Hawaii, babies, and FUN.

Ooooookay, so... it's been a while.  So sit back, relax, this is going to be a long one!!

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to go to Hawaii with my parents and my sister and her husband.  It was definitely a much needed vacation, although I'm not sure vacation ever really has the same meaning once you have kids!!!

A 5 hour flight should seem like nothing after multiple 14 hour plane adventures, but man was it challenging!  Now, I say that, but really both kids were pretty darn good, just Riley was a LOT of work to entertain!!  She's so go-go-go that 5 hours on a plane in the middle of the day is torture to her!  But we survived and landed in Hawaii, ready for fun!

So we stayed in a condo, which was nice because both kids could have their own room... only downside was, Riley's room had 2 single beds, which were set up in a way that you couldn't just put them together, but there was only like 2 feet between them.... so I basically stuffed that space with pillows and blankets and turned it into a HUGE bed.  Bigger than any bed she's slept in.  And wouldn't it figure, that she would fall out of that bed not once but TWICE in the middle of the night.  Talk about giving your mama a heart attack, nothing worse than hearing a huge THUD followed by screams at 2am!  But she recovered quickly and we were ready to start our days in Hawaii!

Now, one thing I totally did not expect?  Riley was terrified of the ocean.  Not really the ocean per se, but more the waves.  She's been around then ocean and water plenty of times in New Zealand, but the beach was smaller where we were in Hawaii, and the waves were pretty loud, and for some reason she was terrified!  I was totally perplexed!  She loved the pool, loved swimming, was alright sitting in the sand FAR away from the water, but was NOT happy to sit near the water, and wanted to be carried at all times!

Jackson, on the other hand, was totally not bothered by the sand or ocean... He was pretty much happy most of the time.  The tricky thing with vacation with the little ones is balancing doing fun things and playing outside with everyone getting enough rest and sleep.  One day we planned a trip out to the aquarium (more on that in a minute), and there was a miniature golf place right next to it, so we decided to give it a try.

Riley loved it for the first 10 minutes, then got pretty bored and just wanted to go on the bumper boats.  So I spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince her it was a good idea to wait until everyone else was ready before going on the boats.  30 minutes is a LONG time in toddler world, let me tell you.

Jack was well past due for a nap, and FINALLY fell asleep thanks to Grandpa who walked and walked and walked him around until he was out.  And Riley continued to make it impossible for anyone else to play golf...

Riley is so funny, we told her we were going mini golfing, and she says. "Mini golf?  Oh!  Not MICKEY golf, just MINNIE golf!"  Such a little goofball, that one. :)  Can you tell she has Minnie Mouse on the brain?

These pictures of Jackson below are before his skin started to freak out.  The kid has very sensitive skin, and does not do well in the Hawaii climate.  His eczema was pretty bad, and at one point his forehead was all rashy and red.  He also does not do well in the heat, and our condo had no air conditioning, so sleep was a bit of an issue for him during this trip, but you never would have known it during the day, he was a pretty happy little dude!

The boy LOVES to jump.  And jump.  And jump some more.

Only minimal amounts of sand were consumed while he was sitting there, surprisingly!

This is Riley's GET ME AWAY FROM THE WAVES face.... just before full blown meltdown.

All I wanted was one photo of the two kids together on the beach.  Riley was too scared, so we cheated.  It think Jennie is holding Jack, and my mom is holding Riley.  And we got buildings in the background instead of beach.  But they are sort of on the sand, so whatevs.

Jacky boy was not yet crawling, but he was so so so close (don't you worry, he is full blown crawling now, there's no stopping him!)  It's probably a good thing he wasn't crawling, since now he doesn't stay still for more than 2 seconds!  These two bottom pictures show just how awesome my kids' hair is... Jackson's little fluffy mohawk and Riley's ringlets.

We made it to the aquarium and of course, Riley LOVED it.  She loves all the fish and the ocean animals, so she was in heaven.  We could have stayed there for a very long time!

It has taken me so long to go through all these photos, and the ones in here a just small selection from the first few days of our trip!  I have so many more cute ones to go through and sort, PLUS today this little cutie patootie turns TEN months old, so I have an update coming for him too!

So more Hawaii photos, some videos, and a 10 month update coming soon!