Better Late Then Never.

I use this blog for many reasons.  One very important reason is as a way to remember all the happenings in our family.  Then I use this blog as a way to remember when I actually get to putting it in my scrapbook.

You see, I am scrapbooking 2009 right now so you can imagine that the words from my blog in 2009 come in handy.

I have really failed this year in 2015 to share all the goings on, so the next few posts will be catch up on all of that.  I am going to take it a month at a time.  These are the things that may bore some of you.  It will probably interest our family members, as they see what we have been up too.  I try to keep this blog a good mix of my feelings, fun projects, and then family life.  Well, the family life part has suffered.

I was doing well with the family life as I shared my project 365 goal.  Well!! Ummm… that went right out the window since my surgery.  Maybe I’ll get back soon and just have some gaps in it. 

But.. because I don’t want gaps in our family history I’m going to share all about what we have been doing just a month at a time.

I am embarrassed to say that I have to start clear back in February.

…and really the biggest happening of February was Hawaii and I have hardly blogged about it.

I want to remember some of the awesome things we did, and all the memories we made over that trip.

I warn you now that their will be lots of pictures.  Most of them are of me in swim wear, my hair in the same ole bun, Jonathan in his swim trunks, and beautiful scenery.

If you aren’t interested in seeing any of that, you can just pass right on by this post.

Honestly, me in swim wear should scare you all away now.  You may want to run.  Click away fast. 

Or…if you can overlook that and just enjoy the beautiful scenery of such a beautiful place; then stick around.

I apologize that most of the photos are from my iphone.  It was super annoying to worry about sand and my big girl camera.  I don’t thing the 2 would mix well.

Hawaii 2015:

Jonathan surprised me for Christmas with this trip to Hawaii.  We had never been to Hawaii before, and I was so excited.  He planned it with one of our good friends the Chadwicks, so we would be going with them.

The total length of the trip was 9 days, and that required lots of help from family to manage the kids.  Jonathan’s mom helped with the kids for the first part, and my sister Lindsay helped with the last part.  Thank you!  Thank you!

Sunday, Feb. 1st 2015

Jonathan and I were excited to be on the plane together.  It is nice to fly without children.

It’s a good long flight to Hawaii, but the view out the window was nice.

 

I mostly slept, but when we flew over the island, I was so surprised.  It wasn’t a green lush island like I thought.  It looked more like we were landing on the moon.

We went to the Big Island, and come to find out, it has all varieties of land.  Some parts were lush, and others rocky and dry. It just depends on which side of the island you are on.

We landed on the very dry side.

We were extremely lucky when we went to rent our car, and we were upgraded to a mini-van. SCORE!!  Amazing; a mini-van in Hawaii. What more could a couple of girls want? Another 9 days in a mini-van.

We drove straight to Walmart and stocked up on groceries so that we had some food for breakfasts and lunch.  It’s such a good way to save $$$.  Our groceries came to $120.  I was surprised by the lack of produce to choose from.  Then I remembered we were on an island.  I remember that exact feeling when we lived on Saba; not much to choose from when everything comes by boat.

We then stopped for lunch at a place that was suggested to us by a local.  It was called the Pine Tree Cafe.  Yucko!  Don’t know if we will ask the locals again.

We checked into our nice resort, and we loved our accommodations. 

It was a very beautiful place, with a lot to do there.

 

The only downfall of the resort are the extra fees.  We had to pay $25 extra a day for wifi, and $30 a day to park our mini-van there.  It’s always something.   I don’t ever even remember using the wifi.  We were way to busy for the computer for anything.  Next time, I would fight that and not pay it.  If I used the internet at all it was always on my phone.  Just a thought, a good way to save some $$$.

We took a walk on our first night and discovered what the resort had to offer.  Emily was thrilled that she has a place to worship.

Monday, February 2, 2015

The next morning, I got up and went on a beautiful run.  I took a few pictures while I was out, and smiled the whole time. I loved seeing all the beautiful wildlife.

I also discovered a spot with some small tidal pools, so after our workouts, we all went down to do some tidal pool hunting. 

We found some neat shells, coral, and beautiful sea creatures down in the pools. We debated about bringing some hermit crabs home with us.  We quickly decided against that.

That afternoon we drove to Kapuna Beach.  It was heaven.  We mostly did this all afternoon:

He’s cute huh? …and he never has time to read at home, so I am so glad he made time for it on our trip.  He enjoys it so much when he has the time. 

So do I, I read 2 books while we were there:

That evening, we met up with some of the Chadwick’s friends that also came to Hawaii at the same time.  It was so fun to meet the Coat’s family.  We ended up spending lots of time together as the 3 couples.

