Dole

So before I get too far ahead of myself with this post. For the next little while it is going to seem like our family vacationed for about 3-4 months straight and well it kind of was like that but not totally. So after Christmas fun we had together as a family before Lindsay was going to be gone for 7 weeks....in Hawaii! And what do you do when your husband goes to Hawaii for over a month, you join along of course at some point, and not only that but you have family come meet you there and party with you. Poor Lindsay missed out on a lot of fun doing his course he was in but we enjoyed the fruits of his labors.

Now Erik and I went to Hawaii for 4 of those weeks. And while we took a lot of pictures we didnt take as many as I would have imagined purely because I didnt want to lug the camera around all the time. My parents and our family friends came first and we had a week before they showed up. Erik and I spent a lot of time playing at playgrounds on the base and he enjoyed having interaction with other children there. I also took him to the waikiki zoo on my own that week. Our accommodations were not real organized upon us arriving back in the states (wahoo!) so we spent our first week hopping from the base, to a hotel, to even spending a couple of nights with one of Lindsay's classmates at his home. Then things kind of ironed themselves out and we stayed on the base and then at the end we rented a house up on the north shore.

Before I get to far ahead of myself. The first big thing we did while my side of the family was there (and our friends just get thrown into that family category) was go to the Dole pineapple plantation.

 Erik and Grandpa whom quickly earned the name Grandpa Pooper Scooper (although he is still trying to rectify this by asking Erik to call him El Magnificent), hit it off right away. It was fun, because this was the first trip for Erik to really have any memories from. He has spent plenty of time with our families but he is old enough to start having actual memories so it was a great trip.

 we rode on the train to tour the fields. Coming from the middle of our Aussie summer, we Moon people were a bit chilled with the breeze and shade of the tram, but of course our parents coming from the dead of winter were loving the sun and the warm temps. It was fun to see this difference our entire trip.

 Erik and Pooper looking at the colorful bark of this beautiful tree.

That was the frist excursion and it was so fun. We of course did other things there but were busy catching up and enjoying everything to take too many pics. Actually there were way more pics taken as well but everyone had cameras so I only had the small portion from our camera.

But honestly as I catch up with the first portion of our 2013, please remember that our life is not one big vacation, ok it sort of has been, but to justify it- I still have done plenty of laundry, organizing things, planning things, taking care of my church responsibilities, cooked, etc.