Bouncing Off the Walls

We have been on the move for about a month know, and probably won't be moved into a house for at least another month. So, needless to say, it has been a little hard on the kids. Plus they've been stuck in the car for the past two days. So when we got to Provo, we wanted to make sure they got some time to run and play. We looked for good indoor play places in the Provo area and decided to take them to an indoor bouncy place in Springville. Alycia and baby Olivia came with us and I think the kids got some good bouncing in. Here's Matthew at the slide. Anna was worried when he disappeared into the bouncy thing, and happy that he came out again.

Matthew has to sit in every vehicle.

Riding the mini carousel - a bargain at 25 cents

So fun

Matthew did the big slide, so Anna had to do it too. She had her own way of climbing the ladder - all upper body. My arms would be tired after pulling myself up all those steps. The gap between the last step and the top was just a little too big for her to climb, so Scott helped her once, and then Matthew helped her after that, pushing her up (with all his might) from behind. Such a nice brother!

Anna looked so tiny, and almost comical, going down the HUGE slide, but she liked it, and wanted to go again and again. I was glad they were able to burn off a little steam.

Road Trip Day 2

I didn't get many pictures from the second day of our trip, but we drove from Mountain Home, Idaho to Provo, Utah. I've actually never been in western Idaho before, other than Coeur D'Alene last summer, so that was cool to see. The trip was pretty short, only about five hours, and the kids watched the DVD player the whole time. We got into Provo in the afternoon and met up with Scott's sister, Alycia, and her husband, Cody. We decided to stay with them for a day before we head on over the rockies to Colorado Springs. It's always weird going back to Provo - it's been ten whole years since I graduated from BYU - and so much has changed there and with me. But its still fun to go for a little visit. More adventures to come!

Road Trip Day 1

The last push of our big move from Okinawa to Colorado is a several day drive from Portland, Oregon to Colorado Springs. On our first day we drove from Portland to Mountain Home, Idaho. Here are the kids getting ready for the big drive. They were very well behaved, thanks to some car snacks, surprises and the portable DVD player.

I tried to take some pictures on our way out of Portland.

Goodbye Portland!

It was a little rainy as we drove through the Columbia River gorge.

Lots of nice scenery too.

The weather was good and we made it into Idaho with no trouble, although it was dark by the time we got there (Oregon is so big!). The next leg of our trip, we head to Utah.

More Fun in Oregon

Here are some more pictures from our adventures in Oregon. This first one was blatantly stolen from my sister's blog. Sorry, Ruth!! But you take a nice picture! Here we all are at my sister's house in Vancouver. It was fun to hang out with them...and hopefully we'll do it again at Christmas! See how excited Anna is?

Here are the kids "raking" up some leaves at Grandma and Grandpa Guptill's house. We didn't have much of a yard in Okinawa so this was SUPER exciting for them. Also they don't know much about raking up leaves so I think they did more spreading around than raking up. I tried to undo the damage they did, but not sure it did any good.

Anna ran and ran...it was just too exciting! They especially loved when Uncle Cody came outside to play with them. Anna kept telling me she pinched his nose. Poor Uncle Cody!

Matthew being industrious.

And more running. I only had to stop them from turning the hose on themselves once. That's what they like to do when we play on the balcony in Okinawa. But it was also above 80 there...and 40s here. They are still learning about cold. Anna never wants to wear her coat and Matthew has started to fight me on wearing pants. We've been having a few more clothing struggles lately (SERENITY NOW!!). :(

Here's Matthew holding baby Olivia, his little cousin, who just turned three months old. She was very tolerant of the other little people holding her.

And here's Anna after her haircut. She hasn't been pulling her hair out as much post-haircut, so I'm hopeful we can put that behind us! We had a lot of fun in Oregon and I didn't even get pictures of it all...will have to be more diligent with the camera next time. And now, on to Colorado!

Haircuts

We took the kids to get their hair cut this week. We went to one of those places that specializes in kids cuts, and it was totally worth it! Here are the kids waiting for their turn! There were lots of fun things to play with while you wait.

Here is a "before" picture of the kid's hair (last week in Hawaii).
They really needed some haircuts!

Here's Anna sitting in her purple jeep chair and getting her hair trimmed. This was her first real hair cut and she did great! She got to watch Dora while she got her hair cut. She has so little hair that it took no time at all. The stylist was so great with the kids and gave Anna such a cute hair cut for her little wispy hair.

It looked so cute afterward!!

Here's Matthew getting his cut in a red Lightning McQueen car. He was so nervous about "the buzzers" but the stylist did such a great job with just the scissors and a very small amount of buzz work. Matthew was very happy about it! He looked great!

Fun in Oregon

We've been spending a week in Oregon with family, a little break between travels. We got to see lots of family members while we were there. It's been nice to have a little cool weather fun, even if the weather was a bit of a shock at first. We are getting used to it now. Here is Matthew helping Scott and Uncle Cody rake the leaves in the yard. Matthew picked up one leaf at a time with a little clapper toy. He also had a lot of questions about leaves falling off the trees. Mostly he's only read about fall in books. Now he gets to see it up close!

Here's Anna with baby Olivia, her new little cousin. This was the first time we got to meet her! She's such a cute, and easy going little baby. She didn't even mind Anna and Matthew holding her.