(Ryan and Richelle Coats; our new friends)

That night we went to dinner at the Frog Hopper.

I fell in love with this delicious Banana Coconut Creme Pie.  This is a collage of some of my favorite foods we ate while on the island.  Notice the Banana Creme Pie is in there.  This sandwich is from a place called Humpy’s that we ate at the following night.  The steak and purple sweet potatoes are from the Frog Hopper.  The purple sweet potatoes are soooo good.

While we were driving the mini-van, the Coat’s were driving around in style.  I think they were jealous of our mini-van.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

The next day, we decided to just sit by the hotel lagoon.  You could see us reading, chilling, eating icecream, and listening to music.  It was the best afternoon.

We did decide to check out the resort pool.  It felt like ice cubes, but the hot tub was a nice change from that.

The resort also has dolphins, and we enjoyed watching them do their tricks.

The resort also had this turtle that would just sunbathe here everyday.  I was worried he would move when I got close, but I think he was tired.

That evening, we drove in to Kona and ate dinner at a local bar called Humpy’s.

 

After, we decided to do some local downtown shopping.  You know souvenirs for the kids.  They just kept asking me to bring them the Hawaiian sandals home.  It’s so funny how much all the kids love those.  My favorite is how they wear them with long socks.  Kinda defeats the purpose of being cool, aye.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Today, we drove to Hilo.  Hilo is the more lush side of the island, but it is a long drive.  They call it the big island for a reason.  It took us about 2 hours to get there.

We went to a local Farmer’s market there; I think this was Jonathan’s favorite part.  Shopping!!

We enjoyed an hour or so at a local beach called Richardson’s, and ate our packed lunch from our Walmart groceries.  See, saving $$$.  It is so hard to eat out for every meal.

Following lunch on the beach we packed up, and headed to the Hilo airport for our scheduled helicopter ride.

The ride was about an hour.  It was a nice ride, and fun to learn and listen to the history of the island.

We saw the live volcano that is always spewing lava. 

We also saw some beautiful waterfalls, and did a little whale watching.  It was a fun ride.  I think I expected to see a crazy spewing volcano, and it really isn’t like that.  I had a moment of disappointment.  Then you remember that every new experience is awesome; no matter what.

We decided we loved that Richardson’s beach so much on the Hilo side, we went back and hung out for a bit.  Of course, I did more reading and music listening.

 

This beach was a little different than the others.

 

It was a bit more rocky, and more of a black sand.

I actually fell asleep for a little, as I did some sun worshipping.  Jonathan and the boys did a little snorkeling.

We decided to eat dinner in Hilo at the Pesto Cafe. 

It was such a cute little cafe, with super yummy food.  I had the best purple sweet potato soup.  You can tell I have fallen in love with those purple sweet potatoes.  It was delicious.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

This was a disappointing morning.  We got up super early to drive to the Wiamelya Valley.  Which was beautiful,btw.  We were going there to go on an ATV tour.  They canceled the tour when we got there.  We were so bummed.  Such a long drive to have it canceled. 

We decided we would try to make the most of it.

We decided we would try and hike what we would have seen on the ATV.  It was the steepest walk ever.  As we kept walking down this hill that never ended, I kept thinking to myself.  We have to walk back up this.  We were trying to get down to that beach you can see in the background.

After 30 minutes, we smartened up and decided that we shouldn’t keep going.  So then began our walk back up.  It was painful.

The Coat’s hadn’t booked the ATV tour and just decided to take that particular hike that day.  It was an all day 9 mile hike.  They said it was beautiful, but hard.  Here is the picture they sent us:

After our canceled tour and painful hike that we decided not to finish, we found this place to stop for breakfast.  It was a small little building called Grandma’s Cafe.

I decided I loved breakfast over hiking.  Although after hearing from the Coat’s how beautiful it was I wish we would have stuck it out.

It was the best meal I had on the island.  The French toast was made out of Sweet Hawaiian bread.  It was to die for.  I am fairly certain that the syrup was some homemade concoction too.

After the meal, we drove down to the Lapunahoehoe point. 

This is a location that was hit by a Tsunami in 1946.  It wiped out a village and an elementary school.  There was a small description about each person who lost their life that day.  It was very interesting to read.  One family lost like 6 children that day; so sad to me.  There were also some stories about people being rescued, and those were the parts that remind you miracles happen too.

There was also the most amazing tree there.

 

 

…and this little guy just hanging out.  He reminded me of the guy from “The Night at the Museum”, that says, “Gum. Gum. Dum. Dum.”  My kids think that’s funny, so I sent this too them.

