HAWAII!!! (Week One)

See all Hawaii pictures HERE.

We made great memories in November in Hawaii. Too bad Justin and I will have to do all the remembering for Brody since he's so little, but his littleness sure was to our advantage when it came to buying airfare. We stayed with Blake and Sara Dunn and their boys Jacob and Joshua in their home on the Army base in Oahu. Dunns, Thank You so much for making our trip possible!

We flew in on a Saturday and went for a drive to the nearest coast on Sunday evening to get a sneak peek at the ensuing fun. We stopped by the Laie temple grounds on the way home and also visited Katie who lives only a couple blocks from the temple.

On Monday Sara and I did major grocery shopping and by the time we got back in the early afternoon Justin was chomping at the bit to explore so we checked out the Dole Plantation which is only about 10 minutes from the Dunn's house. We did a little shopping, ate fresh pineapple soft serve and fed the huge fish in the coy pond. Brody often likes to be the center of attention. If there is music, he's moving to it. He climbed up on this table and busted a move and everyone was oogling over the dancing baby.

Then we took a drive out to the northwest corner of the island to see the beautiful but rugged coastline until the road stopped right before Ka'ena Point. By this point Justin was really eager to get on the beach so we stopped no where in particular and Justin put on his snorkeling gear and went for it. That random beach (I think it was Mokuleia) ended up being some of the best snorkeling of our whole trip. Right away we met two huge sea turtles - it was sooo cool just chillin with the turtles. There was also some huge, white and yellowish brain coral and lots of small, colorful fish. Brody got the hang of sand snorkeling on his very first attempt. He accidentally fell in the shallow surf while Justin and I were several feet away and it was a couple seconds before he was rescued. He was pretty shy from the water for the rest of the trip.

Blake had Tuesday off work so we all went to Malaekahana Bay and Justin and Blake swam for quite a while while Sara and I mostly stayed on the sand with the boys. Then we went over to Turtle Bay and took turns snorkeling. It wasn't the best snorkeling of the trip, but there was still lots to see. Jacob ate sand and was very upset about it.

I can't find any pictures of Wednesday so I can't remember what we did except that we bought a waterproof camera and Hawaiian shirts at Walmart and ate at a ramen restaurant. On Thursday Blake and Sara went to help out with the temple open house in the morning and in the afternoon we all went to the Polynesian Cultural Center which was lots of fun. Brody really enjoyed the Samoan hut because we got to bang the big sticks on the ground to make music. We ate at the luau and then took the kids over to Katie's apartment and she watched them while we went to the Night Show, which was very cool and different since I saw it in 2002.

We spent Friday on the north shore. We stopped by Waimea Bay which was one of my favorite beaches when I was at BYUH but the waves were so monstrous that day that it wasn't fun with a toddler. So we went to Shark's cove and swam around in the tide pools which was amazing. Justin and I took turns snorkeling while the other floated on Brody on a boogie board and the water was so clear that he really enjoyed seeing all of the fish. We played with hermit crabs and took a rest under the shade of the palm trees. Then later that night we celebrated Jacob's 2nd birthday with the Dunns.

Katie spent the night with us and then on Saturday morning Justin and Blake went back to Sharks Cove and snorkeled in the actual cove, not just the tide pools. They said it was so calm and tranquil and that the underwater sights were amazing. Huge, colorful fish, eels, Justin's favorite was the moorish idol (like Scar from Finding Nemo). Later in the trip we went back to the cove but the big waves never allowed us to go venture past the protection of the rocks into the cove. After the boys returned Katie, Sara and I hit the swap meet. I did nearly all of my Christmas shopping. The swap meet prices are so great that we spent way less on Christmas than we normally do. We even brought an extra duffel bag to take all back home in. I suggested to Justin that we plan a trip every year just for this purpose. Wouldn't that be the life :)

Well that's just one of 2 weeks. It's now more than 5 months later so let's face it - I may never get around posting the rest!

Trees

We bought some trees in the fall and Justin has been planting them one by one. Brody loves to help by dad by hand shoveling dirt, playing king of the dirt hill, making dirt angels, sitting in the dirt hole, and refilling the hole with dirt. He even ate it a few times. Yes, more than once. I sometimes wonder if his taste buds work - for dinner the other night we had baked potatoes and the only thing he ate was the raw green onions!

