Lauren's Fall Day At School

Lauren is only going to Mother's Day Out 1 day a week but this week we added on Thursday so she could attend their Petting Zoo day/fall day. She loves the animals so much that we had them come out to the house last year for her birthday party and we're doing the same thing this year. 

 Holing a chicken. She still has no fear of those. 

 The sun was so incredibly bright and I have no clue how to edit this picture but here she is with the big llama. 

A little flashback to last year.....loving those chickens!

Forgotten Photos

Ever since we got our big camera, I've been bad about uploading pictures from our small camera. Here are a few that I never did post....

My girl and I during one of our last YMCA pool days. I enjoyed taking her to the pool this summer. Todd even got to join us a few times. This big pool is an hour from our house so we didn't drive up there too often but we definitely enjoyed it on the days we went.

 We "adopted" an outdoor cat that we named Smokey. This cat started coming around about 6-9 months ago. She was skinny and hungry and super sweet. I couldn't just leave her hungry so we started feeding her and now she's our sweet kitty. Lauren calls her "snokie." Ignore all that gravel. We've started a huge project of extending our outdoor living space. It should be completed for Lauren's birthday party on Oct. 29!

 My sweet little girl loves putting on my shoes.

 She is enamored with her Mema and Papa. This was at my parent's house and she would not leave their side. 

 Happy as can be with her two Memas.

 This was just taken last week. Any time we go places, she always wants to hold her dog sissy in her lap. It makes her trip if she can hold Belle for part of the way home.

Final Photos From Hawaii

All of these pictures were taken on our little camera.

First up: Our first stop on the Road to Hana. We stopped at a little park area that had bathrooms and a pretty overlook of the ocean.

 Another Road to Hana stop. We found a pretty small waterfall on the side of the road.

 The black "sand" beach on the Road to Hana!

 These sweet little birds loved the basket that our nachos came in one day.

 The Westin Resort is so beautiful. The waterfalls on property are gorgeous. This is one that you could swim under to get to a little jacuzzi. 

 The only day we spent at the beach. The waves were out of control. I lost my sunglasses within about 5 minutes from being knocked down. It was so rough that you could stand there, feel the waves push you to shore, but then they are so strong that you get immediately taken back out. It was so hard to catch your step.

 My sweet little baby boy or girl and I enjoying the sunshine.

 The beautiful Banyan tree in the town of Lahaina.

 Our favorite night at the Old Lahaina Luau.

 The morning we left. It was early but we wanted to walk behind another waterfall that was in the lobby of the hotel. We walked to it to snap some pictures. The little dots in the pictures is water. 

That concludes our trip. It was wonderful. We are so glad we went before baby #2 comes as I know we won't be so adventurous to travel so far with 2 kiddos. We loved Hawaii but doubt we'll be back soon because of how far away it is. I wish the Aloha State was closer. Besides Alaska, it was the 2nd most beautiful place we've ever seen. Loved.every.minute.

Our Final Day In The Aloha State

We did a lot of this on our last day....

 We got up early again, grabbed a newspaper, decaf coffee, and made our way to our favorite chairs. I made some bagels in the room with cream cheese and we took those down to the pool too. We did discover that the hotel poolside restaurant had the best pork nachos to share during lunch. I'm not even kidding, they were soooo good. They piled the nachos super high with some local pulled pork, had guacamole, sour cheese, and salsa on the side. We ordered them 2 times during our stay and loved them.

Water aerobics was offered a few mornings a week. I jumped in one day and enjoyed it.

 These flamingos were in our hotel lobby. We came back that evening from dinner at the Lahaina Pizza Company and saw the flamingos sleeping. 

 Just for laughs....this was my dad's Hawaiian shirt from back in the early 1980s that he wore in Hawaii. We had to take a picture on our balcony to show him.

I remembered to take a picture of our rental jeep just as we turned it in. We both really enjoyed renting the jeep so we could take the top off. It was so much cheaper than renting a convertible but felt the same with the top down. We miss our little rental.

I have some pictures that I took on my small camera and my cell phone that I'll post next. We took both cameras with us, the massive one and the little one. 

My Favorite Day - Luau in Maui!

So I researched forever on what luau we should buy tickets for. I found 3 that were very popular and finally settled on the Old Lahaina Luau. The website said they sell out often so we bought our tickets about 2 weeks prior to flying there. I was so excited for this day (Tuesday, September 13). We planned on spending the entire morning and afternoon by the pool, in our usual shaded spot, and then get ready for the luau later that evening. 

