Back to the Real World

Summer is over, as is our amazing life in Hawaii. Its nice to be home, but we find ourselves wishing we could go back far too often. What a great experience it was. We were very blessed for the opportunity to live there all summer. Things are finally back to normal and we are enjoying having all of our things back. Its also nice to be back with our families and friends. Because of the high living cost in Hawaii we weren't able to bring home much extra money, but it was definitely worth it.

Me and Dextin came home three weeks before Justin so that we could be at Stefani’s wedding on August 11. It turned out to be so much fun and beautiful. I am so happy for Stefani and Andrew.

Before Justin came home I decided to surprise him with a few projects for our house. We had a bedroom that was full of junk mostly that I cleared out. It also had a big sectional couch that our landlords are storing. I decided to recover the couch so that we could use the extra room as an actual bedroom. There was finally space for Dextin to have his own room which I had fun decorating. The room that I cleared out had a brick wall with a fireplace that was a terrible orange color. I was able to get it painted before Justin got home, though I could have never done it without the help of all his younger siblings. It was a big project and they helped out a ton. Jodi also helped with a lot of the decorating and my mom and my aunt Lyn helped with the couch.

Couch Before:

Couch After:

(I also made a bunch of pillows for it)

Here is the wall in the middle of being painted. You can see the original color on the bottom.

Here are a few of the decorations I did.

I modge podged the pictures onto pieces of wood. I did the ones from Hawaii for our little den area and a bunch for Dextin’s room. I also made him some curtains and some book shelves from rain gutters. Justin loved it and was definitely surprised at how much I was able to get done in three weeks.

On September 10 we got to celebrate Dextin’s first birthday. It was so much fun. For his birthday he got a ball pit, a frog chair, and a fun push around toy. We had a big jungle party later that night. It turned out so fun. I spent most of the day on his cake and we spent way too much money on decorations. It was a blast though and he got a lot of great gifts. We just love our little guy!

Here are a few of Dextin’s one year photos taken by my mom.

On September 21 we said goodbye to my one and only brother Kylan. He is currently a missionary in the San Bernardino California mission. He is doing great so far and I know he will be one fantastic missionary. We miss you Kylan!

Halloween weekend we last minute decided to throw a Halloween party for Justin’s side of the family. It wasn’t as planned out as we normally like, but it turned out fun. Justin spent quite a bit of time on a game he created called pin the organ on the zombie, which everyone seemed to enjoy. I spent my time making yummy Halloween treats. This year me and Justin dressed as bananas and Dextin was a monkey. We went to my moms Halloween night for a small party. While we were there we did a little bit of trick-or-treating. Dextin enjoyed carrying the candy around in his bag, but he enjoyed eating the candy even more.

After five years of off and on schooling I have finally been accepted into the Nursing program. I will start in January and graduate in August of 2013. I am very excited to get my RN and finally be done. I have definitely taken my time getting here, but because of that I will only have to take the Nursing courses as I go because I have everything else already finished. Hopefully that will lighten my load as I continue to work and be a mom and wife. It sure is nice to finally have the end in sight.

Justin got a new job after returning from Hawaii. He is now working for Hearts for Hospice as a driver. He seems to like it alright, but I doubt it will be long term. He also is doing a few installs for Point here and there. He works hard and is staying busy.

That is pretty much what we’ve been up to the past three months. Things are mostly back to normal after our long summer vacation, though we would go back in a heart beat if we could. We are staying busy, but also trying to throw in some fun here and there. Mostly we spend our days chasing around our busy little guy, which is how we like it.

Walking!

At about 8 1/2 months Dextin took his first steps. I think we considered him walking at about 9 1/2 months, though he was still falling quite often. He was walking probably a little more than he was crawling. He is about 10 months old now and is doing great. He still does fall and he still will crawl, but he definitely prefers walking...except on the beach where he still struggles. He has recently learned to squat down and pick things up off the ground and then stand back up, all without falling. He is trying really hard to keep up with little Sophie, but hasnt quite got there yet. It wont be long before hes running though. Here are a few videos, one of when he first started walking and one more recent.

Hawaii Update

You would think that being a stay at home mom for the summer I would find the time to update our blog…oh well. We have stayed pretty busy and its been great. We are getting to know Maui quite well (especially Justin who spends his time driving all around it). We have also had time for a few exciting adventures. May was very quiet. Justin stayed pretty busy with work that month, which was nice. We did find time to play at the beach and the pool and go on a few hikes. One in particular that we loved was the Pipiwai trail. There were quite a few waterfalls, a huge Banyan tree, a beautiful bamboo forest, and an enormous waterfall at the end. It was definitely the best hike I have ever been on.