I really like the trees, even though they are still small they already seem to add so much to the landscape. My favorite is the scarlet oak outside our back window; it has beautifully bright red leaves. There are 2 liquid ambers and a cara cara (pink) orange along the fence in back and 2 fantasy maples in front. We are hoping for vibrant fall colors next year.

Thanksgiving with Alton Brown

We came home from Hawaii on the 20th and decided we'd better host Thanksgiving for Justin's siblings since his mom was out of town. It ended up just being us and Uncle Eddie and Jessica and Aaron. It was our first time cooking the bird and Justin studied up on it by watching Alton Brown's techniques. It was the best tasting and non-dry turkey I've had, and he didn't even baste. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. Brody dropped his fork during dinner and Uncle Eddie gave it back. Brody impressed everyone (including me) with "day doo" (Thank You), which he had apparently learned from being around his friend Jacob Dunn in Hawaii.

Sam and Jake's Wedding

I have finally renewed my Flikr account and you can view all of the wedding photos HERE.

There was another photographer at the reception who got much better photos than I did, but of course I only uploaded what Justin and I took.

On Friday we took photos at the temple.

I like Jake, I think he's a good fit for Sam. More importantly Sam thinks he's a good fit for Sam. It is easy to take pics of two good looking people.

They wanted a picture in front of the Christus, what a perfect way to begin an eternal marriage.

After all the temple shots we went down to Santa Monica pier for some more spontaneous fun. But we found out that planned spontanaity is just as difficult to achieve as it sounds. The arcades wouldn't let us take pictures in their shops and I had to sign a release to take pictures on the boardwalk. Jake got cotton candy on his suit jacket (luckily it came out) and Sam couldn't sit down on the dirty rides in her crisp white dress (bad planning on my part, I should have brought a towel) so basically it was a lot of wandering and receiving funny looks.

The wedding and reception were both on Saturday. It was a loooong day. The reception was GORGEOUS. Props to Stephanie, it looked deceivingly like a million bucks.

and it was a lot of fun, too. Thriller!

Sam made a special dedication to her mom who then stole the show doing the Time Warp

My charming princes.

Halloween

I went for easy this year and we bought Brody a Zookeeper getup from the LA Zoo. We went to my parent's ward Halloween party on Thursday night cause we had a family wedding planned for Saturday. It was low key... Brody practiced singing "Little Red Riding Hood" with my dad for weeks before and then they made my mom come up to the front of the cultural hall and wear a red cape and they sang to her. I say 'they', but it was my dad singing and playing the guitar and Brody just howled on cue. There were some pretty imaginitive pumpkins for the contest. The primary presidency (Sisters Elms, Giles, and Clemmons) were the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus and they were fabulously in character the whole time. Brody was so content to stay inside and play with the adults that we didn't even take him outside for trunk or treating. PLUS he turns into this crazy, hiper, shrieking wind-up toy when he eats candy so I thought it best to avoid the whole thing. I can't seem to find any of the pics from the party :(

We went to a pumpkin patch the week before Halloween but I was not very impressed. The pumpkins were slim pickins but Andrew and Alex did have fun in the kids zone. Andrew carved this sick jack o' lantern.

Knotts Berry Farm

On October 16th Justin's cousin got married just south of LA but it was a classy no-kids type of event so we decided to take Alex and Andrew to Knott's that day as a birthday present. Alex was forced to go on the big rollercoasters which he LOVED and wanted more of. Brody threw a little tantrum every time he had to get off a ride to get back in line. Luckily the lines were short. Brody and I were cranky by mid-day so we caught the shuttle back to the hotel to take a nap and we made it back to the park just in time to hit a couple more rides. The park closed at 5 o'clock so they could prepare for Knotts Scary Farm later that evening. Good thing, I wouldn't have lasted much longer.

The next day we stopped by the grandparents hotel to visit with all of the family that had come down for the wedding. Brody made friends with Aunt Shelly and she took him out to her car to drive - an obsession that he picked up from his other grandpa. He tries to get everyone to take him to their car so he can drive (and reset all of your stereo/light/wiper settings).

October - a busy month

I helped with Samantha's bridal shower (well, just food, really) which turned out to be very nice. Jessica made the cutest glasses with everyone's name on them and Sierra made pretty (and tasty) cupcakes. We played a few games and ate great food... it was fun. Unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of Sam.




Then the family all rushed over to John's Incredible Pizza for Andrew and Alex's combined birthday party. Alex only wanted one specific friend there :) We all had a good time with the balloon animals. Here Brody began his obsession with kiddie rides.