Free Zoo Day!

A few months ago my neighbor told me about the free zoo day on the last Wednesday of the winter months.  Today ended up being a good day for us to go and it wasn't nearly as crowded as I would have expected.  It was about the same as any other time I've been to the zoo.  

We went with our neighbors, the Squires.  Some of our other neighbors were going too, but I lost my phone and was never able to meet up with them!  We also ran into my friend Natasha and her cute boy Lincoln so it was fun to catch up with them.  

The weather was pretty good except for that cold wind!  Compared the the blizzard outside right now it was pretty much great.

riding the train

 alligator

turtles

riding the caterpillar with a horn?

It was a fun day!

Biggest Loser

My family is doing a Biggest Loser challenge.  It's more like a "get healthy" challenge since the little girls and Tyson are participating:)  Everyone gets a point each day for each item on the left and a point for each percent of weight loss every week.  Every one gets a turn creating a weekly challenge for everyone to do to earn an extra 5 points or something.

Kelsey pretty much already posted everything that I was going to post on her blog.  It's been funny so far hearing all of our reactions to this healthy stuff that we should have been doing all along!  I always knew I didn't drink enough water, but holy cow!  Now I'm wondering how I even survive!  Same with vegetables.  It's just funny that I never paid attention before.  We'll see how long this lasts:)

It's day 2 and I have 15 points so far.  Anyone else have more?

The Best Things in Life

Any of my three boys will agree that one of the best things in life is an ice cold coke in a nice hot bath. 

(I promise the discoloration is spilled coke)

(don't anyone freak out - it's just his belly button)

 Tyson had a Coke in the bath the other day and Easton wanted one in his bath this morning.  I accidentally left the can in there when I put Callan in the tub and he LOVED it.

While we're on the subject of bath photos, here are the boys sharing an octopus for breakfast the other day.

Stats

I feel like I just can't get caught up from our trip!  The house is finally almost clean again (it was clean this morning, but I came downstairs after showering and Easton had scattered chocolate sprinkles EVERYWHERE.)  Before I forget (and so that I can start throwing away the huge stack of papers that need to be dealt with by my bed) here are Callan's stats from his 12 months appointment.

Weight: 20.28 lbs - 31.02%ile

Length: 29 inches - 15.53%ile

Head Circumference: 18 inches - 37.33%ile

It is so much fun watching him learn and grow.  Here are a few things he's doing now...

goes up and down the stairs easily - so nice that I don't have to worry anymore

can tell you what a dog, cow, bear, lion, and tiger say

says "this" all the time

can point to your nose

walks all around holding onto furniture

waves bye bye and says, "dye" before Tyson even leaves every morning

loves playing with Easton, especially when they play puppies

says "uh oh"

loves vacuuming with the vacuum hose extension

tattles on his brother when he's annoyed

has 10 teeth including 2 top molars that have been no fun at all this week

is still our sweet little cuddle bug

We just love him!

The Rest of the Trip

Here are some pics of the rest of our trip!

Callan in our ENORMOUS tub!  Easton couldn't even get in or out of it. 

Callan spent most of his naps propped back in his stroller.

We went to Kaanapali Beach to snorkel on Friday.  It was pretty windy.  Luckily Grandma got the boys some wind hats. 

Callan liked putting his feet into the waves.

Easton liked to throw sand at the waves and then run away from them.

Everyone inching into the water to snorkel.

After that we went home and got showered and let the boys nap.  We went on a drive to find some waterfalls on the road to Hana, but unfortunately our map wasn't matching up and we never found them. My parents took the boys and Tyson and I went on a date before I took him to the airport.  We spent hours driving around looking for a place to eat and ended up at an overpriced Italian place that really wasn't great.  But we enjoyed having some time together.

Tyson ended up having all kinds of issues with his flights!  He finally got home Saturday night and got a good night's sleep before he hit the books.

We spent Saturday at the pool and beach all day and went back to Lahaina for some more shopping and some delicious shaved ice!

Sunday morning we went to church in Lahaina.  The cultural hall was completely packed and there were windows all around that you could see the ocean during church!  It was great.

After church we got packed up and my dad, Kelsey, Katelin, and Cassidy went to find the mysterious waterfalls.  They found them and had a great time!  

When the boys woke up, my mom and the girls and us went to find a goat dairy in Kula.  It took us a while to find it and it had closed an hour before we got there.  But we saw some cute little goats.

We got to the airport and had some ticketing troubles.  While my dad dealt with that, the rest of us dealt with Easton.  Oh he was on one.  I ended up with a fat purple lip which I thought might need stitches and everyone ended up beaten and bruised by his cast.  He kept running away from us in the airport and when we would go get him he would scream and attack us all creating a lot of attention from security.  One of the security ladies got mad at him for going through the x-ray thing when it wasn't his turn and he refused to go through the x-ray thing at all.  It was bad.  Oh he was bad.  On the flight from Maui to Honolulu he spilled a few drops of his juice on his shorts.  He stood up on his chair and flipped out so we had to take off his shorts and he road the whole way to Honolulu in his undies until we landed and got into the airport and found his pajamas.  Stinker.

At one point it was so strange - he looked up at me with his arms folded at his chest and he looked just like Tyson does when he's mad.  But at the same time, he was acting just like me.  It was like I was looking at Tyson and talking to myself at that age.  So weird.  I pulled a similar stunt at Disneyland to my parents:)  Luckily security didn't question anyone this time...

