Royal Fireworks

Every year we go up to Spokane for the Royal fireworks concert at Riverfront Park. They have a symphony concert and then shoot off fireworks in time with Handel's Water Music. It is a wonderful show. This year we didn't stay for the concert, since Andy got home from a road trip that morning. We just went up and walked around the park then had dinner with the family and drove home.



Noah is still terrified of slides so he always wants to be accompanied down them. The enormous radio flyer slide was fun!



N is for Noah!! Once I took Noah's picture and it was time to move on to the carosel, he threw a fit because he wanted to stay on the blocks.

Noah and I rode the carosel together. Noah wasn't a fan of the carosel, after it sped up he started crying and trying to climb off into my arms, as I am just trying not to fall over.



We had a great day up in Spokane!! Hopefully next year we will be able to stay for the entire day.

Shives Beach and the Magic Shoes

Today my mom, Becky, Noah and I all went to the beach outside of Orofino, Shives Beach. Yes we drove 1 1/2 hours to the beach. It seems a little silly to go so far for water and sand, but it is by far the BEST beach in the lower 48 states.

We left around naptime so Noah would get a good nap in the car, but of course kids never nap when you want them to, so he only slept for about 45 minutes. Which is definitely not enough for him.

We set out our blanket on the sand and Noah ran across the blanket and tripped and fell in the sand. He just sat there because he didn't know what to do. He eventually brushed his hands off and waited for someone to come to his rescue and help him up. He never cried or whined, just sat in the sand and looked at us. This is a big improvement from Hawaii, and probably due to the fact he had his magic Hawaiian water shoes.

After we were all lathered up with sunscreen, him and I walked down to the water. I put my toe in and was ready to get back out because the water was FREEZING. But Noah just walked right into the water. Fortunately his all the way in is only up to my knees, so I didn't have to get in too far. We brought down the blow up floats and Noah played around in that for a long time, with one of us pushing him around. Noah started to chatter from being too cold, so him and I sat in the shallow water and cuddled so he could warm back up. He decided to get in for a litle while longer, and then he played in the sand and shallow waters with his bucket and shovel until it was time to leave. We had a blast at the beach!!

Oh, by the way I forgot my camera at home, so that is why there aren't any pictures to go with this post. I looked at the camera sitting on the counter and just kept walking. I will some how just have to commit all the giggles, happy faces, splashes, and smiles to memory to help remember Noah's love for the sand and water, at least today.

Baby Beluga and other songs

Noah doesn't say a lot of English yet (it has increased since we took away the bink), but in the last week he has started to sing, to almost every song he hears. We have Baby Beluga in board book form, and have been singing it together since he was 8 monthes old. I used to sing it TO him, and now he sings it WITH me.

Today I put on Raffi, and he sang with Raffi, with a little guidance from me. He occasionally sing in tune with the music. When we are in the car, he sings parts of the songs from the CDs that are playing. And at bedtime, the lullaby we have been singing since he was born, he sings parts of, and always the last word, in tune with me. It is so sweet. I just can't help but smile, when the little angel I have pops out in sweet little song.

June 9: Hawaii day 14

We said goodbye to Hawaii today. We started the day out with some delicious omelets and then had luggage service take our luggage to our car. We checked out of the hotel at 11am and drove to the airport. We returned our wonderful car and waited for a shuttle to take us the rest of the way to the airport. It is astonishing how unhelpful they were at the airport. Andy and I had a child in a stroller, a carseat, and four suitcases and yet no one assisted us to get where we needed to go. We were in line to check our bags when another passenger told us we had to have our bags inspected for fresh fruits first, so we made our way out of line to the xray machine. Then back to the line where the airport workers were impatient and CRABBY. The only place people were helpful was when we got to security, which went very smoothly. We boarded our plane and before we even took off the ground Noah had fallen asleep. Noah did GREAT on the plane, until we had to turn off the DVD player, which was only the last ten minutes. Once we landed, we went to the baggage claim, collected our bags and waited for Corbit to pick us up. Corbit got to us and we loaded up our car and went to their house for one last night of vacation.

June 8: Hawaii day 13

We had a fun day today all to ourselves. We spent a couple hours at the Honolulu Zoo. Andy had a ton of change in his pocket so him and Noah spent a few minutes putting it down the holes of the change collector. I don't have any idea what it is actually called.



Noah wasn't really interested in the zoo animals we saw. It was hot and I don't really think he cared. It wasn't until we came to the part of the zoo where they had domestic animals that he showed any interest. There were giant koi in the tank in front of him and he was pretty interested in them, telling us all about them.

Then I took him into the goat enclosure, where kids could walk around to pet and talk to the goats. We thought the sign was really funny, so we had to take a picture.

Noah loved walking around petting and visiting with the goats, he spent about 5 minutes with the goat pictured below and told him a great story, that only Noah could possibly understand.

Then we went back to the hotel and had lunch at the Terrace Grille. These two salads pictured below were the best salads I have ever eaten. The fruit salad had delicious berries, melons, tropical fruits, and mango sorbet with a fresh mango. The sorbet was great, apparently I don't like mangos. The tomato avocado salad was also amazing.



After lunch Noah took a nap. Andy was faking it, though it really is a cute picture.

