Hawaii

What could be more wonderful than going to Maui?  Celebrating 11 years of marriage there!  Being in your sister's wedding there!

 

Hawaii was for lack of better words, unreal!  Every time I look at our pictures I want to go back, it was that fun.

 

Thursday:

 

We hopped on our nonstop flight via Hawaiian Airlines & headed to Maui, a jewel of a place.  The girls were wonderful!  Bronwen & Ava packed up several books to read, coloring books & crayons.  About 3 hrs into our flight we decided to rent out a couple digi player so the kids could watch cartoons (one for Bronwen & Ava since they were sitting together & one for Cate).  Cate fell asleep, so then Conrad & I decided to check out The Hunger Games (I was in the middle of reading this great book anyway).  It was fantastic.  The best part of the flight was when the flight attendants came around with our little meals.  They came in these cute black trays & everything was so miniature I loved it!  We had rice & chicken, salad, chocolate cake & water.  Yum! 

 

We got in at 1:00 p.m. Maui time & picked up our rental car (a maroon Nissan SUV).  We got to our little condo village & were greeted with a welcome sign that had our family name on it.  We opened the door to our condo & couldn't believe our eyes.  The whole east side of the condo was covered with floor to ceiling windows.  The ocean was 40 yards from us.  We had a full kitchen, washer & drier, jetted tub, the girls' room had three twin beds side by side (like the seven dwarfs). ;-)  The liberty of buying groceries & being able to eat whenever we wanted & wash a billion loads of clothing was awesome! 

 

 

We unloaded, took a quick swim in the pool & got ready for my sister's wedding rehearsal.  The rehearsal was followed by dinner at Mulligan's on the Blue.  Delicious.  We went back home & fell asleep listening to the waves crashing on the ocean.

 

 

 

Friday:

 

Wedding Day!  Conrad, the girls & I headed McDonald's for breakfast then went to the local grocery store to stock up.  $210, but worth the freedom of snacking/eating normal food.  We ate some lunch then drove to a nearby beach.  We found some coral, but later found out it's bad luck to take coral home, so we had to drive back to put it in the ocean again. ;-)  We went home, showered & Cate napped while I got Bronwen, Ava & myself ready.  She woke up & did her hair in adorable braids, which she promptly took out.  Ack!  We drove to the wedding, had a great time, danced & came back.  My favorite part is when Cate was on the dance floor she began to twirl around.  When she'd stop, everyone would clap & she would take a bow.  Hilarious!  I took some formal portraits & Conrad helped me with the rest. 

 

 

Saturday:

 

Happy 11th anniversary!!  We celebrated family style!   We headed to Whaler's Village (a little cheesy, it wasn't authentic & had a Sunglass Hut, Coach & other typical stores).  I guess I envisionsed more local shops...  Anyway, the museum there was cool so we checked that out.  We went back home to swim & got ready for a luai!  The dancing was great, especially the fire dance finale.  The pork was good as well.  I think Conrad secretly wanted to get up there with the men when they were doing their war dance LOL!  There was a cute part in the ceremony where the hostess of the show asked everyone to stand up if they were celebrating their anniversary.  Conrad & I did & she said, "Are those your children?  You brought them too?!"  It made me happy to know the girls will always remember celebrating with us. :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday:

 

We started the day off visiting the largest banyan tree in the world in Lahaina. It was impressive! If you look closely you can see how branches extend from the main trunk & grow into other trunks. We browsed some local stores & got anklets & had shaved ice. Afterward we got a text from Tash & Bianca telling us to meet them at Napali Beach.  Unbelievable!

 

 

 

 

Conrad & I put snorkeling gear on & headed out.  We only swam about 15 feet & suddenly fish were swimming by us.  Then came squid.  Then came the sea turtles!!!  We looked at each other & couldn't believe what we were seeing!  It was so magical to enter that world together.  It's one of my favorite memories!  If that wasn't good enough, when we swam back in to get the girls & went out again, we were in only waist-deep water & two of the turtles came toward us & were within five feet.  Cate got to see Crush in real life!  It was awesome!  For the rest of the time we turned each other into sand creatures & swam.  We showered at home, took a long drive & swung by Taco Bell.  We brought our food & lawn chairs to the beach & watched the sun go down.  We watched Shark Week haha!

