First weekend home in September

After we got home from our trip to Hawaii, on Wednesday, September 4th, I went to work the next day, and the boys went to school (except Hudson, we let him sleep in more).  Since we didn't get home until 12am, we slept in until 8am, then got going.  Steve took the boys to school and I worked from home thankfully.  The boys had a half day of school on Friday as well, and I worked a full day.  We were all pretty tired, trying to adjust to the time changes, but we managed through.  Here are some updates.

Steve and Nyles chopped some more firewood to sell after we got back.

Our peaches are almost ready to pick.

Beautiful Rose of Sharon bushes in our yard and wildflowers.

Saturday morning,  Steve and Nyles went out to scout areas for elk hunting coming up.  That evening we went to Lagoon for the opening of Frightmares!  We met Stacie/Phill's family there and went on rides.  We had fun!  Here are some pics.

Going on rides!

We went through the fun Halloween parts.

Silly photos.

Steve and I took Hudson to do Trick or Treating and on kiddy rides, while Stacie/Phil took Nyles and Carter to go the haunted houses.

Hudson LOVES to drive the car and airplane!

Hudson driving the car at Lagoon.

Silly Hudson and Steve.  A peacock.

Hudson and Steve on the Egg Drop ride.  It got stuck for a minute :)

Silly boys.

More fun.

Silly boys!

More haunted places.

On Sunday, I taught the Relief Society Lesson from Elder Todd Christofferson's talk on "The Testimony of Christ."  I had prepared a lot of it while on the plane coming back home, but then finished it up the few days before Sunday.  It went well thankfully.

The boys built a fort and Piper wanted to lay on the pillow.  Later licking the peanut butter jar.  Then Steve and the boys slicing the pears from our tree to dehydrate them.  We finally have big juicy pears this year!  We're so excited!

Great quotes:

Headed home from Hawaii (Maui)

On Wednesday, September 4th, we work up early at 5am, and made our way back to the airport, leaving around 6am.  We bought Capri-Suns to have as a drink while we were in Maui (Costco size).  We only had 3 left the morning we left, so I had each of the boys drink one on our way out the door.

 The boys outside the hotel w/ our luggage, waiting while Steve went and grabbed the car for us. 

As we got closer to the airport, Hudson said his stomach hurt.  Then he started to throw up.  Luckily I had a quart size Ziploc in my backpack, so I turned around and gave it to him and he got the rest of it in the bag.  It was basically just liquid.  It must have been the Capri-Sun I just gave him.  Note to self: don't let the kids drink a large amount before driving in the car, especially early in the morning.  Steve pulled over and we cleaned him up, changed his clothes, and cleaned the car and car-seat best we could, then continued to the airport.  Thankfully this happened BEFORE we turned in our checked bags, and we had a change of clothes for him.

Beautiful sunrise as we got closer to the airport. 

All loaded and ready to go.  Thankfully we didn't have anyone sit next to us, so we were able to spread out a little on our long flight over to CA.  Hudson went back and forth between our 2 rows.

Leaving beautiful Hawaii/Maui!  Carter went to sleep shortly after we took off, and slept 2/3 of the way over to Oakland.  Hudson also took a nap on Steve.  While they slept, I worked on my Relief Society Lesson I was to teach on Sunday, most of the way, and got it pretty well completed.

We made good time to Oakland.  

After landing we went and got a quick bite to eat, then got ready to board again, going to SLC.

Our original departure time was to leave at 6:35pm.  We all boarded the plane, then a little while later the pilot came on the intercom and said they had a mechanical issue they were working on.

Well after 2 hours we finally got off our airplane, and then went to another gate to board another plane.  The original one we were on came from Dallas.  Apparently they had replaced a piece on the plane in Dallas and were clear to fly, but when they got to Oakland, they wanted them to replace it again.  So rather than wait, thankfully they found us another plane.

We finally left Oakland 2.5-3 hours later, and made it to SLC around midnight.  We were all SUPER tired, but we finally made it home.  Rob was kind enough to come get us again at the airport, even that late at night, in our Honda Pilot.  He had taken care of Piper while we were gone, which we were also grateful for.  She was super excited to have us home!

Our new take off time.  On another plane, a little tired and exhausted by now.

Though it was a LONG day getting to and from Hawaii, we all still had a very positive experience there and would definitely go back.  We really enjoyed our time there and are so grateful to have gone.  There is so much to learn in the world around us, and so many beautiful creations from our Heavenly Father to enjoy in this world.  We had a wonderful time together as a family, and can't wait for our next adventure.

4th Day in Maui, last full day

On Tuesday, September 3rd, we enjoyed our last full day in Maui.  Carter officially lost his tooth (he lost one in Kauai and another one in Maui)!

Lizards on the windows at the hotel.  Carter's 2nd tooth he lost on our trip.  Eating breakfast at the Club in the hotel again.  The pineapple was so fresh and super yummy!

We then set off towards the "Road to Hana."  

We stopped at Ho'okipa Beach Park to see the turtles and beautiful views.

Amazing views!  Cute turtles.

Family picture.

We then made our way to the official road to Hana, and stopped at the Twin Falls Waterfall spot.  We didn't plan to hike the whole way, as you have to cross several large streams, but we went as far as we could w/out getting wet.

Starting our stroll to see the waterfall.  Huge bamboo trees!

First waterfall on the trail.  We didn't go far enough to see the 2nd one though.

We then came to the first stream we had to cross and turned around.  Pretty flowers along the way.

We then continued on our journey along the road.  Such beautiful scenery.

Then we found the Eucalyptus trees.  They were so incredible to see in person w/ all their colors!

So amazing!

Beautiful trees!

Magnificent!

Hudson fell asleep on the way, eating some Cheetos.  We then stopped at the "Garden of Eden," which was really beautiful.  Beautiful flowers!

We found more amazing Eucalyptus trees!  So incredible!

The coolest trees!

The Keopuka Rock Overlook ie the rock you see in the movie Jurassic Park.

Pretty view!

Pretty waterfall!

More beautiful flowers and trees in the garden.

Amazing views and plants in the garden.

Awesome flowers and plants.

And more.

Hudson hitching a ride w/ Nyles.  Peacocks.  Cool plants.

After the Garden of Eden we decided to drive back.  A cool waterfall on the way back.

More amazing views along the drive.

We made it back to the resort.  We decided to go snorkeling on the beach just in front of our hotel.

We all went snorkeling again together.  We saw SOOO many amazing fish, including so many humuhumunukunukuapua'a!!!  Nyles and I also had a sting ray swim right in front of us.  It was awesome, until we realized that it was a wild sting ray and still had it's barb on ;)  There was a current that picked up though, so we all had a to try a little harder to get back to shore.  Thankfully we all made it safely.  Afterwards we learned we should have moved down the beach further to avoid the current.  Next time.  Live and learn. ;)

Ready to go snorkeling.

Cool bird.  Getting our dinner aka Hors D'oeuvres at the club.  They had a lot of things to choose from, which was nice, and filled us up.  They even had desserts :)  The black and white swans on property.

Then of course swimming at the pools again.

Boys playing in the pool.

Our last beautiful sunset in Maui before heading home.

Steve and I watched the sunset together :)

Jumping in the pool!  The water was really warm, all day.

So pretty and peaceful!

We saved the Road to Hana for Tuesday, hoping it would be less busy since it was Labor Day weekend when we were in Maui.  Overall it wasn't too busy on the road.  Some of the stops had a decent amount of people.  I can only imagine what it would be like on the weekend.  We had an amazing day and again tried to soak in as much of the beauty as we could!  We then packed up before heading to bed.  We were headed to the airport in the morning.