We're glad to be home safely, even in the cold.  Tyson passed his test this morning so it made the whole thing worth it having him there.  It was a great vacation and we loved everything from our sweet suite to our rental mini van.  (Ok I might have been the only one who loved our mini van- seriously it was great.)  We feel so blessed that we were able to go!  Thanks mom and dad!   

Aloha

Our big trip is finally here!  It was over a year ago that we sat down at the table at my parents' house and they told us about this trip.  We had so much fun talking about it that I laughed myself into labor:)

When Tyson was accepted to school, he decided he would not be able to come on the trip.  We were so sad!  But the day before we left, he changed his mind!  He made the arrangements to be able to come for a few days and we're so glad.  Tyson's flight left early Tuesday morning and he arrived in Maui Tuesday evening.  He got to go to a dinner with my parents and sisters who were already there.  He got autographs from Jordin Sparks and all the celebs who where golfing in the event including Bruce Jenner.  (He showed me the picture on his phone and I had no clue who the guy was.)

The boys and I left Tuesday afternoon with Cassidy and Kelsey. The first flight to LAX was TERRIBLE.  I wanted to turn around and go home.  Callan hated being confined to one seat and Easton had serious issues with his ears hurting.  We're talking screaming at the top of his lungs for the last half hour of every flight.  To make matters worse, neither of the two had slept at all that day.  They were so tired but wouldn't sleep!  In LA we ate at McDonald's and then got on our plane to Honolulu.  I finally got smart and pulled out the cough syrup before this flight.  (Give me a break- they really do have coughs.)  They both fell asleep right away and slept the whole time.  Until Easton's ears started hurting.  I didn't think it would actually wake him up from his sleep, but sure enough before the pilot even announced that we were descending Easton would start screaming.  So sad.  There was nothing I could do for the kid but hold him!

We slept in Honolulu and caught our flight to Maui in the morning.  That flight was awesome.  Right about the time we reached the air it was already time to come down again.

Easton was SO EXCITED to see his aunties and grandparents at the airport!  He went running out yelling their names.  We got our rental car and headed to our hotel, the Ritz-Carlton.

We went to the pool and the beach. 

Callan prefers the pool and Easton prefers the beach.  Of course.  The beach and pool are close to each other, but not close enough for me to keep an eye on both of them!

Kate, Cassidy, Ty, Callan

Kennedi, Tyson, Kate, Collette

Callan in the sand.

We went on two little hikes to some rocks that look like dragon teeth and to a blow hole.

The kids get so tired by 5:00!  They beg to go to bed!  We try to keep them up until 7 ish.  It's kind of funny, they wake up at 4:30 no matter what time zone they're in...  At least the four of us fit much better in our king sized hotel bed than we do in our queen at home!

Yesterday the boys woke up so early.  Callan and I took a 45 minute shower to pass the time.  Tyson and Easton went down to the beach to fish in the light of the full moon.  We went to the store to get Callan some medicine.  Did I mention we're all sick?  It's terrible, but we'd rather be sick here than at home!  Callan has it the worst and I feel so bad for him.  Yesterday was my dad's golf event for work which is why we all get to be here.  Some of us went to go be part of the clapping crowd for the first few minutes.  

Then we drove to Lahaina for an underwater boat tour.  We went down stairs to the bottom of the boat and looked out the windows to see all the fish in the coral reef.  

Waiting for the boat.

Sea Turtle

I personally didn't think it was worth the money... We saw a couple sharks and turtles and a few fish.  But what you see in the picture is pretty much what we could see.  We had a good time though.

pirate cannon

Banyon trees

Poor Callan pretty much has snot running out of every hole on his head.  He's a trooper.

We ate lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise.  

After that we all had a good nap and went back to the beach and pool until dinner time.

Heading down to the beach now!

Safe and Sound

Aloha!  It's 7:00 AM here on the beautiful island of Maui.  Tyson, the kids, and I are all showered and dressed.  Callan is awake from his first nap of the day.  Easton has been to the beach and back and Tyson is fishing. 

JETLAG?

Happy Down Dog Day!

On Wednesday I wanted to teach Easton about Groundhogs Day so I started telling him about it and the conversation went something like this...

Me:  "Let's look on the computer and find a picture of a groundhog."

E: "Down dog?  I already know down dog."

Easton procedes to show me the yoga pose, down dog.

{Thanks Aunt Kels for teaching him yoga.  His dad is so proud}

Me: "Oh no not down dog, ground hog."

E: "Round dog?"

Easton procedes to pose in down dog, this time spinning around in a circle on his hands and feet.  I finally found a picture of a ground hog and tried to explain the whole thing, but the more I explained, the weirder it sounded.  What a strange holiday!  Pretty soon I just decided to forget it.

I meant to post this yesterday, but things got a little out of hand.  I was like, "Hey kids, we're going on a luxury vacation next week without your dad since he has school so don't anyone get sick or anything cuz I'm not sure I could handle it."  And that's when they started plotting against me.

Callan decided he was just gonna ride this croup thing out forever and Easton was like "Oh, maybe I'll break my arm.  That would make Hawaii fun."

Thank heavens for waterproof casts.  

I'll explain later.  Right now I just want to cuddle the little stinkers.

Happy Down Dog Day!