A little about all of us...

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Logan got sick, I got sick, and Olivia got sick. Nothing serious, just colds, but they tend to make life a lot harder.

Another thing we've been dealing with...fear at bedtime. Logan is terrified to go into his room at night. He won't even go in there during the day. He keeps telling us it's "too scary". We ask him what's scary, and it's always something different. At one point, he was convinced his bedding was scaring him so I packed it up, put it away, and took him to the store so he could pick out his own bedding. It worked for a week or so, and now he's convinced it's scary again. I'm not about to go out and get him new stuff everytime he thinks it's scary. We've tried telling the "scaries" to go away, yelling at them, even telling Logan they've left the house and there is a blocker that won't let them back in. We are out of ideas. It's getting ridiculous. He wants us to lay with him, but he won't lay down. Then he gets hysterical when we leave the room. It's become quite the annoying habit. I understand he's 3 and has a vivid imagination, but we are tired parents and completely out of ideas.

Olivia has been fine aside from her cold. But she takes it in stride and just smiles through it. She's pretty mild tempered still, but has become a professional at throwing tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants. I always just ignore her, or try to distract her. It seems to work. She hates it when I leave the room during one of her tantrums and it usually settles her down pretty fast.

As for myself, well I've had tonsilitis for who knows how long now. I'm on the umpteenth antibiotic. I've lost track as to how many I've had this past year. Sam and I are crossing our fingers that this one works, but if it doesn't then it looks like surgery. I've heard it's brutal to have your tonsils taken out as an adult. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons. But I've had swollen tonsils for so long, I don't even remember when it started. It would be nice to not have that anymore. Other than that, I don't really know what the benefits are. I know I'll still get sick, but will it last as long, or be as bad? Things to think about.

Sam is doing fine. He is the only one of us that hasn't been sick in awhile. He's so lucky that way. He puts up with a lot from the kids and me. I make him work from home every now and then because I just can't take Logan's craziness. Sam has been absolutely wonderful at his willingness to work from home and help out a bit. Even though he has to deal with a lot, he doesn't complain about it, at least not much. :) He's the best!

A day at Grandma's

I took the kids to see their grandma yesterday. I'm so glad I did. The weather was beautiful and their cousin Tanner even came for a visit as well. Logan has been asking for a long time to go see Grandma H. He talked about it all last night to his dad, and he's been talking about it all day today. I think we're going to have to make the trip to see Grandma and Grandpa on a more regular basis. The kids love it, and I do too.

Some of the fun things the kids did...

Swept the deck (Logan and Livi love sweeping)

Went for a very long walk with Logan while Livi slept

Colored (of course, what else would Livi do?)

Ate lunch

Played with the amazing truck track

Sunday Morning

They're just too cute!

Whale Watching

So, it has only taken me forever to get to this post, but I wanted to share what we did on our last day in Maui. We spent the morning just chilling on the beach and then packing for our trip home. That evening though, we took a sunset whale watching cruise. It really was the best thing we did on our trip. I brought the wrong camera though and didn't get the pictures I wanted. But aside from that, Humpback whales are incredible! Some of the awesome things we saw:

A mother and her calf swimming alongside each other and flipping their tails out of water.
The calf is the first hump you see, and the mother is just behind.


Two whales breach at the same time. (Okay, Sam saw that, as did everyone else on the boat. I got stuck behind a really tall guy that blocked my view. I just saw one of them and didn't get my camera to take a picture in time. Awesome though.)
This is the splash they made when they went back in the water. I'm still upset with myself for missing them out of the water.


Whales and spinner dolphins swimming and playing together. It was just so neat to see. They were pretty far off in the distance so my camera didn't get any good shots. :(
This is just a picture of two whales blowing water. It was the closest we got to the whales.


The beautiful sunset. Watching the sun go down while on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean, it just doesn't get any better than that!
I wanted to get a picture of Sam and me together since it was our last night and we had absolutely no pictures of us, but my camera died just after this picture.



We also heard the whales singing to each other. The captain of the boat lowered something into the water that allowed us to listen to them. It was just amazing. I'm talking jaw-dropping amazing! It was fun to listen to the whales below us and watching them every now and then make an appearance out in the distance.

Research is currently going on about these amazing creatures. Even the guys on our boat couldn't tell us what was going on, but we definitely knew something was going on. There were so many whales and so many dolphins together. It was as if something magnificent or terrifying was going on below. We speculated that perhaps there were two males after a female and fighting. That's really all anyone could come up with. I'm so glad we went to see the whales. We almost missed out on the experience. It's definitely something I would like to do again, if we ever get a chance to go back.

Road to Hana and beyond

We decided that Sunday would be a good idea for a road trip, so we headed out on the road to Hana. That's a crazy drive. Lots of one way bridges, driving close to the edge of cliffs, very narrow roads, and tons of curves. It was an experience. We didn't venture on too many hikes, okay, none. But we did pull over a couple of times to enjoy the scenery.

Waianapanapa State Park

Where we ate lunch.

The only way to drive the road to Hana.

We didn't make too many stops because our goal was to reach the Oheo Gulch, or Seven Sacred Pools. We were determined to do it. We had left around 10am and made it to Hana around 1:30pm. The pools were about 45 minutes past Hana. We had gotten used to the crazy road, but we were nowhere near ready for what was about to come. The road got worse. It was basically a one lane road with lots of curves, no bridge guards and we were on a cliff pretty much the entire time. No doubt it was a beautiful drive, but there were times when I feared for our lives. It was crazy! It made the road to Hana a piece of cake! I would like to say that the drive was worth it, and it was to an extent. But the pictures we saw online were basically what we saw. If we ever go back to Maui, I highly doubt we will do that drive again. It was too intense. Beautiful, for sure, but intense.







We didn't go swimming. I would've liked too, but we both agreed that we needed to head back home before it got dark. Neither one of us wanted to be on those roads in the dark. It was crazy enough in daylight. We left around 3pm and got off the highway around 5pm. It was definitely easier driving back than it was there, but I think the fact that we had been on it already helped a bit. We were exhausted after that. It was pretty intense. Poor Sam, he had to drive the entire time. Both of us were worn out, but I'm sure he was worse off since he had to actually drive it.

'Iao Valley

On Saturday we decided to head out to 'Iao Valley. It is absolutely beautiful! The history there is incredible. Maui warriors once used the 'Iao needle as a look out point during the war in 1790. They lost though, but it led to the Hawaiian islands being united. It's been a few days, and I'm still in awe.

Maui, Days 1 & 2

Well, we made it. It was an incredibly long flight with lots of turbulence. Landing was a pain. Still dealing with a sinus infection made landing a painful experience, but it's over.

We arrived to cloudy skies and the threat of rain. It had rained hard that morning and the previous day causing flash floods. Most of the flooding occurred in Kihei, which ironically enough is where we are staying. :) It instantly brought us back to 5 years ago on Oahu. Ah, memories.

Our hotel isn't too bad. It's a Days Inn, so it's not great, but the bed is awesome. It's a Tempurpedic bed and you can't go wrong with that. Plus, the ocean is just steps away!

Our hotel is the 2 story building on the left, not too far from the beach!

We had clear skies today and enjoyed it as much as we could. Since it had been raining, the car rental agency had a special going on their Mustang convertables. Since it was hardly anything at all, we took one! It was great driving through Upcountry with the top down. We had heard that there were things to do, but I think we missed it all. Oh well. It was still fun driving around.



We wanted to spend some time at the beach, but with all the rain and flooding, sewage had made its way to the ocean. Needless to say, the water has not been all that appealing. We're hoping for a change tomorrow. :)