A lot of people have asked us why we went to Hawaii. Here's my answer...Do you really need a reason to go to Hawaii? :) I guess it would be fun to celebrate an anniversary or birthday or something, but we just needed a vacation! Since we have been married, every "vacation" was actually a trip to visit family. Even though we love our families dearly, visiting family is not necessarily a vacation. A vacation is suppose to be a get-away to help you relax and take a time-out from your regular life. Every time we talked about taking a "vacation", we never seemed to have the money to do it. Not to mention the fact that I was always pregnant or nursing since 2004.
Soooooo, a year ago I said to myself, "The only way I will ever get to Hawaii is if I
MAKE it happen!" I put the kiddos in the car and drove to Barnes and Noble (always a fun place with kids) and bought 'Fodor's Hawaii 2007' book. I highly recommend buying an information book before you go. It was the best thing I did to prepare for this trip. There was a section for each island in Hawaii. After reading a little, I decided Oahu would be the place to go for our first visit. I wanted to go to Pearl Harbor, the Laie Temple, BYU Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Hanauma Bay, Diamond Head, Dole Plantation, and oh so many wonderful things to experience. Some day I hope to venture to the other islands too. They look amazing.
So, one day I told Ben we were going to Hawaii in
May 2008. He looked a little confused and then said, "Sounds good to me!" The next day he went to the bank and opened our
'Hawaii Fund' account. How fun is that? Ben was awesome for going along with my plan. I work at a gym twice a week for a total of 8 hours. It's not a whole lot-but we saved all of my paychecks for almost a year and it turned into a Hawaii vacation! It has been so fun to work towards this goal. I am so happy we did it!
Thanks to my handy dandy info book, I learned about foods, restaurants, parks, beaches, hotels, activities, prices/costs, Hawaiian music, rental cars, Hawaiian sayings & bumper stickers...pretty much everything you can think of. Since you have already seen photos of the fun places we went to, here are some of the fun things we ate:
Malassadas(type of fried donut)
Mahi Mahi
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a fish (only found in Hawaii)
Pipi Kaula(type of beef jerky)
Lomi Lomi(looks like fresh salsa with chunks of salmon)
Kalua Pork
Haupia(coconut custard)
Taro rolls (purple bread rolls)
Shave Ice w/ ice cream(not 'shave
d ice')
and amazing shrimp!
Can you tell we are still having Hawaii withdrawal? Anyway, just in case I end up printing my blog entries some day, I wanted to write a little journal entry to go along with the fun pictures.
I guess when you are soooooo tired from playing all day long, it is possible to actually fall asleep while picking your nose. Who knew? By the way, the 'pointy thing' in his hand is part of a game called Topple. I don't think he was using it to aid the picking process, but then again after seeing this photo I guess all things are possible. Ben took this picture from his cellphone, so it is really pix elated-but captures the moment nonetheless.
For Father's Day we had a BBQ at home, ate WAY TOO much and then headed to Castle Park. I had the kids wear their 'Daddy Shirts' just for Ben. Ashlynn's T-shirt says, "Daddy's Cup Cake". She LOVES cupcakes and calls them "K-K's". This is her third outfit with a cupcake on it. She wants to wear KK shirts everyday.
Luke's shirt says, "I get my muscles from my Dad."
Just look at those bulging muscles!!! Ben was so happy to spend Father's day playing whiffle ball with his brother Ron. Hey, I thought that whiffle ball set was Luke's b-day present!!! Now I know what to get Ben for his b-day next year.
Super Twins-Activate! Grandma Carolyn knew there was no way she would be able to buy Luke a Superman outfit without getting one for Ashlynn. That would be injustice for sure! Ashlynn would let us hear about it for days. 
For some reason the kids really LOVE these glasses and fight over them constantly. Just so you know, we didn't buy these awful sunglasses...we found them.
Our cute little thumb sucker. Does anyone know how to stop kids from sucking their thumb? Please leave comments:)
TAh Dah! It's the horrible sunglasses that we love so much.
Luke bought this Halloween hat at a garage sale for 50 cents. It is brand new and one of his most prized possessions. Luke loves Halloween.
Luke's first bicycle! He loves it and asks to ride it first thing in the morning. To our surprise, he rides his bike really well. 
Luke loves the sprinkler and Ashlynn hates it. If she gets a drop on her, she thinks her life is coming to an end. When Luke sees a sprinkler going, he HAS to run through it or ride his bike through it as fast as he can. They are so different.
Yay!!! A visit from Melissa and Bob Brady. Melissa and I grew up together in Minnesota. 
My sister, Danielle, and I met at a park the other day to visit and let our kids play. It was a lot of fun.
Here are all the cousins together. My kids, of course, behaving the best for photos:) I have no idea what they are doing it this picture.
Yesterday Luke was suppose to be picking up his toys. Here is our conversation:
