Polynesian Cultural Center - Day 2

The next morning, after our breakfast on the beach, we caught our tour bus which took us up to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. Our tour guide was hilarious! He pointed out different sites of interest and where movies were filmed. It was a beautiful drive through mountain passes and alongside beaches. Just gorgeous!

We purchased our tickets weeks before our trip. We sprung for the Ambassador Pass which gave us a  shell lei greeting, guided tour of the center, dinner, and the best seats for the nightly show. I think it was money well-spent.

I was a little bugged to see that the focal point was off on my camera which made us out of focus. But I still like the picture.

(The night we arrived in Hawaii I saw these foam flowers in an ABC Store and I laughed at the thought of someone wearing a foam flower. But the next morning I fell in love with the flower when I saw the real thing falling from trees. And it turns out that the clip really did look like the real flower and so I decided to let go of being so self-conscious and become a true tourist. So there's the story behind my flower, which Kenna now owns. :)

The PCC has 8 mock villages representing 8 islands. Our tour guide went lightning fast through each one, so they all kind of blurred together. These are pictures of us in our "tattoos". Each pattern represents something. I believe Dave chose warrior. I don't know what mine meant...I was just going for pretty. :)

 We paused our tour to watch the boat show. Each island demonstrates their specific type of dance on canoes. Dave enjoyed the "Haka Dance" (above), a war dance from New Zealand, and I liked the pretty Tahiti ladies (below).

Tonga dancers

 

 Dave tried climbing one of these coconut trees. He made it about 6-7 feet up. I quickly realized that this trip was all about "doing" for him and I was all about "seeing". :)

 We received these black shell leis as a greeting for our Luau. Again the Ambassador pass was money well-spent because we also got first dibs on the food! Our seats were front row for the hula show while we ate.

This poor little piggy was our dinner.

 And after the Luau we wandered the marketplace looking at little souvenir shops, until it was time for the evening show. It was called, "Ha: the Breath of Life". It was AMAZING!! The entire show was non-stop dancing, singing, and even fire walking/fire baton throwing. It felt like the finale to a firework show. I found myself gasping "wow!" several times. Just an incredible amount of talent. It was a long day of walking and we were exhausted by the time we reached the bus. We both slept for the hour ride back to Waikiki.

ALOHA!! - Day 1 (Flashback Post)

Dave and I have left the kids overnight only twice in our 11 years of marriage. We wanted to go somewhere exciting for our 10 year anniversary in 2010, however we had a little baby at the time, so we put it off a year. The moons aligned just right for the week of November 23-30, 2011. My incredibly unselfish parents agreed to watch the kids and my saintly sister, Laurel would be in town to help out as well. Crowds are non-existent and the airfare and hotel are much cheaper during the winter in...HAWAII!! Finally, a grown up trip for just two! Heaven doesn't begin to describe our week together. We flew from Salt Lake to Seattle and then a 5-hour flight to Honolulu (airport code HNL or "Hole 'Notha Level" ...a favorite phrase in our house). It was late Wednesday evening when we arrived to our Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel room so we couldn't see our view, but I could hear the waves crashing. The next day we discovered the view from our balcony!

 Our hotel provided free breakfast and a little tote bag for us to fill up. We took our breakfast down to the beach each morning. Breakfast on the beach has become one of my favorite memories of the trip.

Our room was literally the last room on our floor, so we were on the edge of the building. It gave us a view of the city, Diamond Head, and the beach. This was our view of Diamond Head from our front door.

After breakfast we took the city bus (TheBus) to hike Diamond Head. This was definitely one of my favorite activities of the week! The hike was steep, but the views were amazing! 

The military once used it as a lookout.

 Once to the top, it gave the best view of Waikiki down below.

 I got a kick out of this garbage can. Mahalo means "thank you".

 After lunch we suited up and headed to the beach. Dave bought a boogie board and tried it out while I read a book with my feet in the sand. Ahhh....Seriously, it was amazing to leave cold winter weather and enjoy highs in the mid 80s all week. Dave and I played frisbee in the water and watched the sun set. That sunset drew quite a crowd every night, with good reason, because it was gorgeous!

With it being Thanksgiving Day, we made a late reservation for a restaurant that was serving their version of a Thanksgiving dinner. It was yummy!

