Hawaii - Day 1

Once we finally reached Hawaii it was PARADISE (and I can honestly say that because I was only visiting for 9 days and not living there for 2 years....there's definitely a difference!) Due to storms in Texas, our flight from Iowa was about 2 hours late causing us to miss our connecting flight (that would have taken us directly to HI from Dallas). We met Michael in Dallas and were rerouted to Los Angeles. We cut that connection REALLY close as Michael was convincing them not to close the doors because we were on the escalators only 50 feet away. We grabbed a bite to eat at a short layover in LAX and then endured the long flight to Hawaii. The boys were actually (surprisingly) very good on the flight even though everyone was exhausted. It was such a blessing to have Boagie with us to calm Zachary down when he was overly tired and fighting a nap. We landed around 7:30 pm, got the rental van, checked into the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and then crashed for the night. Zachary woke up once for about an hour and his crying made Mike stir, but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. We managed to get about 7 hours of sleep and started our next day with a big breakfast at Denny's.

This is the view from our hotel balcony:

Boagie and I strapped the kids in the stroller and started walking down Waikiki beach. We stopped at the International Market Place for the kids to watch the coy.

Then we let them dip their toes (or in Mikie's case: his entire lower body) into the ocean on Waikiki beach. Zachary has some sensory issues and hated the feeling of sand between his toes. He fussed most of the time and wanted to be carried so his feet weren't dirty.

You can tell that Zachary isn't thrilled about having to stand on the sand.

I forgot to pack Zach's sunglasses, so my mom let him borrow hers. He liked wearing them, but they kept slipping off of his face so they really didn't do any protecting or shading of his eyes....they just provided a cute photo opt.

The classic Waikiki shot with Duke:

With the help of the warm Hawaiian sun, it didn't take long for jet lag to catch up with my little ones. They were both zonked out before we made it back to our hotel room. We decided transferring them to a bed was probably a bad idea so they took their nap in the stroller in our room while Boagie went to the pool (and the clouds rolled in...sorry Mom!).

Once they woke up, we all joined Boagie at the pool for a quick bite to eat (gigantic hot dogs for the boys and a Bahama Mama for me!). Then we braved the cloudy weather and cold pool temps and let the boys splash and swim. Mikie still says going to the pool was his favorite part of Hawaii (geesh...I could have spent $3 and taken him to the pool close to our house instead of flying across the entire USA!)

Having my mom around to help me with the boys all day long was incredible, but the evenings is when we really took advantage of Super Boagie. She would watch, feed, bathe, and put the kids to sleep while Michael and I relived our "days before children" at several of our favorite restaurants.

The first night, Boagie took the boys to Cheeseburger in Paradise. Now, the actual name of this restaurant was "Cheeseburger in Waikiki" and I've been told it took a lot of convincing for Mikie to finally agree to eat there.

Michael and I had to go to his Navy social and got back to the hotel fairly late so we just ate some sushi at one of the places in the hotel and then gave in to our jet lag.

Illinois & Iowa

What's better than going on a vacation to two states and seeing one set of grandparents? Going to THREE states and seeing the other grandparents, aunt & uncle and cousins. At the VERY last minute (as in less than 24 hours) we changed our plane tickets and decided to fly to Illinois instead of Iowa to see Michael's family. The original plan was for the boys and I to leave on Thursday and fly straight to IA. However, Michael had another trip come up that was going to have him leaving from Tuesday through Friday. On Monday, we changed our tickets and quickly packed to tag along to the airport Tuesday morning so he could help me get all the luggage and kids checked in for our new flight to Illinois. We spent two days with Michael's sister's family and his parents who have been visiting there since February. The boys had such a fun time playing with their cousins, but the two rat terrier dogs caused them both a little anxiety and Mikie even tried to climb my leg/side one time when the dogs got too close.

On the plane to Illinois: Goldfish and BeBe & Bashi picnic

Zachary rides cousin Halli's stuffed horse. He would move the reins up and down and then fall off and laugh. Of course, he stopped as soon as I hit the video record button.

Ryan, Mikie, & Zachary on the dock by their house playing in the water

Cousins
Ryan, Mikie, Dylan

After two days in Illinois, Michael's parents drove the boys and I up to my parent's farm.

IOWA

My mom thought she would enlist the boys' help in planting her garden. I think Mikie actually planted about a dozen onions and stepped on a few potatoes before giving up to go play.

Zachary couldn't quite get his balance in the clumpy soil and didn't enjoy the garden experience very much.

Cooperation: amazing and rare!

Mikie was much happier inside baking cookies with Boagie.

After meeting my dad's sweet red healer dog "Reba" the boys quickly got over their dog phobia and played ball and tug of war with her everyday.

Even though harvest is my favorite time on the farm, the spring planting season is just as busy and interesting as well. Mikie and Zachary enjoyed helping Grandpa get a few rows of corn in the ground. I'm sure my dad is looking forward to the day they can drive the tractor on their own.

The expressions on the boys' faces in the next two pictures make it look like my children are being tortured. I can assure you they are not! The wind was exceptionally gusty that day and the boys had been given the job of assisting grandpa with talcum powder. We tried to tell them to pour the powder low in the containers; but, they were so excited to help that most of the time the wind blew a powder cloud straight up into their eyes.