In June Justin’s parents came to visit for a week along with three sisters, three nephews, and one niece who were all coming to stay for the summer. We ended up taking them on the Pipiwai trail. We also took a snorkeling cruise to molokini crater, which of course made us to decide to buy our own snorkel sets which we have loved using. There is such beautiful coral reef and fish here, but of course the best part is the sea turtles. They are so fun to swim with! I think we have seen a total of seven or eight so far. We were also able to go and see the Garden of Eden. This was a really beautiful garden with amazing views. They said that some of Jurassic Park was filmed there, which is pretty cool. June has also been full of beach days and pool days and, my favorite, shopping days! We are definitely spending more money than we should be, but hey, its Hawaii! Work was fairly slow in June and they began sending a lot of the sales reps back home. This of course left Justin with less installs to do.

This month should be better though because they sent the other technician to a different island so Justin will be getting pretty much all of the installs. Because of this we took a quick, much needed, anniversary vacation. I was pretty stressed out to leave my baby for two nights and three days, but it was worth it. Justin’s sisters say he did pretty good, though I know they didn’t get much sleep. We ended up hoping on a plane last minute and heading to Oahu. I never would have imagined that we would spend our second anniversary in Hawaii. Oahu was quite a bit different than Maui. There are so many buildings and even more people. Everything was crowded and expensive. It was so much fun! I forgot what it was like to be baby-less…so easy! We planned as much as we could last minute, but we werent sure what we were going to do for transportation. Renting a car is extremely expensive if you are under 25 and shuttles have to be planned ahead of time. We decided the public bus was going to be the cheapest and easiest…though not the quickest. Neither of us are bus savy, but we found a really easy way to find out which one to take. Google maps! Both of our phones have google maps and if you choose the bus option instead of car it tells you exactly what bus to take. Easy! Not that the bus was all that fun, but it was nice to spend 5 dollars instead of 40 for a taxi or 15 for a shuttle or a few hundred to rent a car. After arriving in Wakiki we had a few hours before we could check into our hotel. We spent a few minutes at the beach then decided to head to the Honolulu zoo. I’ve not been to very many zoos, but this was by far the best one I’ve been to. They make it so easy to see all of the animals. And they have the most amazing birds. I loved it. After checking in to our hotel we headed back to the beach for a few hours. It was nice to have time to swim and lay out instead of chasing a baby. After cleaning up we headed out for a nice anniversary dinner. We ended up going to an amazing place called Rum Fire. It was right off the beach. It was such a nice place with great food, I would definitely go there again. Plus they have these smores that are to die for. Coconut macaroons with bittersweet fudge topped with a delicious marshmallow. Seriously amazing. I want to figure out how to make them. It has to be fairly simple I think…it is just a smore. The next morning we went on a hike to diamond head crater. I thought I chose a hotel close to the crater, but as we walked there we realized the opening for the hike was on the opposite end. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get there on foot. We left pretty early and the hike was supposed to be fairly short so we figured we would have plenty of time to come back and catch our shuttle to the Polynesian Cultural Center at 12:30. The hike was easy (though I was already tired when we started because of the long walk there) and the view was beautiful. It was packed though. It wasn’t until we were almost to the top that we realized just how packed. We had to stand in line for probably a half hour to see the view from the top. Once we finally got there we had only a minute to get a few pictures and get out of there. We ran most of the way down and by that time it was about noon. The bus to the hotel was about 20 minutes away still so we just kept on running. If I was in any sort of shape it really would not of been so bad, but I only made it because of Justin. He was able to get us back to the hotel by 12:18. We ran inside to change out of our sweaty clothes and got to the shuttle pick up with one minute to spare. Luckily the shuttle was about five minutes behind so we were able to sit and catch our breath. The Polynesian Cultural Center was amazing. It was neat learning about all the different cultures. We also got to enjoy a delicious and entertaining Luau with a fantastic pineapple smoothie (in a pineapple). We got to take a tour to see BYU Hawaii and the Temple, which was beautiful. It would have been nice to be able to attend while we were there, hopefully we will get another opportunity. We also stayed for their evening show which included many different cultural dances and fire dancers. It was an eventful, but tiring day. The next day we slept in and after checking out we took a bus to Hanauma Bay. This was definitely the best place for snorkeling. At one point we were able to swim with hundreds of fish. We also saw three turtles. It was amazing. We spent a little while laying out (which I now regret because of my blistering sunburn…ouch!). Afterwards we went to Pearl Harbor. We should have looked into this a little more because we got there after they finished the last of their tours. We did get to go into the museums and look around though, which was neat. After looking around we went straight to the airport and headed back to Maui. We had so much fun and I am glad we did it, though I did miss my little guy terribly. I am sad to say that I have already purchased my plane ticket home to Utah. It will be nice to go back, but I have really loved this summer vacation. Hopefully we will get to have a few more adventures this month before we go.