Fireworks!!

I love the 4th of July! For me its a time to get together with my family in Island Park. It was so much fun this year. We went boating and yes waterskiing even though the water was COLD! We played family games and had the candy cannon. We celebrated the 4th with the annual parade and fireworks out on the lake. The weather was beautiful and I always enjoy it since its so hot here at home. Can't wait until next year!

A Great Welcome Home

After we got back from Hawaii, I was so excited to see my kids. My parents brought them home the next day, so lucky for me I had one day to recover. Bentley especially was so excited to be home. And they both proceeded to tell me all about Grandma's house and what they had been doing. Well that night Ben didn't sleep very well, he just kept tossing and turning, waking up to cry once in a while, and twice he told me his ear hurt. Well the next morning I did not follow my gut reaction and take him straight in to the doctor. Probably because the next morning he was acting just fine, bouncing around the house like usual. So I took my parents out to a store they wanted to go to and then we were meeting Blake for lunch. Well, by the time we made it to the restaurant I could tell Ben didn't feel good again. We just sat down at our table and yes it happened- Ben throw up all over the floor, then as I carry him back the restroom a trail of vomit followed us. It was disgusting!!!! The poor guy gets back to the bathroom and he's crying and turns to me and says "Mom, I don't like throw up" So I strip him down to his diaper and cleaned him up the best I could and we left the restaurant. We get in the car and my mom says do you think we should take him to the ER? I say why because he threw up? She says no look at his ear. I look back and the poor guy has gunk coming out of his ear. So I drove right to my doctor's office, which I was surprised how quickly we got in, and found out he had a double ear infection and one side had ruptured. So I spent the next hour or so trying to get his prescriptions and we still hadn't eaten lunch and Ben is still in just a diaper. What a great day!


The good news is that as soon as he got some medicine in him he was back to normal.

A few more details . . .

Okay, so I gave you just the quick run down about Hawaii and the things we did. Many of my friends have asked did you have a good time? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is some things were so much fun and other things not. Let me explain. Blake and I planned out the first few days so that we were busy pretty much all day, gone seeing the sites, etc. These were probably my favorite days. By the time we got back to the hotel in the evening I was exhausted.

The problem then was what to have for dinner. For me, I don't like the big meals especially when I'm hot (which is was hot and humid) so I would rather have snacks and smoothies or something. Not Blake, he likes a good full size meal, what can I say he's a guy. Blake told me when we first got there he didn't want to eat any fast food and no chain resturants. He wanted to experience the local cruisine. The problem with that is neither one of us are big on seafood which is alot of the local cruisine. So needless to say we were pretty disappointed in the places we ate at until the last day when we decided to eat at the Cheesecake Factory! Best meal I had all week.

The other thing that Blake and I didn't see eye to eye on was relaxation. For me I just wanted to sit by the pool and have a smoothie. For Blake he could do that for about 15 minutes. He would rather sit in the hotel room and watch a movie. Needless to say I didn't get much relaxing in.

There were a few other things I could vent about but I won't. Overall I had a GREAT time. Hawaii was alot of fun and just beautiful. I don't have to dream about it anymore know I have the memories of being there myself. In fact I would probably go back put theres alot of other places I want to visit too.

I did get take an underwater camera, so when I get those developed I'll post them too!

Aloha!!!

Hooray!! Blake and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary and so we went to Hawaii!!! This was our first trip there and we were so excited. It was also the longest trip away from our kids. They of course didn't notice as they were having too much fun at Grandma & Grandpa's house. So here's just a few of the things that we did. We visisted the Dole Plantation and saw how the pineapples grow. We also went through their maze which took us about 40 minutes. We went to Waimea Falls and the North Shore, where we of course got a famous shave ice. I was surprised at the line to get one too! We saw the Polynesian Cultural Center, one of our favorite stops. We visited Pearl Harbor and also made it to the Aloha Stadium swapmeet. We went snorkeling at Hanamua Bay which was pretty cool to see all the fish and even a sea turtle. We went parasailing and Blake's favorite sailing on a catamarran. Blake went surfing while I hit the beach. And on the last day we hiked to the top of Diamond Head. As you can tell it was a very busy vacation and I needed a day back home to rest from the vacation. But we had a great time!!! And thanks to my parents for taking care of my kids all week.

Kierstyn's Dance Recital

This week has been a busy weekend. I'm quickly trying to get this up so that everyone can see it. Kierstyn had her dance recital and here is the video of it. She did just awesome!!

This last Thursday was Kierstyn's preschool graduation. Blake has been in jury duty all week. Lucky for him he didn't have to go in on Thursday 1pm so he was able to come to the graduation. Kierstyn has loved preschool this year and has learned alot. Not to mention its nice for me to send her off to school. This is one of the songs they sang and she has just kept on singing it!

Yesterday, we had a family night at home. We turned on a movie and I just was not excited to watch Kung Fu Panda or Cars for the 100th times. So I turned on Pirates of the Caribean (yes I know not a great kids movie) and I was a little nervous that the kids would get scared. Blake was totally oblivious to this concern I could tell when he says,"Melody, they've seen this movie before." No actually Blake has seen it many times before but not Kierstyn and Bentley. So I was ready to turn it off if needed, instead I had to smile. They sat eating their dinner with their "shoot guns" (they looked for their pirate guns but couldn't find them in their messy bedrooms!) shoting at the tv whenever the "bad guys" came on. It was quite entertaining!!!