Monday, August 30, 2010

Hawaii vacation!

Sisters!
The kids already love them, but they love them even more now!
Beautiful Hawaiian baby
THE BEST BREAKFAST EVER!
Date night
Ready to go snorkeling
The kids at Dragon's Teeth (old lava)

At the Fish Market in Paia

Black Rock baby!
Fun night with the Nevils
Hula Grill
Black Rock
The view from our room
Daddy playing in the sand with the kids.

My view reading a book
We all made fruit loop necklaces

We just got back from Maui a few weeks ago and we are all already having withdrawls from it!! We decided to go to Maui this year for a lot of reasons. But the main ones were we wanted a family friendly location, and we wanted to go somewhere where it's easy to relax. Maui fit that perfectly. With Travis having school all June and July, it was such a treat to have August free and he worked extra hard so we could go on vacation, thanks babe. Our Maui vacation in one word= perfect!!
We didn't know what to expect with the kids flying because it had been so long since either of them had flown anywhere, but praise Jesus, they both did amazing on the flights. They slept, and besides Peyton getting a little antsy, they did great. Getting to Maui was so exciting for us because we were excited to see our best friends there! The Nevil family had already been on Maui for 5 days and our trips overlapped by a few days. It was so fun to hang out with them in paradise. We had dinner with them, checked out each other's hotels, and had a full fun day at Black Rock snorkeling, swimming, and hanging on the beach. We realized after that that we are destined to vacation together more in the future because we had so much fun!
The next day my sister Desi and her husband Jimmy joined us (they had gone to Ohau for a few days). We had such a blast with them. We went and checked out the town of Paia and ate at the Fish Market and got some yummy gelato, we went to the beach where they learned how to snorkel and Travis and I got a chance to snorkel together, we went to another beach where we sat and jumped the waves for a long time, and even another beach where we did more snorkeling and played at the beach. We went out for many yummy dinners, sat by the pool every afternoon and relaxed, and played fun games at night. Travis and I got a date night where we went to dinner, did some shopping and went to see a Magic show which was really fun! We went running on the beach, ate breakfast on the beach (white chocolate macadamia nut pancakes were sooooo delicious, easily my favorite meal there!). We also went to check out the town of Kehei and found a hole in the wall Italian restaurant that was amazing and so authentic. Every night we would watch the sunset and sit in awe of God's creation!
The kids LOVED Maui and are still talking about it now. Their favorite parts were going down the water slide at the hotel (Peyton would even go by herself!), going to the beach, Peyton loved to sit in the sand for hours and play, and Brayden loved to play in the waves, they loved hanging out with uncle Jimmy and Titi Desi, and loved anytime they got to go swimming. For the most part they did a great job even after we wore them out everyday.
My favorite parts were hanging out with people we love, and spending hours at the beach. This trip was definitely a full circle moment for us in that the first time we went, we were alone with no children and it was amazing, last time we went Brayden was a year and half and hated the sand, but we still had an amazing time, this time we obviously had the kids and it was amazing. Bottom line I don't know how you can't not have fun in Maui! We're so thankful that God blessed us with this trip. We came back feeling refreshed, rested, relaxed, and so in awe of God's creation. We will have these memories forever!

On a side note: Since we got back Peyton will get her shoes on, get her purse, her baby and her blanket and stand by the door. I ask her "where are you going, " she answers "to Hawaii." :)

Monday, August 2, 2010

Children's Museum

I think here Travis is having way more fun than the kids:)
The cool ball sucker thing:)
Brayden being a vet
She didn't want to leave this place

She is a nurse taking are of the baby!

We've had a weird summer with daddy being at school so much so we really cherished 4th of July weekend when Travis had time off of school and work. We decided to go to the Olympia Children's museum for the day. We were all VERY impressed with it. A lot more activities to do than the Tacoma one. We had a great time together as a family and I even had to pry daddy away from the toys at times. I think the pictures speak for themselves, we can't wait to go back.

Fun times at the zoo

This was right before Peyton is screaming "Oh Elephant" song:)
You can't really see the babies, but they are in there


We were all pretty impressed with the Walrus!!
I'll be the first to admit that I was sad when school was done in June. Don't get me wrong I love Brayden but I also love my schedule that I had during school hours and it was very nice to just have Peyton alone sometimes. I wasn't sure if we had anything exciting to do this summer, and was scared of the possibility of getting bored. Once I realized that I'm in charge of our activities this summer, we can all sleep in, and there are plenty of fun things to do around here, I'm sad that school starts again so soon! One of our favorite things we've done this summer is go to the zoo. One day we went with our MOPS group and my mom and nephews joined us, and the second time Travis took the day off and we went with my mom and nephews again. It's been so fun to see the kids love the animals. On our first trip the highlight was hanging out with the Walrus. The trainer was feeding him and had him do a lot of tricks and the kids were right up to the glass to watch the whole 10 minute encounter. They got to ask questions, give some commands, and even got splashed a bit by the Walrus himself. They loved that experience and still talk about it today. The second time we went the highlight was seeing the baby tiger cubs. They were so cute and fluffy!! They were just jumping around, wrestling with each other and practicing pouncing on their mother. The kids just couldn't get enough of the babies and we couldn't either. Going to the zoo is a great reminder of God's amazing creation!

Travis' Birthday Part 2

Ok, I've been meaning to finish this post for a long time, but life has just gotten away from me lately. So, here I am writing about Travis' birthday in August:) To finish his birthday celebrations we had a big family dinner and dessert. I made strawberry pie (which I think turned out yummy:). On the actual day of his birthday I told Travis that we had dinner plans. He had no idea what we had planned for him:) We dropped off the kids and drove up to a random house, he was so confused!!! We walked in and I had planned a cooking class for his birthday. I could tell he wasn't sure at first, but as some of our friends started showing up he realized what a great night it would be. It was a great experience and something we definitely want to do again! There is a business called Kali's Kitchen and she does the cooking classes right out of her house. We all got to handle different parts of the menu I had chosen which was actually 5 different appetizers and a drink. We made peach iced tea with peach vodka in it, guacamole sliders, crunchy chicken bake, polenta rounds served with a bean mixture on top, and even steak pinwheels. One of my favorite recipes was dessert- Mexican fondue chocolate served with coconut donuts!!!! It was such a fun night with our friends. I hope Travis felt loved for his 30th Birthday, I had a great time planning it!!!
Our fun friends!
Avocado sliders (there is avocado in the middle of them!)


Strawberry pie!