 

 

 

 

 

Monday:

 

Headed back one last time to Napali then boarded our plane to get home. 

 

What a beautiful time.  I can't believe my life is this.  Heaven on earth. 

Charlie

I actually laughed when I wrote the title for this post because it should really be called, "No Charlie!  No!"

Charlie Bear Douglas is our spunky new addition in the Douglas household.  He's an Australian Shepherd, 9 weeks old.  He nips our feet.  Despite all the pee he has made outside, as soon as his little paws hit the carpet he manages to squeeze out at least another ounce.  He tries to hump my leg.  In a matter of three days he transformed himself from an indoor dog to an outdoor one. 

To his credit though, he is incredibly cute & playful (he is playing when he nips, but with his razor sharp teeth none of us appreciates it). ;-)  We can tell he's a very loving dog & can't wait for time to speed up a little bit so he can more more of a part of the family (i.e. no more marking).

 

 

Bronwen & Ava are such responsible & good girls that we had to say yes. :-)

My Husband The Great!

I posted this status in Facebook, but it is so wonderful & makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world to be married to Conrad that I feel the need to document the events of this morning on our blog.

"I am married to the best human being on the planet. ♥ Our 75-year-old neighbor came over this morning asking us if we wanted his new "old" lawnmower. It was smoking like crazy & he told Conrad he believed the motor needed to be repaired. Conrad took the whole thing apart, fixed it & went over to the neighbor's to give it back to him. The guy, a retired First Sergeant mind you, offered to pay Conrad, which Conrad just smiled at. Less than five seconds later, the old man was out there mowing the rest of his yard. My man!!"

Just when you think it's impossible to love somebody even more... :-)

Leaving Las Vegas

I've never been the frou frou type to get all gaga over weddings.  Case in point, when Conrad & I got married, he went with me to pick out my dress.  Our venue for the reception was our favorite restaurant we'd been going to for years.  The wedding was small, & honestly all we cared about was having our families there.  At the time, we were saving for the down payment for our new home, had rings to pay off, had a wedding to pay for, & I was working part-time.  We decided to forgo a traditional honeymoon & do fun trips around the state instead.  I didn't care about it until last year, when my youngest sister got married.  Suddenly I was mourning the honeymoon we never had.  I mentioned it to Conrad.  He could see the sadness in my heart about wanting to feel special.  He got on the computer that night and booked tickets to Las Vegas.  Just the two of us.  He called my beautiful sister Bianca to make arrangements to watch the girls.  We were going, alone.

Alone is a big deal to us.  Since the day Bronwen was born (she's 8), we've never left the kids with anyone overnight.  In fact, we have only gone out four times on dates without the girls.  Here's why.  We are a close family.  We enjoy each other.  I always get sad in my heart thinking of experiencing something without the girls seeing it as well.  I know it may sound strange, but that's how my parents were with us, so I think that's where I get it from.  Conrad & I always have "alone time" together.  Just recently though, we've realized it's okay to experience things together too, just the two of us.  On the agenda was Criss Angel's "Believe," Cirque du soleil, "Beatle's Love," slots :-), shopping (mostly window & gifts), dinners & cocktails. 

 

Criss Angel was amazing!  We watch his show, "Mindfreak," all the time & Conrad wanted to see if Criss could really make him float (exnay on that lol).  Instead, he performed fantastic illusions with birds, saws & other stuff.  During an audience participation segment, Criss heard Conrad calling his name & threw an item in his direction (it fell on the floor in front of a lady next to us, but she looked too horrified to participate and gave the paper to Conrad anyway).  That was pretty cool. 

 

We were still on the high of seeing Criss when we saw "Beattle's Love."  Honestly, that show made Criss look like shit.  He definitely needed to step up his game.  The choreography, music, stage of Beattle's moved me to tears.  It is that good. 

 

Slots, Conrad won $60, I lost $100. ;-p 

 

Shopping, I found the Converse brand of Uggs & I love them!  As a matter of fact I wore them today for a photo shoot.  Thank you, Conrad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a memorable time thanks to my husband.  It's never too late to do anything in life.  I love you, sweetheart.