Happy Halloween!

Have you ever not been in the mood for a holiday? That would be me today. I just couldn't get myself to have the Halloween spirit. You would think with how "witchy" I can be, I would fit right into it. I have really enjoyed the candy though :)

Anyway, the kids finally got me to agree to carving pumpkins...around 4pm. Hey, at least they got done. Kendrie was the photographer for the event. To start things off, Kortlan decided that pulling the guts out was just too disgusting and refused to clean out his pumpkin. Being the mean mother that I am, I told him that he wouldn't get to go Trick or Treating if he didn't. A few more tears and then he just decided to get it over with...

All done and he lived through it! I am so proud of him, my little pumpkin cleaner!

Kendrie's turn....because of Jim's recent incident with a knife, the kids were so kind as to remind me to be very careful. Wasn't that sweet of them? I actually think they would have freaked out if I did the same thing...ew, there was a lot of blood. I am pretty sure they were just as nervous as I was until I put the knife down.

Kendrie did something to the camera and made this picture come out very strange. She told me to put it on here though because I match the pumpkin....hmm, not sure what to think about that...to much time in the tanning beds perhaps?

Careful, Mom! (can't you hear them saying it?)
Without thinking first, Kendrie hugged her pumpkin...and then had to pull out strings of guts out of her hair. Eww!

Trick or Treat!

Family Pictures

Today was the perfect Fall day for outdoor pictures... we drove up to Wolf Creek to get some great scenery for our background... It's never too early to think about Christmas Cards, right?

HAWAII

We left Salt Lake the morning of Thursday October 16th. We flew to LA and caught our connecting flight to Lihu'e, Kauai. 6 hours later we flew over the islands....

We stayed at the Wipouli Outrigger Condominiums near Kapa'a on the Southeast Shore. Friday morning we all woke up at 4am...silly jet lag...great for watching sunrises though. This is the view of the beach from our bedroom deck....

This Sunrise pic is 100% untouched! No editing involved with this....absolutely breathtaking!
We ventured out and drove up the East side to Princeville on the North Shore. We stopped at some unnamed (that we were aware of) beaches to enjoy the scenery...
We drove up to the Waimea Canyon...I hate to reuse adjectives but there is no other way to describe this grand canyon of Hawaii...absolutely, breathtaking.... After gawking at the canyon, we drove all the way around to the farthest West Shore point we could...Polihale State Park. The weather was great...not too much wind and the sun was under a thin cloud cover so it wasn't overly hot...great waves to play in too.
On Jim's 40th birthday, we headed to Po'ipu for a Luau at the Hyatt.
I took so many pictures that you can put them all together and make a small movie...unfortunately, we were too far back and most of them turned out blurry. These are the 2 best...
On Monday the boys wanted to try out their surfing skills. We drove to a local surf lesson spot.
Their instructor had them go through the motions of surfing on the beach first until they had it down pretty good. They picked it up quickly and headed out into the water. And, no, I didn't do it...I was the photographer of course! :)

Apparently, the beach to our resort is known for beached Monk Seals...within moments of one coming on shore, a Monk Seal Response Team shows up and ropes off the area around the animal. It just lays there and gets all the sun it needs and then waddles its way back to the water. This is one of the two we saw while we were there.
Because our condo had it's own kitchen, we bought and prepared a lot of our own food, however, we also investigated the nearby restaurants...our favorite? Scotty's BBQ! Fabulous BBQ sauce...fabulous beef brisket and pulled pork...yummy! Another reason for this being our favorite? This is the view from our table....
A drive up to Wailua Falls...
An adventure in boogie boarding late afternoon Tuesday...I haven't edited the actual boarding event, so you get a post shot...

And the very cool rainbow shot as we were leaving....
The last sunrise of our stay...Wednesday morning
And my favorite adventure...kayaking up the Wailua River! (note to self: lift weights and do lots of stretching before trying this again! Ouch!) But oh, so fun!

After paddling for about 30-40 minutes we beached our kayaks and hiked 30 minutes into the jungle looking for the "Secret Falls" (ok, why they are called "secret" is beyond me, everyone knows about it)
This is not the secret falls, just a little one along the way....pretty though!
Ok, here you go...but you have to keep it to yourself, it's a secret! Legend has it that ancient Hawaiian young men would launch themselves off the top of these falls to prove their manhood...unfortunately, most of them left their manhood on the rocks below... sad and a little disturbing as we swam around in the very cold and may I mention not very big pool below the falls...

And the paddling back....again, lots of weights and stretching first!

On Thursday morning we caught a flight from Lihu'e to O'ahu for a day of exploring this island before we flew out on a red eye that night. Our first stop was Pearl Harbor....very humbling

A drive up to the North Shore took us past the Dole pineapple plantation and lots of traffic! We finally made it to the shore and stopped in a great little town called Haleiwa (pronounce Halay Eva, I know, I asked the waiter) for a great lunch. We then headed East and stopped for some surfer gawking at Sunset Beach. This is Sunset beach...huge waves! We were amazed at all of the surfers out in these...even 9 year old boys and a 13 year old girl! It was awesome to watch...(and might I add a little scary to my motherly instincts!)

Sunset in Haleiwa, were we stopped again for dinner on our way back to the airport

Awesome vacation! Can't wait to do it again....

A Rainy Saturday

Thank goodness it rained today! And not just a down pour and then it quit. It rained all day. We drove up to Tremonton and met up with Jim's parents and his sister Sherri and her family.

Lunch at Maddox in Brigham City. Wow, does this restaurant have great food....my favorite? The rolls with raspberry honey butter...mmm! This is Kendrie and her cousin Kaden (whom I had to fight with for the raspberry honey butter, hehe):

After our very tasty and very filling lunch, we drove across the street to a farmer's market and picked up some great produce....beets, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes.....the kids played in the straw bales and maze. All while getting wet from the constant rain. Love the Fall!