Speaking of our shaded spot, we laid out in the sun our first day at the pool and got scorched. We actually only laid there for about 2 hours before going back to our room. We just got so so hot. We then realized that people were smart that got up early to get the chairs under the umbrellas. We were fortunate to NOT be in Hawaii during their peak tourist season. We always try to travel during off seasons to save money and to avoid big crowds. It worked perfectly to get our favorite chairs on the other days we were there. 

My fun husband going down the water slide. He loved it and went a ton of times.

 Making the trek to the top of the slide for more sliding.

 He told me that if you go down on your bottom when you get close to the end that you don't feel like you're going to slide right off the slide. Apparently it was super fast.

 My favorite thing ever - the luau!!!

 You arrive to the luau about an hour to 90 minutes before eating dinner. There was a wonderful band playing music and vendors set up where you could shop. There was an open bar that Todd could partake in. They were so accommodating to me and I could have all the fruity drinks without the alcohol. 

 People also walked over to where the pig was cooking. That was neat to see but I totally didn't take a good look when it was uncovered. I don't think I could have eaten it if I did.

 After the men dig all of the sand off, they take a covering off of the pig and there it is. It was covered in leaves so you couldn't see a whole lot, thank goodness.

 I'm so glad we asked people to take our picture. This one is my favorite!

 My 28 week baby. 

 This is a picture of the stage area. We were seated with 6 other people at our table. They had traditional seating where you sit on the floor at the front of the stage and then tables making a circle all around. There really isn't a bad seat in the house. The dancers really take up the whole stage so everyone can see.

 Yes, I took a picture of the food. I wanted to remember what we ate :) The food was so so yummy. There was traditional Hawaiian far like lau lau (pork wrapped in something similar to spinach), etc. I had a seafood pasta salad (my favorite), green salad, pork, teriyaki chicken, fried rice, steak, vegetables, banana bread, and tons of pineapple. Before you even go to the buffet, your server brings a big plate of pineapple and banana bread to snack on. After going to the buffet, they bring a huge dessert platter out. It was simply amazing. The mini macadamia nut pies were the best!

 After stuffing our faces :) A note about my lei, it's tradition in the Hawaiian culture to break a woman's lei in half if the woman is expecting. If they do that, they believe the baby will be born healthy, without an umbilical cord around the neck. 

 The show was unbelievable. It was about the history of the hula dance. The dancers were unbelievable. We would definitely see this one again!

Monday, A Quiet Day In Maui

On Monday, September 12, we had a very quiet day. When planning our trip to Maui, we really didn't have interest in doing a lot of touristy things. We went on this trip to relax, connect, and enjoy our time together before baby #2 comes. We also planned it before I'm cut off from flying October 1. I like to be on the go. I wish I could get paid to travel so I had to squeeze in one last trip before Oct. 1.

We did finally leave the pool area to head to the actual town of Lahaina. We were staying on the western side of the island. It's beautiful over there and the town of Lahaina is so quaint. There's a ton of shopping, restaurants, a cute little houses that line the beach. 

I picked up a ton of restaurant guide books at the airport when we landed. In almost every book, I kept reading about Cool Cat Cafe. They were rated as having the best burgers on the island for the past 7 years. Oh my word, it was so dang good. I really don't think I've had a burger that good. I'm so glad we chose to go there that night!

 After eating, we walked around for a bit. The restaurant was across the street from the Banyan tree. It was amazing. It was a massive tree, connecting to other trees by tree limbs. 

 After a short little walk, we came across a cute ice cream shop that had Macadamia nut ice cream. It was definitely Hawaiian and so yummy!

 Here was our little spot from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We were so off when it came to the time in Hawaii because of the island being 6 hours behind our normal time zone. We would wake up so early, around 6am, Maui time and then want to go to bed around 8pm. It did pay off getting up so early though. We could grab great chairs under an umbrella to spend our full days at the pool. We ate breakfast and lunch by the water and enjoyed the sun and shade.

 I have some great pictures of Todd going down the water slide on Tuesday and Wednesday. The slide looks short in the picture but Todd said it had a ton of turns and was super fast. He was going so fast at one point that I thought he was going to flip off the side. It wasn't advised that pregnant women go down so I passed.