Crazy Crazy Icicles

Ignore the Christmas wreath still on the door - even though its the end of January.

Its been super super cold these past couple of weeks. Since getting back from Hawaii I don't think we have had weather warmer than 33º degrees outside. Burr!!!! Our town-home neighborhood have had  some of the most beautiful icicles. Yes they are dangerous, but beautiful. We don't use our front door much so when I had my visiting teachers over this week I noticed the icicles on our town-home - Crazy long! After I took the picture I went out with my snow shovel and knocked down all the icicles. Safety first. ☺ 

Here is a picture of our neighbors - his were way worse than ours. Pretty though!

How tall is your snowman?

Karlee and I drove down to Spanish Fork to visit with my mom who was watching my brothers kids for the week. It was a fun day. Karlee was super excited to play with her Spanish Fork cousins. After we got to my brothers home and had visited for a little bit we drove up to Orem to check out the 30ft Snowman built by the Gardners (family friends from Page,AZ).  

The Gardner's grand kids built this snowman using snow from all over the neighborhood. They cleaned peoples driveways, parking lots, sidewalks and saved all the snow piling it into the back of a pick-up truck. Then they got to work building this snowman. They used a fridge box for the hat, large flower pots for the eyes, a small Christmas tree for the nose, Christmas bows for the mouth, 2 rakes for  the hands, and a super long stretch of material for the scarf. Pretty cool!

Abbey, Taylor, Sydney, Karlee and Austin

The kids LOVED the snowman.  - But seriously this snowman was amazing. Can't even begin to guess how long it will take for the snow to melt. (In the cold spell we've been having these last couple of weeks its not gonna happen any time soon).

Karlee posing for a good little picture!

My mom, Darlene and Harvey Gardner

Karlee's week with grandma

While I was gone with my sisters to Hawaii - my mom was so great and offered to watch Karlee and my sisters kids. Karlee was so excited for some time with her grandma!

I prepared a little something for Karlee to open everyday while I was gone to Hawaii. My sister-in-law Hayley does this with her kids every time they go out of town and I think it makes each day special for the kids. My bags aren't too flashy but Karlee seemed to enjoy each little thing she opened each day.

Doing Arts&Crafts with grandma. What lucky kids to have such an amazing grandma. I know from personal experience that Karlee's grandma doesn't really enjoy Arts&Crafts so this picture sure is evidence that these kids are loved.

Karlee loves these paper dolls - so much so that we still have them out and Karlee checks to see if I've put them to a 'safe place' yet.

Karlee and grandma got up early each morning and headed over to my sisters house so grandma could help get the her kids off to school. Looks like Karlee found a cozy little place to finish up her nights rest. 

Looks like grandma stayed at our house one day. Yay! Karlee loves to have people come over and loves to share her toys. Cute kids!

The day before grandma was set to leave and return home - Stansbury Park got snow!!! Grandma loves snow and so does Karlee (that must be where she gets her love from snow - cause its not from me ☺) My sister has a big backyard so there's lots and lots of snow to play with.

Cute Cousins - Sadie, Paige, and Karlee!

Thanks mom for making our trip to Hawaii possible and helping us out. Karlee had so so much fun, and continues to talk about how much fun she had with you and that she was able to have a lot of sleepovers with  her very special grandma!

Hawaii Trip - Kaua‘i {day 7}

We were lucky enough to see the beautiful island of Kaua‘i from the air. Just the day before Kaye and I went to a orientation meeting at the time share, we laughed about going to this mtg because we were both going home the next day and had already seem most of the island. At the meeting they have local businesses come and introduce their specialties. They doing a drawing for all the different excursions and Kaye won a airplane ride around the island. How cool is that!!!

Kaua‘i amazing shoreline

Here is a picture of the Kilohana Crater. We never even noticed this crater while driving the roads and exploring the islands hot spots. The pilot said that people can hike into the crater. 

Beautiful coastline 

We flew over many fields of coffee beans. Kaua‘i is the largest coffee producer in all the Hawaiian islands. The lands started out being sugarcane fields, but they were replaced with coffee bean because there wasn't a big enough sugarcane market 

More waterfalls deep into the island, only can be view from the air. So pretty!

Flew over the Waimea canyon - pretty spectacular to see this beautiful canyon on a clear morning. Just a different perspective. This place looks huge from the air.

The Na Pali coast from the air. Spectacular!!!

