Hawaii, part 2

The last part of our trip was great. On Sunday, we flew to Oahu early that morning. Once we arrived, we grabbed some breakfast and were trying to decided exactly what we wanted to do when my mom threw us an envelope and said here were some things from the car rental people suggested we do while we were there. My sister opened up the envelope and out fell six tickets to the NFL Pro Bowl!! Boy were we surprised!! The game didn't start until 2 so we had a few hours to kill before so we made our way to Pearl Harbor. We spent a couple of hours touring the museums that they have set up, watching a moving and then rode a boat out to the sight where they have a memorial built over the USS Arizona. It was quite a humbling experience to walk over the top of that sunken ship. I can't even imagine the horror that the people felt that day! After we finished our tour of the ship, we made our way to the ALoha Stadium for the game. After driving around for quite some time and not finding a parking space, my dad and Christian dropped us off so we could go get sat down and they went to find a place to park (which ended up being close to where we were at Pearl Harbor...guess we should have stuck with our original instincts and just parked there). As we started to walk in, it began to sprinkle, and by the time we sat down, it was raining pretty good. So after about a half an hour of rain, I went and bought some ponchoes for everyone. And, as luck would have it, we wore them for about 15 minutes and it stopped raining! The rest of the game was perfect! We even managed to see a few famous people like Dog the Bounty Hunter, and Chris Leban, a UFC fighter. We had to leave before the game was over so that we could make sure to make it back to the airport in time to catch our flight back to Hawaii (it was the last one of the day).

Pro Bowl Tickets!!
Pearl Harbor

Pro Bowl Time!

Drizzling...

A little harder now...we had to put on our sweatshirts...

Poncho time and Rain!

Waiting for the game to start.

Goo Goo Dolls sang at half time and some American Idol guy sang the National Anthem (can't remember his name...all I know is that my sister was excited!)

Our delicious pizza for lunch! Papa Johns was a fave when we lived in Laramie and we were excited to see some at the game!

When went to eat at Panda Express after the game. Don't be fooled by the pictures...the food was amazing!!

It had been a long day by the time we got to the air port to catch our plane back to our resort and when we get tired we get a little silly!

Monday, we decided to go back to the beach to boogey board some more. The waves were tons better this time, making for some good rides into the beach! After a day at the beach, we went and played in some of the pools that had slides. We acted like we were about 5....and it was FUN!AFter we had had as much as we could handle on the slides, we took a shower and enjoyed dinner at Roy's (where I ate soy beans for the first time) with my brother and his little family.

We didn't know there was a gun show at the beach that day either! BONUS!!

Ah, the slides! We had a little more fun than we should have on them, but hey...we were on vacation!

Crocodile eyes!

we decided we would try going under the waterfall...it kind of hurt.

Wednesday, our last day there, we decided to stick to the resort and just played in the lagoon again. We rented kayaks and had races...I wasn't in a winning kayak once! :( After we were done with our fun at the lagoon, we went back to get ready and back our stuff up. When we were all ready, we did a little shopping and had dinner in Kona (where the airport is) at Bubba Gump's. We flew out late (like almost 10:00) Wednesday night and arrived back to freezing Montana about 11:00 Thursday. When we had loaded all our luggage, we dropped my brother off at my mom and dad's house and then made our way to Lovell to see our boys. We ended up spending the rest of the weekend in Lovell and traveled all the way home Sunday.

We were laughing because we were totally posed and ready to get our picture taken by the sign at the volcano and this old dude came and stood like two feet away from us totally clueless that we were going to take a picture...

Must have been a kodak moment!

The sunset the last night we were there.

The family learning how to do the hula!

Before the hula
My grandma and sister got a little island lovin' from the hula guys!!
Our last day!

Butts and I racing Christian and Jason in the kayaks....we lost!

Christian's giant sno cone!

It was a great trip and really missed Hawaii when we got back to the negative degree weather of Wyoming! We would have loved to have the boys there with us to play at the beach...maybe next time!

Trip to The Big Island!

Ok, so I have tried to upload pictures for this post for a week now, and was not having any luck! Finally blogger and my computer decided to cooperate long enough for me to get some pictures up!

