Ro pine for the ocean and he was tempted to take a dip in this fountain.

The luau was delicious and the night show was AMAZING. The cultures of all of the different islands are so diverse (Fiji, Tonga, Somoa, etc.) and it was awesome to learn about. Uh, not to mention the guys who were sitting on and eating fire. (:

The next morning we took a breakfast sail on a catamaran. So fun! We sailed for two hours out into the BLUE waters and we got to see sea turtles and flying fish. It got going really fast when the wind picked up and it was fun to get sprayed with a little water. (And fun to watch some others get soaked.)



There was even a net where you could sit down or lay down and be directly over the ocean. (We finally snagged a spot from one of the kids who was hogging it... funny how you feel about kids on vacation when you had the sense to leave yours at home. J/k)


We also went to a water park that day because it was free with something we purchased. A couple of waterslides later, we left, knowing that the ocean was nearby and MUCH more inviting than teenagers and a fake wave pool. We ended up driving all around the island that day and just exploring. Our day came to a close eating fresh mango and watching the sunset on Waimea bay. Beautiful.



More adventures to come! (A million pictures, I know...We had been looking forward to this vacation for SO long that I have to keep it detailed so we can remember it.)