There many places on the Kaua‘i island that Hollywood has used in making their movies. The picture below is where some of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies was filmed. There is an natural arch out of the rock (couldn't get a good angle with my camera). Pretty Cool.

We saw 3 humpback whales - they were so cool. The migrate from Alaska during the winter months to the Hawaiian islands and then when April comes around they return to Alaska. Not a bad place for a winter home if you ask me. ☺

The beautiful shoreline of Kaua‘i. Its fascinating to see the waves crashing into the oceans coral reefs. Oh ya and Julia Roberts owns a home right here along the coastline. Pretty cool. huh. 

We flew over Wai‘ale‘ale, the center of the island, which is known to the be the wettest place on earth.  Wai‘ale‘ale, in Hawaiian it means 'overflowing water'. This place gets 452 inches of rain annually. This place is gorgeous, with lush deep green plants and trees everywhere you look.

After our airplane ride around the island we decided to hit the beach and enjoy our last bit of sand and relaxation. There really is something to be said for a week of relaxation to recharge. What an amazing trip and what a beautiful island.

Goodbye Beautiful Island of Kaua‘i. 

(and goodbye relaxation)

Look who came to pick me up at the airport. My two favorite people in the world. I had checked my bags for my last flight from LA to SLC (a super full plane) so I had to wait for my bag at the Baggage Claim. Rob and Karlee surprised me by coming into the airport and helping me wait for my bag. I surprised Karlee with a flower lei and a pink Ukulele (she has been playing with it every second.)

Flew in Saturday @9:30 am

And when we got home I got another surprise. Check out this Awesome Sign!!!

Welcome Home Mom!

Hawaii Trip - Kaua‘i {day 5 & 6}

Today was Monica's last day on the island and so we took this day to check out more beaches that we hadn't yet. We went back to some of our favorites - we really did a lot of beach hopping. It really was just another super relaxing day on island.

We started out the day at Larsen's beach - it was really a great beach, because its pretty much a secluded beach - not too many people hit this beach. There is a short little steep trail down to the beach, so we were glad that it wasn't raining to make the short hike more difficult.

Once we got down to the beach we went beach combing. Again this brought back memories of beach combing the sands of Mexico from our childhood. We founds some pretty shells and unusual shaped rocks. We stayed on that beach for a bit, and then we were off to the next one.

Waterfalls are truly in an abundance on this island and sometimes in the most beautiful places. This waterfall was on our way out of a neighborhood - would that be beautiful to pass by every time you went home. ☺

We hit another beach (can't remember the beach here) we didn't stay long here cause the sun was being pushed out by a small rain cloud. This picture makes me laugh because it looks like I'm totally trying to pose and be silly, but really was was just innocently smiling. - I sure kept the humor coming with my sisters- a lot of the time it was at my expense, but we all had a super fun time together. 

We decided to drive back to Po‘ipu and check out our luck with seeing more sea turtles and Po‘ipu is also known for the best sunsets on the island. 

We were successful in seeing sea turtle. Now getting a decent picture of him was somewhat of a challenge and a lesson of patience. Monica was determined to get a good picture, and she did. There was this larger turtle here and then a smaller sea turtle would pop his head up now and again. They are pretty cool.

The sunset was coming. wait for it. wait for it.

Aloha!!!!!!

Here it is a beautiful Kaua‘i sunset.

After the sunset we drove back to our hotel and helped Monica pack up her stuff and then took her to the airport. We were bummed to have her leave, when we still had 2 more days to play! She caught her 9:40 pm flight back to LA and then onto SLC. 

{day 6}

Kaye and I did a lot of shopping, went to a couple beaches and since Monica (our photographer. lol) had gone home the night before we just forgot to take any pictures. We did however manage to take two pictures on this day so that we could remember something of the day: 

This picture is me holding a 'bread fruit' in honor of Rob - Rob ate these throughout his entire mission  to Jamaica. I have not an idea how to prepare it and therefore I didn't not purchase the fruit - I only borrowed it for a minute so I could get my picture taken with it. haha. The fruit stand owner wasn't super amused that I would only want her fruit for a photo op, but Kaye and I had a good laugh.

The second picture we took on this day was a Police substation. haha. Kaye saw the substation and wanted to send Jared a picture of it. haha Crazy I know! - Hey I did learn something new...had never heard of a substation, nor its purpose... so thanks to Kaye I learned what a substation is. ☺ 

It really was a fun day and we had some funny experiences with shop owners, but we were just really bad about taking pictures today.