Aloha!

Morgan and I have been married for 11 1/2 years and we finally were able to go to Hawaii! 

Oh, and did I mention we went without our kids?! 

Yes we did! Thanks to my mom we were able to leave them for nine days. It was a much needed getaway!

Thanks mom! 

Our plane left at 8:30 in the morning on March 13. I was so worried about getting motion sickness on the plane, that I bought motion sickness pills and wore some bands that were supposed to help with becoming sick. I have to say the pills worked and I think my mind made me think that the bands worked too :) Can't be too prepared right?

I swear the gal that you can see in the background of my picture must have taken a sleeping pill. She slept the ENTIRE plane ride. She even kept the shade closed. After a few hours I finally reached over and opened the shade. I wanted to see the ocean! She didn't even budge :) 

We had a short layover in Lanai. When I stepped off the plane I immediately knew I wasn't in Utah anymore! The air was so refreshing. The small airport in Lanai was not how I pictured it to be. Even though I was in the airport, it was like I was still outside. I saw birds and flowers and felt the nice cool Hawaiian breeze. This airport was nothing like the Salt Lake airport. It was very small.

Once we landed in Honolulu, (which was only a 30 min plane ride from Lanai) we were greeted by a nice lady holding a sign that said, Griggs. We then received a lei and a cheek cheek kiss. While I was standing in the airport a bird flew right by me head. It was crazy being that I was inside of an airport.

After we gathered all of our things, we were then shuttled to our hotel.

 

 We stayed at the Aston Waikiki Beach Side hotel.

 Here are some pics of our view from the hotel.

 After we unpacked our stuff at the hotel, we decided to walk around to get familiar with our surroundings. Our first stop, (besides going in an ABC store) was the International Market. 

I learned how to bargain pretty good there. This is where we bought a lot of our souvenirs. 

This pond had ginormous gold fish. 

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On our walk we ran into this guy. He called him self newspaper man. He was covered head to toe in newspaper. 

Nice picture opportunity. Sadly I don't remember what this gals name is?  But she did make for a nice background :)

The next morning we got up bright and early, due to the time difference, and decided to go and have breakfast at Duke's. It was an all you can eat breakfast bar. And boy was it worth every penny! It was fabulous!! Fresh fruit, pancakes with coconut syrup, bacon, eggs, potatoes, and omelets to name a few. It was heavenly.

 This was the view from our beach side table.

After sitting by the ocean during breakfast, we so needed to spend some time on the beach.

The water was so clear and beautiful. It was so weird that there wasn't very many waves that came and crashed at the shore. A lot of surf boarders would just sit and wait for hours just to catch a few decent waves.

For the rest of our first official day in Hawaii, we walked and walked every where we could. It was nice to hold hands and not have to worry about any kids running away, or even needing to be some where. We were so carefree. 

Happy Happy 3!

Rapunzel, let down your hair!

This year Avery wanted a Tangled theme birthday party. It was such a fun theme to plan for!

Here are the invitations she handed out to her friends.

I made a long strand of braided hair out of yarn. It took forever! The yarn kept getting "tangled" lol

Here it is all finished and draped outside on our door.

I decided to have a tea party type setting in our family room.

Jello boats

Each girl took home a cup full of fun little Rapunzel things. My fav, Rapunzel paint.

I made each girl a long braid with flowers on them that clipped into each girls hair. They loved them!

I used lanterns through out the house.

Good old Flynn Rider

When the girls first arrived, we made purple princess crowns.
Notice pascal sitting on a lantern? Cuteness!

And then we made some pascal party blowers.

The girls played pin the frying pan on Flynn Rider. I went to the local print store and had them blow up my Flynn Rider picture, and then printed out some frying pans.

Time for "tea"
I found some super cute paper straws.

When it was time to sing happy birthday, all the girls waited patiently to help Avery blow our her candles.

Yummy cupcakes!

Avery chose this bee camping chair to be her seat at the table. Whatever the birthday girl wants right?

After we had cake we decided to dance to the Tangled soundtrack.

Next was presents!

The girls decided that they wanted to play with Avery's princes barbies. These girls LOVE princesses!

After we had Avery's little friend party, we had the family over for cake and ice cream, and a few other yummy finger food.

Here is little sis trying really hard to rip open the wrapping paper off of this gift. Love the expression on her face.

Morgan and I stayed up pretty late the night before making this cute Rapunzel cake. Morgan even made the number three to look like pascal. Perfect touch!

This birthday was a bitter sweet one. I realized that my kids are growing up and soon there wont be a baby in the house any more. It's hard to realize that Avery is our last, but I know things will only get to be more fun as they get older. Happy Birthday my little one! You will always be my baby ;)

Stop, drop, and roll!

Carsons preschool class had a field trip to the fire station! Boy was he excited! He had been talking about going to see the fire trucks weeks before his trip.

When the kids first arrived at the fire station, they had a talk on fire safety. We even got to hear what it would sound like if the fire house got a call to rush to a fire.

Here the kids are learning how to crawl if ever they were in a house fire.

The kids got to feel how heavy the fire fighters protective clothing is.

The firefighter put layer upon layer of clothing until he was all dressed, mask included. He told the kids to never be afraid of a firefighter, even if he is dressed like this. Yeah, Avery didn't agree. She was scared!

Dad had the day off so we all joined Carson in the fun.

The kids got to walk through a fire truck

After we got to tour the fire house and check out the inside of a fire engine, we then got to go outside and see how the engine works. Here is the ladder at full extension.

This is my favorite picture of all. Can you guess what is happening? Yup, they turned on the siren.

At the end of our trip Carson wanted to sit on the front of the engine. Imagine if they would have made the siren go off while he was sitting there lol

Happy Valentine's day

Happy Valentine's day!

When the kids got up on v-day they had a little bag of goodies waiting for each of them.

For breakfast the kids ate redish pancake hearts.

It's been a tradition since Bay was a baby, to get a flower from daddy for Valentine's day.

Avery even gets a flower from dad. This year they were chocolate flowers.

When it was time for dinner I decorated the kitchen with hearts and red and white streamers.

Table setting

And here is what was for dinner. Homemade pizza with heart shaped peperoni. Yes, it did take me forever to cut them into hearts.

For dessert we had strawberry short cake using Twinkies cut in half to make a heart.

What would a Valentine's Day dinner be without the candles and apple cider?
Cheers!