January, February, and March, gone, gone, gone!!!

Holy Cow,
I can't believe that it is already the end of March. Where does the time fly? January seemed to go by so fast. Everything was in anticipation of our Hawaii trip. I'm going to try and recap for my journals sake what has happened the past few months. Also, a lot of info about Hawaii, and a pledge to stay off face book until my blog is CURRENT!!!!

January was a full month. We went to Dan's cousin's basketball game, and about got snowed in. We had a b-day party for Danny at the beginning of the month, and McCoy at the end of the month. We went to Chuck-E-Cheese with all of the kids! They had a blast and are begging to go back! Mallory and Shane came for the night and let us swim in their motel swimming pool, then they went to a Jazz game. We went to the airport to see Dan's cousin return from a mission, and then to Iggy's (the kids' new favorite restaurant). My uncle Bryan was stuck in SLC for several days and got to stay and hang out with us.

February didn't get much better. We had valentines day, which was a blast! Some friends of ours gave us tickets to an indoor beach volleyball tournament. It was soooo much fun. I loved it! We went with some friends to see the Draper Temple before it was dedicated, so the kids could see it. They thought it was beautiful and very cool that they got to go inside. We had v-day parties for the kids, field trips, and lots of stuff to keep us busy besides the fact we were packing for Hawaii. We left February 21st and returned March 1st. Kate,(Dan's sister)came for the first few days to babysit and went home on Wednesday sick and found out that she had strep. My mom replaced her and my girls started feeling yucky on Thursday. Bailey didn't go to school Thursday or Friday and my mom decided to take her to the doctor. She had pneumonia, strep and an ear infection. Jentri also had ear infections. Poor nana, she had to play dr. mom!



Hawaii was FABULOUS!!! We had so much fun!! We went with my sister Crystal and her husband Jeff. We started off Saturday morning @ 4:00am. We flew out of SLC @ 6:00am and flew to LA. We left LA and had an extremely long flight to Maui, Hawaii. Besides the excitement of going to Hawaii, we had a head wind that added an extra hour or so to the flight. We arrived in heaven about 1:30 p.m. rented our convertible, and were on our way!!! First, we checked in to our motel to drop off the baggage, and then headed out on the town. We stayed at Kaannapali Beach, The Marriott. It was beautiful, right on the ocean and was so nice.


The first night we were there!

We did many fun activities while we were there. We watched a surfing contest, went to church with the locals, went to a Luau, snorkeled, whale watched, boogie boarded, drove around in our convertible with top down (of course), went on a whale watching/snorkeling boat ride, sat in the hot tub on the beach, went on a hike and crossed a river on swinging bridges (like in Indiana Jones bridges), and saw lots and lots of whales.

In the back of our convertible!


The two stud muffins on the beach boogie boarding!

To elaborate on a few of the above activities, the first is the Luau. Dan and I went alone because Crystal and Jeff have been to several Luaus. We watched the locals make fresh coconut milk, and tried Mai Tais. Next we had an all you can eat with lots of different foods. We had salads, veggies, several meats, breads, etc. and poi. Poi is disgusting!! It tastes like chalk! After the food, they had several native dancers perform. It was very entertaining. In the middle of the show, they called men from the audience that were celebrating their anniversaries. Dan went up and they made fun of how young he looks, and that he had so many kids! Next, they made him do a dance on the stage with several other men. It was hilarious!

The natives that made the coconut milk at the Luau!

The next is the whale watching/snorkeling boat ride. We started very early in the morning, and went to another Island called Lanai'i. On the way we saw tons of whales and dolphins. Some whales were so close that we could hear the water out of their blow holes. The dolphins were fun to watch. They like so swim on the wake of the boat and do tricks. A few jumped up and did flips for us. We anchored in Lanai'i and were able to snorkel. When we were done there, we went back to Maui and anchored on Baby Beach. We snorkeled here and saw 10 turtles and 2 sharks! The turtles were so close, we could have touched all of them. The sharks were several feet down on the bottom, and were very docile. They were hiding under some rocks, but we did see them!!! We had a great time and were very glad we did this boat ride!!

Waiting for the boat ride!

At the motel on the beach!
Our hike was "off the beaten path" according to Jeff. We found out about if from some people we met at the hot tub. We had to ask several people how to get there, and drive around for a while, but we found it. We had a two mile hike up, crossing a river two times on swinging bridges, and then two times hopping across the rocks in the water. When we got to the top, you could see it raining in the mountains, and see a few waterfalls. It was beautiful. At the top, there was a group that was swimming in the river. It looked like fun and we were going to do it after we ate our picnic lunch. A few minutes later their guide told us the river had just changed and it was flooding up above. The water had changed to very dirty and you could no longer see the bottom. That was enough for us, we were out of there! Going down was very fun except that our uncovered rocks were now covered! We had to get we to cross the river! It went up over my thighs in some spots!! It was a fun adventure!

On our hike!

The awesome greenery on our hike.
Our adventures in eating were very fun. We had access to a BBQ down by the pool, so a few nights we bought meat and had Kabobs and ribs. We also ate at Outback Steakhouse, Longboards (a fancy restaurant at the Marriott), LeiLanis (our favorite), and lots of other places along the way!
We had a great time. Lots of laughing, lots of leisure time, lots of eating, lots and lots of fun. We are grateful that Crystal and Jeff shared their time share with us and acted as our tour guides! We are already wanting to go back!!

It was hard to come back, and especially to come back and get sick. The week we got back I had pneumonia, and was on 3 different antibiotics to take care of it. I was really sick and was in and out of bed for over a week. Bailey's pneumonia still lingered and I had to take Jentri back into the doctor and he said she had pneumonia. It has taken several weeks for us all to get feeling better and get over this junk. Thus, my blog has suffered! Hopefully I am on top of it now and will not let it get this bad again!!!