This monument was recently constructed at a church in a neighboring town (by that I mean 40 miles away....we are in Iowa you know). Since we had just celebrated and discussed the meaning of Easter this was a perfect life experience for Mikie. God does have perfect timing as we managed to snap a few quick pictures and return to the truck right before the rain started to fall.

Mikie attempts to "roll the stone" in front of the tomb

Boagie measures Zachary on her new growth chart

Mikie points to his line

Pillow fight with Grandpa!

As evidence from the video above, I'd say everyone enjoyed our time on the farm.

Now it's time to kidnap Boagie and fly to paradise.............(next post will be Hawaii....finally)

Signs of Spring

Spring is HERE!

(ok...so I know it's been here for almost 2 months, but I'm late in posting this as usual)

This is the tree that we planted in our backyard last year and then proceeded to over water it (due to the clay soil) causing root rot which made the 5 pink blossoms shrivel and die while the countless other buds never even opened. We thought we had killed this tree for sure, but as you can see it is pretty resistant and was in full bloom right before we took our trip to Hawaii (I promise that post is coming soon). I was so thankful that we got to enjoy the pretty pink blossoms for about a week; and, I enjoyed doing dishes a lot more since I could see it from my kitchen window.

The weekend before we left, Mikie and I planted flowers in our front yard. Last year, he chose all pink petunias. This year, he wanted a rainbow of colors....literally! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink were his exact requests from the moment I mentioned the plan for planting flowers.

Mikie sporting his new gardening gloves from Lowes: Diego with elephants!

When he unloaded them from the car, he insisted they get lined up around the tree on the stones (Amber, sorry to bring back painful "landscaping/birthday party" memories). I was quick to tell him they weren't staying there or going in the ground in that arrangement. If I have to have a rainbow in my front yard, you bet I'm going to have it in the correct order!

Getting started: Red first around the base of the tree

To conserve space, we decided to make the next row a mixture of orange and yellow marigolds

Since we couldn't find any green flowers, we convinced him that the leaves on the plants were the "green" in our rainbow. In hindsight, I wish we would have just gotten a bright green plant for filler.

A ring of blue, then purple, and finally the last pretty pink petunias to complete the ROY G BIV... well... ROY G BPP in our case.

Time to water them!

Gardening makes you thirsty!

(of course, you can't get out a hose and stay dry...they were both tearing off their clothes and running through the sprinkler in their underware & diaper)

The finished rainbow!

When we returned from Hawaii 2 weeks later, the rainbow now looks like this:

I'm not sure why all the marigolds look yellow in this picture. I can assure you we do have orange in this collaboration....and you know, I didn't think I would enjoy the eclectic collection... but I do. I really do! Thank you, Mikie!

Lights, Camera, Action!

I really love the record feature on my digital camera. Most of life's little memories occur in short 30 second to 1 minute intervals and by the time you grab your video camera, they are over! So, with the help of that little red button, I've managed to capture some cute video snippets that I just have to share with you all.

(For those of you who only receive my blog via email and want to see these videos please visit my site at www.mtmzjones.blogspot.com )

Warning! Cute kids ahead:

I may not have little girls dressed in frilly dresses sitting at a miniature table with tea and crumpets surrounded by teddy bears and baby dolls, but at least I can still enjoy a tea party with water and goldfish (even if it is with two boys who love to belch....luckily that wasn't on the video)



If I were you, I wouldn't follow that recipe. I'm pretty sure he misread a few measurements...unless of course you like your muffins extra salty!

Sounds as if I have another "number lover" in my family. It's funny that he tends to skip #2 when counting, because I remember Mikie used to skip #4. (Update since video was shot over a month ago: Zachary now remembers to say 2 but his 10 sounds a lot like 6 so he often counts like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6....until I finally stop him.)

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1....Blast off, another rocket ship run!"

This was for all my friends who are Laurie Berkner fans. If you've never heard of her, you should definitely buy one of her CD's. This song has quickly made it to our list of top 5 favorite Laurie Berkner Band tunes:

1. I'm Gonna Catch You

2. We are the Dinosaurs

3. Rocket Ship Run

4. Pig on Her Head

5. Walk along the river

Mummies In The Morning

Another Magic Tree House book finished meant another field trip for Mikie. We learned about Ancient Egypt as he read about Jack and Annie's adventures in a pyramid with a ghost mummy. This turned out to be a great way for me to discuss how our Christian beliefs differ from other religions. After completing the book and the research guide, we took him to see a real mummy at the National Natural History Museum in D.C. Too bad we didn't live closer to Las Vegas so we could tour the Luxor hotel complete with a ride down the "Nile." For that matter, perhaps I should just look into a trip to Egypt. LOL! (I'm only slightly joking...you know we love to travel...which by the way we just returned from IL, IA, and HI and I have a ton of picts to post but had to catch up on a few blogs before diving into that long process.)

Mikie is holding his research guide and standing in front of the sarcophagus (tomb).

The mummy is lying down in the left hand side of this picture.

Behind us (right where the flash is shinning) are hieroglyphics

Mikie's favorite part was seeing the mummy of a bull.

We are exploring a computer program and comparing pictures to our research book.


After the quick view of the mummies, we stumbled upon a hands on workshop of skeletons. Here the boys are putting together a few bones to complete the puzzle:

Mikie being goofy