.:Hawaii 2014–Part Two:.

Wednesday in Maui was spent doing the Road to Hana. We had been told by numerous people that this was a must do. We rented a couple of cars for those that wanted to go, and got on the road first thing in the morning. The drive was incredible! There were so many beautiful things to see, I know we barely scratched the surface.

Our first stop on the Road to Hana was Twin Falls. We hiked up to the falls, where we were treated to a little singing, hand holding, and undressing by some foreigners. What a treat!

The scenery was terrific, and we sometimes just stopped along the roadside to get some pictures.

I think one of our favorite stops along the way was this peninsula. The color of the water was amazing. It almost didn’t look real!

There was a cool old church on the peninsula.

We stopped at a state park that has a black sand beach. There were also some caves that we went into. It was really neat!

We drove home along the backside of the island, and while it wasn’t quite as interesting as the first part of our drive, there were certainly still some pretty sights.

The next morning we headed out to Molokini to snorkel. Yep, I decided I was still going to go. We took a boat out to the island while the guides on the boat helped us get our snorkeling gear ready and answered any questions.

I impressed the guides with my sea urchin injury before getting into the water. To my surprise, the snorkeling went great! No fast breathing, and no other injuries. The water was so clear – it was beautiful. Fish were just swimming all around us. It was so amazing!

After we did the front side of Molokini, our boat took us around to the back side. The water was the prettiest color of blue here, it looked like it was dyed. You could see the back side of the crater, but then it just dropped off into darkness. It was a little exciting, but also a little scary. Who knew what was going to swim up out of that darkness? We saw a reef shark cruising along the back side, which was pretty cool. The other cool thing we discovered? If you went under water just a few feet, you could hear the whales singing! It was so amazing!

Once we finished the backside, we headed to a place where sea turtles like to hang out. We got in the water, and after some searching found quite a few. They would just pop up right next to you, which was again cool, but also a little scary – they are strong!

This nite we went into La Haina to wander around and shop, as well as eat at Fleetwood’s. We ate up on the roof patio, and the food, atmosphere, and service was incredible.

There was live music, and even some history about Hawaii that included bagpipes and a conch shell!

The next day was our last full day in Hawaii, and we decided to make it a beach day. It was a gorgeous day, and we were sure to get in our fill of sun, sand, and water! We hit the boogie boards for another go, and just enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

Of course, we had to hit Ululani’s for one last shave ice.

That nite we went to Outback for one last dinner together. And we just had to document the creeper van we had been sporting the entire week we were there together. It was pretty awesome to be able to all ride in the same car together, though I’m sure we got a lot of looks.

Creepers!

The next day it was time to head home, and we were lucky to be able to meet up in the airports on Maui and Honolulu. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we were certainly ready to get home to our kids!

It was an amazing week, and we are so grateful that my parents made it possible for us. They put a lot of effort, time, and money into making sure that we had an amazing experience, and that’s exactly what it was! We won’t soon forget this trip!

I think it was also a really neat trip for all of us to be together because leading up to the trip, my dad had gotten seriously sick and spent some time in the ICU. It was a very scary time for our family, and we were so relieved when he pulled out of it and that he was able to still come on the trip. We always love spending time with each other, but I think this just reinforced how important our relationships with one another are. I maybe started crying when I first saw my dad at the airport; it was so good to get eyes on him and reassure myself that he was okay! No more scares, Dad, okay? 

When are we going back?

.:Hawaii 2014–Part One:.

Back in February, we got to cash in on our Christmas gift from my parents: a week in Hawaii with no kids! It was seriously an amazing week, and went by much too quickly.

Josh’s mom and sister stayed with the girls the entire time we were gone, and took the best care of them. It made it much easier to leave them knowing that they were in such good hands. The girls had a blast, and I even came home to a clean house!

Our trip started off with a looooong drive down to Phoenix, where Sam and Nikki were dropping their kids off and we were flying out of. There was a huge accident on our way down that stalled us for over an hour. Then traffic getting into Phoenix was a nightmare. But the kids did a great job, and I had books to read so it was alright. When we got there, we dropped Sam and Nikki off with Nikki’s family and then headed to my Aunt Jayne and Uncle Paul’s house to have dinner with all of my AZ cousins and my grandparents. We certainly don’t make it down to AZ, well, ever, so it was super fun to see everyone and their families. I only wish it had been longer! Somehow, no pictures were taken – dang! We had a great time catching up.

We got up early the next morning and headed to the airport. After an uneventful flight, which included more reading, we got to Honolulu. It was pretty cloudy and rainy, and we had to take a second pass at landing at the airport. Luckily, that didn’t seem to be a problem second time around. We got on another plan to Maui, and took a short flight over. We got our suitcases and headed out to find the creeper van we would be driving around the week we were there. (It was awesome). My parents were there and had leis for us! We drove back to Kihei, where we stayed for the week.

