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.

New tricks and being cute

I cant believe my little baby Dextin is 8 months old already! Where has the time gone? I haven't said much about him lately so i thought since i have the time that i should post about all of his new accomplishments and cuteness. He has been so much fun. I love how smart he is, its amazing to watch all that he is learning and what he catches onto. Here is a list of what my cute baby can do at 8 months:
* Dextin is great at crawling. He was just 6 months when he learned how and now he is very quick. He loves to crawl around with something in his mouth, like a dog. That is how he brings things with him most of the time, sometimes he does crawl with something in his hand though.
* He just loves food, he is obsessed really. If he sees me eating food then i have to share, he seems to always know when i am. The only way to not share is to hide while eating, and even then he tends to usually find me. He really doesn't care what it is as long as he gets to try it. Mac & cheese was a huge hit as is anything with sugar, of course.
* Also he wanders around the house and eats anything he can find. His little pincer grip is getting quite good and his eyes seem great too because he finds everything. I have so far pulled out of his mouth a penny, piece of plastic, rubber band, lots of paper and cardboard, leaves, grass, and a seashell he found in the house somewhere. I'm sure there is more to come.
* He loves to babble. He has the cutest little voice and has been using it more and more to talk to us. He also sings. It really is the cutest thing ever. It goes like this: lalalalaLaLaLALALA!!! Starts out quiet then gets louder until it turns into a scream.
* He has 8 little teeth and knows just how to use them. He will bite anything and everything in sight. He especially likes my shoulder when I'm not paying attention...ouch!
* Dextin has a shoe fetish. He can spot a shoe from anywhere and get ahold of it before i even realize its there. He has put so many shoes into his mouth, yuck. I try to hide them, but he always finds them. I have teeth marks in most of my flip flops.
* He loves to be on his feet, he always has, but now he can do it by himself. He loves to walk around furniture (which we have very little of currently) and will even let go for quite a while before falling. He will be walking very soon i think.
* He can also climb stairs. I didn't realize this until we actually lived somewhere with stairs. Its super cute, but very scary. He is too little to know what he is doing and i worry he will fall one day.
* We currently are sleeping on an air mattress. Its a nicer one, about 2 feet high. Dextin loves to climb up onto it and then go back down head first. We had a few sad incidents the first few times he tried, but now he knows how not to land right on his head.

I think that's about it. I know he can do many other things, but that's all i can think of for now. Here are a few cute pictures and videos of his new talents.

Standing up!

Bird watching

Eating the door hinge...not a lot of toys here

All worn out

Yummy yummy ice cream

Stuck in his pool tube

Someone has to make sure the washer is doing a good job

Loving the beach

Climbing the stairs

Just being cute

The Beginning of Something Amazing

About two months ago we made the decision to go to Hawaii for the summer. We had an in with one of Justin’s brother-in-laws for a security system tech job. We weren’t really sure about the whole thing and figured we wouldn’t be bringing much money home because of all of the costs, but it was Hawaii. We still aren’t a hundred percent sure about the whole thing, but here I sit, in Maui, wondering how this all happened. It is beautiful here, to say the least. I am loving the weather and Dextin loves the beach and the pool. Justin is staying quite busy with work, so hopefully we will bring home a little bit. We miss him though, we aren’t used to not seeing him so much. We spend our days out walking, or playing in the pool or at the beach. It is nice to get to be a stay at home mom for a little while. We are staying in a really nice condo with Justin’s sister Karli and his brother-in-law Bill. Bill’s family and two more little sisters will be joining us in June. I am trying to remember to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can. So far it really has been so nice.

Getting here was pretty crazy. Everything was very last minute and stressful. We were on a plane the day after our finals, so we had to get ready for those besides Hawaii. We also were trying to sell our CRV and motorcycle. And we were getting ready to go through the temple. It would have been nice to have a few extra weeks or so to get it all taken care of. We did end of getting everything done, but not exactly the way we could have with more time. Definitely the most important was the temple. We were able to go through and be sealed as a family on April 21, 2011, which was amazing. I am grateful to everyone who helped out and joined us. Dextin did end up screaming throughout the entire thing, but it was still wonderful.

We had to take three different flights and had two layovers in order to get here. It was one full day. Dextin did great, thankfully. He slept through most of the flights. I was especially grateful to have Karli fly out with us. She has been such a huge help. We haven’t done a ton of things so far, but we have found time to have a few small adventures. We have been to several different beaches and hopefully we will hit a few more while we are here. We drove up the road to Hana last week. It was a long, but beautiful drive. We ended up at twin falls, but we were only able to see one of the waterfalls because it was getting late. The boys all went for a swim while me and Karli watched. This is definitely an adventure for our little family and so far im really glad we made the decision to come. I am excited to see what else we will get a chance to do.