Vacation Wrap up

Our last day was spent getting all the sand out of our rental van, packing, and saying goodbye to our friends who were staying for a couple more days.  About a block down from our condo was this little cinnamon roll bakery that is all they made and all week long we talked about getting one. So on the last morning we decided that we would buy everyone a cinnamon roll, save it for the plane ride home, and enjoy a little bit of our Hawaii trip one bite at a time. We stopped by our friend's condo and took a few family photos, the bloopers turned out better than the real ones, we started dancing and Ryan was really embarrassed that made us dance some more. We were sad to leave but we really did have a great time together as a family all week long.

We made it to the airport, got checked in and waited for our flight! 

  Once on the plane we could hardly wait for our yummy cinnamon rolls, I passed them out and everyone was excited, except Destina she doesn't really like sweets that much. The boys devoured theirs like hungry wolves. Scott, Kelsie and I could hardly choke down a couple bites they were so disappointing, the worst cinnamon roll that I ever paid money for. (Scott made some not too long ago that were horrible too, but I didn't spend money on those.)   That was the only bad thing about our trip thus far, our flight was going good and we were ready to get home. When we arrived in Bellingham the airport was fogged in, we circled twice and tried to land twice but the fog was too thick. They rerouted us to Seattle we landed at SeaTac at 11:30 pm tired and hungry. By the time we waited in line to get our hotel voucher and then waited for the shuttle bus, then waited in line at the hotel to check in it was 1:30 am before we went to sleep. While on the shuttle bus Ryan announced, to our new group of best friends, that it was midnight and his birthday, the shuttle bus full of people started singing happy birthday to him. That was the highlight of the long night, Ryan was celebrating his sweet 16 on a bus full of tired travelers. They told us to be back at the airport by 8 am the next morning, it was a short night the kids did great, and we were back at the airport waiting for the fog to lift in Bellingham so they could fly us home. We loaded on the plane and sat in the plane for about an hour waiting for the green light from Bellingham. We finally made it home at noon, about 14 hours later than expected. But other than our icky cinnamon rolls, that I left in the hotel room, and not being able to land we had a great time and a great vacation.

Snow Day

Snow days are a big deal here! It started snowing Saturday night, and continued to snow all day Sunday. We went to church in the morning but it was pretty sparse and they cancelled the last 2 hours. When we came home I made everyone go over to the dentist office parking lot for a quick family picture, one of my quick and easy photo spots on snowy days. It was still snowing and pretty cold but after we came inside and warmed up. Except Ryan, he stayed outside and shoveled the walk down to the little grocery store and the area around the grocery store. Then he came in and changed and went off with about 4 of his buddies they drove around and randomly stopped at people's houses and shoveled their driveway's and walkways, as soon as the people came outside and noticed they would take off. If they finished the job they made a big heart in the yard and wrote "love the Mormon's" in the heart. They stopped and helped people that were out shoveling their driveways and when someone offered to pay they refused. He was out for a couple of hours and he had a great time! Avrie wanted to go build a snowman so we bundled her up and she played outside for about 20 minutes then she was done. The rest of us were fine inside watching the snow, some of the kids made snow cones, then wanted hot chocolate and I forced everyone to play a game together! We had Tim and McKenzie and the missionaries over for dinner and somehow there was a snowball fight inside my house, I am pretty sure we are that "crazy family!" Later that night Ryan and his friend stayed outside in our front yard building an igloo until way too late in the night, so much for going to bed early! School was cancelled for today Avrie had a sleepover at McKenzie's house, and everyone else is sleeping in and being lazy! It is beautiful outside but I will take the rain over the snow any day!

Ryan's Birthday Dinner

This is more than a month behind but we did celebrate Ryan's birthday by making his favorite dinner, steaks and a birthday cake. He didn't have very many presents to open but Tim and McKenzie came through with a new hat, he is wearing his new shirt that he talked his dad into buying him while we were on our trip and called that his birthday present. The rest of his present is still coming, driver's ed. He has not been in a hurry to drive, he doesn't get a car until Kelsie leaves in Sept. and he has plenty of people to drive him around. Happy Birthday Ryan!

Avrie loved the cake and ice cream!

Ryan showing off his new hat and shirt!

Scott found this picture of Ryan when he was 8 years old, he was so cute!

So we recreated the picture, he is now 16 and has doubled in size!

Ryan's hair went from stick straight hair when he was 8 to wavy dark hair just like my dad's with that crazy curl right in the front. Scott's just happy to still have some hair!