Our trip to the Big island of Hawaii, was an awesome trip! We flew out of Billings, MT on a Thursday morning and arrived in Hawaii around 6 that same night. The first evening, we didn't do much. After we finally made it to our resort, we unloaded our luggage and decided to do some much needed walking around the resort to check it all out and stretch our legs (we had a 6 hour flight from LA to Kona, Hawaii). It was getting kind of dark, but we still managed to see a good portion of the resort.

My mom and her pizza that looked like a face. You can't tell from the picture but it had to bubbles that looked like eyes!

Eating some sando's after finally arriving at the resort!

Dont' ask! Let's just say that it had been a long day of airports, planes and too much having to sit still for these two!

Relaxing on a hammock we found on our adventure around the resort the night we got there.

The next morning, we were up bright and early (they are four hours behind us)! We started the day with yummy breakfast and then made our way down to the lagoon at the resort. The lagoon is feed by the ocean so it was full of turtles, all sorts of fish, eels, sting rays, and who know what else there was that we didn't see! While we were at the lagoon, we snorkled, rode the paddle boats, did the paddle boards and enjoyed the sunshine! Later that afternoon, we enjoyed at bbq for lunch, went back and got ready and then enjoyed some shoppingat the local shops.

There were a bunch of these little black crabs on some rocks at the lagoon!

The guys getting ready to snorkel.

Megan, me, and our nieces enjoying the paddle boats.

Trying to master the paddle surf board.

Christian and I under the waterfall.

Day 3 was spent at the beach. Last year when my mom took the girls (and my two boys) over there, we visited two beaches and definatly fell in love with Hapuna beach, so we made sure to make our back there this trip. Being a Saturday, the beach was quite busy. We borrowed boogey boards from my uncle's family and the guys really enjoyed using them to catch some waves! After spending the morning and a part of the afternoon at the beach, we went back that night and enjoyed a sunset dinner by the ocean with all of our family.

Christian was so excited to drive jeeps around the island. We were supposed to have convertables, but they ran out...he had not problem accepting a jeep instead! They were lots of fun to ride around in.

Oh, what a special relationship Christian and my sister have! This picture pretty much explains it...WELL!

My mom and dad enjoying the beach...and eachother!

Me and my seester!

Chilling on the beach.

My brother, Jason, my sister, Megan, and Christian trying to catch a wave on the boogy boards.

Cheese!

After spending the morning, and part of the afternoon at the beach, we went back to our resort, got ready and then had a sunset dinner on the beach with almost all the family (we were minus my uncle Kent, aunt Lori and my cousin Sha and her husband, Brandon).

Each night as we would walk back to our room, we would find piles of rocks place strategically under the MANY statues that were there. Christian, couldn't resist the opportunity to do it either when he cam across a statue without any "additions". The best was a pair of dogs that had a pile of rocks under one and a puddle of water under the other!

After dinner that night, we made our way back to our room to find that two envelopes had been slipped under our door. Inside the envelopes were two plane tickets to island hop over to Oahu for the day. We were so excited to be able to see Pearl Harbor and Wikiki Beach, but we had no idea what was actually in store for us on our trip. The surprise will have to be in my next post though!

I Hope They Call Me On a Mission!

I have a lot of catching up to do, so be prepared for a series of new posts! We returned back to McCook late Sunday night after an 11 day vacation to Wyoming, Hawaii, and then back to Wyoming again, and are still trying to get things back in order! :)

Wednesday, January 26, we made it to Wyoming to drop our boys off to stay with Christian's family while we went to Hawaii. It was also the day we said goodbye to Christian's brother, Jared who was leaving for his mission while we were going to be gone. Jared left a week ago, today, to serve a 2 year mission for our church. He has been called to serve in Zimbabwae, and we know he will be a great missionary! We are greatful for Jared's decision to serve a mission and for being such a great example to our boys. My boys really look up to their Uncle Jared and were sad to see him go, but are sure excited to tell everyone they see that their uncle Jared is on a mission in Africa! :)

(*Emily, I loved the pictures that you posted on your blog...so I stole a couple since we missed the festivities!)