Hawaii--the way there (9/9)

Man it's been forever since I've blogged. No Brook I didn't die I was just on vacation. I know it was probably hard for some of you not seeing a post everyday from me. I know it was weird for me too. Now I have some serious catching up to do. So I'll get started. And there is going to be tons of pics so sorry about the overload, but I took way too many pictures.

My wonderful in-laws, Rex and Sharon, are the best! They planned this whole trip to Hawaii for the entire family. So I have to start with thanking them for taking us there and making the trip so much fun. Jason and I and the kids had such a great time and it's definitely something we will never forget.

Our vacation started on Tuesday, September 9th. We woke up at 3 a.m. (Yes, 3 o'clock in the morning) and drove to Oakland to catch our flight. We flew from Oakland to Salt Lake. I know it was weird. But we had to fly from Oak to SLC and then from SLC to Hawaii. It was cheaper that way. The flight was a lot longer, but we were able to visit with my family at the airport. We got into SLC at 9 a.m. and our next flight didn't leave until noon so we had a serious layover. And I'm actually glad that we had a layover because my family came to the airport to see us. The kids were so excited to see their cousins. My mom and dad and Shelly and her kids came to see us. We had lots of fun visiting and the kids had fun running around screaming, riding the escalator, and playing duck, duck, goose. Thanks Phillips fam for coming to see us!

Afton and Abby. They were so excited to see each other.

Emma and Dax. Very excited too!

Grandpa Rick and Grandma Darla with the kids

Playing on the escalator. They did this like ten times.

Grandma D

Grandpa Rick

Playing duck, duck, goose.

After visiting for a couple of hours, we hopped on our flight and flew to Hawaii. I was really nervous about this leg of the flight. It was 6 1/2 hours and I didn't know how the kids would do. But they all did pretty good. When the flight started they all fell asleep and slept for like an hour or so (not long enough). We ate lunch, then they colored, watched some movies, walked up and down the aisles, took some potty breaks, and played play-dough with their cousin Kya. Jason's sister, Kari and her husband Ben, were on the same flight as us. Logan was the one I was worried about because he's constantly moving and wandering. And that's what he wanted to do was wander a lot. He did have fun sitting in the seat with the seat belt on and standing on the pull-down trays. And he even let the lady sitting next to us hold him. He actually fell asleep in her arms and I told her she could lay him down but she wanted to hold him. So he took a good nap in her arms.

The sleeping kids

Logan loving the airplane seat.

He loved this too, although he kept trying to hit the person in the chair.

They were so into their play dough they wouldn't look at or smile for the camera.

We landed in Oahu at 2:30 p.m. Hawaii time. They are three hours earlier than Cali time. We got our bags which took forever because they were the last bags off the plane. Seriously. Daxon's was the last bag and he was so mad. He kept saying, "Gosh Dang it! Where's my bag? Gosh Dang it!" We thought it was pretty funny. After getting all of our luggage we jumped in the van and drove to Rex and Sharon's condo. They own a condo in Kanehoe which is on the northeast side or windward side of Oahu. Their condo is two bedrooms and one bath, with a living room and kitchen. I thought the smaller space was going to be hard, but it worked out perfectly. Even having one bathroom with 6 adults and 4 kids was fine. Each night we bathed the kids and then the adults took showers. We didn't really do too much the day we got there because we were so exhausted. The time change was hard for the kids. We tried to keep them up as long as we could, but I think they crashed around seven or so. And then they were up bright and early the next morning. I think they got up at 4:30 a.m.

This was the first day of shoes. By the end of the trip it was triple in size.

running down the walkway to the condo.

They had a small playground at the condo. The kids had fun being monkeys and going down the slide.

Cute Feet!

On Saturday, Afton and I went to get a pedicure. Well, me a pedicure, her just nails painted. She was so excited to get her toenails painted. I'd been promising her that she could go with me next time, so we made it a fun mommy/daughter activity. She got to pick out the nail polish and she picked a pretty pink color and then got a cute white flower painted on her toe. She got her toenails painted first and then I got my pedicure and Afton wanted me to have the same color and design, so we have matching toes. Now we have pretty toes for Hawaii, that was the whole point of the pedi. I had to make my gross callused feet look somewhat decent looking.

Our cute little toes!

I think this was Afton's favorite part. She loved the massage chair. She thought it was so funny when it would massage her back and she could make funny noises.

