An Announcement I've been waiting a long time to make

No, not that kind of announcement. For now, this is more exciting: Sold!

After waiting for two long years, crying countless number of times, praying, fasting, worrying, agonizing, and then learning to not worry and agonize our house in Virginia is under contract! We will keep our fingers crossed until July 15th (closing date) and then we are DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We found out in Hawaii (as if the vacation needed to get any better) and I initially sobbed. I don't know why, but then I promptly forgot about it at all. I've had a hard time even remembering to tell people about it. I think I've gotten so good at putting it out of my mind I just kept ignoring it-even when the news was good! Obviously in this market it is selling below what we still owe on it, but we have the money in savings to make up the difference and won't be doing a short sale. We feel very happy, blessed, and mostly relieved!

Our closing date in Virginia when it officially became ours....little did we know.

Ohana Means Family

Day 6: Sunday! We went to the ward in Kailua (there are actually three of them) and I really liked it. I got kissed on the cheek 4 different times, so that was different. They sang Aloha 'oe to a family leaving after the Sacrament. I absolutely love that song, so I was happy to hear it done. AND we got Lei's in Relief Society for being visitors. I think these are all traditions that we should adopt on the mainland.
We just hung out most of the day on Sunday. But there was a few (hundred) pictures taken. Some were more successful than others. That's what the picture of us at the top of the blog came from.

I know she's mine, but is she cute or what?!?

The cousins were so cute and had so much fun together. I was worried about Samantha's withdrawal upon coming home.

And now the pictures. Lots of pictures. Here's my cute kiddos

This is really the shot we should use for Christmas cards, it's much more authentic :)

But here is the best of the 600+ taken (no joke-we have burst on our camera so the Aunts just kept taking 3 shots for second)

Jeanette and Emma

Sarah, Paul and Nolan

Maria and Jon with Rachel, Joshua, Matthew, Kate

Mom and Dad

And the most important (lol) Us!

This is a progression story: Eliza has completely had it with pictures

So she's going to do something about it

Bye Eliza!

And the aftermath of the pictures-this is us choosing which we like the best

Day 7: Haunama Bay! This tied or maybe slightly surpassed kayaking. I got to go snorkeling in Haunama Bay and it was the most gorgeous, surreal experience. I was literally close enough to touch the most gorgeous fish. It's really like you look into another world with the coral/rocks and all the different kinds of fish. Tom saw a turtle, not me, but I just had the best time. No pictures, because I don't have an underwater camera :)

Family Home Evening.

With the treat of course!

This is a good picture to end pictures with because I haven't mentioned our favorite Hawaiian pastime-eating!

Days 8 and 9: We got to go to the beach and in the pool one last time but it was time to pack up and go. Our flight left on Tuesday at 9:30 PM. That was rough, I've never done a red-eye. The kids actually slept as well as can be expected-me, not so much. But after 7 1/2 hours excluding layover time we were home! We had quite truly the time of our lives. There are no words except maybe: awesome, wonderful, fun, gorgeous, amazing.

Mahalo

So-day 4 and 5 now. These were some of the best days there. Especially Friday (day 4). Sorry this post is so long. I tried to make it interesting :)

Day 4: We woke up early to go kayaking at Kailua State Park. It was fabulous. Probably my 1st or 2nd favorite thing while there. Samantha and Tommy also got to go out. Tom and I even felt adventurous enough to go the 30 minutes out to Flat Island where the water was more "intermediate". The island itself was aptly named...it was and island and it was flat :). It wasn't too interesting but there were a lot of rocks that Tom and I both cut our feet on. I still had a great time. I absolutely loved kayaking. My kids did too, but poor Tommy and his Grandpa were the only pair to overturn the boat. Tommy was traumatized (and I was gone further adding to it!) but later he seemed kind of happy to relate his story over and over.
Then the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC)!!! If you don't know, this is one of the biggest and best Polynesian shows (on the island, maybe even in the world) and is associated with BYU-Hawaii. I mean the actual Prince of Tonga was there visiting at the same time as us-pretty cool huh? We saw very cool shows (palm-tree climbing, Tahitian dancing, fire eating, drums!), Even participated in shows-see below. Ate some fabulous food and generally had a very good (but hot!) time.

The boy cousins are out-numbered. They have to stick together

Eliza wasn't a true fan of the beach. Especially the day of kayaking, she was tired and probably couldn't understand why mommy and daddy kept leaving in boats.

So she had to hang out with Aunt Margaret.

Tommy and Grandpa. Pre-capsizing.

Our entrance to the PCC. Yes, I bought the over-priced touristy picture. I was happy I did.

Pageant of the Long Canoes. They have a mini-show of each Polynesian Island. This is Samoa because one of my Mia-Maids moved to AZ from there and I was thinking of her.

I think that canoe is a royal one from New Zealand...I think.

