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!