A little JOLT at the Temple

Yesterday, Jason and I went to the temple. It was our ward's temple night so we decided to go and actually do a session. It's been forever since we've done a session because I was nursing Logan and now I'm officially done since Tuesday, so we were able to leave him behind. I was a little nervous about how he would do, but Kaitlyn (our babysitter) said he did great. She just said he ate and ate and ate. That's our little Logan. So we left the kiddo's with Kaitlyn and picked up our friend's Krissy and Chris and headed to the temple. We made it to the 7:30 p.m. session and while were in the session probably around 9 p.m. there was an earthquake! Not kidding! It freaked me out. It was so crazy! There was this big loud "Boom" and then the room started to shake. It sounded like a semi hit the temple and then the room shook. At first when there was the loud "Boom" I thought maybe someone dropped something really big. But as soon as the room started to shake I knew it was probably an earthquake. A couple ladies gasped in front of me and grabbed each other in a hug. And I looked at Jason and he mouthed "earthquake" and I was like "a yeah". It only lasted a few seconds, but it was scary since I've never really felt an earthquake before. The lady sitting next to me said, "Was that an earthquake?" I said, "I think so." And then I added, "I guess we're in the best place to be during an earthquake." The session was almost over and everything proceeded as normal. It was just those few seconds of shaking and that was it. And I thought that there might be more with aftershocks, but that was it. I was actually scared because we were in the temple and we didn't know if it caused any damage, how big it really was, where it happened. So I started thinking about my kids and hoping they were ok. I really started to freak out. When we got into the Celestial Room I asked one of the temple workers if that had ever happened before and she said, "no, it must have been a big one." Not helping with my nerves. So we talked with our friends for a little bit and I told Jason to go call Kaitlyn and make sure everything was ok. Of course, he thought I was overreacting. He said if it would have been bad the power would have went out. He had a point but I was still nervous. When we got out of the temple (no destruction in the parking lot) we called and they were fine. She said they didn't feel anything. So we assumed that it wasn't too big. When we got in the car we checked the radio for info. and they said it was a 4.0 earthquake that hit just outside of Oakland. Watching the news today, they said the same thing. It was a 4.0 earthquake and hit just east of Oakland in a town called Alamo. No damage or injuries. Thank goodness. Although it wasn't a big earthquake, it still scared me and got me thinking about my family and being more prepared. If this would have been a big one would we have been prepared and I would have to honestly answer "probably not." So that's my goal right now is preparing ourselves better. Mainly getting our food/supply storage going. We have a little but not nearly enough for a year. All I can say is that we had quite an adventure at the Temple. One that I will never forget. I'm just so thankful for my family and that we're all ok.

Little artists

I had to post these pictures of Afton and Daxon's drawings. They both love to draw. Every day they make tons of pictures for me and have to hang them on the fridge, so I decided to take some pictures of the lovely artwork.

This is Daxon's drawing. I love this one. I asked him who this was and he said, "It's me mommy!"

Afton loves to draw people especially her family. She's always making pictures for me and for her friends. I wish that I had one of her older pictures. She use to draw the arms coming out of the side of the head and then would draw big circles for the sleeves. It looked like big ears with sticks coming out of them. Now they just have extremely long bodies. Jason liked that he was so tall. And she has to get the details right. The eyes and hair have to be the same color of the person she is drawing.

Our little family. logan, daddy, mommy, afton and dax

Loving Art!

In Afton's school, they have a program called Art Corps. It's a program dedicated to art and teaching the children different forms of art. It's just taught in elementary school and it's done by the parents. I've heard really great things about this program, so I decided to sign up and help out in addition to being a room mom. I know I'm crazy! Hopefully it will work out. Afton's school is the only one that has Art Corps outside of San Diego, CA. I guess that's where it was founded and somehow her school found out about it and wanted to try it out. They teach 8 different lessons (ex. line, color, texture). I shouldn't say "they", but "we". We have one workshop a month where they teach us how to teach the lesson and then we teach the lesson one to two weeks after. Right now there are three other moms helping in Afton's class and we just switch off teaching and helping. There were like 5 others signed up to help, but they never showed up. I'm hoping we can get some other moms to help. We had orientation on Wednesday and our first workshop today. Our first lesson is the Line Lesson, so it shouldn't be too hard. After teaching all of the lessons, at the end of the school year they have an art show where they display all of the children's artwork for the parents to see. I can't wait to see the little artist's masterpieces.

We were in the cafeteria for the orientation and they played on this stage for most of the time. The kids were taking turns pretending to sing in the microphone. Avery and Dax enjoying a bagel together.

Of course it was Logan's nap time and he was so tired. He only slept for like 20 minutes, but I had to take some pictures. That kid can sleep anywhere.

Logan also enjoying a bagel. Thank goodness I had plenty of food or else I would have been in trouble. As long as I have food close by, he's a happy camper.

