June fun

Hogle Zoo trip, Bowen got picked to go up on stage at the Discovery Land show. Watching the bird show

Elijah has had the training wheels on his bike and he finally asked me to take them off. So we took them off and I went in the house to put on my shoes, thinking I would be doing some running behind him while he practiced learning to ride. But by the time I got outside he had already figured it out and was riding like a pro!! So when Bowen got done playing his game he decided to go outside and try riding and he was able to get right on and ride as well, now he keeps saying he didn't know it would be so easy to learn to ride and how fun riding his bike is.

Happy Birthday to me!!

Yum, Strawberry short cake for me

A time to Learn

Summer School



Family Home evening with the Pickerings
We love to dance!

Cute Sarah

My Pretty Girl

She is going to be walking soon (I hope!)One of Sarahs favorite things to do is sit in my chair and "read" any book that is sitting on the side table, which just happens to usually be the Book of MormonSarah loves to use a spoon and gets mad if you forget to give her one when she is eating.

Hawaii-the final chapter

Day 7 Thursday

Hanamura Bay

We ended up getting to the bay a little later in the day so there were not very many people there, and then it started to rain so pretty much every one left and we had the beach mostly to ourself. The water was kinda cool so I only stayed in the water for about 45 minutes and was shivering by the time I got out.

Snorkeling with the fishes.Some cool fish

Bowen thought this one was a shark

When everyone left the beach the mongoose came out to play (and collect the garbage that was lying around) Moroni followed the Mongoose around with a camera for about an hour and finally got a really good shot.

On friday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and the LDS Temple, the was being renovated so we didn't get to go through a session, but we did go to the visitors center.

Hawaiian dancers at the PCC

Climbing the Palm trees.

Fresh flower Lei's

Our smoothies in a pineapple, the best part about the Luau, all the rest of the food was barely edible.

Saturday Day 9 our final day on the Island. We went hiking with Liz and her family to a beautiful little waterfall.

A beautiful view of the valley (and some people kissing)Liz, Maddoz, Cambrie, Jamey, and Kya

This is my favorite picture from the whole trip

(could be cause I am half way hidden behind Moroni so I look alot skinnier :)

Well that is the end of our Hawaii trip, we left Saturday night at 10:30 and didn't get home until 1:30 pm on Sunday, needless to say I was a little sleep deprived, and it took me a week to get over the jet lag. Can't wait to go again next year :)

Hawaii Days 4-6

I finally got the pictures back from the water camera we used so now I can continue blogging about or trip.

On Monday we went on a hike to Maunawili falls, it is about a mile and a half to the falls through a pretty cool looking jungle. We had a ton of fun looking at all the vine covered trees, and the spectacular views of the mountain.


Maunawili Falls, there was a lot of people there cliff jumping, and there was really no place to sit down so we didn't stay for very long. This waterfall reminded me of the Grotto up Payson Canyon, the way the trail just ends right at the pool at the bottom of the falls.

That night was our first night in the Hotel, we stayed at the Hawaii Prince, which is right on the edge of Waikiki beach, between Waikiki and Honolulu. We had a spectacular view of the beach on one side, the boat harbor right in front of us and Magic Island the other way.

Our hotel was the tall one on the far left.

This is the view from our Hotel

Moroni at Waikiki beach

Tuesday we were supposed to meet Liz and Jamey to go Kayaking but there were a few problems and we didn't end up actually going Kayaking together, but we did end up having a really great time.

Cascade in the Kayak

This is Flat Island that we Kayaked out too

Moroni on Flat Island, it is a bird sanctuary so there was a bunch of birds nesting in the lava rock all around the island. The two Islands you can see on either side of Moroni are also Islands you can Kayak too, but the day we went there was too much rough water so we couldn't go out there.

We also Kayaked to beautiful Lanikai Beach

On the way back to our hotel we stopped a the Pali lookout. I about froze my butt off, because I was still wet and it was cloudy and rainy and the wind was blowing hard!


Wednesday we went to Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri.

Moroni at the memorial looking toward the USS Missouri

The USS Missouri, the last Battleship used by the US Navy

Standing on the Missouri looking at the Arizona Memorial. You can't see it very well in this picture but there was also a rainbow off to the right, it was beautiful.

Afterward we stopped at the only Royal Palace on US soil.

The Royal Palace
This tree was just too cool I had to get a picture of it.

One of the things Moroni and I love is good food, so we were thinking we would try to find some really good Hawaiian food. NO LUCK. The only thing we both really loved was some Portuguese donuts called Malasadas.

Hawaii Days 1-3

I took so many pictures and we did so many fun things I decided to blog in several posts.

Day 1 Friday April 16th

We left at about 3:30pm on the plane but because of the time change we got into Hawaii at about 9:30pm and to Liz's house at 11:30 which is 3:30 Utah time so we were a little tired and cranky, especially after missing our turn and trying to find our way to her house for 1/2 an hour. If you have never driven in Hawaii let me tell you their roads are crazy. None of the roads are straight and all of them are some hard to remember really long Hawaiian word, and half the time you can't even see the name of the street because I think the purposely hide the street sign names so the tourists get lost and they sit back and laugh at us. Just kidding we only got lost a few times on our trip. Liz lent us her GPS :)

This was the sunset we got to see from the plane
it was even prettier in real life.

Day 2 Saturday April 17th

We woke up to the sounds of hundreds of birds chirping and apparently Gecko's as well, Liz said they make a chirping noise and she has some that like to live in her house. Liz has a really cute house, (I love the architecture) with the coolest tree ever outside.

Liz' house, notice all the steps

This tree would be the perfect climbing tree, my boys would love it.

Moroni and his little sister Liz

We kinda wanted to take it easy the first day so we just hung around the house in the morning and then decided to go for a drive up to the North shore. We stopped at the valley of the Temples on the way.

One of the TemplesCascade and Moroni in front of the Buddhist Temple
You were supposed to ring this bell before going into the temple

Buddha
Moroni bought the teachings of Buddha book and has been reading it

Kya and Maddox

Moroni and I in the Bamboo forest near the Buddist temple
The bamboo was making the coolest creaking noise, but I kept thinking some of the broken bamboo was going to fall on us.
Moroni, Liz, Kya, and Maddox looking at the Koi fish

After the Temples we stopped at a beach the was having a Woman's Pro Surfing competition. The waves were huge and it was really windy so we didn't stay for very long.

We accidentally found this when we were driving around, it is the remnants of an old Hawaiian temple from before the Christians came to the island.

Then we drove on up to a little town that reminded me of Lava Hot Springs with all its local shops selling surf stuff and lots of art, as well as really good snow cones with ice cream in the bottom.

On the way home we stopped at Waimea beach to watch the sunset and let the kids play in the sand and surf.Kya and Maddox

Cambrie

Day 3 Sunday April 18th

We went to church with Liz and the kids (Jamey ended up having to work the first weekend we were there) I got a Lei from one of the ladies in Relief Society, and met some really nice people.
We went for a walk around Liz's neighborhood, the houses there probably cost between 800,000 and 3 million dollars each, CRAZY expensive, they are nice houses but would only cost a fraction of that in Utah.
Jamey's cousin and his wife were in Hawaii at the same time so they came over that night for dinner and to hang out. We stayed up way to late that night talking and laughing and finding out about some crazy things Jamey has done in his life :)