We're home from Hawaii!!!

We got home late last night.
Today was spent doing laundry, the yard work, and going to the market. That's before I got hit by the yuckies. My hubby and the kids are at the theater seeing Wall-e, and I'm at home throwing up. YUCK! At least it waited until I got home.

For those on Kauai, Jim's hand is feeling better. For those not on Kauai, I'll go into the details on that later. I have over 800 photos of our trip, and almost 2 hours of video. The easiest way for me to share is to go through it day by day. Since I had comments about there not being any photos of me during our last vacation, I made an effort to hand off the camera during this vacation :o)

So pretend it's 4:30am on the 4th of July, and we are on our way to Oahu, LOL!


We arrived at Waikiki at 1pm... unfortunately our room wasn't going to be ready until 3pm. We tried walking out by the beach, but there was a big 4th of July canoe regatta going on right outside our hotel (we were staying at the Outrigger Waikiki Beach). There were so may people there, it was hard to find a place to walk.


But, the weather was beautiful and it was great just being on the beach. The International Marketplace was right across the street from the hotel. They have lots and lots of little booths there that sell trinkets. They also have a great food court with live music entertainment. We had dinner there several nights while we were in Oahu.


That night they shot off fireworks from Magic Island. We watched the fireworks, sitting on the sand in a warm drizzle... the perfect night!


Are we looking a little tired? With the three hour time difference, it's past midnight at home, hehehe!


I'll share more tomorrow!

Happy 4th of July!

We get up bright and early tomorrow (4:30am) to leave for Hawaii. We should be there in plenty of time to see the fireworks over Pearl Harbor.
Everyone have a safe and fun 4th!

Chris's New Summer Look

Well, here it is! The long awaited makeover, hehehe!

BEFORE:


AFTER:


They said that after the first processing, his hair was highlighter yellow! Chris was a little worried at that point, but he likes the final result. We all do! He looks so grown up!

More Graduation Pics

The graduation proofs are here! I may buy the one of her standing. I like it. The one of her getting her diploma, I'm going to pass on:

Day 7 - Saturday, June 28

Weeeee're hoooooome...

We just blew though Las Vegas, stopping there only for gas. Jim drove straight 7.5 hrs. Thanks to the time change we got home around 3:30pm. Since Jim usually drives 8 hours a day in a bus, 7.5 hours in his car is nothing.

It felt great to shower tonight with decent water pressure, and it's going to be great sleeping in our own beds. Cheryl is happy not to be sleeping between Jim and Chris... This past week, she had to deal with snoring in stereo.

What's a blog post without photos... so here's a few of my favorite photos from the trip:







We leave for Hawaii on Friday, so Jim will work M-TH. In between now and then, Cheryl needs to register for college, Chris has a Dr Appt for a sports physical, I have an appt to have my hair cut, and we have library books due.

It's going to be a busy week, but hopefully Chris and I can get back on the training schedule. We got in a couple days of hiking, but only ran one day last week.
It feels good to be home!

Day 6 - Friday, June 27

Welcome to Moab, the outdoor activity capital of Utah. You can do it all here: helicopter, jet boat, horseback riding, ATV, jeep, segway, camping, hiking... and river rafting.


We walked into Moab Outdoor Adventures at 9pm last night and booked a trip for 8am this morning. Our tour guide Parker took us through class 1 and 2 rapids on the Colorado River. In between the rapids we played games, where Cheryl, Chris, and Jim ended up falling in. We had a Jr. High and High School youth group traveling down the river with us. Needless to say, not only did we get wet by the river, we also got caught in the cross-fire between the youth group rafts! LOL! It's all in fun!


Here is a photo of our raft that the tour company took from shore.


After getting cold and wet, we headed to Arches National Monument to warm up. We did some hiking up to the arches, in >100F weather. It was beautiful!!!




Well, we are on our way home. Tonight we are staying in Beaver, UT, right off HWY 15. We may stop at Las Vegas tomorrow, or we may make the entire drive home. We take it one day at a time... LOL! Good night everyone!

Day 5 - Thursday, June 26

Are we tired of looking at ruins yet? Not yet... but getting close ;o)
We spent the morning touring Mesa Verde with a Ranger led group. The group of native Americans who built the Mesa Verde pueblos, aren't referred to as the Anasazi anymore. They are called the Ancient Pueblo Indians. The Anasazi were the group of Indians who mysteriously disappeared. The Ancient Pueblo Indians left their homes in Mesa Verde because of drought, migrated to AZ, and intermarried with the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes. It's more believable, but it doesn't make as good of a story.



We walked through the ruins, climbed ladders, climbed stairs, squeezed through narrow gaps in rocks, crawled through tunnels, and traversed narrow cliff trails. Good news, Jim didn't get stuck in the tunnel!






From Mesa Verde, we had a hard time trying to decide where to go next... We ended up going East to Durango, CO. We stopped at the old west downtown area, and visited the famous Durango Train Museum.

You might expect us to be in Durango right now, but we changed our minds and switched directions. We are spending the night in Moab, UT, hehehe! We are having a great time... who knows what we'll do tomorrow! But, we can tell you, it won't have anything to do with pueblo Indian ruins.

Day 4 - Wednesday, June 25

Welcome to Colorado!

