Hawaii

I've been absent for some time - life got away from me.  We took a quick trip to Las Vegas, then a week later Scott headed to San Diego for work and then the next day we took off for Hawaii for 10 days.  Its been a season of packing, unpacking, laundry and living with a little chaos.

I'm posting at least some of our Hawaii pics now.  I will probably have a few more to follow.  We had a great trip and of course it was highlighted by our boys winning the Super Bowl!!  It was such a great way to start out the trip.

In keeping with our running Hawaii tradition we all got sick on the trip at some point but this year it was pretty short in duration and we were able to get in lots of fun on the beach!  We stayed at a great resort (Starbucks inside!) and enjoyed time in the pool, the beach and a few trips out and about.

Char was a handful - the girl is on the go non-stop and really could care less if any of us are actually with her.  She'll wander up flights of stairs and onto elevators without even checking to see who's with her.  It was definitely a full time job just tracking her.  Char loved the beach and enjoyed cruising around the resort.

Addy had a great time - not including being sick with a fever on super bowl Sunday.  She learned to boogie board, got to spend time with some new and old friends, and even managed to get all her homework done.  She handled traveling like a champ (like she always does) and was always willing to be patient with crazy girl.

We were blessed to spend the trip with my Mom and Dad so it was a great chance for us all to make some fun memories together.

My goal was to go in order, but that didn't really end up happening here.  Oh well!  

Look at this view - waking up our first morning in our room.

Just hanging out around the resort - the girls liked the hammocks.

I swear most of my pictures of Char look like this, always running.

Homework time for Addy.

 

This picture makes me smile.  It was after the Seahawks won.  We took a stroll down the beach walk to get out of the room after the 6 hours of excitement during the pre-game, game and post-game.  We were so excited.  We passed 12th man folks and shared our joy and excitement.  You can't see here by our whole family was decked out in our Seahawks gear.

We did some exploring on the Hana Highway.

Loved the lushness and green everywhere you looked.

I had a little accident while we were hiking.  It was a spectacular slip and fall.  I was a mess of mud and ended up with the most ridiculously huge bruise on my rear from it.   

 

 This girl would have been happy spending 24/7 on the beach running into the water and playing in the sand.

I loved watching Char make little footprints in the sand going back and forth to the water.

 

Addy fell in love with boogie boarding.  Every afternoon we spent time with her out in the smaller surf working on it.  She was really starting to get the hang out it!  It was so hard to get any good photos, but she really did have a blast!

Yup.  More running.  I would take her to this huge hill and let her just run and run to get her energy out.  At the top of the hill was the adults only serenity pool.  Oh well. :)

Addy loved taking pictures with her camera.  She was quite the photographer this trip.  I told her she needs to do her own blog posting with her pictures soon. 

Both the girls were so spoiled to spend so much time with Grandma and Grandpa.  They were constantly asking to hang out with them and couldn't wait to see them each day.

My parents had the ground floor room right off the shore.  This picture is taken literally steps from their patio.  What a great way to enjoy paradise.

 

We all enjoyed the aquarium one morning.  It was a great outing filled with the magic of the sea.  The girls both really liked the sharks and rays.

Fishy face!

Char barely stood still for a minute - but she did find all the other kids her age.  They don't so much interact as much as stare at each other and continue to run around.

The tube walk was great - sharks and rays all around and under us.  It was beautiful.

One day during Char's nap I heard this crazy loud roar start up.  I had the drapes closed and assumed it was someone power washing our building.  About 10 minutes after it started Char awoke and so I opened the drapes and looked out.  Um, is that a river?  Was there a river there before?  It took me a minute to realize that no, that was a very new river and the roar I had been hearing.  There was a huge rainstorm up in the mountains and a landslide that created this crazy flash flood river.  It took out the path to the beach - for about 12 hours or so.  It was pretty impressive to see the power of nature.

Love this picture.  Charlotte loves to snuggle up to Grandpa and look at pictures and videos.  This is a common sight around here.

This was our stroll downstairs each morning for Starbucks.  Okay, in reality is was the ultimate competition to see if I could get downstairs and to starbucks, get a drink and actually enjoy it without Char running into the entrance road, falling into the fish pond, breaking everything in Starbucks, running up the stairs and getting lost or hopping into an elevator for parts unknown.  It literally took my parents, addy and I to make it work.  My only explanation for this calm looking photo is she was taking a breather for her next big break.

Scott and I got to enjoy the luau with Addy again this year.  My Mom found this perfect dress for her before we left on the trip.  She was so excited to wear it.

She got to make the selections during the drawing up on stage.  She did a great job.

We were lucky to have a super awesome beach right outside our door!  It was another great trip and we feel blessed we got to enjoy it as a family and with my parents!

Life in real time

These are all old - but cute.  Addy helps Charlotte brush her teeth each night.  It is cute to watch them work together.  Of course Charlotte insists they brush her teeth two or three times in a row.  Each night.

Sometimes I walk into a room and Char just cracks me up.  Here she is watching a show from the kitchen.  She's hanging all over the dishwasher and had taken her shirt off.  So cute in her little jeans!

100 Days of 1st Grade

We decided to bring some of Hawaii back with us for Addy's hundred days of school project:

100 shells in groups of 10 with an umbrella in each group.  We save the umbrellas from our dinners.