One with nature!

The best part about Hawaii was watching my son explore an environment so diverse from our home. It took him a few days to realize that the sand was actually fun to play in and that all of the bugs and lizards weren't out to get him. Now, we can't keep him away from any of the creepy crawlies and he is quite the water bug!








He also loved the fish and whale watching. I can't wait for this summer so that we can explore the wonderful nature in Alaska. We love our hikes and always find some wonderful friends to play with.

Little Blue

Levi’s mother and step father purchased a new truck to keep in Hawaii and also shipped over their S-10 pickup truck as an alternate means of wheels. Not only does Little Blue still have Alaskan plates, but it's still equipped with studded snow tires! I can’t tell you how many people stopped us wondering if we knew we had “rocks in our tires”. It was pretty entertaining!

The truck may be old and rusted, but it is sure a beast! We 4-wheeled back into some pretty crazy spots and I honestly didn’t think that we were going to make it at times. We were given some paint and told to decorate the truck, so we drew a beautiful Hawaiian flower on the hood. The best part to driving around this beater was that everyone assumed we were locals. We didn’t have a fancy rental car like all of the tourists and we got special treatment because of it. People were always friendly towards us and we were even given the local price for pizza at the worlds best pizza spot!

After painting the flower (just a few days before we left) everything seemed to go downhill. We decided to drive to the Hilo side of the island for a tropical hike and the truck decided to give out on us. We broke down in the absolute middle of nowhere...highway 11, mile marker 42. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that location because we had to wait for three whole hours to be rescued. But we made the best of the situation and had a nice little family picnic under a shady tree! Turns out the tranie have given out, but the guys had a new one installed and the truck back and running by the next day!

Little blue gave us the freedom to roam the island, meet some wonderful people, get to some secluded (and somewhat impossible spots), gave us “local” discounts, and only faulted on us once. I’d say this little truck deserves some wonderful recognition!

Hawaii Belly Photos

I may not have the bikini body most expect to see on the beach, but I sure don’t mind flaunting what I’ve got! I think I love my belly so much because other that being pregnant, I’ve always been skin and bone. I absolutely love having a protruding bump and some expanding thighs...not to mention the bustling milk makers! I’m really hoping to keep some of the baby weight this time around since I wasn’t so lucky with Lucas. I feel most confident in my physical appearance when I'm pregnant and when I'm tan. You'd better believe I'm working hard on that second one!

15w6d!

16w6d

Also 16w6d. This one makes me look pretty large, but that's exactly what happens as the day progresses. Morning sickness is gone and this baby sure makes me hungry!

A camping trip to remember

We were told about a fantastic and fairly secluded camping spot here on the big island and fell in love once we got there. We had to 4wheel back quite a ways on a tiny dirt road hidden off of the highway. Once we pulled up we immediately found our spot and went out to explore! We were right on Loretta Lynn’s abandoned property in between mansions belonging to Paul Mitchell and the inventor of the pace maker. The whales were jumping nearly every two minutes, the beach was wonderful, and there was a nice little fresh water pond to rinse off in! We thought this was going to be a perfect camping trip.

We called it a night at about 9:30 and all snuggled into our tent to sleep. This was Lucas first time camping in a tent and he did wonderful! I was sleeping great until I heard a loud noise similar to a motorcycle. The noise kept getting louder and louder and the mother in me started to get stressed out that it would wake up Lucas. Before I knew it, the noise was so loud that I started to panic…I knew something wasn’t right. Levi wrapped his hand around my mouth (I’m assuming to keep me from screaming) because the noise was so overwhelming at this point. Later when I questioned him about it he had no idea what I was talking about...he must've still been asleep! lol.

Turns out a helicopter had landed about a hundred feet away from our tent onto the beach. Can you say, insane?! But the craziest part of all is that Lucas slept through the entire thing! I don’t know how on earth anyone could sleep through a helicopter landing next to you in the dead of night, but he was out for the count!