The Boogie

Ryan doing his thing on the mountain, finally there is enough snow and he has been taking advantage of every day he can get up there. He went up on Friday with Scott, Mckenzie, and Scott's friends and one of his friends. McKenzie was able to give him some tips on flipping this was his first attempt at the back flip. The kid would live on the mountain if he could figure out a way.

Church Dances

Our church regularly holds youth dances so that the youth have a safe, grinding free, place to mingle with other kids their age.  Scott and I were chaperoning the last dance and we forced Jayden to go. Ryan and Kelsie willingly go because their friends are there. Before the dance they had a etiquette dinner and tried to instill good manners and dating do's and don'ts . Jayden started warming up and by the time the dance started he was having fun and not afraid to ask the girls to dance. He said most of the girls he danced with were older than he was, but not only was he brave enough to ask the older girls to dance he asked the cutest girl in the room to dance.  Ryan wanted to ask her to dance but he wasn't brave enough but Jayden, I guess he has no fear when it comes to talking to girls! The cutest girl in the room happened to be the sweetest girl as well, she was talkative and even smiling, but then again she is always smiling. The best part was that it was caught on camera and I have evidence that Jayden danced with the cutest girl ever!

On the way home he asked Scott when the next dance was!

Funny Story

I have to write down the funny story from Destina before I forget, she cracks me up with the way she turns something from her past into humor.  During the whole process of trying to get her green card we contacted some friends in Haiti to see if they could track down a birth certificate for her and Avrie, she was able to get it and when it came in the mail Destina was very interested in trying to read the details of her birth. We deciphered the day, time and place of her birth as well as her mother's name. Once we looked at it I put them away and it has now been a couple of months since she looked at it. The other night, I am not sure what we were talking about, but somehow the time of her birth came up, and out of the blue she said, "I just don't think I was born at 5:00 pm that is not right." I questioned her and asked her why that couldn't be right and in my sarcastic voice I asked her if she remembered the actual time she was born. She replied, "No, but I remember that my brother was born at 4:00 pm so that is weird that I was born at 5:00 pm."  I asked her,"How do you know that your brother was born at 4:00 pm?" She looked at me and in her best Destina attitude replied, "I was there for the WHOLE thing!" I said, "You saw your brother being born?" She laughed and said, "Oh ya it was right in our house!"  I replied, "So then we don't need to have the talk about where babies come from?" She answered, "Um No, I know everything," as she walked away shaking her head and laughing.

On another note she brought home a test from school and she was a little upset that she did not do very good on the test.  Standardized testing that is a whole other subject I won't go into right now, but needless to say, she had a hard time understanding the questions. She didn't want me to get mad at her but she wanted to show me the note her sweet teacher wrote on her test.  It said, " I know this test was hard for you. It must feel discouraging. Even though I'm a teacher, I believe there are more important traits than being  a perfect student. You have 2 amazing and important traits - you are very smart about people and emotions, and you like working hard. Be kind to yourself."  Then on a different page of the test Destina had to answer an essay question and the teacher wrote, "I agree. You have "emotional intelligence." That means you're very good at understanding people's feelings. Lots of people who are good at school need more of what you have."
She is so lucky to have such a wonderful teacher, she loves going to school every day, even when the school work is hard for her.

Day 7

This was our last full day in Hawaii, and we had so much fun the day before at the snorkeling beach that everyone wanted to go back in the morning. We stayed until after lunch and then we wanted to go back up to the little shopping village in Lahaina. We took Avrie out with us and she was out there for almost an hour she saw the turtle and was so excited. Scott was holding onto her and I was holding her hand it was so much fun to be out there swimming with her and to see her excitement as she would point to something underwater. At one point she needed to readjust her goggles and then got water in her mouth and eyes and Scott couldn't touch and she was gabbing onto him that he grabbed onto me and started pulling me closer so I could help but he pulled me right over some coral and I came out a little cut up in several places along my left leg, the worst spot was on my foot, but we all recovered and it was still a great experience. Destina went our with our friend Amy she loved it and is always up for an adventure. Scott took Jayden out so he could see the turtle and he did a pretty good job he is not fond of the water but he was brave and went out with Scott, he had a hard time with water coming in the snorkel but he survived. Ryan was a natural he was diving and spent several hours out snorkeling he thought that was much better than the surfing.

