Summer

We've done a lot this summer, but our main event has been spending two weeks in Hawaii, which of course we all LOVED! Trenton finally got to take some time off of work, and the boys were able to be entertained by someone other than boring Mom all day. 

On our way there, the flight was about 6 hours and 45 minutes from Salt Lake.....and the boys slept some, but not NEARLY as much as I expected them to.  We started the day by leaving for the airport at about 6:15 am.  Took a short flight to Salt Lake from Denver, and had about an hour and a half layover, where we met up with my parents and brother and sister.  Jackson ran around on his favorite toy, the moving sidewalk, and Jordan crawled toward any stranger that had food.  As long as he was happy, I let him crawl wherever he wanted to go.

















 On the 2nd flight, Jackson fell asleep right after take-off.

Jordan was too distracted at looking out the window to fall asleep right away.  Both of them only slept for about 1.5 - 2 hours of the flight, and that was it.  Luckily there were 6 of us for him to make the rounds through.  Whenever he got sick of someone, we'd just had him up to the next person.  Once we landed, he was all smiles.  Go figure.  I think we all were after sitting for that long.
















Jackson and Jordan have always loved the water from the day they were born.  So I wasn't too worried about them wanting to swim all day, every day, which is pretty much all we do in Hawaii.  But they handled the beach even better than I had hoped.  Jordan is at that age where I was a little worried that he's just try to eat the sand.  He didn't try once.  He actually loved the beach even more than Jackson did.  He would start to kick his legs and try and wiggle out of my arms as soon as he would see the ocean.   It only took Jackson about 30 seconds to get used to the salt water, and then he just failed himself everywhere in the water and waves.

 After the boys would play in the water for a little bit, it became routine that they'd sit up in their chairs and share snacks. 

On our last trip to Hawaii, Trenton didn't get the hang of boogie boarding until our last day.  So starting from day one, he spent a lot of time in the waves this trip to make up for last time.

 We went to 1 or 2 beaches a day, in addition to the pool.

 



Falling asleep was never an issue....

"Uncle Jacob" was a cool new toy for Jackson, so he loved to chase him around everywhere.

 

 And seeing as how Jordan is in the phase where he wants to do everything Jackson does...that meant Jordan also chased him around everywhere...

 On Sundays, we took full advantage of it being a day of rest...and just kind of relaxed at the condo.

 

 The church building we went to, is right next to the temple and visitor center.  It was joint Relief Society and Priesthood the first week we were there, and Jackson didn't want to stay in nursery the whole time...so we all had to take turns looking at "Jesus" in the visitor center.  It's all he wanted to do.  He would just sit there and look up at him, and scream anytime any of us tried to pull him away.  "I go see Jesus, please."

 Later that afternoon, we went back to walk around the temple when it was a little cooler.  I'm not sure how reverent it was...but Jackson just wanted to play in the water on the temple grounds...

Since it was Jordan's birthday that day, we celebrated with a small cake and a make shift highchair we brought.  After we sang to him, Jordan just kept singing "happy!" in between bites of cake.

 One of our traditions is to go to this particular beach and eat subway at sunset.  The boys loved it and got sandy and dirty as usual.

 About a week into our vacation, I went and took surfing lessons with Jacob and Julie-Ann.  One of our instuctors pulled up in his truck, introduced himself, then started to get all the boards off his truck and on to the sand.  Lol, then our female instructor walked up....weed in hand, and introduced herself.  Priceless! We took a successful 2 hour private lesson.  We all got up on our first wave, and it was way fun.  I'm sure we all looked like professionals....But then right at the end, I fell off my board and got hammered pretty good by a wave.  No big deal, I've been hit by a lot worse.  But then another wave came...and this time my board came flying at my head and the fin sliced right by my eye.  I'm surprised I didn't fully black out.  I could hear the impact of the board hitting my head under water.  Still makes me cringe a little bit.  I had no idea my eye was cut at all, because I was too concerned about trying to get back on my board before the wave that was approaching, would hit me and carry me into a coral reef that was sticking up out of the water about 10 ft away from me.  I made it onto my board just in time for the wave to knock me off and slam me onto the coral underneath me.  After that wave, there was a little break, and I sloppily got back onto my board, and the next wave carried me all way up on to the sand.  My sister saw it all happen, and said I looked like I came right out of the movies.  My hair was matted down on my head everywhere, I was covered in sand, and I had blood running all down my face.  I still didn't realize I was bleeding as bad as I was until one of our instructors ran up to me and helped me stand up. That's when I saw blood all over my board shorts and my hands.  She helped me stumble a few feet up the beach, when the lifeguard came on his 4-wheeler and picked us up and took us back to his tower.  Two of them helped clean up my cut and taped me up until we could make it to the ER.  I ended up laying there on the back board for about 20 minutes to keep from blacking out and throwing up.  Once I was stable enough, they drove me back down the beach to where we were parked.  We then headed back to the condo where we switched drivers and Trenton took me to the ER to get checked out and stitched up. 7 stitches later...I think I picked up the most expensive souvenir of the vacation!  I was really sore for a few days, and couldn't do much without making myself dizzy and sick to my stomach because of how hard the board hit my head.  So for most of the 2nd week of our vacation, I kinda just supervised the kids on the sand instead of the water.  But hey, if I'm going to be hurt, I'd rather it be in Hawaii than anywhere else!  It could have been a whole lot worse.  The cut was really close to my eye, and I'm just grateful it didn't actually hit my eye.  I had a pretty nice shiner though!

 The last night in Hawaii, we stayed in a hotel on Waikiki because our condo was booked for that night.  It turned out to be really fun.  First we went shopping during the afternoon and Jordan found his new love of pizza...

                                                          (Right after his first bite)

 Then we went to the hotel where the kids had so much fun.  They were in heaven. 

                           (Yes...that is a bed pool side. I found the first item on my Christmas list!)

                                                              (View from our room)

 The flight home went really well.  Both boys slept the entire way on both flights.  Such troopers!