The Three Amigos

Our Bishopric for this year's Trunk or Treat

Golden Anniversary Weekend

  Last month John and Sandy celebrated their 50th anniversary.  It was quite the celebration!  We had originally planned on renting a house for a long weekend, having all 5 kids - plus spouses and kids come, 31 people! - and spend the weekend together.  Sandy's ideal weekend would be everyone there, and playing games the entire time.  That was the plan.  The house was rented and travel plans were made.  But because John's health has declined so much in the last year, we decided that it would be better if we all came to them, letting him stay close to home.

   So we descended on them, thankfully Angey and Ryan each opened their houses to the masses as well.  Friday night we all gathered (we were down to 25 because only Rainie came from her family) at Angey's and had dinner together (a great catered dinner from a local Mexican restaurant).

  Saturday morning we all went out to breakfast - those poor waitresses!  

Cutest nieces in town!

Here's half of our gang

Dk ordered a bacon and ice cream pancake!

  After breakfast we all went to Ryan and Brenda's new house.  They have the greatest house!  It's got the biggest family room that we all fit in with room to spare.  We played games (the longest animal game in the history of world!  I seriously think we played it for an hour and a half) and had lunch.  The boys played football in their giant yard - despite the chilly weather!

   In the afternoon all of the moms and girls left to pick up balloons and start decorating.  We picked up 50 balloons and were on our way.  Angey had rented a banquet room at a hotel for our dinner.  We invited about 100 people for dinner - and about 60 came.  The girls (the old and the young) had a great time decorating.

John and Sandy's table

I made the centerpieces - we had 6 tables decorated just like this one.

Angey made both of these cards to put at the tables

I made a shadow box with John and Sandy's wedding picture in it.
Each guest wrote their name on a little wooden heart that I had painted
white and gold.  We put all of the hearts in the shadow box as their guest book.

  All of the guests arrived a few minutes before John and Sandy.  Once John and Sandy came we all ate dinner, catered by the hotel, and visited.  Relatives from all over came to celebrate John and Sandy.

John and Sandy with their kids

Cute nieces - after a long night of celebrating

Megan and I always joke about how there's lots of references to the "original 5" - meaning the 5 kids, no spouses and no grandkids.  So after we had quite the photo shoot with the "original 5"
we wanted a picture with the in-laws, leaving out those hoity-toity "original 5!
Brenda had already left for the evening, and Chris didn't come,
so it was just me, Megan and Tate -
but funny nonetheless!

This is missing a few of the grandkids - unfortunately. 
Rainie's kids didn't come, and some of Ryan's family left early - but
these are the grandkids who made it through the evening!

Angey scanned, printed, and cut out 300 pictures for this!
It was so fun to see so many pictures of John, Sandy, and kids throughout the year.

Rainie had this life size cut out made - it was awesome!

At the end of the night, all of the guests had left and we were cleaning up.
Music was on and an impromptu dance party erupted when "Sweet Caroline" played.
Thanks Neil Diamond.

We let the kids let all of the balloons go outside.

After the party - the life size John and Sandy had no where else to go except on top of the heads of Rainie, Bay, Emily, Tyler and Logan!

  Sunday morning we all went to John and Sandy's sacrament meeting.  After a quick lunch together our family had to hit the road.  It was the funnest weekend - celebrating 50 years of marriage for John and Sandy and the wonderful legacy they've created.

Hawaii!! Day 9

  Say it ain't so!!  It was our last day in Hawaii!  That is the saddest day in Hawaii.  We checked out of our hotel (Goodbye wonderful housekeeping!  Goodbye wonderful breakfast!), and let the kids make the agenda.  Not straying far from the norm ... it was beach first.