We headed to the condos, and changed right into our swimsuits and headed down to the beach! My parents went to get everyone else from the airport, and Nikki and I watched while Josh and Sam frolicked in the water.

Once everyone got in, we grabbed some dinner at Fred’s – one of my parents favorite haunts (the fish tacos were amazing) and took a little stroll on the beach back to the condo. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Sunday morning we headed to church to go to sacrament meeting. After that, it was beach time!

Each couple rented a boogie board and a beach chair for the week, and it was perfect. We spent a lot of time in the water that day (and with the thrashing I took all week long from boogie boarding, this baby is meant to be for surviving that!) I don’t think I’ve giggled like that in a long time. It was just fun and hilarious.

And yet another beautiful sunset.

On Monday, we decided to hit the beach in the morning, and then headed out to La Perouse Bay to do some snorkeling. It was quite a drive to get there on some very windy and narrow roads, but also some great volcanic scenery.

It wasn’t super warm, and I ended up ruining it for everyone. Let me just say that I was already having anxiety about snorkeling. I have no idea why; I’ve done it multiple times before. But for some reason, I was struggling a little bit. The water was super murky, which just added to my panic. Basically it was a lot of really fast breathing. The rocks jutted out of the water quite a bit, and as I turned to go back where I thought I had just come from, I ran into something. I thought it had just been a rock and kept swimming. One or two minutes later I look down and realize that there are sea urchin spines sticking out of my leg. Not a rock that I ran into, a sea urchin. I start shouting at Josh to come to me, and he tries to pull the spines out while we are in the water. It is moving us too much so we decide we need to head back to shore. We get back, and I can’t even look at my leg. It looked like the spines were growing out of my leg. There were probably about 30 of them. My dad had looked up what to do, and we tried to pull them out, but they are barbed and basically just broke off. It was disgusting.

I wish I would have calmed down a bit to get a better picture of them, but that was the best one we got. And this is what it looked like immediately afterwards.

We decided to forgo instacare, and went to the grocery store to buy some cotton pads and vinegar. Apparently vinegar will help to dissolve the spines. After we got that, we went to Ululani’s  for a shave ice to try to salvage the afternoon a bit. We went back to the condos to clean up, and then wrapped vinegar soaked pads around my leg with saran wrap. After that it was off to get cheeseburgers – another one of my parents favorite places to eat!

The restaurant was located in a semi-outdoor mall type shopping area. This was probably the time that my leg hurt the worst. I think it was the poison working it’s way out, and it was seriously painful. I could barely put pressure on my leg to walk around. I was quite the gimp. My muscle would seize up a bunch when I was walking around. I dealt with this to varying degrees over the next couple of days, but for sure this nite was the worst. That’ll teach me!

The next day we kind of did whatever we wanted to. Some people hit the beach, we ended up walking around a bit and looking through some stores. Later that afternoon, we ended up going on a whale watching tour. We found an amazing deal and figured we might as well. Locals had been saying that it was like ‘whale soup’ with how many whales were around. They weren’t kidding! The guide on the boat told us that we had been ‘Maui mugged’. Which was pretty accurate! We saw SO many whales – mamas with babies, and males fighting for females – it was incredible. There were times when our boat was basically surrounded by whales. We saw some amazing things, and it was well worth our money!

That takes us about halfway through the trip!

.:Baby Flutters:.

The past couple of days I have really been starting to notice baby bumping around in there. It seriously never gets old, and I can't wait for it to get stronger and more frequent. 

.:16 Weeks:.

16 weeks....still a month away from being halfway. This pregnancy is going slow! I'm trying to enjoy it but I'm really struggling with that this time. I feel so crabby, I'm gaining weight way faster than I did with any of the girls, and I might die if my restless legs don't stop soon. I'm not surviving very well on 4 hours of sleep a nite. What a negative Nancy, right? 

So with that being said, I am still so incredibly, super excited about having a baby boy! I dragged all of my baby girls boxes out of the basement and have had a steady stream of people coming to look through and buy the past two days. And have barely put a dent in it! My friend is having a baby girl in the fall, so did a little swap, too. Josh even bought our little guy some stuff! It's been very interesting going through the girl clothes. I have never felt super attached to any of their clothes; I have pulled out some things to save of course, but I've been surprised at how hard it has been to let go of some of it. I think it's just the realization that this is really the last baby and this stage of life is coming to an end. Bittersweet I suppose! But I'm loving starting to get some boy stuff, and can't wait to do some real shopping for him, too! 

16 weeks