ALOHA!

We had the most amazing opportunity to take a trip to Oahu with my whole family! (my Grandma, Parents, all of my siblings and their kids). 11 adults and 10 kids, 7 of the kids being under the age of 3! It really didn't matter where we went, being together was all we really wanted, but lets be honest... going to Hawaii was amazing! I am so grateful to my parents for being willing to organize this trip. Vacations are where so many memories are made. I never thought I would travel with my young children to Hawaii, but we did and it was so fun! It's too bad they will probably not remember this trip since it will be a while before they go again. Good thing I am documenting it right? :)

We were a little nervous about a 5+ hour flight to get there and back, but our kids surprised us and they did awesome! I think I was more antsy than they were. So we arrived and went to the hotel. We stayed at the new Disney Restort, the Aulani.  It was perfect for kids. The pools were awesome and we had our own little beach/lagoon. We spent most of the time at the pool utilizing the water slides. James was obsessed. I probably spent more time in our villa than I would have normally, but when you have a 5 month old who is not the best "on the go" napper, you have to sacrifice a little sun time. Probably a good thing in the long run, none of us got sunburned! (Well Haws did a little the first day, but that is to be expected with his fair skin:)

Our famiy shared a villa with my sister Dana and her family. It was so fun getting to spend quality time with her and her boys since we don't get to see them all the time. Her twins are so cute... cute enough that I didn't mind being woken up in the middle of the night when one of them was out in the living room. James never quite adjusted to Hawaii time and was up between 4am and 5am most mornings anyway! Gave Haws and I time to trade off  hitting up the gym before breakfast and swimming started. We spent most of our time at the resort. We took some Costco and Target runs and Haws took James to Pearl Harbor. That was about all we saw of the Island. 

I was horrible and took most of my pictures with my phone. Thanks to my mom, she took lots of pictures with her camera. Get ready for picture overload!

Here are some pictures from our days at the pool/beach.

 Lazy river

 Scuba Diving

 James would go down this slide over and over and over!

 

Action Video

 

 Matching suits :)

You may remember one of my favorite pictures of Joshua. He has grown up so much since then and was brave enough to go down the "black hole".

We found out later, parents are not suppose to go down the kid slides. Really? Come on now. Luckily I think we all had the chance to do it before getting in trouble. 

We did the character breakfast one morning where the Disney characters come out and visit while you have breakfast. The kids loved it!

We were quite the crew.

Chase does a great job at entertaining the kiddos. Laundry basket rides are always a good time.

 So is bath time with the twins!

James would take these long naps (3-4 hours) which was great after waking up at 4am! He would sometime wake up with crazy hair like this. It was pretty funny.

James and Caroline are such great buddies. They find each other pretty amusing. I love hearing them laugh.

 Tanner and Luke are totally plugged in! Using Bop's headphones and iPads.

We gathered most meals at the villa that my parents shared with Brad, Kori and their boys. It was pretty lively during those mealtimes. 

Tanner's birthday landed on the day we were flying home, so Kori put on a birthday party for him. They did a treasure hunt and had a pirate themed party. The kids loved it. I can't believe he is 4!

 

We had one night out to dinner with all the adults... no kids! We put the kids to bed and hired babysitters from a local agency to watch them while we went to Roy's. Dana also has a August birthday, so we celebrated her while we were out.

We all love our children, but it was nice having a meal where we could all relax and have conversations with out being interrupted by little people :)

Haws took James to Pearl Harbor with Dana and Chase. James loved the big boats.

And you know you are having a great time when you are constantly getting picture of your kids passed out. 

Thanks Mom and Dad, aka Nana and Bop! This is a trip that will go down on the books (or at least on my blog)!

Coming home was kind of sad... we got thrown right back into reality. Haws started a new job in tax, which means he went right into busy season and has been working super long hours! I started my training to teach barre classes on top of our normal schedule, which meant I needed to leave the kids more than usual. We all had to readjust to not being together 24-7. I am glad we got that quality time in before the madness began. Looking forward to Oct 15th when things settle down a bit for Haws and we can be together as a family a little bit more. I am proud of him though for being such a hard worker and dedicated to pursuing the career path he wants to follow.