CJ and Eddie are Married!

Thirty hours in Kona to see my sister get married. Totally worth it! I was not sure of my travel plans, right up until the last moment. Grant was able to find a great deal with points and I left for Hawaii on a super early morning Thursday flight, flew through LAX, and was in Kona at 12:30pm. Dad picked me up at the airport and then dropped me off to meet Mom and CJ at the salon while she was getting her hair done! I had just enough time after the hair appointment to get Shave Ice. So yummy!

The wedding was Thursday evening, and it was sweet because CJ didn't want Eddie to see her before the ceremony. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the water afterwards. I stayed at the Marriott King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel and it felt amazing. I was tired from the travel, and I slept in on Friday morning, laid by the pool, had lunch at the poolside cabana, got a late check-out, and then got an early evening flight back to Dallas. I arrived home early Saturday morning and still got to have a weekend with the fam.

CJ was so beautiful and I loved getting to witness such a beautiful and special evening. My Dad did the ceremony and he was funny and thoughtful. We face-timed B during the ceremony. The ocean and sunset were amazing and I also loved getting to meet Eddie's family.

No more tonsils for Colton

Colton had his tonsils and adenoids removed on Thursday and he has been a trooper. The scariest part was right after he came out of anesthesia he was absolutely distraught. In the paperwork it said, "A child may experience emergence delirium after anesthesia. This is when your child may be extremely irritable, angry or combative. They may not be comforted by anything you or the nurse does. This is typically not related to the pain and rarely happens. Your child will not likely remember this behavior." It may be rare, but it happened to Colton. His eyes were wild, he was clawing at his face, he was flinging his arms around, and he was crying/screaming. After about 10 minutes they gave him more meds through his IV when there was absolutely nothing I could do to calm him down. It was 10 mins of my heart racing. He finally went back to sleep after more pain meds and I was so thankful. Hopefully this tough guy will be feeling better soon!

Happy New Year's 2019!

We had a glamorous fondue evening at the home of Sarah and Jun Kong. Everything was absolutely perfect and lovely. Delicious food for the adults, nuggets for the kids, fondue chocolate foundation for dessert, balloon drop, poppers, and great company! The evening flew by and we really weren't even ready to go at midnight. Luckily the time change from Hawaii was working in our favor.

On New Year's morning, we had a great brunch at DD and Big John's and spent a relaxed day catching up and taking it easy.

Hawaii Professional Photos

I am setting the time and date for this post so it shows up in 2018, but I am actually writing this on Fri., Feb. 22 from Kona, Hawaii. I am here because CJ and Edie got married yesterday! I took a 6am flight, arrived at 12:30pm and was at their beautiful beach wedding at 5pm last night. My flight home is at 6:40pm tonight, and I have spent the day enjoying the beach and relaxing. It has been wonderful. The wedding was even more special that I had anticipated and CJ was beautiful. Edie cried a bit when he saw her for the first time which made me cry too. More on that in a dedicated post to the wedding.

Anyway, since I have a few hours on my hands before my flight leaves, I am using it for blog catch-up. As I reflect on our Christmas 2018 Hawaii trip, it brings back such wonderful memories. It made me feel confident that our little family can travel together and begin exploring the world. The kids did so well with the travel and they have already been asking about when we can come back. It also made me feel like Grant and I should plan more extended vacations. We were both able to recharge more than is possible during a one week vacation. Our jobs don't lend themselves easily to extended time away, but I want to try to make it happen. I also loved exploring God's creation. It truly is beautiful here and it makes me so excited to spend eternity exploring the beauty of God and what He creates.

Hawaii Day 16: CJ Home Tour and Headed Home

Happy Birthday Grant! My Mom had made us all "Big Island Christmas" shirts and we hadn't taken a pic yet and it was time to go. CJ and Edie came over just before the first group headed to the airport so we rushed to drag everyone to the front of the house for a pic. It isn't the best, but so glad we have it. The Walsh crew was the last group at the house. We stuck around and swam until about noonish. Then we met CJ and Edie at their new house that is under control. It was so great and Grant, CJ and Edie spent a long time talking about potential and projects.

We then headed to Splashers for a late lunch. During lunch, Grant was on his phone and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was looking at flights for the next day in case we wanted to stay longer! While I love that he had such a fun trip, I told him we needed to get home. After 16 days in Hawaii, I thought we would all be itching to get home, but I honestly related to the way he felt. It was just a wonderful trip. It was special to get time with just the 5 of us, and then we had a wonderful time with my family. I think we all love Hawaii. Even though I guess we could have stayed longer, I wanted to get home and start to get the kids back on a schedule before school started again. They were perfect on our direct, red-eye flight. They all slept a bit and then Peyton picked us up at the airport. Getting our luggage was a bit of debacle, but we eventually made it safely home.

The kids opened their presents that Santa had left while we were away, and then we all took naps. I woke up at about noon feeling rested and happy to be in our yellow house.

Hawaii Day 15: Snuba and scuba

Papa Ron, Cadie and Samuel did snuba! I was so impressed with Samuel. He was GREAT and super comfortable in the water and adventurous. JR was planning to snuba but he got upset as we were going into the water because of all the equipment and some sand in his swimsuit so he retreated to the beach to play with Colton and Josiah. Grant and I had rented scuba gear so we were able to swim beside the snubaers. I held hands a bit with Samuel just so he didn't have to swim so hard and to make sure he felt comfortable. Honestly, he probably didn't need me because he did so well, but I enjoyed the time with him.

That evening, Grant and I got to have a date night! B and Nathan (and I am sure Nina and Papa helped) watched our kids so Grant and I could have a pre-Grant birthday adventure. We went on the black water night dive and it was incredible! We went about a mile off the coast right at sunset and then waited for it to get pitch dark. The boat ride was beautiful and there was beautiful phosphorescence in the waves. The water was so calm it was like a lake. We were tethered to the boat and were able to go down about 45 ft. It felt like an alien world with jellies creatures floating past up. They were so strange and beautiful that it is hard to describe.

After the dive, we met Anna, Eric, CJ and Edie for dinner at Kona Brewing Company. Anna told us that during the evening the blender got broken and the TV in Cadie's room was broken. It sounded like a stressful evening so Grant and I felt a little bad. We stopped at WalMart on the way home to get replacements for everything that got broken. It was worth it to get to go on that amazing dive!

Hawaii Day 14: Mele Kalikimaka

After exchanging a few small gifts and eating CJ's delish cinnamon rolls, we loaded up enough gear to last us a month and headed to the beach! The waves were huge and I was on diligent lifeguard duty as Grant, Cadie, Anna, and Eric got tossed by the ways. Samuel retreated after getting tossed a time or two and Ranger mostly stayed near the shore and body boarded.

We set up a camp that kinda looked like we were permanently planning to reside at the beach. I think Colton's favorite part of the beach day was sitting on a beach chair wrapped up in a towel being fed by Nina. I think he ate about 10 Hawaiian role turkey sandwiches. Samuel and JR had the best time playing with a beach ball in the waves and then burying themselves in the sand. They would throw the beach ball out into the ocean and then watch the waves wash it back up to the beach. Cadie's favorite part was wave jumping with Grant.

There were some silly young girls posing and taking pics of each other in some rocks on the beach. Grant and Nathan obviously had to recreate the scene which resulted in some wonderful pics of Nathan. Feel free to reprint and frame them for your own enjoyment at home.