Zions

Zions was our first stop
on our  National Park month long adventure.
We were in awe at how beautiful it was.
Definitely a site to see.

The Bucherts, who have been our friends since we were first married and  my brother Jay and his family met us here.
We were so happy my brother surprised us, he was headed home from Lake Powell and decided to stop for a couple of nights.
 We were so glad they did, it was so fun to see them!

My brother had a great idea, he said I should do
  the do's and don'ts of our travels..
So here's an attempt to make this interesting!


DO's at Zions...


The Narrows.
( a hike in a river between narrow, very high rock walls)
We were kind of worried about how the little kids would do on this hike.
We worried for nothing.
 They all loved it. 

Below is my sister in law and cute nephew.  

A lot of the hike was about shin deep.

Other parts of the hike were over our heads.
If you navigated well you could avoid those parts.

D and Martin..

Some more

Do's

 Hidden canyon hike
which was straight up the side of a mountain/cliff.
It was super hard, well at least it was for a pregnant, altitude challenged woman.
I thought I might die:)
The kids flew up the trail, yes I felt like a wimp. 

Towards the top of the mountian/cliff there were chains you had to hold onto so you didn't fall off the side of the cliff to this... below..

"B" is not holding onto the chain! 

I am afraid of heights so the entire time,  I was the annoying mom freaking out and yelling," hold onto that chain! Get away from the edge, etc etc!"

 I'm sure they ONLY survived because I screamed at them the entire time, haha...

( I left this on the DO's because I will do it again I'm sure, even when they are grown men with children of their own.)

He's holding on now! Good boy!

This is towards the top of the hike.

"Lil B" did awesome, he really didn't want to go after the first hike but once we got him going he didn't complain once, well maybe he did complain on the way down when we were almost done, but he made it through the worst of it. He was a trooper.

WE finally made it to the Hidden Canyon.. 

It was pretty darn cool that at the top of this mountain/cliff there was a very quiet beautiful canyon. 

The canyon went on for about another mile. The kids and dads went on,  while I took a little nap waking up every so often thinking a snake was crawling on me. It sounds terrible but it was really peaceful. 

In the canyon the kids were able to rock climb all over the place.

The crew in the "Hidden Canyon."

 DO Smores' to top off the perfect weekend.

and of course

ROOK

 I can't even remember playing, I just remember laughing and laughing! 

Fun times in Zions! 

Don'ts at Zions...

Buy cheap water shoes for 5$ at Walmart,
 they do not have enough support on the bottom, you are walking on big rocks the entire time. Feeling  every rock was not fun not to mention they were falling apart after the hike
. 

Bring anything in your pack that you don't want to get wet.

Leave any little kids with "D" because he forgets they need water,

and you end up with a dehydrated little girl who threw up all over the rv bed in the middle of the night, poor thing! 

(we actually are not sure this was why she threw up, its just something  to tease "D" about it)

Thanks honey for cleaning it all up and doing the laundry in the middle of the night!

You are the best! 

 Honestly he does make lil kids forget they are hiking and and turns it into a fun adventure.

Love you honey:)

Forget to take a picture of the entire group you are with.

SO sad I don't have one of us all:(

 Emerald pools, it was a lame hike on a paved path.
The kids were bored. It is a short half mile hike there  but with lots of people on the trail it took away from the beauty at least for me it did and the emerald pools aren't very emerald:)
That's probably not why they are called that is it?:)

RV trip

D has 5 weeks off from work in the summer, and since we are having another baby, we decided we had better get off island this summer. I still can't believe how blessed we are to have this job. We decided to rent an RV for a month! I was a little bit nervous, 6 people in a small RV for that long sounded like a disaster. Which from this post you might agree, but it actually ended up being a lot of fun!

WE rented from Cruise America. It was so, so.  The RV was pretty basic with no awnings and nothing to plug in the back bedroom. Which really wasn't the problem. The problem we had with it, was their customer service when something went wrong.
 We weren't expecting anything to go wrong especially not in the first 45 minutes of the drive.

Until.... a lady in another car right next to us told us our tire was flat. So we pulled over put some air in the tire.Then started the RV. It would not start. Dead battery, luckily D watched a video on how to emergency start it. Then we were off.

 While driving on the freeway another man waved us down and told us our tire was flat. Not feeling anything inside the car we called the emergency call center for Cruise America to find out what we should do. We were told someone would call us back soon. So we pulled off the next exit as we did the tire had had it and  blown. We waited for a call back, finally got one. WE were told that someone would come in 90 minutes to help us.

                                  All was fun and games for the first couple of hours...

We could wait 90 minutes. The AC should start working soon...

