Jesse & Danielle

I'm rather unlucky.

Or maybe Hawaii hates us?

As if packing for a week long trip to Hawaii wasn't stressful enough, I got sick a few days before we were scheduled to leave. I'm sure it was stress induced... Ugh. My throat had been killing me and I had to work two days while feeling crummy oh and still pack. I even ran over to the urgent care just to check and see if I had strep. When that test came back negative I was disappointed since that meant I just had to tough it out! And of course the next day it turned into a full fledged cold instead of just a sore throat. Blargh.

I just tried not to breath and cough on the boys and hoped we'd be ok. Going on vacation was the last thing I wanted to do at the time. I seriously just wanted to curl up in my bed and sleep for a week instead.

On Monday morning (June 31) the boys had their 15 month appointment and I mentioned to the doctor I was worried about them catching my cold because they had started having just a little congestion and the occasional cough. She said their ears looked great and that they seemed fine so that was a relief. We came home and laid them down for a nap, and when I went to get them when they woke up, I found Briggs with a very goopy red eye! Seriously?! We were JUST at the doctor's office like two or three hours earlier and it looked fine.

I was starting to think Hawaii genuinely hated us. It didn't want us to come.

I called the pediatrician's office immediately to explain that we were heading out of town early the next morning and that my son somehow acquired an eye infection between the time we saw them about three hours earlier and now and I needed some eye drops called into our pharmacy. Luckily our pediatrician is awesome and send the script for eye drops right over so we could start taking care of that ailment. I couldn't believe what just happened. Now I had to give eye drops to my busy 15 month old... while we're on vacation.

And of course you know the other one is going to catch it approximately a day later. So then you're giving eye drops to two busy 15 months olds.

Awesome.

Anyway, due to my awful cold and working two out of the 4 days before we left, we weren't as packed as we should have been, if you can believe that. So Jesse and I finished our packing adventure, redistributed luggage weight despite a comical lack of brain power, so each weighed in at safe 47 pounds, and at the lovely time of 12:30am we settled in for our "nap."

At the typically unseen hour of 3am we were back up and doing last minute preparations to be out the door by 4am.

Luckily our boys are troopers and were in pleasant spirits despite being torn from their beds at 4 in the morning so we could make our 6am flight.

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Our boys are seriously amazing.

Ian slept for awhile at the beginning of the flight but Briggs didn't sleep until the very end.

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We made it to SLC after one blow out, Jesse getting peed on twice, me once, and a couple of changes of clothes later... where we had a four hour layover.

The boys loved walking around, eating cinnamon rolls, and doing laps on the moving sidewalks.

We also watched some sesame street and met up with Jesse's parents.

{While we were waiting, I was holding one of them and the other just crawled up and sat on my lap too so we plugged him in. It was adorable.}

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{Ian gave me some kisses in line, and then we were off again!}

The boys once again were gems. Since Briggs had slept all of 20 minutes between 4am Central time and 12pm Mountain time, he quickly crashed and both of them slept for about the first three hours of the flight which made it more tolerable. We then did lots of distracting with stickers, coloring, reading, movie watching, and even some walking. And after 6 hours on that plane, with no changing table I might add, (Really? Who designed a gigantic plane that can travel such long distances without a changing table? Come on, people.) we finally landed in Honolulu.

YAY!!

We grabbed all our stuff, which by the way is comical in and of itself.

Jesse wears his backpack and the camera bag if it's not shoved in our other big bag and carries the carseats on the suitcases while I push the boys and carry the diaper bag and any other loose items.

I'm sure we look ridiculous, but we really have a pretty good system. We're awesome fliers at this point.

Jesse's manly backpack, turned child-friendly!

Anyway, back to the original story, we grab our things, and head out to look for the shuttle to take us to our rental car. Alas, all they have is a little van so we actually have to strap the carseats into the van and load the boys in. We apologized profusely to the other passengers and went ahead and passed along the sound advice to not travel long distances with young children.

We get our rental car which fortunately fits the large load of things we brought and off we go... straight into rush hour traffic. What should have taken about 40 minutes to get to our house, took well over 2 hours

But it's ok, because we're in Hawaii.

Right Hawaii? Are you our friend yet?

Although this is more indicative of how we felt. We'd been up since 3am with minimal sleep on the flights, traveled/laid-over for about 12 hours (not including drive time once we arrived) and had gained 5 hours so it was only about 6pm-ish in Hawaii.

Briggs immediately went to town cleaning up the patio.

And that night we pretty much ate dinner and called it a night.

The next morning the boys got us up nice and early (they were consistently up around 5:30-6:00 every morning) and we ate breakfast and lounged around the house.

Our house was well equipped for our two littles.

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Briggs is waving in this picture and it is seriously the cutest little wave. He just twists his hand back and forth, kind of like a parade wave.

After their nap we decided to go to the beach. We lathered in sunscreen, put on swim shirts and suits, and headed out to the car.

{Briggs was a rockstar with his sunglasses.}

And we found this adorable little gecko on our car.

