Hawaii....Maui to be exact!

Disclaimer: Once again, I use this blog as my journal/scrapbook which means there are A LOT of pictures in this post, read at your own risk of boredom.

We got back last week from 10 days in beautiful Maui. It was an adventure getting there and back but we had great time and have lots of great memories! We flew using buddy passes which proved to be an adventure. Barrett and I had to leave on different days so I traveled with the Traeden's and Gonzalez's. The Gonzalez's got on the flight to Maui, the Traeden's and I didn't so we spent the night in L.A. and a lot of quality time in the L.A. airport. We finally made it to Maui(Barrett got there before I did even though he left a day later, I wasn't bitter at all!).

On to the fun times. We hiked through a cool bamboo forest. It was crazy how dense the bamboo was...it was a very cool experience. There were several beautiful waterfalls along the way which made for some great pictures.

The guys all went deep sea fishing and scored dinner for the evening. They caught a bunch of tuna and despite getting up two in the morning to head out, they had a good time (at least some of them did:))

Dinner at PacifO's. You've got to love the setting.

Waiting for the boat to take up whale watching. We saw so many whales and they came so close to the boat it was amazing!

Fun times snorkeling

I always knew where Misty was :)

The guys spent a lot of time boogie boarding. Waiting to catch some waves!

Barrett catching a wave

We also drove the Road to Hana. Never need to do that again. There were many beautiful vistas along the way but I was thrilled when we finally got back to straight roads.

The cute shirt that we brought back for Luke

Good friends, good food and lots of laughs made for a great time. I missed Luke a whole lot more than I thought I would, but he had a blast with his cousins while we were gone... thanks Belnap's!

Catch Up Time

I've been in a serious blog funk lately. I just don't ever feel like blogging, but I'm determined to use my blog as my scrapbook/family journal so I've decided it's time to get my rear end in gear. I haven't been taking many pictures lately because we haven't been doing much, just the usual stuff. Hopefully we will get some nice weather soon and I'll be able to document some fun new adventures. In the meantime here are some photos of the last couple of months.

Luke trying out his new trike

Luke decided he was big enough to climb out of his crib (he took a header) so now he gets to sleep in a tent!

Helping dad scrub the floor. I tried to keep him out of Barrett's way for a little while, but Luke insisted on helping. He loves to do whatever his dad is doing!

Luke found my hat and gloves and decided to try them on

A couple of weeks ago I got together with two of my mission companions Melissa Jones Henrich and Lindsay Nelson Brenchley(okay, technically Melissa wasn't my companion but we almost were and saw each other a ton during the mission.) We had so much fun getting caught up and reminiscing of the good old days in Guat! Thanks for the pic Lindsay!

Weekend Getaway!

A couple of weekends ago our friends, the Ashton's, invited us to go to their cabin for the weekend. We had a great time. We spent a lot of time, eating, talking, playing in the snow, snowshoeing, chasing kids and just enjoying ourselves. Their cabin is about 25 minutes outside of Evanston. It was so nice to get away for the weekend and not having to worry about getting stuff down around the house. The day before we left we bought a portable DVD player and it was a great purchase. We put Luke in the car, turned on the DVD player, put the earphones on him and he didn't make a peep the entire way (he did blink occasionally)!!! Anyway, here are some pictures. We had such a great time, thanks Ashton's!

Week With Cousins

Last week my brother Eric and his wife went on a cruise so we got to stay with his two oldest girls, Sadie and Brinley, while his youngest, Hailey, went and stayed at my sisters house. We had such a fun time and I'm sure Luke is going to go through withdrawl and serious boredom this week. He will certainly miss hanging out with his buddies Sadie and Brinley. Here are a few pictures from our week.

Hanging out watching American Idol

Sadie helping Luke on the computer

Luke and Brinley enjoying popcorn and watching a show

Luke wanting to be a big kid

Hanging out in the morning before school

Luke loved tackling Brinley
On Friday my sister Karen brought Hailey up and we all went to Kangaroo Zoo