Hawaii - Day 2: Swimming in the Ocean!

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the beach, of course!

And so did the Smithsons!On Tuesday, so spent a fun day at the beach, and this time we actually did some swimming! We went to Lydegate Park and Beach for the day. It has a nice area for kids because of the break wall. Unfortunately, the current was so strong and the waves were still so big that the break wall wasn't enough. We couldn't just let the kids run and play in the water because they couldn't stand up on their own in it.
That didn't stop us from having fun though.

The place we were staying had beach things we could borrow as long as we returned them (imagine that!) They had two boogie boards and we put them to use. Even Oliver had fun on them. He was a pretty good surfer!

After the water fun, we enjoyed the sand!

Dad and the girls would make sand castles, and Oliver would DESTROY them! It was fun! He loved it.

I think the beach looks good on all of us. (Along with the stress free, relaxation, and family time).

Daddy made a huge volcano. He even made it so that when the waves got big enough, it would go through a hole he created and shoot out the top. It was cool!

Note the white skin between Brandon's shirt and bathing suite... yeah, that wasn't white after Tuesday... it was RED! Oops!

After the sand castles, we had a little fun writing our names in the sand.

Brandon thought he was hilarious and made me stand by this:

No! I am NOT pregnant!

So I made him stand by this:

(Which I believe still makes me look like a bad person.) We are definitely dorks!

It was a lot of fun at the ocean! We all really enjoyed our day.

Hawaii - Day 1: Beach Babes and Light House

Day 1, Monday, was our relaxing, site seeing, meet and greet day. After being in the plane all day the day before, we had decided to take it easy today. We started by heading to the beach. We didn't bring the suites; this was more of a play in the sand adventure. We went to Kalihiwai beach (or perhaps just a beach on that road, considering it seemed to be a very private location.) The beach was beautiful, and a river opened up to it right there. The kids loved the sand and instantly were building castles (and asking me why they weren't going to be swimming in the water... oops!)

While I fed Oliver, Brandon took the girls for a walk along the coast. Apparently Noelle got a little too close to the crashing waves, and one knocked her over into the sand and rolled her into the water. It didn't hurt her, but scared her, and COVERED her in sand. Something about Kauai sand: It sticks to you FOREVER! That girl still has sand on her scalp, under her hair. A very nice islander helped Brandon wash her off the best they could in the delta of the river/ocean, then I wrapped her up in the towel (yes, I remembered to bring one) and we took the whole group "home" for lunch and to change.

After lunch we tried to get the girls to nap, but it wasn't happening, so we decided to head out to see the island's lighthouse. Of course, Oliver and Noelle both fell asleep in the car on the way there, so this is the scene I got to see walking up the path to get to the lighthouse:

(isn't that too sweet?)

Once we got to the lighthouse, Oliver was awake... and clearly entertaining himself.

On the way up to, and around the lighthouse there are a lot of beautiful look outs, exotic plants, and beautiful animals. We even saw a seal taking a nap on some rocks below (but it was too far away to get a good picture of).

This is what the lighthouse should look like:

And this is what it looks like under construction. Bummer! O-well, it was still a fun adventure.

They let you borrow binoculars to look out, no charge. Awesome, right?

It was so fun. And it was so beautiful. We truly enjoyed ourselves.

That evening, we went to a meet and greet party for everyone that was attending my mom and Terry's wedding. We had a lot of fun getting acquainted with some of my new family. Terry has two wonderful sons that are roughly my age and a little older, and they are both married to great women. I'm excited to have more brothers/sisters. :)

Our First Flight

It's a bird... It's a plane... It's the Smithson Family! And they are flying to Hawaii!

My mom is getting married (hooray!), in beautiful Kauai, Hawaii! That means it's a big trip for our little family. My kids have never flown in an airplane prior to this trip, and this isn't a short plane ride... we are talking 7 hours with a 2 hour lay over in Oahu. I am not going to lie, I was really stressed about this flight, and how my kids would handle it. And I can honestly say, they were perfect! I packed things for them to color and some other activities, and Brandon packed snacks and more snacks. They were so good on the flight, it was amazing.

When we landed in Oahu, Noelle was asleep (she had just fallen asleep literally as we touched down); however, Melanie and Oliver were both wide awake. The nice flight attendants gave Melanie a few flowers and helped get Noelle into her stroller.

Eventually she woke up and enjoyed the airplanes as we waited for our next flight.

The flight from Oahu to Kauai was only 30 minutes, and then we were THERE! Grandma Traci and Papa Terry met us at the airport and helped me watch the kids as Brandon got the car. Papa Terry spoiled the girls both by getting them leis. They definitely had the Hawaiian spirit with those flowers around their necks. Thank you Papa Terry!

I'm so proud of my kids for making it to Hawaii! They were so wonderful on the flight. I just hope the return flight is this good!

Beautiful Ballerinas

Friday, August 3rd, was the girls last day of dance class this summer and they did a special "show" for the parents (and grandparents).

Special show means special hair dos and fun before pictures.

(I didn't do buns because they were also doing some tumbling and I didn't want them to hurt their heads).

It was fun watching them in action! They did a bit of tap, ballet, and then tumbling.

Noelle cracked me up. She was quiet the entire time... until the tumbling. Her teacher asked if she wanted to do it by herself, and Noelle broke her silence to say: "No, I'm just too little". It was too cute.

The girls just loved their teacher! And I loved that it was a summer long program through the Town of Gilbert.

A thousand words

I recently wrote a series of posts about how much I love my kids. Then my very talented friend, Lybi, sent me these pictures she took of my kids early June. Since pictures sometimes say more than words, I thought I'd just post these pictures. If they don't make you smile, nothing will.

Book Club: Dino Pets go to School

Yesterday we had a fun book club! The theme was dinosaurs. We started by making pet dinosaurs out of paper and pipe cleaners. I think everyone had fun making their dino.

Then I read them the following book.
I picked this book because it's really fun, and also because I chickened out of picking a book where I would have to pronounce the dinosaur names. Lets face it, I would have a hard time! At the end of the book, the kid brings a dinosaur egg to class, so it fit right into our next activity, a dinosaur egg hunt. The girls had helped me make these dinosaur eggs. They were a mud clay conglomerate, with a toy dinosaur inside.

After everyone found their dinosaur, we went inside and looked at a Polar Bear skull (had nothing to do with dinosaurs, but was super cool) and a dinosaur fossil. My friend Linda (affectionately nicknamed "Grandma Honey") has a son that is a Paleontologist, and digs up dinosaur bones for a living. He works at the Museum of Natural History in Dallas. So, Linda knows a lot about dinosaur bones! I think this brought book club to the next level.

After the bones, we had dinosaur rice crispies and a nice drink.Then the girls gave everyone some dinosaur crayons that they had made as party favors, and said good bye. It was super fun. The girls said their favorite part was the dinosaur egg hunt. My favorite part was the fossils and the smiles.