Our New Bikes!

Rachel totally loves her new bike, helmet, and pads. She has worn them every day without fail, often before she gets dressed for the day.

This is the first time we've bought our kids bikes. Up 'til now bikes have been generously given to us. Everyone was so excited -- but no one was as excited as Jon.
After we had gotten the bikes and had the kids all geared up with their helmets, etc. Jon said "Now I'm a real dad!" Apparently it takes buying your kids bikes before you are truly a parent -- so all those who think they're parents but have yet to buy their kids bikes can think again.
Anyway, it was totally fun and we had a blast riding our new bikes at the park.
Wahoo for new bikes!!
Rachel was totally guzzling the water. I guess being an expert bike rider makes you super thirsty.
Hallie wouldn't ride unless I was holding onto her and the bike--and even then she didn't last even 15 minutes.
Kale totally knows how to go for a family bike ride. That's my kind of exercise -- watch others get oh so tired without having to do anything yourself. Good plan.

Hawaii

Hawaii here we come!!

Our first full day in Hawaii was spent kayakiing. I was so scared to be out that far on the ocean, but once we got started I was okay. As long as I didn't think too much about it, it was no problem.

We learned how to play a song on the ukelele. We were real pros.

As you went around to the different "islands", they had fake tattoos you could get to be like the natives. As soon as Jon and I got ours, we automatically became fierce warriors.

Our Polynesian Cultural Center day was tons of fun. It was so cool to learn about the different cultures of the islands. During the day they had a river boat parade, and it was pretty awesome. Every island had a boat that would float down this river, and at certain spots the boats would float in circles and the people on it would do their special dance. It was way fun to watch. I loved watching New Zealands dancers because I've seen those dances before -- I think the Snow's have done them, or people they knew did them for us. Anyway, it was fun to recognize some of the dances. We went to a luau that night and they have purple potatoes and purple rolls. I personally did not enjoy the luau food, but Jon thought that everything was fantastic!

Jon was pretty pleased with himself when he caught some air on the jet ski -- by the way, this was specifically mentioned as being against the rules, but Jon did it anyway.

Jon the parasailer

Our surfing champ!

This was our extreme sports day. Okay, so the only thing that was extreme for me was the jet skiing -- and yes that is extreme. Jon did the parasailing and surfing on his own.







The pictures above were taken at Pearl Harbor. It was pretty neat to see the monument for the Arizona and also to walk on the ship where the peace treaty for WWII was signed. It was pretty awesome.
This picture and the one at the top with Jon sitting on the crazy tree were taken just outside of our hotel. The water that you can see was our hotels private little lagoon. It was fun to have the lagoon to swim in (at least for me) because then you didn't have to fight against all the scary waves.


This was our awesome ATV tour. They took us all around this huge ranch that's on the north shore. I was glad that it was on the north shore, because that's where it's beautiful and green -- the rest of the island just looks similar to deserty Utah. Crazy.
Oh yeah, I think it's important to note that I drove my very own ATV even though I was truly scared to death to do so. I did it and it was fun, but sort of like roller coaster fun, you know? Scary the whole time, but when you think back on it, it seems like it was fun.


These are pictures from the Dole Plantation. Jon was feeling oh so great because he found our first station in the huge maze. Let me explain -- there is a humongous (wrong spelling?) maze made out of hedges at the Dole Plantation. Before you go in, they give you a little card that has spaces for 8 stencil tracings. As you go through the maze, you're supposed to find all the little stencil stations, copy them onto your card, and then find your way back out. It was way harder than I anticipated. We found 3 stations on our own, had one station pointed out to us by another couple, and then decided we were too hot and tired, so we just left without finishing our cards. It took us about an hour to just find the first 3!!


These were our awesome babysitters (plus my mom who I don't have a picture of). Thanks to everyone who took care of our kids so that Jon and I could have this awesome vacation by ourselves.

King Kale is 1!!

That's right folks -- our little baby is getting so big. Kale had his first birthday on Tuesday, August 4th. In honor of his birthday our family took him to Jon's work party. Okay, we would have gone anyway, but it did give us a fun activity to do for Kale's birthday.


Rachel's always so proud of the fact that she is the big sister, and now that Kale's a little bit bigger as well we've been letting her haul him around when he's getting into things. She totally loves it.

Since Jon is always calling him King Kale, I decided we should make a birthday cake that was suited to his title.A crown for the king. Rachel and Hallie helped to color the crown and they insisted that Kale at least try to wear it. You can tell by his face that he was none too happy about it.
Kale has been the cleanest 1 year old cake eater that we've had so far. Hardly a spot on his face.
In honor of Kale's special title, we decided to have a special king and queen birthday party. The girls were way excited to wear their own special crowns.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALE!!!

I'm going to post some awesome stuff, but for now I have to take care of my kids.