Hawaii 2008

"Well this is Hawaii! I don't rmemeber it looking like this!!!" Those were my first thoughts, but then I remember that on the leeward side of the islands it's alot dryer. But seriously, this just looks desolate.

 

Caleb loves Hawaii so far. He loves to go in "the big pool" and to throw rocks into the ocean. He's OK with the sand too, but he REALLY likes the water.
When I finally got his water socks on him all he wanted to do was find every rock he could pick up and throw it in the ocean. The rocks he couldn't throw would go to me as he pointed out to sea and said, "Water!! GO!"
Caleb had to go and sit in the life guard chair... double click on the photo and notice the warning underneath our seat. He didn't really care.
Caleb also loved the boogie board, but he's not so good at keeping his balance. He tips over pretty easy on it.
"Come on Dad, throw more rocks into the ocean!!! I will go get them for you, wait here."
What really sucked is that after dinner we went back to the beach right by our hotel... only it wasn't really a beach per se. More like a lot of boulders with gravel all around, but there was a reef a little ways out and a LOT of colorful fish. So I went out snorkeling and the waves were just pushing me all around as I made my way further out. I finally decided to come back in, but ended up getting out of the water where there was a large bed of rocks half covered in moss that appear when the tide goes down. I take off my snorkel and my fins and am walking back toward Amy and Caleb. I eventually get to them and hold Caleb's hand as we walk back to the beach, when my foot slides forward and slices the bottom pretty good on a rock or something that was on the moss. I looked at it right when it happened and didn't think anything of it... but man did it hurt later when we went to dinner and it throbbed all that night.
Cheeeese!
Caleb was so nice, he decided to take a nap with his Mama. They were out, while I went down to the lobby and worked for 3 hours.

We ate dinner at Outback Steakhouse tonight and Caleb loved my ribs.

Here we are outside our hotel at sunset... Caleb was running around like crazy with his Spider Man sandles we got him. His buzz sandles were so old and loose that when he'd walk on the rocks at the beach his toes would push down hard on the rocks. Now he just runs around saying, "Spida-Man, Spida-Man!!!"













Here we are traveling from the West side of the island to the east side. You can see in the back ground the huge difference between where Amy is standing and where we started off the trip. The climate seems the same on both sides, with the only exception being rainfall. Amy thinks she'd prefer to be on the West side and have virtually perfect days every day. I think I agree with her.

Here we are at Akaka falls. Caleb had a great time, but he didn't want to stop running on the path
Right after this picture he fell pretty hard and skinned his knees. He spent the next 3 days saying, "Oh, no! Ouch!" Then either he would kiss his knees, or he'd ask us to kiss them.

Disneyland Pictures

Here we are at Disneyland. Caleb and Amy went on the Snow White ride and they were selected as the lucky guests to celebrate the 2008 year of miracles... they got free ears. To find out later a lot of other people did too... but different colors.

Here is Caleb and his Dad with Goofy and Claribel. Caleb couldn't really say Goofy, so it comes out "Poopy!" We even asked him what his favorite part about Disneyland on the way home, and he'd say "Poopy!" Pretty funny little kid, isn't he.



Caleb and his Buzz Lightyear Gun.

Bumper cars with Mama.

Dad was the only one who got to go on this ride with Caleb, because Mama would have puked :)

We went on the Ferris wheel, but could only go on the car that didn't slide back and forth. Again, Amy would have probably lost her lunch.

Dad just had to have a big old greasy corn dog. It was good; much better than the jalapeno ones a while ago.

Here we are at the Muppets Movie. This one didn't scare me as much as Bugs Life... I think some beetles actually crawled under my bum during that movie :)

Caleb has really been in to the Incredibles and with this picutre he actually seemed like he was having a good time and paying attention to them.

Grandpa bought all the grandkids balloon hats. Caleb has Mickey Mouse ears and his 8-yr old cousin, Rachel, has a princess hat... I don't know if it is technically a tiara or not.

Amy always did love my ears (because they're big and she can flip them back and forth), but I think I just caught a unique angle when I snapped this picture.

Here we are eating dinner at a Mexican restaraunt in downtown Disney. It was yummy! I can't believe Caleb even stayed awake during it. Every single night he'd crash as soon as he strapped him into his car seat in the van. Sometimes, he wouldn't even make it this far. After this particular night he din't even move when we got to the hotel and changed his clothes. He just laid there spread-eagle the whole time!

One morning Rachel and KC came to our hotel room to play with Caleb and his "boat" while their Mom and Dad got Ryan and Megan ready for the day.

One of Caleb's favorite movies to watch now is Tarzan. He imitates every animal, but his favorite is to imitate baby Tarzan. He closes his eyes and flops all over and cries, then climbs on my head and shoves his fingers up my nose (watch Tarzan and you'll see what I mean). It really cracks me up. So here I told Caleb that he was at Baby Tarzan's house and he suddenly became very interested at EVERYTHING.

Another view of Tarzan's house.

Here's a picture of the tree house at Tom Sawyer's Island.

They had a little water pump that you could use with 1 other person. Caleb really dug it.

His favorite was this "squeaky bridge" you can see him crossing the water on. He would just giggle and squeal as he walked.
No into needed - but where was BUZZ????

Here we are with Aaron and Missy Castleton and their boys Preston, Braden and their daughter Addison (I hope I spelled them all correctly, Missy??) Aaron and Missy were in our ward in Springville for several years before they headed off to Law School in Southern CA.

After the light parade Caleb just crashed. He loved Disneyland!!!

Our hectic start to 2008

Okay, so I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything for a while. We have had a very busy last month and a half. On January 6th a member of our ward, Kristie Ragsdale, was shot to death in our church parking lot by her husband. I was conducting sacrament meeting (11am) at the time of the shooting, but you couldn't hear anything inside the building, thank goodness. We ended our services at around 11:15am) and the police helped us get everyone out of the building and to their homes. We spend many hours over the next week visiting with several members in their homes and calling more at home to check on them. I was happy to see how much our ward pulled together to become a tighter and closer ward family.

Then at the end of January, Caleb got very sick for a bout a week. Then Amy got it and was sick for a week. Then Caleb got something again and was sick for several days. Then on the 24th I started getting very congested and eventually had to get an antibiotic for a nasal infection. My head hurt so much I thought I had caveties in all of my upper teeth.

So then we spent 6 days on a trip to Disneyland, which Caleb loved. I will be posting pictures shortly. After we came back, I ended up getting swamped with work because rates had dropped a bit and I had a lot of questions about refinancing and purchasing homes. We had used our frequent flyer miles to buy airline tickets to visit Amy's brother Jimmy in at BYU Hawaii. So for the last 2 weeks, I have been going in to work around 6:30am to make sure I'm on top of several loans (4 or 5 of them have been very complicated and we've had to wade through a lot of issues). To put the icing on the cake, I was at work on Monday (Presidents Day - and a regular day off for me, but I went in to catch up on a few things) when my business partner called me and let me know that our one and only processor, Britnee, called him and apologized because her Dr. was making her check herself into a hospital with no contact with anyone for 1 month. She would not tell us a reason why, so we can only assume.

Well, last week was just pure craziness. Underwriting times that are usually at 2-3 days tops ballooned to 12 days and everyone was on edge. Not to mention I am now interviewing and hiring a new processor, but in the meantime having to process all our own loans ourselves. It has just been crazy! We did hire a new processor who has 8 years of experience who will start on Monday 2/25 so I will have 2 full days to help train her on our systems and get her up-to-speed on my files. So I'm hoping I won't be too stressed out while we're visiting Jimmy and Mikensi in Hawaii.