POTD

So last year I decided to try and take a picture a day to document our lives.  I did pretty good I missed a few days here and there but I am okay with that.  I wasn't sure how I was going to like switching my scrapbooking to this style but so far I think that I am going to enjoy documenting this way.  I am using   Project Life put all my pics in.  This kit has made the process so easy, it comes with everything you need all I have to do is add my pics and journal. I printed 6  months of pictures from last year, and I have finished the journaling for all the pictures.  So far I am loving this new way to document our lives. I should be able to have most of 2010 documented pretty quickly.  I am still going to do pages for the boys to go in their albums but the family album will be documented with a picture of the day. 

I just sent off the last 6 months worth of pics to Costco and will pick them up later today.  I am excited to be so caught up.

For 2011 I am still going to do a picture a day, but I am going to try the digital version, all I have to do is upload my pictures into my album and do my journaling.  The best part is that I don't have to pay for it until I go to print the album.  I think this will be even easier to keep up.  This version seems like it is a little more expensive but if you add up what it cost for the project life kit and what it costs to print your photos, it is the same price.

Maui part 2

Day five This was the beginning of vacation for Jason so he was pretty excited about that. We decided to rent a car so we went to the front desk to see what they had available. The only car that they had available was a red mustang convertible, so we took it. We got in the car and headed south as far as we could go and we came across this huge lava field that just ended in the ocean, it was weird and cool at the same time. It was also a little strange walking out on it the heat was really intense we didn't last very long before we decided to head back.

Our next destination was to go and see the Haleakala National Park, I had this national park passport book that I started to get stamps in a long time ago with Jeffery, and I found it recently and when I was planning the trip to Hawaii I checked to see if there was a national park in Maui that we could go to and there was. The drive took us about and hour and half to get there we were headed up to 10,000 feet above sea level, and as we were headed up the weather got worse as we went, at one point it was so foggy we could barely see the road in front of us. This was all very unnerving because we couldn't see much and Jason was driving like he always does pretty fast and we were going up these crazy switch backs up this mountain that didn't have awesome guard rails and as we got up even higher there were no guard rails at all. We stopped at the visitor center and I got my stamp then we continued up the mountain. We made it and we didn't get to see anything we got out to walk around but there was nothing to see it was all covered in fog. It was also only 49 degrees so we quickly got back in the car and headed down the mountain. It was a bit of a buzz kill there was suppose to be a crater we could explore and check out but oh well at least I got that stamp in the passport. On the way down it started raining and the visibility got worse, I kept imaging us driving off the mountain and what was going to happen to our boys, but we made it down and the weather cleared up and we were able to put the top back down on the car.

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant that was recommended in the Foders book I had, Matteo's Pizzeria, my Caesar salad was delicious but the pizza was awful, we were both pretty disappointed about dinner. We made it back to the hotel in time to watch the sunset on the beach, we discovered that there was a haze along the horizon every day that made the sunsets a bit of a disappointment to watch but I still loved the whole experience.

Day six (Valentine's Day), we still had the car until noon so we headed to find some breakfast (food at the hotel was ridiculously expensive we did find a little cafe that we could get a breakfast sandwich for 7.50 which was much better than anything else that they had) We ended up at McDonald's the food was yummy and much better priced. We drove past the last sugar plantation on the island and they had a museum so we stopped and went to check it out. We were the only people there under 60, it was a little lame but oh well.

We made it back to the hotel just in time to turn in the car and we headed to the beach for some sun. By mid afternoon we were both ready to head in and get cleaned up for the day, and then I wanted to go and do some shopping. There were some shops about a 10 min walk down the beach trail.  So we got cleaned up and headed out shopping.  The shops were mostly high end stores, but it was still fun to browse and shop. 

It was getting to be dinner time and we needed to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner, it was between making a picnic and heading to the beach and have a picnic and watch the sunset or find a restaurant.  We tried to decide on somethings for a picnic but nothing was coming together so a restaurant it was.  We went to Cheeseburgers Paradise or something like that.  The burgers were just okay, the onions rings were good and so were the drinks.  But this was strike 2 for picking restaurants for dinner away from our hotel. 

We picked up some things to bring home with us and headed back to the hotel.  On our way back to the hotel we came across about 4 couples that were getting married or had already gotten married and were taking wedding photos on the beach.  I thought it was romantic to get married on  Valentines Day, Jason thought it was stupid.  He is such a romantic.  When we got back to the resort we climbed in bed and watched TV till we both fell asleep.

Day seven, this was our last day in Maui and Jason wanted to go snorkeling again, so we got up had breakfast and then headed to the beach.  We headed out to the same spot we went before and the coolest thing happened, we saw this turtle swimming he kept going up and sticking his head above the water and diving back down.  We just swam around with this turtle for ever, at one point there were two turtles and they bumped into each other and then went there separate ways.  They didn't care that we were following them, Jason was so close at one point he probably could of touched him if he had tried.  We spent some more time on the beach to dry off and enjoy as much of the sun as we could.

With our flight not leaving until 11:30 we had all day to kill, we finally cleaned up and then hung out in the lobby lounge until it was time to leave for the airport.  In a funny twist Jason was not ready to leave he wanted to stay longer (for those that know him he hates to travel) and I was ready to go home(I usually love traveling).  Overall we had an awesome trip and I am so glad that we stayed for those couple of days.  This is the first time since we have been married that Jason and I have gone somewhere by ourselves that wasn't work related.  The first part of the trip was kind of work for Jason but he still got to have a little vacation at the end of the work trip.

