Camo turned 5

Camo turned 5 in January and we decided to let him invite one friend to go to the bounce house with and out to Mcdonald's after. He chose his little friend from church. They had a great day and J was able to take the day off from work to celebrate. Camo wanted a Hulk birthday cake and I thought it turned out pretty awesome! This birthday was really emotional for me because I knew it was the birthday that would send him to kindergarten. He's growing up so fast and we just love this sweet, obedient little boy. Some of his favorite things right now are swimming, doing puzzles, reading animal fact books, wrestling his little brother and daddy, anything dinosaur related, and going to movies. He is such a sweet boy. We love him and are so proud of him!!

Visit to Utah/Arizona

I haven't been on this blog in so long, but I realized I want to continue a journal of our family. I will be playing catch up with the next few posts. Back in March of this year I took a trip to visit my sisters in Utah and Arizona. I just took the boys because J had to stay back and work. Our first stop was Utah and then we drove back down to Arizona with my other sister to stay at her house for a week. While I enjoyed being with my sisters, we had a bit of some bad luck on this trip. The first couple days started out great! The boys had an awesome time hanging out with cousins. Then about a day into the trip a few of us started to come down with a nasty cough/sore throat/fever virus. Suddenly it spread through the entire family very rapidly. We were all pretty miserable. Luckily for me, Tylenol helped me to still participate in some of the fun. The second part of the bad luck was that because Larissa wasn't feeling well, Tana decided to take her skiing pass on the day we all went to the mountain. Tana was doing great until suddenly she fell and tore her acl. She ended up having a sore knee the entire rest of the trip. The drive down to Arizona was really uncomfortable and painful for her. When we arrived in Arizona, TJ came down with a fever and was up a lot in the night for most of the nights we were there. This made me extremely exhausted. Though it was fun seeing all my sisters, I was ready to get back home and healthy again. Some of the fun activities we managed to do among all the sickness was skiing, swimming, shopping, bounce houses, watching movies, eating yummy food, laughing and playing at the park.

                                                                

                                             Eating the last bit of snow in March

                                                    Feeding the farm animals.

                                                     All of the sisters

                                       Lots of lying around because of being sick.

                                            Cooking with uncle Jon

                                        Motorcycle riding with aunt Ralina

                                                        Swimming

                                             These guys were best buds!

                                           Cuddling with cousin Tyler.

                                           My beautiful nieces and I

                                                      Not feeling the best

                My throat hurt so bad to read, but when these cute boys asked, I couldn't resist.

                                            Riding with aunt Tana

                                   Happy to be reunited back home with daddy!

Maui Part 2

The next day we woke up at 2:30 in the morning to go to Haleakala National Park to watch the sunrise. It was gorgeous and so peaceful, minus the massive amount of people that showed up right before the sunrise. We got there a little bit before everyone else, so it was nice having that little bit of peace and quiet. We then hiked around a little to look at all the views.

Then that night we went out to a restaurant called Roy's Kaanapali Grill. It was located at a golf course. It was really delicious, but J and I both felt like the taco truck satisfied us more than the expensive dinner. It was still fun to get dressed up to go out together. The food was still delicious!

The next day we did the famous Road to Hana trip to see all the beautiful waterfalls in Maui. It was a super fun, but tiring day. We left fairly early in the morning because we wanted to make sure we got to everything before it got dark. We took the road all the way around even though they don't recommend you doing that. There was only one part in the road on the backside that was a little scary, but other than that it was no big deal. Here are some pictures from our adventures. 

A really cool tree in the Ke'anae Arboretum. I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and J didn't get one bite.

These next few pictures were at Wai'anapanapa State Park. There was a black sand beach and really cool caves. 

 We jumped off these rocks into the water. It was freezing, but so fun!!

We also found the beginning stages of the Red Sand Beach, but we could only go so far. There were many warning signs saying it was extremely dangerous to get to the actual Red Sand Beach area. At least we got a picture with the red sand. 

We then made our way to the Oheo Gulch(Seven Sacred Pools). It was a really cool swimming area. 

We then stopped in Hana for some delicious Thai food. I think it was called Nutcharees Authentic Thai food. We don't have any pictures of our food, but it was so delicious!! After that we made our way to Waimoku Falls. It was a 4 mile hike that took us about 2 hours, but it was gorgeous. Along the way, we passed through the bamboo forests as well as a really cool tree!

Not the best picture, but we were exhausted. It was a lot of uphill hiking.

The drive home was very long, but if you have not done the Road to Hana while visiting Maui, then I highly recommend it. It was beautiful!

The next day J went golfing, while I hung out at our resort.

Our last day on Maui, we found the most amazing beach. It was called D.T Fleming Beach State Park. The waves were really big so we did a ton of body surfing. The sand was also super soft and there were no rocks to step on. I wish we would have found this beach earlier on our vacation because we probably would have visited it a couple other times. 

The last hurrah was going to a Luau. It was a really fun night and the food was delicious!