Quick stop for lunch at Paia Fishmarket Southside

  After the beach we headed towards the Kahului to be closer to the airport.  We had heard that you have to get malasadas in Hawaii but we had yet to get one.  So with our extra time we decided to hunt one down.  Everything in Hawaii closes super early - so we had to call around to different bakeries to find one open past noon.  We finally found one and off we went.  And then the funniest thing happened ... we passed Bamboo Grille .... hey we've been here before .... we followed the GPS to our bakery - and wouldn't you know it, the bakery with the malasadas that was open past noon was the exact same bakery we had parked at the day we landed in Maui and gotten yelled at!  We laughed and laughed when we realized the full circle moment.  It was the  most fitting way to leave Maui.  And, by the way, their malasadas were to die for.
                                   

  We still had time before we headed to the airport so we walked this fun boardwalk at the Kealia Coastal Bird Sanctuary.

Someone got too tired to walk

   Since we had so much time between when we had to check out of our hotel and our flight, Derek and I both wish we had taken a ferry to the island of Lanai.  That would have been awesome to visit another island.  

   Then, as the saddest of travelers, we headed for the airport.  Our flight was at 9:00 that night, so after we went through security, and boarded the plane, I thought we'd all settle in and sleep.  Boy was I wrong.  Turns out seats with TV's and unlimited movies are powerful.  Really powerful.  Much more powerful than fatigue.  I couldn't get those kids to sleep!  And it was stressing me out!  I kept telling them to go to sleep!  But they couldn't.  And wouldn't.  And when we had landed in Seattle those kids hadn't slept a wink!  As soon as we got to our next gate in Seattle the fatigue had set in.  Derek was out on the floor.  Logan was out in a chair.  And we had one more flight ahead of us.  The last flight I don't think Logan opened his eyes.


                                    

                                  

My non-sleeping kids

  Once we landed at home we had to wait for Derek to go get our car (it was about a 30 minute wait because he had to take a taxi to get said car - another story).  And this was us at the last airport .... competely exhausted and possibly a little ready for a break from the togetherness.  Notice how far apart the kids are sitting from each other.  Logan's not even close enough to be in the picture!

We look D-O-N-E

  We drove home and stumbled into the house.  We couldn't care about unpacking the car - it was just drag ourselves to bed.  We all climbed in beds and were out for the rest of the day.  Then I got the funniest text from my friend Linda.  "Amy, I drove past your house a while ago and noticed your van door was open.  Then when I drove past a while later it was still open.  And it was raining.  And there was a phone on the seat.  So I shut it for you. I hope that's ok!"  I laughed and laughed at how tired we must have been to drag ourselves in, not notice the door was open, or simply too tired to care - despite the rain and leaving everything we own inside.  Hilarious! And pathetic.

    All in all it was the most amazing trip.  Derek and I had wanted to take our kids to Hawaii ever since we went in 2012, and every time we did anything we said, "Our kids would love this!".  This was definitely a bucket list trip before our kids start leaving the nest.  It was a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Hawaii!! Day 8

  This was a day the kids had all looked forward to .... zipling!  Only Derek and I had ziplined before so the kids were super excited to try it.  We went to Jungle Zipline, coincidentally a few miles in on the road to Hana.  We got all the gear on, and the safety spiel, and were on our way!

The views from the platforms, and while zipling, were amazing!

Lush rain forest straight out the the ocean!

There were some weird ducks ....

We all survived!

  The ziplining was super fun, all the kids loved it - and were doing no hands, and trying to go upside down in no time.  Our guide would tell the corniest jokes as we waited on the platforms for our turn to go.  He must have told a thousand!  Our family favorite was "What did the janitor yell when he jumped out of the closet?  Supplies!"  It was a blast of a morning.

   After we ziplined we went to see Twin Falls - a pretty waterfall, with some pretty awesome bamboo trees!

And some awesome banyan trees.  Ya know I love the banyans.

  We stopped for lunch at Da Kitchen in Kahului - an awesome, and very packed restaurant.  

A little loco moco

  After lunch it was definitely time to head back to the water. Boy, did we get our money's worth out of renting boogie boards.

The sun going behind a cloud made it a little chilly -

 I was definitely the only who noticed!

  After they'd swam and swam, we asked the kids what they wanted to do next - yep, swim at the hotel.

Just another day in paradise!