Teacher's Helper

I've decided to volunteer in Afton's class. I wasn't sure if it would work out or not because you're not allowed to bring your other children into their classroom. So I kept going back and forth about volunteering or not and then I decided to ask some of my friends if they were going to volunteer in their child's class and luckily they said yes. My good friend Tiffany has a boy Afton's age and so we're each going to help in their classes and watch each other's kids. It works out perfectly. Our first day was this last Tuesday (9/2) and I watched her kids in the morning and then she watched Dax and Logan in the afternoon. I go to Afton's class from 1 to 2, so it's not extremely long, but enough time to help out and be with Afton. I helped her class cut and paste together Apples for their September calendar's. It was fun to get to know the other students and also to talk with her teacher. I'm excited to be a classRoom Mom!

Backyard Campout

Jason has been promising Afton and Dax that he would sleep out in the backyard with them. Finally, the weather was perfect. It's been really hot here. Like over 100 degrees the past few days, but yesterday and last night were perfect. So they set up our little tent and slept in the backyard. Afton and Dax were hyper all day on Sunday. They couldn't wait to go to bed. And that never happens. They got their sleeping bags,pillows and jammies on and Jason pumped up the air mattress and they were set to go. Jason said they tried to find shooting stars but it was too light outside. Afton was pretty disappointed. She was so excited to see shooting stars. Maybe next time. We're actually going beach camping in about a month so maybe we'll see some there. The kids were up bright and early this morning, like at 6 a.m. And they said they had lots of fun sleeping in the tent with daddy. Although Jason said about half way through the night the air mattress started deflating so the kids were on top of him for the rest of the night. And he said that Dax likes to swing his arms and legs in his sleep, so he got hit a few times. What a fun night!

A's Game

On Saturday, August 30th, we went to an Oakland A's game. Jason's work gets a box/suite once a year for the employees and their families. I was excited to go this year because last year Logan and I didn't go because he was just born. We had so much fun and the suite was awesome. It's perfect for taking kids to a baseball game. You can just let them run wild and not have to worry about them to much. Way better then watching it from the stands. When we got there, they had a bunch of appetizers set out with some big tubs of popcorn. And then later we ordered some pizza's and very hot chicken wings. The kids had a great time. They're so funny! When we first got there, we were the only one's there and Dax came up to me and said, "Mommy, I'm bo-wed (bored). When is Dylen coming?" And when she got there, the kids were so excited. They couldn't wait to play with their cousins. It was a pretty sweet view from the box although the windows could open and close and when the kids wanted to sit up front that made me a little nervous. So we just took turns keeping an eye on them. They had lots of fun watching the game and cheering with the crowd, spinning fast in the chairs and hiding in the little coat closet. It was definitely a fun family activity and the A's even won the game. Plus, they had fireworks after the game. We didn't stay for the whole show, but the kids got to see them from the car as we drove away. Thanks Mike for such a fun night! We had a blast!

This is the awesome suite that we stayed in.

Logan was so funny. He saw his reflection in the window and he kept trying to poke himself. It was hilarious!

Dax watching the baseball game. He was actually interested in the game. Well, not for the whole night, just when he felt like sitting down and watching the game with the boys.

This was the button to open and shut the window. Dax was having fun playing with it until he got in trouble.

I tried to get a decent picture. This was the best one. Max, Dax, Logan, Dylen, Micheal, and Afton.

Dax is famous!

I've been meaning to post this for awhile now, well actually for over a month, and I kept forgetting about it. But Jason has been on me about getting it posted. It's an interview with Deron Williams of the day that he signed autographs for us and Dax actually got some camera time. I thought that he probably did. Jason did some searching and came across the interview. And luckily they still have it up on their website. So if you're interested in seeing his couple minutes of fame here it is. If you're not interested in seeing the interview with D. Will press the skip forward button 4 or 5 times to get to Dax. And you may have to watch some tv ad for like 15 seconds before the interview. Sorry if the skip forward button isn't working. I clicked on the link and the skip button wouldn't skip forward, so you may have to watch the whole interview. Sorry for those of you who are not Jazz fans.

My Handy Husband

I just have to let my husband know that I'm very thankful that he's very handy around the house. Sometimes it may take him a while to get to things because of his busy schedule, but he's great at fixing things. And I always make it sound like I'm nervous because he's going to ruin something, but I know he'll do a good job. Just like fixing this tile. It was cracked for a very long time (I won't say how long) and he just decided to fix it and started hammering away. I freaked out because I didn't think he knew what he was doing and was making a huge mess and had the kids right there by him. But he fixed it and did a great job. I guess I should stop freaking out because he really does know what he's doing. It's the same when he's driving places that we've never been too. I always tell him he doesn't know where he's going and is going to get us lost, but he always gets us there. So thanks Jason for being such a handy husband and a good navigator. You're like totally awesome babe! Did I mention he also washes dishes and cooks dinner? Yeah, I'm pretty lucky! Hands off ladies, he's mine!

before...

....and after. He just has to grout it now.