Easter

Better late then never..... right! We had a great Easter and I love how fun the holidays are the older Ella gets and she just understands more.

Saturday we went to Dave's first Annual Easter Egg Hunt! It was a blast and Ella loved seeing the Eater Bunny. She went right up to him and gave him a hug. Thanks to Dave and Dawn for a fun afternoon!

Sunday she hunted for candy and Eggs around the house. We usually just hide the basket but this year we switched it up. Ella had soo much fun looking for eggs (some even had quarters.... which were her favorite.)

The only picture taken of Ella in her Easter dress and I didn't even take it. I am a bad mom but I just spaced it. These are my cute nephews:) Ella got a few Easter dresses from her Grandma's so I will have to post the pictures of her in them later:)

What a little poser. I was looking through my pictures just laughing- she loves to talk on the phone already. Perfect!

Her new chair.... and it is purple! She LOVES PURPLE:)

The last of Hawaii

Sorry Kathryn I just had to post this picture. Kathryn and Thom picked us up bright and early from the airport and when I gave Ella her gift Thom dug Kathryn's grass skirt out. It was high on her closet shelf but that didn't stop the Jefe. He made her put it on to take a picture with Ella.

Feel free to skip this post if you are bored but I wanted to get it all posted. I think we took way to many pictures. But I wanted it on here for me so I would remember it all. Doing all these posts made me realize that Stewart and I are not good at sitting still for to long.

This is where we stayed. The backyard was the beach. Stewart just had to climb a few trees..... those of you who know Stewart should not be surprised.


The sand is kinda weird there. It is large and grainy but you can't beat how blue the water is. And sea wead doesn't attack you like in Cali. We loved it:)


We met up a few nights for dinner with the Komotsu's. Brandon served in the same mission as Stewart and they had a great time reminiscing the mission days. Brandon and his wife Jennifer are some of the nicest people I have ever met. We had such a great time with them! We even got some great entertainment one night.... at one of the restaurants they had a guy going from table to table doing magic. We all laughed so hard it hurt.... good times.

Pearl Harbor: It was so amazing to be able to visit this historic sight. It is really amazing to think about and very moving. It is very sad to see all who lost there lives in one day. It just makes you think about all that is going on in this crazy world of ours and be truly grateful for the men and women who serve our country everyday.

The Dole Plantation. Yes this place is more for kids then adults but hey we had a blast. Stewart got his fill of tasty pineapple whip and we even rode the kid train. We sent the pictures below to Ella and she said, "they are silly:)"

We went to the flea market while we were there. It was fun and while we were there people would approach you about coming to this "presentation" and you would get a free sunset dinner cruise or whatever you wanted. Well it was lame, not a timeshare thing but kinda. They kept trying to talk us into buying and we were like just give us our free dinner cruise. Stewart and I were excited because they do a luau thing and have the dances and what not. We didn't really want to go to the pcc because we knew we would be disappointed (especially for the price) So we got the same thing for free.

Check out the sweet boat we had our dinner cruise on:) Cruising in style...lol!


The sunset was amazing and we had so much fun just hanging out on the top deck being dorks:)


They have all kinds of funny things to take pictures with in Hawaii and we took full advantage of being dorks:)



Ella told my mom that this statue is her new dad:)

Para sailing: I was looking forward to this from the minute I knew I was going to Hawaii. I loved it. We had a great time. Minus all the people who got sea sick and were throwing up over the side of the boat! I am so mad I cant find the disc that has the pictures on it because some how some got deleted and we are missing the picture of us getting dipped in the middle of the ocean. Stewart's idea: not mine! I highly recommend this to anyone. While we were on the boat we even got to see some humpback whales. Awesome and totally amazing. I think we saw three total, and we were lucky because it is near the end of the whale season.

HAWAII

Hanauma Bay- A gorgeous place for snorkeling! It used to be a volcano crater and now it is this amazing bay. We saw lots of colorful fish and had a great time laying on the beach. We hung out here for quite a while and loved it.

Then there is a cove on the north shore that my Grandma and Aunt Kathleen told me about. Its a cove that has become a home to a bunch of sea turtles. They started showing up on this beach about 10 years ago and they have started tracking them to see why. We had so much fun we went to this cove twice. The first day there were six turtles just sleeping on the beach. It was pretty crazy. They are so cool and it was fun to see them so close. Our next visit to this cove we decided to snorkel to see if we could see them swimming around. We swam around for a while and I can up for a minute and a lady on the beach said to me, "there is a turtle right next to you." So sure enough he was right next to me. After I spotted him he followed me around for a while and then started chasing Stewart. Thank goodness.... apparently if you touch one, because they are protected you go straight to Federal prison. So i was trying to get away from him but Stewart snapped the sweet pictures below with our underwater camera.



Don't you just love all of our self- portraits. The ONLY bad thing about vacationing by yourself.


Cutest town ever. HALEIWA! Little town on the north shore. Cute shops and one very tasty Mexican restaurant. Also home of the famous Matsumotos shaved ice...... yummy!

Too bad I don't look like Vanna White:( Oh well, what can you do!

Hawaii 2009: Maunawili Falls

Stewart and I were lucky enough to be able to go to Hawaii for spring break. All by ourselves. Awesome. We had a blast, and I learned that neither one of us can just sit and relax. We were so busy the entire trip. We have tons of pictures so I am just going to post one by one of our activities.

We went on this amazing hike. It was gorgeous. I was so amazed the whole time at how beautiful it was. It was so green and it led to these cold pools that had a 40-45 foot cliff to jump of. I have to say I chickened out. I t didn't look bad from the bottom but being on top was totally different and I just kept thinking of how I like the ability to walk around and use my legs. Anyway.... it was so much fun. I love hiking and it was wonderful to have such great scenery.

A HUGE thanks to my mom who had Ella the 5 days and Kathryn who had her the last two. She loves her Grammy and Grandma and had a great time and was very well taken care of.