So here is my favorite story. In the Tonga Show they asked for volunteers. So like any loving wife, I volunteered my husband. He had to try to drum and even do tribal yells. He was so cute (I know, I'm biased) but seriously-he did a good job. Then he got people all day going "good job" and "Hey-you're the one from Arizona" and even from a sweet old man "So, do you have a career in the music business?" It was fun.

Had to buy this picture too.

And a funny side note is that someone came up afterwards and said "Tom!" and it was his elementary school friend, Nick. He had recognized Tom when he got up on stage. Funny right?

We lucked out, our evening show happened to correspond with the world fire-knife competition. So during intermission we got to see the semi-finals. It was completely and utterly amazing.

Samoan portion of the show. Same reason as before.

Day 5: We drove to North Shore to try to watch some serious surfers. Only problem was that there were absolutely no waves. So we just looked around some. Then we got some shaved ice from Matsumoto's. Apparently it's famous-it certainly was busy. And we got some delicious shrimp. It was so, so yummy. The roads are kind of interesting there so it took a long time to get back. It was okay, the scenery was gorgeous. And we stopped by the temple ground in Laie on the way back.

That afternoon Tom went with a small group to Bellows beach. It's a military beach, only open on the weekends to the public but apparently it is really cool. I think that every beach there is probably really cool for something but this one is a great boogie boarding beach. I stayed home with the kids, but I definitely got my turn to boogie board over the week and a half-don't worry.

Afore-mentioned glitter toes. All completed

I don't usually take just scenery pictures, but is this gorgeous or what?

A complete cousin picture: All enjoying shaved ice.

Samantha, Kate, Joshua, Matthew, Eliza, Tommy, Rachel, Emma, Nolan

And the shrimp

Only semi-decent shot of us in front of the Laie Hawaiian Temple.

The boys (and Margaret) at Bellows.

Aloha!

Many of you know-but guess where I've been the past week plus...Hawaii!!! It was my first visit ever there and I loved, loved, loved it. I think it may be the most fun I've ever had in a that amount of time. We did so much and saw so many beautiful things. I now know why people love it there because I want to go back/live there forever. It was so much fun. I have a lot of pictures so I think I'll kind of do three days worth of pictures for three days in a row. So stay tuned for everything!

Day One: This was obviously mostly just traveling. We flew the hour and a half to Utah to meet up with everyone in Salt Lake. Then we all flew the 6 hours to Hawaii. My kids were actually really fabulous and didn't seem to have a hard time at all. I think all the cousins being together had something to do with that.

When we arrived we had plenty of time to go to the beach. The house my in-laws rented was right on the water so we just had to get on our swimming suits and walk into our backyard. The kids went to bed right at 8:00 (midnight their time) and our Hawaiian vacation was underway!

Most of the cousins in the airport

I never got a great shot of the house, but this was it. It had a pool in the backyard (besides the beach). It was cute because Tommy and his cousin Matthew called the pool the "little pool" and the beach "the big pool" It was a huge house-like 8 rooms and then a cottage next door with 3 more.

Yup, this was the view out the back window.

Day Two: After breakfast we went to the swap meet. It's in the Stadium in Pearl City. I heard lots of good things about it from everyone and I wasn't disappointed. We were able to get 90% of our souvenir shopping done in one fell swoop (I did the other 10% at Walmart like a true thrifty girl). I bought a ton in my mind but it really didn't cost too much. I highly recommend it to anyone going (and I did look at Wal-mart to compare prices and it was a good deal cheaper) It was HOT-but I really liked it.

We also went to the beach and swam in the pool of course. It was my kids first serious experience boogie boarding and they loved it!!!

Tom's hat-he then went everywhere with it-so it was a winner.

Tommy Boogie boarding with his dad

And now Samantha

And I can't forget the glitter toes! My sister-in-law Jeanette did glitter toes for all the girls in the group. They turned out great.

Day Three: We started the day out with a relaxing walk on the beach. My father-in-law grew up in Kailua where we were staying. He lived almost his whole growing up life (until college) in Hawaii and he was a complete and very interesting repository of information about the island. It was very cool. He showed us all the places he and his family used to live. Unlike the teenager I used to be I thought this was cool!

Then we went to the Aquarium on Waikiki. Because we stayed in a less resort-like place this was the only time I really saw the most famous beach in Oahu! I didn't feel any loss :). The Aquarium was cool, I saw some fishes that you don't see in CA/AZ where I go to aquariums.

I thought this kind of looked like the beach bum version of Abbey Road. No one knew what I was talking about. Any of you?

Can you see my knuckles and camera in the reflection?

My niece Rachel holding hermit crabs.

One reason for this trip is Christopher, their last child, is going on his mission, it was the last time the whole family would be together for at least 2 years. All the grandkids sure did love him!