We left Canyon de Chelly bright and early. Cheryl asks, "Are we going oversees?" Jim and I gave her a blank look. Chris turns to us and says, "she means overlooks!" That girl is a laugh a minute!

We hit the overlooks (or oversees) on the way out of Canyon de Chelly. It was really beautiful looking down from the rim! It's a much nicer view of the whole canyon than from the bottom.


Here's the kids messing around at the top of Canyon de Chelly.


Then we hit the road on the way to Mesa Verde National Park. What's a trip to Mesa Verde without a stop at Four-Corners. Here's the kids standing where Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico all meet. There is nothing much here except a plaque and a bunch of local jewelry vendors.


We drove into Mesa Verde kind of late. We got one of the last rooms at the National Park lodge and took a quick look around before sunset, when everything closes. Here is our first look at Mesa Verde.


We signed up for a couple of tours for tomorrow: Cliff Palace and Balcony House. Balcony House has an 18" tunnel that we need to crawl through. They had a virtual tunnel setup at the ranger station, and Jim had to make sure he would FIT before we paid for the tour.


So, We made it to Mesa Verde.
And touring Mesa Verde is on the agenda for tomorrow!

Day 3 - Tuesday, June 24

Happy Tuesday!!! We left Flagstaff early in the morning and drove to the Petrified Forest National Park. Cheryl says, "It's a forest right? Where's the trees?" LOL! Yep, nothing gets by that girl.


The Petrified Forest National Park is a drive through park with lots of overlooks and a few hiking trails. Here we are on the trail with the highest density of petrified trees.

That's it... just a few chunks of trees on the ground. There were some beautiful views of the Painted Desert.

They not only had rocks, but a few dinosaurs too.

We left Petrified Forest around noon, and headed to Canyon De Chelly National Monument. Jim heard about this place from a man that rides on his bus. We got in around 5pm (that's with a 1hr time change). There was a jeep leaving for the park, so we jumped on! The only way to get through the park is via 4-wheel drive... you can see why...

This is us waiting for our Navajo Guide, Oscar, to get back after pulling this guy out of the park.

You can see further on up the canyon, it's not so desolate.

Chelly is riddled with dozens of Anasazi, Hopi, and Navajo ruins. They are all over the cliffs, and we were able to drive right up to them. We can't enter them though, because they aren't reinforced and restored like the ruins at Mesa Verde. Also, there are petroglyphs scattered around the walls, and our guide was able to interpret some of them for us.

After our 4hr tour, we headed for dinner and a swim. Now it's time for bed. Good-night all! Tomorrow we are headed into our target destination... Mesa Verde National Park!

Day 2 - Monday, July 23

A 2hr jeep trip for the four of us would cost over $300. YIKES!!! We decided to drive to some scenic lookouts and maybe take a short hike before we leave. On our way to our first scenic lookout, we passed a jeep rental shop. Jim pulled in just for fun, and found out that it would only cost $125 for a 4hr jeep rental. We jumped at it!

Here are some of our photos jeeping through Sedona:

Look really closely... can you see who's driving? Cheryl said "I need to try this out. It's my future dream car! I'm definitely getting one of these!"

This time Jim is driving. Can you hear all the yelling going on? Or at least can you imagine it?


Here we are at a nice secluded stream... with about 500 other people. LOL! The water was freezing, but it was nice to wash the dust off before starting on our way back to Flagstaff.

The plan for tomorrow (after an overnight in Flagstaff) is to head through the Petrified Forest National Park, and then on to the Canyon De Chelly National Monument.

We are having a great time!
I'll post more photos then if I can!

Day 1 - Sunday, June 22

Hi All! We got a bright and early start... NOT! We left the house at 10:30am with our two navigators in the back seat. Doesn't this look like trouble? LOL!

We are on our way to Arizona... And there is a whole lot of desert inbetween here and there. It got up to 111F. Gas on the California side of the state line got up to $5.19. As soon as we drove over the border into Arizona, gas dropped to $3.89. It's a good thing we had the Matrix. We were able to wait to Arizona before getting gas!


We decided to drive all the way into Sedona. We got there early evening. It was wonderfully cooler, only about 89F... And beautiful! Here is the view from our hotel balcony. I'll take more photos tomorrow in the daylight.

Tonight we are going to walk around town and checkout some hiking trails or jeep trips for tomorrow.

We are on our way!

We're starting our trip to Colorado. We're not getting a very early start, since we got home so late last night. (Galaxy blew a 2-0 lead, and tied 3-3, grrrrr....) I'm taking the laptop, so I'll try and post photos along the way!

My hubby took the van in for a checkup last week and found out that it was leaking gas. The part that is leaking is a part that was recalled. So, we took the van to the dealer, and they can't even look at the van until next Tuesday! We are taking the Matrix. We won't have as much room, but we'll get better gas mileage!

Scrapping the Music - Cinderella

I haven't done a Scrapping the Music challenge in ages, even though I check their blog weekly. This weeks song is by one of my favorite artists, Steven Curtis Chapman... and I had the perfect photo for it. Since this week was so full with end of school year stuff, and getting ready for vacation, I opted for a quick digital layout. I wish I could remember where I got this free template from. It made up really quick and easy!