School Schmool

This really seemed like the shortest summer ever! The kids actually started getting excited for school a couple of days before it started. And I have to admit that first day I walked in the house to total quietness, no friends, no snacking and laughing/crying and it made me smile. I guess it's time for a routine again. And I'm sure the school year will go by so fast also. Speaking of time going by fast, Tanner started 10th grade which is his first year in the High School. Maddie is in the middle school by herself which she likes. Max is a big sixth grader and Seth is in 3rd which sounds pretty big too. Time is going by too fast!

Tanner leaves first at 7 and then the rest of the kids leave

around 7:45 then I go walking/talking with my neighbors. That's why I took this picture quickly of Tanner then took the other three together.

Boy Scout

This was Max's last pack meeting, it feels good. Too bad Seth just started cub scouts.:) We didn't have any Scouts all summer long and Max turned 11 in July so we had to scramble to get everything done in time for him to get his Arrow of Light. Max's friend David also got his Arrow of Light at the same time. Max loves Scouts, loves everything about it. He just went on a hike that was pretty hard and he loved it! He says he's going to be the first in our family for many generations to get his Eagle. I believe him.

5K Maddie

Maddie and Marissa have been getting up at 6:30 most mornings this summer to run with the Cross Country team in order to stay in shape for soccer. Maddie doesn't love running but she does love soccer and knows she needs to stay in shape for that. Marissa's older brother is the star cross country runner of the High School, so he drives them to wherever they're going to run for the day and they run like 4 miles then sit and talk while he runs like 10 miles. It's a good system. Marissa asked Maddie if she wanted to run a 5k for Alpine Days and she said,"Sure!" She actually said she's glad she did it but she'll probably never do it again, it was tough. I think her time was around 27 minutes. I actually was waiting for a long time to get a picture of her crossing the finish line but then started talking to Marissa's mom and missed the opportunity. Oops. Good job, Maddie and Marissa!

Jon and Tanner- High Uintas

The week before we went to Hawaii, Jon and Tanner went on a High Adventure Scout Camp. It was from Monday to Saturday and we went to Hawaii 18 hours after they got home. Not a lot of time to recover between trips, but they could rest in Hawaii. Jon wrote all about it on his blog, A Reluctant Blogger, but I wanted to post some of their pictures on my blog. So, if you want to read all about the hike, go to Jon's blog.

Getting ready to hit the trail.

They planned on climbing King's Peak, which is the highest point in Utah, but because of the weather, they were not able to.

Tanner being eaten alive!

Some members from the stake surprised the boys on the second to last day with a steak dinner they brought up on horseback.

When they got home Tanner asked me to make Evil Chicken and Jon asked me to make lots of vegetables and orange rolls. I think it was a long week but they survived and had a good experience.

Last Hawaii post of random things

One day we went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. There was a baby zoo train you could ride around to look at the pineapple fields that we didn't want to spend the money for and heard some reviews after that it wasn't worth it. So, we just walked around the free part, took some pictures, bought some pineapple that was super good, and left.

Jon's mom bought us all polo shirts and sewed "Hawaii 2011" on each of them with a Hawaii picture. They were so cute I had to get a family picture in them.
We went to Matsumoto's for snow cones. Apparently he was one of the first people to come up with shaved ice and brought it to the states. It was pretty good.
Seth noticed a gecko sitting next to him and realized he had one that looked just like him on his shirt and figured that's why he got next to him.
The Kohuku Grill was our favorite place to eat...we went twice because it was 20 minutes away. They had the best coconut shrimp, rice, fries (with fry sauce, it was a mormon family that owned the place) and fish.
Hawaii Temple. The visitors center and grounds were so beautiful.
Pali Lookout. Super windy all the time. This ledge was only a couple of feet from the ground.
On the way out of Pali Lookout the trees and vines were everywhere. We stopped to swing on the vines that didn't really hold our weight.

Polynesian Cultural Center

I really wanted to have a Luau in Hawaii to get the whole Hawaiian experience. The PCC has the best Luau on the island so we did that one day. The only bad part was the show lasted until 9 PM which is 1 AM our time so we were very tired.

The grounds were beautiful!

Right when we got there they had a parade of rafts that floated by and showed different dances from the islands.
We went to visit the "Island of New Zealand" and learned some fun stick games.

Here's a guy climbing a really tall coconut tree.

We all got leis before the luau that smelled great.

This wasn't actually a pineapple drink but it was still a yummy pina colda smoothie. And of course Hawaiian punch to drink.

Trying to make the face of the statue beside them.

Pearl Harbor

We really wanted to take the kids to Pearl Harbor. Jon's mom also went to Hawaii with us, which was so great, and she was very excited to go to Pearl Harbor. PaPa (Marilyn's Dad) spent some time there when he was in the Navy. He was there after the bombing fortunately.

We decided to spend some money on the audio tour and it was worth it. Here we're standing on a giant map to see where Japan was in relation to Hawaii.

We walked through a couple of different buildings that had numbers throughout that you could push into the audio player and hear about whatever had that number on it. Am I explaining this very well?? Anyway, it kept the kids attention. We had to sign up to take a ferry out to the Arizona, so we had a bout 2 1/2 hours to wait before we could get on the ferry.

This anchor was so gigantic. They found it a few hundred feet away from the Arizona when it exploded.

Taking the ferry out to the Arizona Memorial.

This was one of the tall smoke stacks of the Arizona. The memorial was built over the boat so you could look into the water and see a lot of it.
Jon and Grandma Marilyn. The memorial was very open and bright. And because you had to sign up and wait for the the ferry, it wasn't very crowded.

Hawaiian Beaches

Our family just got back from Hawaii. It was so amazing. I loved every minute we were on the island. I know it probably will never happen again so I really tried to enjoy every moment. I feel like we got to do a lot of fun activities and still felt relaxed. I took tons of pictures so I thought I'd do like 3 different blogs on Hawaii, so bear with me. The first blog is on the beaches because that's the real reason we went to Hawaii.

Maddie and Seth sitting on the wall at 5:30am. Waiting for the sun to rise so we could hit the beach for the first time. The time was 4 hours earlier there so we were up early every morning.
In the water by 6am. Not very warm yet.

Beautiful sun rise!

Maddie was in the water the most! She loves the ocean waves!
This is at Hanauma Bay. Maddie is chasing the pigeons away. They were very annoying because they'd try to take food right out of your hand, they weren't afraid of people at all.
We saw a lot of amazing fish at Hanauma Bay. The kids all brought their snorkeling gear.
One day we went to Barb's beach. When Jon and I went on our honeymoon this is the beach we went to. Kailua Beach. The waves were huge!
A friendly old dog decided to stay with us for the day.

Seth and Max really enjoy the sand, they made some great creations.
Max got stung by a jellyfish. Poor guy. I said just put a towel on it because I wasn't really sure what to do for that. Jon got stung on our honeymoon so I think this beach is known for their jellyfish.
Tanner caught some great waves.