I loved the torches that were lit every night by a mostly naked man blowing a conch shell, it gave the place an awesome atmosphere.  This was such an incredibly beautiful resort we were very lucky to get to stay here.

Waiting at the airport for our very full flight home.

Maui

When I downloaded the pictures from our trip to Maui, we had taken almost 400 pictures so I needed to go through them and narrow it down considerably.  I think I ended up putting about 60 pics on facebook and I am going to try to cut it down even more for the blog but there were so many fun things that it may be hard to do so I am warning you that this may be a LONG post. 

Jason had to go to Maui for Gold circle and I wasn't about to let him go and leave me home.  So we planned for me to go with him and we stayed an extra 2 days.  Before we left I had been checking the weather and it showed that there was suppose be rain the whole time we were there, but I decided to not worry about it and just hope for the best. 
I wasn't able to get on Jason's same flight, so I had to choose one that was a few hours later and I wouldn't get in until about 8pm that night while Jason got there about 3pm.  I dropped Jason off and the airport and headed back home to finish getting ready I didn't want to spend any more time than necessary at the airport, it sure is nice to be so close to the airport.  I had a straight flight to Honolulu, then a 4 hour layover before heading to Maui.  I finally made it to Maui and got checked in and headed to find Jason, he was already at the welcome dinner.  I got a drink and visited for a little bit and we went to bed.  This is a bad pic from the iphone but I got a lei when I checked in it was kind of fun.

Day 2 and we had no set plans for the day other than Jason had his meetings each morning till about 10am then we had the rest of the day till dinner for what ever we wanted.  We ended up getting  a great deal last minute and we went zip lining, it was so much fun we had 10 people in our group and we did 5 different lines.  One of the people in our group was a member of  the US Sailing team, so it was kind of cool to get a chance to talk to him and learn about some of the things he gets to do while sailing all over the world.  The first line we did was only about 480 feet and the last one we did was like 2600 feet and then everything in between.

Because this was a last minute decision to do this neither Jason or I had closed toe shoes that were required so they showed us a bin of old shoes we had to find something to wear.  I was a little groused out but I got over it and made the best of it.

This was the third zip line we did, it went over a canyon.

This was the last zip line that we did it was like 2600 feet long or something like that.  It went over two canyons you could see the north shore if you looked to the right and to the left was the mountain.  It was so awesome it took us about a min to make all the way down.

The whole group that went zip lining, along with two of our guides.

That night for dinner we were suppose to have a picnic on the lawn over looking the ocean, but it rained in the afternoon and early evening so everything was wet, so our picnic was moved inside.  The food was delicious and the company was enjoyable but I was bummed we weren't out on the lawn it would of been really nice.

Day three we had no plans until late afternoon so we just headed to the beach to enjoy the sunshine.  We were going on a barefoot sunset sail, that was having an open bar and appetizers, then we were headed to dinner afterwards.  So I based what I wore on going to dinner later. 

When we got to the beach to get on the boat and saw the boat out in the water, we watched the crew getting on the boat and realized how wet we were going to get.  That was when I found out that we were going to get wet to our knees. I was wearing a skirt that came to about my knees so I wasn't to concerned I thought I could just pull it up a little bit.  In reality we all got much more wet than we thought.  I was soaked up to my waist.  Thank goodness I was in a light cotton skirt and by the time the sail was over I was pretty much dry, but I had to get off the boat.

Jason wasn't so lucky he was still soaking wet when we had to get off the boat.  But other than the getting soaking wet part, the cruise was awesome.  We got to see a ton of humpback whales and we were able to go around the rain so we didn't get wet and we got to see a beautiful rainbow.  I tried to get some good pics of the whales but I missed all the great shots.  This was the best shot of the tail that I could get.

This was our sunset, we saw this and headed back to shore and then we were able to quickly change out of our wet clothes and get on another bus and head to dinner.

Day four this was the last day that Jason had obligations for work in the morning, afterwards we decided to go snorkeling we rented the stuff we needed and headed out.  I was a little nervous at first it is a really weird feeling to begin with but once you get use to it, it is awesome.  We saw a ton of fish and even a turtle laying in this little cove on the coral. 
We were right out past those rocks on the right of the pic while we were snorkeling.  I wish we had an underwater camera so we could of taken some pics while we were out there.

We had dinner and entertainment that night with the rest of the gold circle  group.  We had  some children dancers, and we got to hear from Zach Railey who is on the US Olympic sailing team, he was there for the gold circle and we got to spend a little time with him and learn a little more about sailing which was pretty awesome.

I know this is a long post so if you made it to the end, way to go!!  I will finish the rest of the trip in another post.  Hopefully I will finish it tomorrow.

I heart Trains

A couple weekends ago my mom and I took the boys to the model train show at Thanksgiving point.  We went last year and Ashton loved it, Noah was to small to really understand what was going on but this year he loved it.  He was so excited to see all the trains he had a smile on his face pretty much the entire time we were there.  Ash had fun to neither of them wanted to leave, but especially Noah he actually screamed the entire way back to my mom's house, which was a good 15-20 mins.

This is what Noah did whenever I put him down.  He wanted to be held the entire time, my arms were like jello by the time we left.

I was running errands the other day with the boys and I half kidding (because I totally didn't think they actually do it) but I told them to hold hands while we crossed the street. 
Ashton was so cute he held out his hand and said "come on Noah hold my hand" and sure enough Noah did, they looked so dang precious it melted my heart. 

Now if they could only be this cute all the time

I am not sure why I love taking pics of my sleeping children but I do, this was Noah yesterday while we were heading home from Gage's blessing he fell asleep with his mouth wide open.