Father's Day and other Stuff

This past weekend was lots of fun! Friday night we went to Dalton's T-ball game and picked him and Lyric up. I missed them so much! Lyric just cried when she saw me. It totally broke my heart. Samara was just as happy to see them too.Saturday we took them to the Science Museum. It was a good day. They did everything they could. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures because we were so busy. Saturday evening we just stayed home and watched a movie. Sunday we went to church and then we went out to eat with friends at Red Robin. The kids love Red Robin and they all had to get a balloon on our way out! That afternoon their mom picked them up. It was hard to see them go again and to realize how much they are already changing.

For Father's Day Dustin got a new driver. He was so excited and I am glad that he liked it! He is such a good dad and Samara is so blessed to have him as her daddy! I love it when I'm working from home and I can hear him playing with her while I am in my office. Here are a few pics of Dustin and Samara playing together on Father's Day!

Peek-a-boo!

I love her eyes in this picture. Speaking of eyes..... Samara is going to have surgery on her tear ducts tomorrow. It is a routine surgery but still they will be putting her to sleep and all that not fun stuff. I'm sure all will go well and we can finally be done with yucky infected eyes! I know Samara will be glad when everyone quits rubbing and massaging them all the time.

Here's a pic of Samara right before she went to sleep tonight. She is so much like me. She likes to go to bed early! Speaking of...I need to get to bed we have to be at the hospital by 6 a.m.

This is what Samara did.....

while we were away. Samara spent most of the week at my dad's and the weekend at my mom's while we were away. Everyone said she did great. She loves to be on the go! My dad's wife Cindy took pictures the entire week and made me a little picture book of what Samara did while we were gone. She also gave me the digital pics so I could post for your viewing pleasure!

It looks like Samara had as much fun as we did!

Playing with the kleenex!

Playing in the tent Nana made!Going to the farm with PaPa!

Driving the tractor!

Taking a piggyback ride!

Helping with the laundry!

Playing with NaNa!

Now time for some rest! No better place than PaPa and NaNa's bed!

Samara is so blessed to have such great grandparents! Thank you Dad and Cindy and Mom and Richard for watching her and loving her like you do.

Haleakala Crater and Other Pics

The rest of our trip to Maui included a road trip up Haleakala Crater, a large volcano that hasn't erupted in many years although they say it is still active, and lots of fun on the beach. I don't have many beach/water pics because we were having so much fun that I forgot to take pics. I might post some more pics when I get my water camera developed. Here are some pics of the rest of our trip!

Dustin enjoying a smoothie with his breakfast. He loved the fresh fruit on the island.

View of ocean and another island from our room.

Banyon tree. This tree was huge. Couldn't completely capture it with my camera. It looked like many trees but it was just one. It would grow out and then down.

I'm on top of the world!! Well on top of Haleakala Crater. It was so windy and extremely cold. It was so cool to be above the clouds though. It was very desolate and the soil was a very unique brown/black color.

These plants are called Silversword. The only place they grow in the world is Hawaii. They only bloom once and then they die. It takes them about 20 to 30 years before they bloom. It was one of the most unique plants I have ever seen. Here is a picture of a young Silversword and then one after it had bloomed. Unfortunately they were not in bloom while we were there. I am sure that it would have been really neat to see in bloom.

One last view from the volcano!

Finally, Our Beach! Maui has great beaches and we loved the beach right where we stayed. We spent our last day playing in the water with Boogie Boards. So much fun! We can't wait to go back and take Samara when she is older.

Road to Hana

According to my husband, I am sometimes obsessive compulsive and when I get home from vacation tends to be one of those times. I think I need to get everthing done yesterday. I totally drive Dustin crazy getting "caught up" and doing house projects that I think need done immediately! So I am way behind on blogging about our trip but I have totally painted Dalton's old bedroom and turned it into my new office, rearranged our kitchen, and made Samara's birthday invitations! So I am feeling somewhat accomplished although I still feel the need to clean out our garage, put up some of Samara's too small clothes, and just organize. But enough with my need to clean and organize. Here is more about our trip!

The day after our anniversary we planned on taking the Road to Hana but Dustin woke up not feeling well. What we thought was food poisoning or a stomach virus turned out to be a trip to the ER and a kidney stone. Not very much fun for him but we are so thankful that he did not get ill while we were traveling to or from Hawaii and that he recovered within 24 hours and we only lost 1 day of our vacation.

