We have had a very busy month so far. The month started quiet with a New Years Eve spent at home with just the four of us. The kids danced their little butts off while watching the performances on tv. We watched New Years Rockin Eve and ate popcorn while Kyle was working. Kyle made it home with 30 minutes to spare and we all rang in the new year together. It was a holiday well spent.
We are getting back into our normal routine now that the holidays are over. Alec is back in school and I started my new semester of college as well. Its going to be a busy semester. The weekend before Hailey's birthday we went to the zoo in Honolulu. Its the first time we have been to the zoo in a couple years. It was nice to have a zoo so close since the nearest one in North Carolina was 5 hours away. It was a pretty nice zoo though not as nice as the St. Louis zoo. We all had a really good time.
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| This shows just how far we live from anywhere! |
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| One of the craziest looking trees I've ever seen! |
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| Petting the goats in the Children's Zoo |
Monday we celebrated part one of Hailey's birthday. She opened the cards she had gotten and a gift from the secretary, Mona, at Kyle's office. She got cupcakes that night as well. We decided to celebrate her birthday the following weekend because of work and school. She enjoyed the first part of her birthday celebration.
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| I think Alec was as excited about Hailey's birthday as she was :) |
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| Smiling about her pretty barbie from Mona |
This weekend we decided to go to our first luau. We had heard wonderful things about the Paradise Cove Luau so we made our reservation and took off to the other side of the island. It was an amazing experience! We were greeted with flower leis for Hailey and me and kukui nut leis for Alec and Kyle. Then were were led into the luau and Kyle and I got mai tais and the kids got virgin mai tais.
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| Waiting to enter the Luau |
We were shown where our table was and to our excitement we were sat right in front of the stage. The first two hours we were there was time to wander around and check out all the activites. We started by getting polynesian style tattoos. Alec and Hailey were very proud of theirs and wanted photos of them.
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| Alec's Shark |
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| Hailey's Flower Tattoo |
We watched a couple of hula demonstations after the tattoos. The kids had no interest in learning to hula. We watched one of the performers climb a palm tree with nothing but a piece of fabric between his feet to help him up. It was incredible how he was able to climb it. When he got to the top he opened a bag with flower petals and tossed them to everyone crowded below.
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| This tree was one of the tallest on the property |
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| The gorgeous sunset over the Ko'Olina beach |
As the sun started to set there was an pig roast ceremony. They had hula dancers perform and they even pulled the pig out of the roasting pit. I can honestly say I have never seen a fully roasted pig before. It was quite the sight to see.
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| The snout is touching that guys stomach! |
After the pig roasting ceremony it was time for dinner. The food was amazing! They brought out our first course and started the performances. They did dances from all over the south pacific. It was truly amazing to watch.
They held one last hula lesson and somehow Kyle convinced me to go onstage and learn. It was defintely a quick lesson but it was fun no matter how embarrassing it was.
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| Thankfully most of the kids were almost as tall as me so they did a good job at hiding my horrible hula skills! |
There were more performances and they even pulled people onstage to dance with the hula dancers. Kyle was plucked from the crowd to go up and dance with one of the hula girls. He did awesome and I thought it was a little bit of karma for convincing me to go up there and embarrass myself.
After the celebration was over Kyle managed to get all the performers together to take a picture with us. You could tell at first they didn't want to but they were good sports and all smiled for us which made for a great picture.
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| All of the wonderful performers posing for one last picture |
Sunday was a day to relax. We also surprised Hailey with her cake and presents. She had completely forgotten that we were going to celebrate over the weekend. She was pleasantly surprised.
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| Hailey's pretty necklace and bracelet |
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| Happy 4 year old! |
This week is pretty busy with football festivities. Football is a big deal around here this week because of Pro Bowl. Thursday some pro bowl players and cheerleaders are coming on base for their Play 60 project. Play 60 is a project to promote kids to be more active. They are doing drills and other activites with the kids. We can also get pictures with the players. I am going to take the kids and I think they will have a good time. Sunday Kyle and I are going to the Pro Bowl. I am very excited since I have never been to a football game before and I get to see the best players in the league play. I am most excited to see all of my Eagles players! It is going to be amazing and I am going to take as many pictures as I can in the coming week. I will try and update as soon as possible next week with picture from this weeks festivities.