 

After our long trip back to our hotel, we decided to just chill at the resort again, and then kept dinner super simple and went to Macaroni Grill.

Jonathan and I also ended the night with some yummy ice cream from the Marble Slab Creamery.

Friday, February 6, 2015

We headed back to Kapuna beach, and spent the whole day just chilling and body boarding.  It was a beautiful day.

This day, we tried to take a little Hike; Emily and I.  I did a small tumble and cut my big toe open.  Hey! I’m tough and I managed.

Then we went into Kona, and checked out a fun little ocean play spot, and saw some neat historical buildings.  There were also the most beautiful yellow fish there.  They guys told us all about it, from their snorkeling view.  While us girls watched and chilled on the sidelines.

After another day of relaxation, we stayed in Kona for dinner at a fun little local fish place.  I think it was Jack’s something? if you can’t tell from the writing on the car.

That night Richelle told me that she was reading in a book that you could find hearts almost anywhere you looked.  And look what we found:

I’ve been trying to keep my eyes open to this more.

After a nice meal, we drove over to check out the Kona LDS temple.  Once again, another beautiful house of the Lord.

 

Saturday, February 7, 2015

We got up really early and headed to a beach that has private access because it is used by a hotel. It's supposed to be the best body boarding beach on the island, and it didn’t disappoint.  The resort has about 5 parking spots for locals, and because we got their early enough, we were able to get a spot and spend the day on a beautiful beach.  Of course, just doing the normal beach stuff again.

I enjoyed watching a few kids build sand castles. It sorta made me miss our kids.

This ended up being my view from my beach chair:

We did spend hours body boarding, and just laughing so hard.  It was a blast.  There is nothing better than catching the perfect wave and riding your board all the way in.  I wish I had photos of this, but we were all in the water just having the best day.

This day was filled with mucho relaxation, tons of laughter, sand in every crevice, crashes in the waves, and a nice lunch at the resort by the beach.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

It was our final day in Hawaii.  We decided to try this hike that we heard was beautiful.  We also heard that it was locked up and had been closed from hiking on.  A local told us to jump the gates and go anyway. 

So just like fugitives, we did it. I even had butterflies in my tummy as I jumped the fence.

I am so glad we did, and do you know what?

 

It was my favorite part of the whole trip.  It was full of the most beautiful and amazing parts of nature I had ever seen, and I wished we had time to go further.  I wished we hadn’t saved this for the last Hawaiian moments.  You know the moment when that sand timer gets flipped over, and the sand was running out.

There were parts of the trail that were covered in ginger which smelled great.

There was also an amazing waterfall, and a pretty steep drop off right off the side of the trail.  Maybe the reason it was locked up?

We passed some boys who had already gone on the hike and they told us if we went far enough there was a rope swing, and water slide thing to go down.  We didn’t make it that far, but it is on my bucket list.

After the beautiful hike, we went back to Grandma’s Cafe for another awesome breakfast.

I couldn’t leave Hawaii without one more round of Sweet Hawaiian French toast.

Then back to the resort to pack up, and then we did some chilling at the resort before we had to go catch our plane.

This is just minutes before we got out of the hotel Lagoon to change and say goodbye to Hawaii:

After changing, we had a few hours to kill so we drove back to Kona to once again eat at our favorite place.

We decided to go back to the fish hopper, which held an entire Banana Coconut Creme Pie for our table.

Then off the the airport we went to catch our 10:30pm flight, and fly through the night back to Utah.

Good bye Hawaii!!

We did get detained at the airport a little.  Jake had decided to bring a coconut home that he had found.  They had to test it and make sure it wasn’t a bomb or something, but when all was said and done, he got to bring it home.

Monday, February 9, 2015

We made it home today and back to our house about 1pm.  The kids were so excited to see us. I think they mostly wanted to see what we brought back for them.

I was so thankful for the helpers we had so we could make the journey just as a couple.

It is so nice to enjoy time as a married couple without children.  It is so good for a marriage.

Tuesday through the rest of the week.

I am completely exhausted and now need a vacation from my vacation.

I seriously could not take enough naps once we got home.  It took me a while to recover.

Present Day(which is like 4 months later)

….and so there it is.  Recorded for me and Jonathan to remember.  Only a few months late, right?

Here is a little secret: I keep a notebook with me on our trips and record what we do each day.  That way when I come home I won’t forget.  Even now, only 4 months later I would have never remembered all of these details.  That notebook came in handy for this post.

When you go on trips: Don’t forget your notebook.