They say that a fetus can begin hearing noises outside of the womb at 16 weeks and after this little incident, I’m convinced this is the truth! I have been feeling the “quickening” for almost a week now but since baby is only about 5 inches from head to rump, the kicks and punches still aren’t too powerful. As the helicopter landed, my stomach felt like bag of popcorn being popped! I sure hope my unborn child has not been traumatized before s/he even enters into this world!

Moments after the helicopter landed a park ranger came over to our tent and stressed that we needed to evacuate as soon as possible. He mentioned that Japan just had a massive earthquake and that a tsunami was headed right for us. He said that is was scheduled to hit at 3:07a.m. and that we had just a few hours to get to higher ground. WHAT?! Realizing that this was serious and actually happening, I immediately hopped on my iPhone to check the news. The headlines were flooded with stories already and Hawaii was indeed in a tsunami warning. We moved Lucas to the truck (still fast asleep) and tore down the tent. We were packed up in nearly 10 minutes and immediately headed away from the shoreline. We were camping with Levi’s mom and step dad, along with his step dad’s family and some of their friends. Everyone had been there for a few days before we came down and they had quite the set up. Worried that they couldn’t pack everything up fast enough, they decided to leave it all behind and hope for the best.

We drove up just to the freeway and everyone in our party pulled over to touch bases. They decided that the elevation we had reached was safe and decided to sleep in their cars until morning. We contemplated driving back to the house, but we were nearly an hour and a half away and figured the roads would be overwhelmed with panicked people. Instead, my little family drove about 20 minutes back into Kona and drove a ways up the mountain. There were evacuation places at all of the schools and at Costco, but we decided to find a quiet spot and re-pitch our tent. We drove until we found a patch of grass (which ended up being in an industrialized neighborhood next to a storage complex) and set up camp...again.

We finally fell back to sleep about 2:30 and were abruptly woken up at 4:45 to sprinklers!! All we could do was laugh...it had been quite an interesting night! We figured there was no getting back to sleep now so we decided to head back towards the beach and see what had happened. We arrived at 6:15 and found a few of our people awake. They had been listening to the radio and updated us on all the devastation to both sides of us. About 30 minutes north a boat harbor had been hit pretty bad and back in Kona on Ali’i Dr (the main tourist strip) the roads were flooded and many shops and restaurants faced some very serious damage. It really hit me at that point because we had spent an afternoon there just the day before walking the strip and visiting the market.

Fortunately, our location was fairly untouched and the camping stuff left behind all remained. We have seen quite a bit of devastation on various parts of the island, including our favorite beach Honomolino, but nothing compares to the hardships Japan is suffering. My heart goes out to everyone over there and I can only pray that everyone in need of a helping hand receives just that.

Hawaii!!

We just booked our tickets for Hawaii and let me tell ya...I'm counting down the days! I have been juggling daycare, full time school and awful awful morning sickness for the last two months, so I think I'm entitled to a lovely break!

We will be staying in Hawaii for a whopping 17 days and then visiting Seattle for 3 days on our return home to visit family. I cannot wait! We will even be able to see some close friends of ours who will be vacationing in Hawaii during this same time! This may be our only opportunity to travel before the baby comes and the way I see it...we had better make the best of it!

On another great note, I am beginning to feel better! (YAY!) I am just a little over 11 weeks and I can tell the hormones are dwindling down. I even (successfully) made dinner for the first time last night. Now that's a huge accomplishment in my book! I figure the second trimester is the best time to travel anyways, so we'll be doing our vacationing when I'm from 15.5 weeks to 18.5 weeks. And best yet, we'll be able to find out the sex of the baby as soon as we return home!! Perfect timing if I do say so myself!

I was browsing back at pictures from our trip last year and I can't believe how tiny Lucas was. We went shortly after his 1st birthday...and he was a relatively new walker. He is going to LOVE Hawaii even more this time around. I can't wait to watch him running up and down the beach in search of shells. And now that's he's older I think I'll be more comfortable taking him out on the canoe to swim with dolphins! (Or at least be near them) It'll be quite a shock going from snow to beach...but I know it'll be a huge hit!

Sunshine, warmth, beach, sand, lava, dolphins, turtles, fish, avocados, pineapple...HERE WE COME!