HAWAII!

I'm so excited to put up a few pictures from our fabulous Maui vacation. I have wanted to go to Hawaii for a long time and just started telling Danny about a year ago that he needed to take me there for our 10th anniversary. Well, it worked. We booked us a trip a couple months ago and just got home. We decided that we need to vacation there a lot. We mainly loved the weather there. I think it is amazing that it is the perfect temperature there year round.

So we left the kids with Grandma and headed out for a week. We stayed at the beautiful Wailea Marriot resort in Maui. We definitely got spoiled there and loved the immaculate grounds and the awesome infinity pool overlooking the ocean.

We were able to do a lot of things while we were there. We went snorkeling a few times, we took surfing lessons, we went out on a whale watching excursion, we took the road to Hana and hiked up through a bamboo forest to a waterfall, luau's, lots of eating and lots of lounging.

This is a picture of Danny riding some waves. It is a cool picture because if you look close I caught a whale jumping in the background.

One day we took the road up to Hana. It rained on us the whole way there, but once we reached Hana it started to let up. We went to the seven pools (that were all dried up) and then hiked 2 miles up through a bamboo forest and to a waterfall. We goofed around a lot and had a lot of fun.

We were even able to drive home from Hana with the top down and enjoy a little sun.

We took surfing lessons while we were there and they were a lot of fun. Here are a couple fun pictures of real surfers.

And here we are riding the waves. Not quite the same, but we will be there soon I'm sure.

On our very first wave, Danny came out of the water with what he thought was a blue fishing line wrapped around his hand. Come to find out the "string" was connected to the blue jelly fish on the end of his surf board. I guess it was a Hawaii Portuguese man-of-war. It stung for about 5 hours and then went away.



Our whale watching trip. We got quite a show. We saw a teenager, a momma and her baby, and the most fun was watching two males chasing and fighting over a female.
This is a picture of our two males. One has his mouth out of the water as the other one is pushing him. It was really cool.
This is the tail of our female, we named her Sassy, because she was definately playing hard to get!

Dangers of McD's

I took Grant to McDonalds to play last Monday. He came screaming to me when he got hurt. This is what it resulted in. I thought he hit his head until about an hour later I realized his nose was all swollen and he was all stuffed up with blood. It looked worse and worse as the day went on. Then the next day he was all black and blue between the eyes. I don't know if he broke it or not, but I felt bad for him and had to take a mug shot of it. (Excuse the messy face, he just finished a snack.) The other picture is one of him today. He just wanted me to take his picture and I thought it was cute. The nose is now pretty much back to its normal color!

Holidays and Snow

This year we went home to Pocatello for Christmas. We had a lot of fun and made some great memories.

We got to go to Grand Targhee skiing one day. Ali did great and mastered all the beginner runs.

We were so excited for Christmas we couldn't wait.

We put in our requests to Santa.

We got pj's on Christmas Eve.

Santa found us.

We got to hold the baby.

Our family in our new Christmas duds.

Our family was very spoiled this year and we are so grateful for this wonderful season.

We don't get snow very often up here so when we woke up to snow this morning I decided to take the kids out to play in it.

Grant's 2

Grant had his 2nd birthday on Sunday. He was very excited to open presents, but we made the mistake of giving him these 2 shake and go cars first. He was soooo excited for them and loved them so much that he didn't care about any of his other presents. I included a video of him just after he opened them. He was so excited every time they would talk. He really loves the Disney movie Cars lately and loves cars so that is what his birthday was full.

We didn't have cake until after church and a little nap so he is just waking up in this picture.

Grant didn't care about his cake at all. All he wanted were his cars.

This is the only video we got, but it shows how excited he was.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone today. We kept our tradition carved our pumpkins for family home evening and had donuts with some friends. Ali carved an owl, Grant wanted a kitty, I did an easy mummy and Danny designed a scary face.

We got to start our Halloween off early yesterday. Grant got to get dressed up in his future golfer outfit and go to Ali's school party. Ali found a bride costume and got so excited to dress up as a real wedding girl. After the school party we got to go down to the downtown businesses and trick or treat. I didn't know how Grant would do, but he jumped right in and began asking nearly any adult "tick or teat" in his cutest voice possible. Then he would say thank you every time he got candy. He was so quiet I don't think half of them heard him but he was adorable. So we are all geared up for today. Ali has a soccer game today and then it is off to Lewiston's businesses trick or treating, the churches trunk or treating, and then Ali will probably get to do some real old fashion trick or treating up our street. We are very excited for our big fun day and then tomorrow is Grant's second birthday.

HApPy HaLoWEen!

Soccer

Ali decided to give soccer a try this year. I think she really enjoys it, but she didn't know anything about it so she has had a lot to learn. Danny and I sat and watched her on Saturday and decided she is the prissiest one out there by far. She is getting the hang of it and really moves, she just moves on her tippy toes making her look very girly. Along with soccer came the really cold weather and I'm not liking that very much!

Pinocchio

Ali and I participated in the Missoula Children's Theatre a few weeks ago. 2 people come into the school on a Monday and they hold tryouts and practices after school and by Friday they are performing a cute little play. This year the play was Pinocchio and I got reeled in to playing the piano for them. It was kinda fun to be involved. Ali got to play the part of a toy and she was the best little ballerina up there. It was a BUSY week, but I think it was fun. Thanks to my mom for watching Grant almost the whole week!