After I put Noah in his crib, Andy and I unpacked and repacked the suitcases for the 3rd time while on vacation, so we could get all our souvenirs packed and not go over the airplane weight limit. Later that evening we did a bit more shopping and went to dinner.

It doesn't happen very often that you see anyone you know while on vacation, but we did. We saw our friends Ethan and Angie Lane outside of the Cheesecake Factory waiting for a table. They were in Hawaii for there 5th wedding anniversary and had just arrived to Oahu.

After we ate dinner, we walked back to the hotel and Noah and I went swimming in the hotel pool and had a blast. Noah loved jumping from the side of the pool. He has greatly improved in skill since swimming lessons last summer.

After swimming we went to bed, so we could get a good nights sleep to be prepared for our long day ahead.

June 7: Hawaii day 12

Today was the day everyone we had been staying with for the last week and a half had to fly home. We left our house in La'ie at 10am. Andy and I drove down to the Dole Plantation to stop and replace a couple souvenirs that were lost and broken. Then we drove over to Kailua, and got to see Mandie and Ryan when we took back the playpen, and finally drove down to Honolulu and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Hyatt for 2 nights. The hotel was beautiful and we only had to cross the street if we wanted to go to the beach. They had orchids planted everywhere. We had a great stay!



Our hotel room.

Our room was on the 27th floor. The view from that high was incredible.



We ate lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen and had a BBQ chicken, pineapple, and green pepper pizza. It was the best pizza I have ever eaten.

After lunch we walked down the Waikiki strip and did some shopping. Andy and I both got airbrush tatoos. Andy's came off after 2 days which was lame, but mine stayed for 1 week.



Andy was convinced that since everyone had gone home the last 2 days of our vacation were going to be torture, but today was a good day.

June 6: Hawaii day 11

The one thing that I wanted to do when we came to Hawaii was swim with dolphins, so that is what we did. We went to Sea Life Park and Andy and I did the Royal Dolphin Swim.

It was the coolest thing we could have done and the highlight of my Hawaiian vacation. We bought the dvd and the pictures the photographers took because my mom wasn't able to juggle the camera and Noah, running around like a crazy person.

We walked around the park and looked at all the creatures. Noah said turtle for the first time.



We went to the open air theater and watched a show with the penguins, sea lions, and dolphins. It was a lot of fun.





Noah was pretty much spent so we didn't walk around very much.

We had a great day at Sea Life Park.

June 5: Hawaii day 10

My mom, Andy, Noah, and I took Annie back to the airport for her flight home.

Then we spent the rest of the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We enjoyed a canoe ride down the "river" through the center, a lot of singing, dancing, and wonderful polynesian music.





Andy and Jeffrey learned how to dance like the Tahitians in the village of Tahiti.

We walked through the village of New Zealand.

We got tatoos. Andy and Jeffrey's tatoo means "warrior," Corey and I's tatoo means "family."

In the village of Tonga, Andy and Jeffrey learned the art of throwing spears. If they were suppose to catch us food, we would have starved.

We went to the night show, Ha Breathe of Life. It was an amazing show, full of beautiful dancing, music, and fire. It tells the story of a young man and his journey through life, starting a family, through death. Kind of the circle of life story. It was a great show. If you ever get the chance to see it, I would highly recommend it.

June 4: Hawaii day 9

Today everyone went separate ways, people went snorkeling, horsebackriding, and Corey, Jeffrey, Noah, and I went to Turtle Bay Resort to take Noah swimming. We bought Noah some water shoes and this was the first day we tried them out. They were the best purchase we made, because Noah walked in the sand and LOVED the water!!!

The water was a bit cold when we first stepped in.















We had a great time at the beach!!

Later in the afternoon during Noah's naptime I went out snorkeling with Becky, Guy and Annie. We saw a lot of beautiful fish and the coolest part was swimming with a sea turtle. Becky and I swam with the turtle for about 2 minutes before it swam away. We were swimming about one foot away from the turtle. That was AMAZING!

June 3: Hawaii Day 8

Today we went on a hike up the Kuliouou Ridge trail with Mandie and Ryan, well actually they ran up the trail ahead of Andy, Corey, Jeffrey and I. But it actually worked out perfectly because only Andy and Jeffrey were complaining how slow and how many times Corey and I stopped. I found online that this is a beginner to intermediate hiking trail. Yeah right. It just about KILLED me. My heart rate was at least 160bpm the entire 3 1/2 hours we walked. We climbed up, up, and up until we reached the ridge where we could see all of Oahu except Honolulu. The view at the top was INCREDIBLE, but the hike was TERRIBLE.

This was only the beginning of the hike. The higher and higher we got the more ocean we could see. WOW!

We made it to the covered benches and had a rest. It took about 1.5 hours to get to this point. We asked a man who was coming down from the top how long it took to get up. He said "20 minutes." We mustered up our strength for the last "20 minutes."



An hour later we made it to the top and this is what we saw. AMAZING!








Then we had to climb back down. That was an adventure all in itself. Because what you climb up, you have to go back down the same way. And it was VERY steep going up and VERY steep going back down. Corey was ready to zip line down. And I wanted to hitch hike. Too bad neither was an option.



After an hour of walking back down we made it to our car. As a treat to ourselves, we stopped at the jamba juice and then drove home. We were pretty much vegetables the rest of the day, milking our sore muscles, and taking ibuprofen.