So the very next day we took off on the Road to Hana! It was a 13 hour road trip that started with some humongous pancakes. I don't think this picture even does justice! We sure wish the waitress had told us how big they were because we ordered 3 all together! No we could not eat it all.

The Road to Hana is very windy, curvy roads on the back side of the island. The road has over 50 one lane bridges and many blind curves. There are many places to stop and hike to waterfalls. Here is one of our first stops - Twin Falls. There were two water falls. The second much larger. You had to wade through water to get to the water falls.

This picture is taken from underneath the water fall.

Here are some other waterfalls we saw along the way.

We stopped at a really cool black beach. It was made of little black stones and sand from the volcano. It was beautiful. The water looked so blue up against the black. The waves were crashing right onto the shore because this side of the island faces the open ocean.



Then we made it to Hana. But it is really not anything to write about. Just a small town with one General Store. The real attraction was Homoa Beach just outside of Hana. It is absolutely beautiful and was so fun to play in! I don't have any pictures to post because we used our water camera and we haven't developed it yet. Here is a pic of us along the way.

We made it to Hana but do you think we stopped when we saw this sign on the road?

Nope. We just went around it. Lucky for us it was a weekend and they were not doing any road construction. We made it to our final destination...Oheo Gulch also known as the 7 sacred pools. Here are pics of 2 of the lower pools. We did not hike to all of them. It was late in the day and we still had to retrace our way all the way back.
In fact it was so late and we were so tired by the time we got back to civilization that we decided to go straight to our hotel room to get showers and we just ordered in pizza for the night. It was a fun day spent together!

Maui - Vow Renewal

We had a great time in Maui! So much to show and share but as you are aware so much work to do when you get home from vacation. ugh! So I will post several times over the next few weeks about our (mostly)wonderful trip. I will explain more about that later.

Here are some pics of our vow renewal on Ulua beach. At first I was a little unsure of how well it would turn out but it was so much fun getting dressed up and just having fun together! There were several people who watched from a distance. I think they thought we were actually getting married!

We had a lei exchange. It was lots of fun! Especially all the kissing involved! Apparently when you give someone a lei you kiss them on each cheek and then on the lips. I left those pictures out!

We also had a sand ceremony. Our colors were black and gold. Don't know why we chose those colors! Basically we each had a vase with black or gold sand and we poured the sand together symbolizing our unity. Then the minister took some of the sand we were standing on from the beach and put it on top! We were able to bring the sealed vase home with our black, gold, and Maui sand.

The first picture above says "Just Maui'd" Sorry I had to post one picture of us kissing on the beach. Shortly after a big wave came and got us a little wet!



Here we are at sunset enjoying each other and the beautiful scenery. It was a wonderful evening and we ended it with a awesome dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We ate so much. It was absolutely delicious and a great way to celebrate 10 years of marriage!

Our Ten Year Journey...

Dustin and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this Friday. We leave for Maui tomorrow! I am excited about getting away. It was hard to leave Samara at my dad's tonight but I know that she will be spoiled rotten by the time we get back. I also know that it is good for Dustin and I to get away from everything and reconnect.

We are going to renew our vows in a beach ceremony on our actual anniversary. We have a few things planned that we want to do but a lot of rest and relaxation as well. We have finished packing and it is time to get a good night sleep before our long journey tomorrow. One of the journeys we have planned is the "Road to Hana". I have read several travel guides about this trip and they all say it is about the journey not necessarily the destination. Sometimes this is true of marriage. The journey is what makes a marriage special. I have been blessed to share my journey for the past 10 years with Dustin. He has been such a blessing to me for a number of reasons but for starters here are 10.....
1. I never ever doubt that he loves me. He tells me every day.
2. I know that I am the number 1 woman in his life.
3. He makes me laugh when no one else can.
4. He would do anything for me....yes even move back to Oklahoma
5. He gives the best back and head massages I have ever had.
6. He does not worry about what other people think and stays true to himself.
7. He picks out random (sometimes strange) songs and plays them to me while I cook supper. (Sometimes he sings too!)
8. He is the father of our beautiful baby girl, Samara. He loves her with all of his heart and he is a good dad.
9. The way he cares for and relates to his students.
10. For always being by my side no matter what the situation. He has been there for good and bad. For rich and poor. In sickness and in health.