FAMILY TIME

It has been absolutely amazing having Mike done with school. Our nights are so enjoyable since we're able to spend most of them together. We tried to take advantage of the few hours we are with Carter to go on walks, play at the park, and just enjoy watching him grow. He is such a little man with such a personality. He can do a lot more things on his own, or at least thinks he can. He LOVES park and just being outside.
He is absolutely perfect when we take him the cabin and our favorite thing is to ride on the tote gote as a family. We'll have to figure out how to strap our little girl in when she is finally here, but don't worry, we'll find a way. ;-)

We've had a couple of large hail storms this summer, and we have loved going out on our porch and watching them. Carter loves the "boom boom" and will even wake up the next morning asking for more boom boom.


Some other family fun activities have been going to the Bees game for both of our company parties this summer. None of us really care about the actually game, but they have a fun park for Carter and then of course there is the train ride. Carter does his "choo choo" noise perfectly.

We also tried to explore the mountains on the other side of the valley since we are now much closer to them, and we found a little spot to 4-wheel over to for a Sunday lunch of hot dogs, fruit, and of course smores for dessert. It was pretty warm to have a fire in the mid day in July, but it made for some great family memories. Of course nothing will replace the cabin, but this was a fun little family get away without the drive.

Terry's birthday is right around father's day every year, so we have two special occasions to celebrate. We celebrated his birthday up at the cabin, and as always we had a blast. It was Tyler's first time up there and he already loves it too.


Terry got this great decoration that describes how he feels about the cabin perfectly:

For Father's Day Carter and Christina prepared a french toast breakfast with strawberries and cool whip for Mike. Then after church we tried to snag a family photo, but it was pretty windy. We then were lucky enough to have Carter asleep while we enjoyed a deluxe lunch/dinner of rib eye steaks, potatoes, corn on the cob, and grilled pineapple. It was our first time cooking rib eye and it was delish!


Mike got a tool chest and a weed whacker for father's day, and then we ended the night at the parents with delicious dessert and family fun. Dan was super happy to have his little boy here for Father's Day and what a great dad he is!

We were able to finally get a decent family photo...one of the very few and the first in a long time.

Note: We are finally getting around to telling you about our amazing Hawaii trip. Just a warning that these posts will be long with lots of beautiful pictures and probably more skin and kissing than you want to see, but hey, we were in Hawaii. ;-) You might have to select Older Posts at the bottom to see all 7 days.

HAWAII - Day 1

So this past Mother's Day was unlike any before and probably any to come. Instead of sleeping in and having breakfast in bed, we woke up about 3 am to get ready to fly to Hawaii! Our flight was at 7:14 am from Salt Lake to San Francisco, then off to Maui Hawaii by 11:57 am. Thanks to "gaining" 4 hours.

Kelly & James drove all the way out to our place early that morning to take us to the airport. They were also going to hang on to Carter for most of the day and then drop him off at Cheri's later that night. It was actually really sad to leave Carter and know that we're not going to see him for a whole week! He took it pretty well after crying for a few minutes, and then he was an angel the rest of the day for them. Kelly told us thank you for letting her be an "honorary mother" for the day.

The flight went pretty well, except coming into Maui was a bit more bumpy than pregnant Christina would like, but everything stayed in and they finally landed after going around 2-3 times. Hawaii of course it absolutely BEAUTIFUL! The airport is completely open and laid back. It was warm but not too hot. It was surreal being there, but we were anxious to put our feet in the ocean! So we found our car place, Alamo, and when we went to go pick up our mid-size car they only had full-size cars left! We ended up with a Chevy Impala.

We jumped in the car before they could tell us we couldn't have it and then drove off to find out hotel. It was super close to the airport so it didn't take long, but check in wasn't until 3, so we bummed around on the port that was just on the other side of the hotel. It felt SO GOOD to put our feet in the ocean. The weather was amazing outside, even though there were dark clouds in the mountains.

We found this crazy shell of a crab on some rocks. It looked completely real and alive, but it is just what it left behind.
After grabbing a bite to eat at the first place we found, Jack-in-the-box, it was time to check into our hotel! We found this hotel for $69 on hotels.com, and even though it wasn't the most up to scale place, it was perfect for us for the night. It actually had a pretty good view, and a nice pool. We walked down and swam in the ocean for a bit and then finished in the pool. The weather didn't let us stay out too long, so we finished the night exploring the city for some Chinese. We found a hole in the wall at this older mall, but it wasn't the best. Oh well, it was still super fun just to be together in Hawaii!

HAWAII - Day 2

It was great to come in so early on Sunday, and then for our first time in a very long time we slept in past 7:30! Then we lazed around, ate tapioca pudding for breakfast since there was only free coffee downstairs. We had to be out by 11 so we took another dip in the ocean and pool and then laid out for a long time. It felt so nice and relaxing that we didn't feel like we were getting burnt...little did we realize how burnt we were! In retrospect we should have at least put some sunscreen on, but it felt too good. We found out later that night that Mike got burnt to a crisp! He basically had to wear a shirt most of the week because it was so bad. We should have listened to our moms. ;-)


After a relaxing morning we checked out and headed to a little mall we found yesterday to try some other Chinese. We tried one place last night for dinner, and it wasn't very good so we thought we'd try another hole in the wall place, but we struck out again. This time though we followed it up with ice cream so we ended on a delicious note.
Since Kelly & James weren't coming in until 9 o'clock that night we pretty much had a whole other day to ourselves again. With the mountains looked so amazing yesterday we decided to head out and figure out how to be in the Jurassic Park looking mountains. On the way we wandered through some neighborhoods that all had amazing plants and flowers surrounding the houses. The pine trees (left) were crazy cool because they are similar to the pines in Utah, but also really different as they are so spacious and open between the branches.
After lots of driving we finally figured out how to go to Iao State Park, which is basically as far up the mountains that you can drive. This area is famous for a battle that occurred in 1790 and changed Hawaiian history. King Kamehameha destroyed the Maui army in an effort to unite the Hawaiian Islands. They used the Iao Needle (left) to scout out and run the battle from. How they got up these narrow mountains is a mystery to us.

The actual trail area was not very long, but there was plenty of off beaten paths that took you through the jungle like trees and towards the water. We were only in flip flops, but it was a fun hike. We just loved all the unique vegetation, and the beauty at every place.

On our way back we stopped at our first fresh fruit stand and the guy was interesting, yet nice. He had actually lived in southern Utah for awhile. He cut up a fresh pineapple for us, and we got some papayas as well. Then as we were about to drive away he brought us some apple bananas to try and they were delicious! We got some at the stores here and they were definitely not as sweet, but they're still fun to eat. We snacked our fruit before we went to the Iron Man movie. There were only about 10 other people so we got great seats. We then went to a place called Ruby's Diner we saw on our drive down, and got the BEST food! Christina got an albacore tuna melt that was heavenly. She's been craving it ever since! After our first delicious meal on the island we headed back to the airport to pick up Kelly and James. It was so great to see them! Before we headed to the other side of the island where our condo was we stopped at Krispy Kreme. They had a special after 10pm that glazed donuts were half off, and we showed up like 6 minutes before 10 and the lady was really hesitant about giving us the deal, but she finally gave in. :) The condo was about 45 minutes from the airport. James' family knows the guy who owns the condo, so we are super grateful he let us come and stay. Below is what we saw from our balcony - no it's not a fake picture! The only hard thing was it didn't have great ac so the nights were pretty warm, but no complaints for practically free oceanside lodging in Maui!