'

The AC  still wasn't working 2 hours later  in the blistering heat, but T was still smiling. We had to call Cruise America to find out what the hold up was, then wait for a call back which took about an hour. Finally we figured out that they sent the repair guy to the wrong location. :( It would be another 90 minutes...

. Can you see B? He looked like I felt! It was long and hot.. 

Here's the tire..

Finally 4 hours later a nice man showed up and changed our tire. He had us on our way in 15 minutes. Yippeeeee!!!

We go to start the RV again and the battery that didn't start again. Crud we had to call Cruise America and wait for their call back..

We decided to  emergency start it again  and drive until we received their call, which was 3 hours later after we had gone and got the battery fixed ourselves... 

We were  finally on  our way to ZIONS!!!

May Day 2012, Laie Elementary School

For those of you like myself who had never heard of a Mayday celebration, I am about to enlighten you:) Here in Laie it is a BIG deal!! The elementary school puts on a big show or should I say production. The kids practice for months and months on their dances.. Parents and teachers work for hours sewing costumes. When it is all said and done I think my kids probably have earned a degree in performing arts. They get to perform on the stage at the Polynesian and Cultural Center.
I was able to help with the Ts 3rd grade performance. Let me tell you, I had no idea what I was getting into, when I said yes. It was so time consuming but it was so worth it when the time to perform finally came.

This was the special VIP ticket I got for helping, the seats weren't very great, oh well..

"B" in his Tahitian outfit.

"B"s dance...

                                                                 "T" in his Paniolo , 
                                                             (hawaiian cowboy) outfit.

T's  Hawaiian dance video..

I won't make you sit through every grades dance, but if you have nothing else to look them up on You Tube, the costumes alone are worth it, but the dances take the cake.. I think the entire show was 3 hours long. First they have to crown the king and queen, their entire court does about 5 dances. I LOVE that performing here is considered a cool thing to do, and that the coolest kids embrace it and do it with pleasure.

Easter

 Of course we painted some eggs then we were off to the community egg hunt at Gun Stock Ranch..

 The little boys were ready for some fun!

 It was really quite the event,a petting zoo and free pony rides.

  The Easter Bunny made a grand entrance on his horse at the top of the hill and zigzagged his way down to the kids.

  Even when the bunny is on a horse, he does not look any less scary, its almost scarier!

The Easter egg hunt! The area they had to hunt in was huge, probably two acres and there was horse poop everywhere! YUCK! I made sure my kids wore their tennis shoes and didn't eat any of the eggs, but only in Hawaii do you see this...I just kept thinking how dirty this boys feet were getting!

"T" found the silver egg which got you $3.00. Yippeee!!

Living the easy going life on the Island

Living the easy going life wasn't easy to get used to..

Especially for me, now that we have been here for a while I can admit it to all of you . I kind of had a hard time with it. We came from California where the kids were in sports year round (all four of them on different teams),church etc..

we were really, really busy. 
and I liked being busy!

I had a hard time getting used to not always having to be somewhere or having to do something. It was really kind of hard to adjust to. I had to come to terms with the fact that it actually was ok to just "be", without having to go and do something.
 It was kind of soul searching time for me.

That being said, I have adjusted quite well, the kids have to. It took only about a month or two. I think we have adjusted almost to well. I am so used to not having to be anywhere at night or do anything that I savor it. You see what I mean, I think I have adjusted to well.. I am becoming a home body who loves to be home with the family. . Going to the beach whenever we please, taking hikes with the family, playing board games, watching movies.  And I am totally ok with it!


It really has been a fabulous year. Yesterday I was laying in my bed, on a lazy Sunday afternoon as the kids all piled in at different times during the day to snuggle and laugh and talk, it got me to think about how  important this move was for our family.  I think I have gotten to know each of my kids much better and grown closer to them, especially the older ones than ever before and I love it! I LOVE that they want to be with us, that they talk to both D and I. I know it won't last much longer but I hope we can continue to keep the closeness we have built this year forever. I vow never to be as busy as before! hahah, It's probably going to get busier isn't it??

My handsome "A" . 

Visit from Uncle Chris!

 Uncle Chris and Ashley came to visit!  We brought out the tight rope and had Chris show us his yoga moves on the thing. Usually the kids are floating in the air when he comes due to his amazing skills at acro-yoga this time they were floating due to the tight rope. What he is doing in the picture above is quite hard. We were all very impressed.

Ashley :)

 B giving it a try.

 Chris showing another amazing skill.. Then everyone tried to do it on the  ground with a  little success.

 We were having our own little yoga session on BYUH's lawn.

 Ashley helping lil B with his yoga moves.

Chris says hes not Poly but look at those tree climbing skills! 

Thanks for coming to see us!!