Trying to Think Happy Thoughts

I looked out my window this morning and wondered, "will I ever see green grass again". We've had a very mild winter but I am still done. Done with the cold and done with the starkness everywhere. I miss the leaves...I miss the smell of cut grass...I miss the warm evenings...I miss seeing my kids' scrawny legs in shorts. I love the summer evenings we spend together as a family. I know the "grass isn't always greener on the other side", but in this case, yes, yes it is!! But there is hope of warmer days...my daffodils, tulips, and daylilies are poking through the dirt. The warm days are coming!  I can almost smell our neighbor's BBQ! (afterall, a neighbor's BBQ always smells better than your own)

And in my attempt to catch up...here are pictures from last summer that I haven't blogged yet.

(Another fine face from Ryan.)

V Day...Brock Style

This year Valentine's Day fell on a Mutual night, and even though I tried to get out of it, they wouldn't cancel. So we had to change things up a bit. We held our annual "Mama and Papa's Love Hut" dinner the night before. I was too lazy to take pictures, but it was the same as last year. We hung sheets all around the dining table, served the kids a spaghetti dinner (which they ordered off a menu), and ate by candlelight. They always love this tradition. It's cheesy, but fun. 

That night I "heart attacked" their doors and laid out a foam heart trail for each child to follow the next morning. This year they were color coded so the kids knew which to follow and it ended with a treat from Mommy.

 No blog post would be complete without a silly face from Ry Guy.

Derek finishing his Valentines at the very last minute. That's how he rolls. :)



 Then the food color fairy entered the kitchen and turned our milk and pancakes pink. I thought I'd save time and color the entire milk jug pink instead of each individual cup of milk. We were drinking pink milk for days. :)

I opened my door that morning to find this! A sweet sister in our ward secretly heart attacked my door and left yummy sugar cookies! It totally made me smile.

The rest of the day was spent baking sugar cookies and decorating them for neighbors. Get this, so later that night I show up for Mutual to find out that the Young Men decided to cancel. Hmmm.... They can, but I got the "no" when I tried. We just figured they were home showing obedience to their sweet wives. We still had a fun night with the Mia Maids though.

Bring on the Love

Like a lot of families, we like to make Valentine mailboxes and hang them on our bedroom doors. For the few days or so before Valentine's Day we deliver notes and candy to each other. The kids LOVE this tradition. Here are some of us hard at work:

 I love that Dave willingly participates. He took his box to the "H.N.L.". :)

 As you can gather by his box, Derek is more anti-lovey stuff than anyone I know. He loves the tradition of writing notes, but gets grossed-out by all the hearts, pink, and red.

McKenna on the other hand...can't get enough of the holiday!

My Babies Are Growing Up!

I give up! Because I have become so behind in my blogging, I have shut down. I am too overwhelmed to start again. I have so much that I want to put on here and it's worthwhile. But I need to move on. Every time I go to make a new post I think "no, if I skip something then I'll never go back and do it". I changed my mind several times while I was creating this post. But I really want to get back into blogging, so I am giving up on the old posts and I am starting with the current times. Maybe I'll do a flashback post every once in a while. 

Ryan began going to Nursery on January 8th and McKenna left Nursery on January 1st. They just missed each other! They would have had fun together, but McKenna was more than ready to become a Sunbeam. Ryan, however, not so ready to become a Nursery goer. He cries every time Dave drops him off, but each week the crying is easing up. This last Sunday Dave said he cried for about 5 seconds. He still wants us to know that he is not okay with the abandonment. I thought he was so adorable with his little handout necklace, so I took a few pictures...okay, a lot of pictures. 

I told him to say "cheese". He's saying "eeeeessse".

Like I mentioned, McKenna finally started Sunbeams this year. Last year she missed the deadline by one month, so she has been hanging out with the babies waiting for her turn for Primary. She gave her first talk on Sunday and did so great! She told me before church that she was going to be shy, but she got right up and talked clearly and loudly into the microphone. Her teacher asked her to bring her "scripture reader" to class each week and she is very dedicated to this assignment. Such a sweet girl!

This is the face you get when you tell her that she wasn't looking at the camera for the previous pictures. :)

I just thought I'd add this one for the humor factor. I should make a whole post of Ryan outtakes. That kid make some funny faces!

And to the 2 people that still check this blog...Thanks for sticking with me. I really do hope to get this blog going again!