Hawaii Adventures

This year Helaman and I celebrated his spring break week with a trip to Hawaii! Here are some highlights!

Airplane shot of Oahu

Barely made our plane to Honolulu from Dallas on March 11 after dropping off Charlotte at Play-Dough summer camp with Grandma.

Checked into the Ilikai Hotel on Waikiki Beach. My parents let us use their time share there this year. Thanks!! It was really nice to be so close to the beach.
That night we walked out to the ocean. Not too many swimmers at night! So we headed to the spa.View from the hotel's roof restaurant. This is where we went to a timeshare sales pitch in order to get some money for activities.
Next day brought Hanauma Bay snorkeling and laying around. Just what I needed.
Saturday it rained and we headed to a huge swap meet in Aloha Stadium where we bought a lot of random Hawaiian stuff. Here is Helaman drinking from a coconut.
Luckily later that night it cleared up and we went to dinner right on the beach at Duke's.

The LDS Chapel in Honolulu.
USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
Monday bright and early we headed to the North Shore where we had a shark cage outing!
More pictures will be coming on this one when we get our underwater camera film developed. It was really fun and different from most things you can do in Hawaii. The sharks were about 10-12 feet and they came right up to the boat when the guides started throwing fish out. It was cool to see them so near to the boat, and even more amazing to see them underwater closely circling the floating cage we were in. We could have reached out and touched them - obviously that wasn't advised.
Survived! High recommend! From the boat we also saw a huge whale having some fun in the ocean breaching.
Afterward we stopped by the Hawaiian Temple in Laie which is under renovation.Here we are the next day at Valley of Temples Memorial Park, which is a huge graveyard with temples like this Byodo-In Temple, built to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii.Then we headed to Kualoa Ranch for an ATV tour of all the places they film movies and shows.The ranch was beautiful and we especially loved the fresh guava you could pick from the trees and eat whole! Here we are at the Jurassic Park location.
Here's the Pearl Harbor film location. I don't remember that movie so well, but LOST fans will recognize this structure as a Dharma station, specifically where Jack and Juliette kissed.
At Hurley's Golf Course.
We both climbed up this tower from the "Jughead" episode. Remember, the bomb was buried.

Last stop on our way home was to the blowhole lookout. From here you could see many humpback whales surfacing.Goodbye Hawaii - til next time!

Birthday Mania

Birthday Numbers:

Height: 2'11"
Weight: 29 lbs.
Party attendees: 50
Free round trip plane rides to date: 11
Apple Jacks consumed: Infinite

Proudly displaying her cupcake cake

Extremely confused at the singing and flame on her cake. We forgot to prep her for this.Happy Birthday girl.

Look who's 2!

Happy Birthday Charlotte! You are growing up so fast!

March 27, 2007

1 month

3 months5 months6 months
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10 months1 year!14 months16 months17 months18 months19 months21 months23.5 months

Getting my money's worth

Deal Alert

Those of you who know me, know I love coupons. So when I saw that I could get the Entertainment Book 2009 for $1.25, I ordered it right away since this is the best deal I've seen on it all year. Even if you only use a few coupons out of the huge thing it is worth it. Here's how:

1.) Click HERE to register with Cashbaq. Cashbaq (a cash back portal like Ebates) is offering a $5 bonus to all new registered members. Be sure to edit the “My Account” page and enter your address so you can get paid.

2.) Once you’ve signed up for a Cashbaq account in Step 1, select the Entertainment Book store from the “Shop by Store” drop down window. The current offer for the book is 35% off PLUS $10 cash back from Cashbaq.

3.) Click the “Use Coupon” link to be directed to the Entertainment Book website. Enter your zip code on the Entertainment website and order the corresponding book for your location (~$16.25).

4.) Receive the 2009 Entertainment Book plus $15 in Cashbaq!

Between this and eBates, you should NEVER buy anything online without getting some cash back.

V-Day

One of our malls has a great collection of ride-on cars, trucks, trains and a space shuttle like this one that Charlotte just loves. She doesn't mind that I don't make them move ($1 for 30 seconds - are you kidding?), she just hops from one to the other and has a great time. I was hoping her car obsession would take the place of the shoe obsessions my friends have warned me about with their little girls. Nope - she is a shoe girl too now. On and off. On and off.

