Mokuleia

A couple of weekends ago we stayed with some friends, the Hintons, in Haleiwa in their guest  house/room.  It really felt like a mini vacation away from home.  And we knew we were in the country when the roosters woke us up at the break of dawn, to the smell of bacon and waffles.  What a treat to stay at the Hinton B&B!  

The next day we headed to one of the Mokuleia beaches near the end of the road.  It was a beautiful beach with nice warm weather.  We are trying to minimize our loads to the beach because it's getting kind of crazy.  So we no longer carry Betsy in her car seat, because she's getting quite heavy, and she now enjoys sitting on a towel and playing in the sand.  We also try to avoid bringing the umbrella too so we tried to build a little shelter for Betsy.  It all worked out just fine.  And of course I only take pictures of the kids and forget to capture anything else.

   

Betsy with her dad, enjoying the view.

 My handsome husband.

We did a lot of this:

Sorry for the bathing suit shots.  I made these pictures small for a reason.  :)

Oh man, I love these kids.

Halloween Festivities 2011

We all carved our pumpkin together.  

Our ward Halloween party.

Spiderman with his Parrot friend, Talia.

Spiderman with DJ Lance Rock, AKA Ezra.

Tristan feeling a little intimidated at this moment.  Wishing he had these pecks to win over the princess.  One thing he did say when we got home from the ward party was, "Dad, I'm a super hero and I saved the princess!"  So I'm guessing he did win.

Betsy and I baked Halloween goodies together.

Getting ready to go Trick or Treating.  As soon as this Spiderman costume goes on, he stays in character the whole time.  

Trick or Treating: a little boys dream come true.  Knocking on doors and asking for candy.  What more could you ask for?  Tristan was SO cute!  You could tell that he was a little nervous at each door and when he said, "Trick or Treat", he said it quiet and slow and stumbled on his words a couple of times.  He wanted to get it just right.  And he always said, "thank you!" when he got his candy.  Such a sweet little spiderman.    

Happiest night of his life.  Staying up late, collecting candy, and hanging out with a pretty mermaid princess, Ava.

Prince Eric, Ariel, and Spiderman, head off together to collect more candy.

Happy Halloween!

Disneyland and a Special Birthday

We went to Disneyland during the last week we were in CA.  I LOVE Disneyland!  It really is a great place.  And it's even better having the kids with us.  I wish I could see everything through their little eyes.  It must be so magical.  We first hit up the Buzz ride.  Tristan freaked out on this ride.  He was surging a little as he shot his gun.  And I'm pretty sure that little Betsy was over stimulated.  It's pretty wild.    

Addison with her favorite Auntie, Chelcie.  :)  We all love this little girl.

 All of the Clawson cousins.  How cute are they?!  All of them looking in different directions.

 One of the highlights of the trips; meeting Minnie Mouse.

 Coming out of seeing It's a Bugs Life movie in 4D.  Pretty cool.  

We also celebrated my sister's birthday while we were there at Roy's!  She turned 23!  (I think?)  Those chocolate soufflés are to die for.  

The birthday girl, Brookie and Mando.

 My brother, Ian and Alisa.

  My mom and dad.

My sister, Chelcie and I.  We were each others dates!  (picture stolen from Chelcie's iphone).

This concludes my CA trip pictures.  Thanks again to my mom and dad for hosting us and for letting us infect everyone with our sicknesses.  And for being patient with Tristan as he tantrumed and bossed everyone around.  Miss everyone already!

Pumpkins and Baby Friends

We met up with the cousins again at Tom's Farm in Corona.  More Fall fun at the pumpkin patch!  Tristan had a little fever on this day but he was a good sport.

Train ride with Papa.

And then with Addi girl.

Addi enjoying her tractor ride.  It was super sad because the boys were too small to ride the tractors but they waited in line thinking they were next.  They were not happy when we told them they couldn't ride them.  It's not easy being small!

Uncle Ian with his mini-me Von.  

At the pumpkin patch, Tristan snagged a wagon and started collecting pumpkins.  

Addi made sure that Tristan knew exactly how the pumpkin collecting system worked.  

Nama bought some pumpkins for the kids to color on.  T loved this!  Left handed?  It's possible!

I had the chance to meet up with some friends and their babies.  Betsy LOVED hanging out with little girls her age.  It made her so happy!

Betsy with sisters, Harper and Monroe.  It looks like she's saying, "Hey mom, look at me and my friends!  We're playing!".

Rylee was another fun friend that she met.  (I Think that the flash caught Betsy off guard in this pic).  

The mamas and bebes.  

And seeing Adrienne is always a must!  

Cousins and Irvine Park

It's been two weeks since we've been home from our CA trip and it's about time I post these pictures!  The kiddies and I took a 2.5 week trip to visit some family and to debut little Betsy girl.  Seven hours off of the plane, Tristan started his throw up fest.  It went on for 2 days.  Every time we get on a plane we catch something and get sick!  Plus, we are exposed to so many new germs on the mainland.  It makes traveling so much harder.  :(  After the 2 loooonnnng days were over, we thought we were in the clear of catching it because we had 4 healthy days.  Then Tristan's cousin, Joaquin caught it really bad.  My mom caught it.  Then it hit me pretty hard for 2 days.  Then back to Joaquin.  Then his mommy and daddy caught it.  Aunt Chelcie caught it too!  It was all a nightmare.  I don't even want to mention Tristan's Croup Cough he caught right after with 103 temperatures a couple of nights in a row.  Then passed on to sweet Joaquin.  We spent half of our trip on survival mode and trying to recover.  But the other half was a ton of fun.  I will let the pictures below do the talking, along with the next couple of posts.  

Sweetest little girl.  She managed to stay healthy through all of the sickness chaos.  Also, it has been decided by all that Betsy looks most like her Aunt Courtney (Christian's sister).  

During the 4 days of thinking we were all healthy and good to go, we met up with Ian and Alisa's family for lunch.  Lunch was CRAZY trying to control all of these cutie pies, especially while trying to take these pictures with their Nama and Papa.

This is what was really going on.  We have about 100 more of these pictures.

Someone got her cute little toe nails painted by her Aunt Chelcie!

She mastered sitting up on this trip.

During our first 4 healthy days, we met up with the Hastings family at Irvine Park.  They were in town staying in Oceanside with the Kringels (Christian's sister and brother in law).  I've never been there before but it was a perfect place to have a picnic lunch and enjoy all of the fall festivities.  

Betsy with her Aunt Courtney.  Twinners!

Tristan and his Tutu on the hay ride.

The rest of the gang enjoying the hay ride.

Tristan's first pony ride!  He was singing, "ridin' the range, ridin' the range, let's go ridin' the range, yaw hoo!".  (From the Backyardigans show).  

Notice the same scrunched face in all of these pics.

Tristan got his cute face painted.  He said no to super heros but YES to a pumpkin.

 Checking out his painted face in the mirror.

California trip to be continued...