We got to see my sister and brother-in-law (Ruth and Dana) and all the fun critters they have at their house. Matthew got to try on one of Dana's special hats! Dana went to the Ukraine (is that right, Dana?) on his mission and he has lots of cool Ukranian/Russian things!

We went with Ruth and Dana on a little walk at a wildlife refuge near Vancouver, WA. It was so pretty! Matthew could hardly contain himself and had to run ahead.

Anna was having a great time too!

We took some pictures by this native American long house at the wildlife refuge. The refuge is near the Columbia River and is supposed to be a a place that Lewis and Clark stopped.

Here are the kids with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dana! It's so fun to be able to see so many of our family and friends on our little Oregon pit stop!

Coming to America: Part 3

Our second day in Hawaii we were feeling a lot more rested and relaxed. We got up and headed out for a nice breakfast overlooking the ocean. Fresh pineapple...leisurely breakfast...beach. Awesome. Matthew got to pick out his own food at the buffet, including a large piece of bacon. He was so happy!

After breakfast we walked to the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which was right next door to our hotel. The resort had a bunch of different animals to see. Here are the kids checking out the penguin display (penguins not shown).

And looking at the flamingos....they are there in the background...tiny.

After checking out the animals, we headed to Lappert's for a treat. Lappert's is an ice cream place based in Kauai and Scott and I got ice cream there just about every day of our honeymoon. They have all Hawaiian inspired flavors. I liked the coconut caramel macadamia nut best. Happy memories!

After checking out the Hilton we drove up to the Dole Pineapple Plantation.
The kids liked seeing the pineapples growing on the ground there.

Matthew thought this red pineapple was pretty cool.

We rode the pineapple express train which gives you a little tour of the plantation. The kids liked that too. We're sitting on the train here...I know it's hard to tell where we are.

We spent some time in the hedge maze at the pineapple plantation. Matthew was our leader and took his job very seriously. We only found 3 of the 8 stations you are supposed to find before we decided to call it quits. It was warm out there and those dole whip ice creams were calling us. We found our way out of the maze and got our ice cream...so tasty!
After seeing the pineapple plantation we decided to drive around the north shore. It was really beautiful.

We stopped at the LDS temple in Laie.

As we were checking out the visitors center there we found out the temple had just finished a remodel and was actually having an open house that day. We had just enough time to go through and see the inside of the temple. It was very cool. They have a lot of Hawaiian inspired details inside, like hibiscus flowers in the stain glass and Hawaiian quilt design shapes on the ceiling tiles. Very beautiful. I'm glad we happened to stop by and got to see it.

We drove to the airport next and got ready for our last two flights: Honolulu to Salt Lake City and then Salt Lake to Portland, our final destination. Those flights went a little better. Honolulu to SLC was about 6 hours, but we had very little turbulence, no one vomited and Anna was much better behaved. Hooray! Our last flight went by quickly since it was short relative to our others and soon enough we were in Portland. It was cold there (40s?) compared with where we'd been and I think it will take the kids and I awhile to get used to the colder weather. Matthew keeps asking why Oregon is so cold and Anna keeps asking me to turn the fan off. Hopefully we get acclimated soon!
I was so glad to get off that last flight and also glad we aren't going to be flying anywhere for a while...we will be driving from Portland to Colorado Springs, which might be it's own kind of "special adventure" but at least I have a few days to mentally prepare for that. :) In any case, we're happy to be back in the states! Next stop: Target!

Coming to America: Part 2

Hawaii

We took a little break from our travels in Hawaii for a day or so. We got in to Hawaii in the morning and rested for a few hours. When we woke up from our jet lag stupor we headed down to the pool. It was so beautiful there and even warmer than Okinawa. We stayed in the Hale Koa hotel, the military resort on Waikiki beach. It was so nice to take a break and so relaxing. Here's Matthew by the pool.

Anna wanted to swim on her own...but Scott helped her.

We had to pose by the banyan tree 'cause Scott and I came here on our honeymoon and took a picture by the tree. Five years later we're back...and plus two and a half.

We went to the luau at the Hale Koa. The luau was awesome!! Despite our bumpy (literally and figuratively) travel day, being at the luau made me so happy! I've only been to a few luaus in Hawaii, but this was the best yet! Here we are at the luau enjoying our tropical beverages - we got the non-alcoholic ones of course.

They had some little demos and crafts for the kids to try, including swinging these poi balls. They loved it!

Matthew liked his shell lei and special hat! Anna was afraid of the hat so she didn't get one.

Taking the pig out of the imu - the oven in the ground. It smelled so good!

Sitting down to dinner. The food was SOOO GOOD!! The best Hawaiian food I've had!

Fresh tropical fruits, lomi lomi salmon, a spicy seaweed salad (not that weird or foreign to us coming from Japan), a vinegared cucumber and papaya salad and poi!

We also ate kahlua pork (delicious!!), some kind of Hawaiian chicken, beef and fish (I don't know what they all were called, but they were tasty!) fried banana, roasted sweet potato with toasted coconut and fried rice. And for dessert coconut cake and haupia. Some of these things I've only heard of and never eaten, so it was all very exciting for me...and did I mention, delicious!

Of course there was a little show - very fun. Here are the fire dancers - Matthew's favorite part. He talked about it a lot afterward. The pictures turned out dark and blurry of course, but it was cool. It was so nice to take a little break in Hawaii! More travel adventures to come.