This weekend my parents came to visit us and my mom, Charlotte and I went to JCPenney for a photo shoot. Charlotte lost patience with the whole thing very quickly, but they did capture some good shots and we'll have to go back there to get a family picture because I was actually impressed with JCPenney's quality and prices. But I can't imagine doing this without a "handler", in this case my mom, which is probably why I've only been once before to get her picture taken. In that situation, I only ended up getting the two free 8x10s that came with my coupon, because Charlotte was screaming to get home and I had had it too. Thanks Mom! And thanks to Dad for staying home and fixing our toilet, refrigerator and rocking chair. It was a great Valentine's Day - we were stuffed with pizza, donuts, frozen custard and sugar cookies!

Full grown Char

This week Charlotte got her first official haircut! A few weeks ago I hacked off some of her baby mullet but that trim was having a rough time growing out. I didn't know how she would react to this situation but she behaved amazingly well and we both had a great time.

Waiting patiently for her turnPracticing moves on the catwalkBeing a model client and feeling very grown up in the high chairAll done!

Book worm

I know, I haven't blogged in forever! Here is the reason. As I looked at last year, I was disappointed in the number of books I read. I love to read, and making that statement while only reading one or two books a year just isn't right so this month I went through everyone's Goodreads and picked up some books at the library and read - ALL OF THEM.

Let's start with the worst.


Luckily this one only took me a few hours to read. The main character, who is an avid Jane Austen fan and unlucky in love inherits a trip to Austenland, where people go to experience what this time period would be like. She goes so that she can finally put the notion that she will find her own Mr. Darcy out of her head. This almost happens (she starts to realize that she is attracted to losers who aren't confined to the US or her own time period) until the worst ending possible emerges: the actor portraying the Darcy type runs after her to the airport and professes his [real] love. Needless to say, happily ever after. Yikes. I think a smarter ending would have made the book much better.

This historical fiction centers on Sarah, a young, spunky, seemingly fearless girl growing up in the Arizona territories in the rough 1800s who keeps a journal of her family's wagontrain journey to Texas and back and their establishment in Arizona. Her story drew me in immediately - the characters are vivid and real, the situations they face heartbreaking and the way she is able to survive and grow amazing.


First of all, this epic is 1000 pages. So the fact that I finished it in one week tells you that it is riveting! This is also historical fiction about English 1800s - plague-era and the decline of feudalism. The story focuses on several characters whose lives are intertwined in a village housing one of the largest cathedrals in England. Ideas, customs and ways of life that have been around for hundreds of years are on the verge of radical change and it is so interesting how each character embraces it or doggedly fights it, leaving outcomes that drastically change lives.

Anyway, last week we had some great weather and enjoyed the park thoroughly. Charlotte insisted on taking her purse. Of course, it was filled with Hot Wheels to send down the slide.

White Christmas!

This year Helaman and I celebrated our first white Christmas together. We stayed with the Ericksons in Sandy, Utah and took advantage of the close proximity to the ski slopes. I'd never been before! It was fun.
At least I didn't spend too much time sitting on the snow like that person on the left...

Action shot of H on the bunny slope (note the little kids)

We weren't the only ones out in the snow. I couldn't resist this snow suit on sale at Kohl's. Charlotte was nervous about the snow at first, but came to love it and still asks where the snow is now that we're back in Texas.This feels weird!

Deal Alert/Tip. Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic has a price adjustment policy within 14 days. I bought Helaman a great wool coat for our trip to Utah (and the fact that all he has are ghetto coats). I knew the price would go down after Christmas though, so I saved my receipt and brought it back to Gap on the 14th day and got a $17 credit even though the store didn't have any more of the coat. This even worked for a Halloween costume I bought for Charlotte this year (for next year). I brought back the receipt and asked for a price adjustment after Halloween and sure enough got one, though the clerk gave me a hard time. You can't argue with policy, though. :)

Anyone else get any good deals for Christmas? We were snowed in the day after Christmas, so we couldn't snatch up as many post-Christmas sales on decorations and such as I would have liked, but at least I have enough wrapping paper for next year...