Our Fam

Our Fam
Showing posts with label Kauai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kauai. Show all posts

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Kauai is Paradise

We LOVE Kauai! It was such a great place to relax and spend time with the family! The fam got back to town on Wednesday afternoon and my intention was to blog, but there has been so much organization going on!

Now...let me start by saying that traveling with a 2 yr old and a 9mo old are challenging. The kiddos did really well for their age. It was Randy and I that were exhausted. The flight to Kauai was 6 hours 40 min. from Phoenix to Lihue, Kauai. Crazy huh?! So I tried to think of everything we could possibly need.

Dylan learning how to use the crayola pen on the iPad. Very cool!


Can you believe all of that fit in these 2 bags?!
Dylan was soooo excited about going on the plane! This excitement wore off as the hours ticked away. After 3 hours, Randy and I look at eachother and just laughed... over 3 more left to go.

We broke out the gummy worms with 1.5 hours left. We're feeling ansy!

Ava just crawled back and forth between us.
If I had let her cruise down the aisle of the plane, she would have loved it!
Finally we landed at the Garden Island (it is so green!). We rent the mini van, stuff it full and off we head to the place where we will be spending the next week...the Waiohai at Poipu Beach. Let me just say that I never thought I'd love the mini van, but I may be a convert after driving it for over a week. So much space!!!

The Waiohai is a wonderful Marriott timeshare property!

It is right off the beach! You can sit and eat and drink while overlooking both the pool and the beach! We've been going for about 8 years now. This year my parents were able to get one unit for our family and a second unit for them, my brother and his girlfriend. It was perfect. We got up super early

Early morning activity

Ava wants to join so badly!

Morning walk with Daddy
and were nap central at about 2pm each day.


Ava didn't always nap in her crib though.

Instead of telling you about all of the fun we had. Let me show you!


Started the vacay out with morning workouts. This slowly faded.
Time for swim with the fam!

First time in the waves! She loved it!



Dancing in his new sweatshirt. He'll be wearing it for awhile!

The jacuz with Pa!

The family at happy hour. It's ok to bring the kiddos when the grandparents are there too. :)
Nick and Jenn

"How should we GET the chickens?!"



 The Waiohai does a tree lighting ceremony every year on the first Saturday of December. Santa even came!


Dylan wouldn't get near Santa without crying so he inspected the train instead. :)

After a wonderful 7 days at the Waiohai, we checked out and moved over to the Hyatt for 2 nights. We were so excited! Great pools, the spa and yummy food.


Cocktails in the lagoon.

This is how we roll. :)
Our last night in our Aloha wear!

Merry Christmas!
We had such a great time! No pics of the ride home, but I will say that a red-eye/all nighter is not the best way to get home with the kiddos. It was our only option so we took it. Needless to say by Wednesday afternoon we were home, but exhausted!

This trip reminded us of how much we love Hawaii! We are trying to move back to Oahu so hopefully all the Navy cards align. Until then, it will just have to be wonderful weeks. We'll take as many as we can get!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

A Turning Point

My mindset was ready for a smooth day. It was more like one of those exercise ropes that when give it a tug, it sends a large ripple down the rope.

My mantra today was ...BREATHE. I'd like to say that I did a good job with my "reminders" from yesterday, but I reacted...Dylan is good at getting me to react. It's that redhead Irish in me darn-it. A little Facetime with Grammy on the iPad helped us to reset and we started the afternoon fresh.

Dylan has been napping for almost 2 hours now. Yay! Good nap! What was even better than this nap is that he went down without a fight today. Woohoo! We did talk a lot today about how nap was going to look. He earned his soccer ball back for a great afternoon and will be earning a truck back after this nap. Along with the toys, Dylan LOVES frozen yogurt. I actually think he loves the gummy worms on top more than the yogurt. :)

Since frozen yogurt is one of my favs too, I dangled this little carrot in front of him. So...not only is he getting his truck back, but we get to go to frozen yogurt! I'm hoping this is our turning point and tomorrow will be a day full of earning back toys. :)

Moving on from kiddos, I have really had fun getting the mail the last two days!


I sign up for free items all the time and I also email companies whose products I regularly use to hopefully get samples or coupons. This energy earned me these items in the mail! It's just fun to get free stuff!

The other exciting item brewing in our home is our future trip to Kauai!!! My parents purchased a timeshare at the Mariott resort, Waiohai,  on Poipu Beach about 7-8 years ago.

I have been able to go almost every year. Now the years we were living on Oahu were the easiest, but we would only come over for a long weekend instead of the full week. Well, this year the fam is flying out for a 10 day vacation!!! We are so excited! I made the rental car reservation yesterday...we're doing the minivan. :) I've also begun stocking up on airplane goodies for Dylan. I need a bundle for the ride over and the ride back. We do have a direct flight over which is great, but it is still about 7 hours. Yikes! I'm loving the $1 area at Target! :) Overall, Dylan is a really good flyer. Ava has only flown once so we'll see how this one goes. All of the prep is worth 10 days on the beach! We can't wait!

The boy just woke up and he's happy! This is going to be a great afternoon!