We then drove for probably 10-15 minutes looking for a parking spot to go to the beach.

And seriously couldn't find a single one.

So instead, we went to the grocery store to pick up some essentials, and drove home!

Ha! Beach Fail.

And after all that driving, I opened the door to find Briggs still in his sunglasses. And he wore them all throughout the store. Awesome kid right there!

I honestly can't remember what we did the rest of the day, but Jesse and I did walk down to the beach later that afternoon just for fun. It was beautiful.

Our poor boys just spent the day riding around in their swimming suits and covered in sunscreen. They're such good sports though.

The next day (at least I think it was the next day) we decided to try the beach again.

And it was raining. Really Hawaii? You don't want to be our friend yet?

But we were bound and determined to take the boys to the beach, so off we went.

And fortunately the rain cleared up right as we showed up.

The boys had a blast.

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{I} kept eating the sand. So gross.

{B} wasn't so sure he liked being dirty, but he warmed up to it pretty quick.

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We were going to get shave ice that day, but forgot. Or maybe something happened. All I know is we had been there for two days without shave ice.

But not to worry, we made up for it every day after that!

We enjoyed the Polynesian Cultural Center one day, since last year our day at the PCC mostly consisted of nursing babies and catching the last few minutes of the shows.

We were able to see a lot more this year.

{Briggs was hilarious with his flower behind his ear and sunglasses. He left that flower on for probably half an hour.}

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{Ian for some reason just had to hold Briggs' leg. Who knows why.}

{But when Briggs couldn't handle any more, we showed Ian that he could hold his own foot. He seemed alright with that.}

We spent some time pushing the stroller.

Briggs was completely obsessed with animals, particularly birds on this trip. He discovered they exist and he just wanted to touch them.

The rest of the trip is a bit of a blur, so I'll just throw some pictures on to sum up our week.

The boys were going through all the kitchen cupboards and pulling out everything they could find.

Ian obviously fancied the pitcher at one point.

There was a little pool in the backyard of the house we stayed in that the boys also loved.

{B in back and I in front}

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This ball was a favorite! They couldn't get enough.

We proudly wore our red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July.

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{This was our attempt at a selfie with our giant camera. Briggs' face cracked us up!}

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Playing in, out, around, and through the doors on the patio was also a favorite pastime.

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{Just some of the joys of Hawaii}

{Jesse found this itty bitty inch worm on the top of the boys' book that was fascinating to watch.}

These boys just love each other.

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We loved having a family movie night.

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The boys were in love with the bubbles Mimi had.

Ian thought his daddy was hilarious getting the bubbles.

We all were in heaven having Jesse all to ourselves for the whole week.

{Because that picture reminded me of this picture, here's a flashback to them in Hawaii last year at 4 months! How have my babies grown so much?!}

I ate this burger that was as big as my face. And oh so delicious I might add.

And Ian ate a bagel as big as his face... well at least a couple of bites.

We of course enjoyed us some shave ice at Matsumotos

Which always had a ridiculously long line.

But it was delicious.

The littles spent some time like this while we packed them around all over the island.

We went for a walk one night right after (and before) a rainstorm, and found these GIGANTIC snails as well as slugs all over the place. I seriously couldn't stop commenting on how huge they were! "Look at this one! Holy cow that's the biggest snail I've ever seen! Oh my gosh, look how huge this one is! Jesse are you seeing this? They're HUGE."

One of their favorite things, climbing over something, while being under something.

Mimi got these wooden toys from the market and Briggs liked dragging them around the house.

We went to the swap meet at Aloha Stadium on Saturday which is one of our favorite things.

I got myself a big floppy hat.

Although I think it just might be cuter on Ian.

While last year we sat on the curb while I nursed the boys here, this year we were chasing them everywhere! We thought they needed a break from the stroller, and they certainly took advantage of the freedom.

On Sunday we went to church, and then might have skipped out a little early due to something we call "Restless Child Syndrome."

Fortunately the Hawaii Temple is right next door so we decided to wander around the visitors center and the Temple grounds.

We believe the temples are sacred places where our families can be sealed together for eternity and we make promises of an eternal nature.

You can learn more about them here.

And of course I forgot my camera this day. When you're a picture taking snob like me, that is a very big disappointment. So phone pictures have to do this year.

The boys of course loved the stairs.

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He's grinning so big because he found some birds. haha.

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We saw a peacock right outside our window!

My hair was out of control. By nature it is neither curly nor straight so it is always awesome trying to get it to do anything.

We tried to get the boys to leave on these awesome hats, it lasted all of 12 seconds.

On Sunday night, Linda invited her cousin's son over (which we figured out makes him Jesse's second cousin and his sons, our boys' third cousins.) Well this little Shadrack and Ian just absolutely hit it off and they played and played together. He is 3 but seemed completely content to follow around a one year old (or two) for the evening. They wandered around the house, gave each other hugs, Briggs loved his shoes, and he even talked to them like he understood their gibberish. It was truly hilarious to watch!