We left the small children at the condo with Mike, Ryan and Jayden in charge while we went shopping again. I found a few things that I had been waiting all week to buy to make sure I just wasn't impulse buying and this was my last chance to get them.  Later that night we went out to dinner to a Mexican restaurant that was really good, I thought. We took Ryan along because his birthday was coming up the place was loud and fun and it was a great way to spend our last night in Maui.

 It was the perfect morning and so beautiful.

 Love these ladies we had a great time together!

 These 3 are so funny together they wanted to be mermaids and loved playing in the sand.

 Destina is such a sweet daughter I love spending time with her. (I love spending time with Kenzie, Katie, Kelsie, and Avrie too.)

 Kids central it was a good thing our friends had a nice big place to come hang out at and it was really nice of Kelsie to offer to babysit at night so we could go out to eat, she really is so sweet!

 Love the girl in the background Ryan was in charge of taking the picture....

Destina finally cracked open the coconut that she found on the first day, she drank all the juice and than started eating the coconut.  It was a lot harder than they make it look on Survivor, we did not have a machete laying around. She is at least resourceful.

Day 6

I can't believe it has been a month since we were in Hawaii, and that it has taken me that long to post about it.  I better get on the ball.
Day 6  - We decided to go snorkeling at the beach that our friends had gone to before, but of course we had to stop and do a little shopping on the way. We packed a lunch and headed out to the beach. It was the perfect spot lots of sand not too many people and we could walk out into the water to go snorkeling instead of climbing over sharp rocks and big waves.
Everyone went out, it was a little ways out before the good snorkeling and just when I was about to give up and come back a lady told me and my friend that she just saw a turtle. That gave me a little more incentive to stay out we found the turtle and he came out of his cave to swim with us. I stayed out there for about an hour which is a record for me, and I almost became comfortable with snorkeling. We also had fun on the beach watching the kids and playing in the sand. All the kids love our friend Amy she could cheer up the sad, and get the kids laughing and playing.

 Here are some of the gang heading out, even Avrie went out. The picture below shows how far we had to swim out to get the the snorkeling spot out by the rocks.

 Scott thought it would be fun to see how far he could be buried by the sand as the waves came in, everyone else wanted to try it too.

 She warmed up to the sand and she was entertained by digging occasionally she like to wander off and go exploring but there were plenty of people to go chase after her.

 Scott and Ryan trying to see how it feels to be a really short person.

 or maybe Scott was just trying to make Amy feel taller since she had to hang out with tall people all week.

 We got back to our condo to clean up and our friends called to tell us that a turtle had just crawled up on their beach, we hurried over to get some pictures of the turtle. It was petty cool.

That night we went out to dinner again, to a nicer restaurant but the food was not as good, we then headed down to one of the fancy resorts for  dessert. My friend claims they make the best banana's foster and she was looking forward to it all week. It was a really fancy place and the dessert was really good but since that was the first time I had ever had that dessert I can't be sure that it was the best, I will have to try out a few more places.
Our friends also had an underwater camera hopefully there are some good pictures of us snorkeling!

I am so far behind

The rest of the vacation travel log will have to wait.... I have to play catch up on a few things. First I have this really cute picture of Ryan and Scott that was taken 8 years ago and I wanted to replicate it for his 16th birthday post and I have failed so far at getting that done. Ryan's sweet 16th birthday WAS January 17th! At 12:01 am on the 17th we were riding on the shuttle bus to our hotel in Seattle and he announced that he was 16 and the packed bus all broke out in singing Happy Birthday to him it was really cute, we were all tired, our plane had been rerouted because of fog but it was his birthday and there was a happy moment on that bus. He was also really sad because he has not received any birthday cards from family, so you know who you are, send the boy a card, wish him a happy LATE birthday, go ahead make his day!

Destina's green card came in the mail on Saturday, unfortunately is sat in our mailbox all weekend and I got it this morning as I was sending out a birthday card to my favorite 9 year old niece! I saved it for her to open when she got home from school and she was so excited. Next up passports then applying for certificates of citizenship, but so glad this hurdle is behind us!

And tonight Kelsie opened her email and there was an acceptance letter from BYU-Hawaii! She will be heading there this fall. She was really excited, she took a chance and that was the ONLY school she applied to, but she had a pretty high ACT score and GPA so we felt pretty confident that she would get in. I am so happy for her she has the next couple of years planed out and this was the first thing on the list.

Katie has a wedding date set, May 17th! This whole planning a wedding in the 10 minutes a day she has between work and school is hard. Hopefully, everything will come together, and I am so happy for her!