Hawaii 2

In January I had an ophthalmology conference on Maui.  It seemed like the perfect chance for Kristel and I to get away for a trip we have been wanting to take for several years.  On Friday, January 14, Grandma Mindy flew in to San Antonio to spend a week taking care of the kids, and early Sunday morning Kristel and I boarded our flight to Maui.   

On the small island Maui lodging is limited, and with my late registration there was no housing near the conference for the first part of the stay.  However, with a commute of about an hour we were able to stay at Kapalua Bay where we had spent our honeymoon 12 years earlier.  Unfortunately the actual hotel from our honeymoon was torn down to make room for multi-million dollar Ritz-Carlton condominiums (where we did not stay), but the Kapalua Villas was very nice.  This is the view from where we stayed.

The Kapalua Villas were condos and ours had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with a kitchen and living room.  It had been recently updated and was beautiful. It was on a different part of the island from my conference so it took an hour to drive each way.   

We explored the local restaurants and ate some great food.

I went to the meeting in the morning so Kristel ended up with a lot of relaxing time to catch up with reading.   She read books 2 and 3 of the tiger series and got into them enough that she brought her book along on a walk despite my teasing.  

We only stayed at Kapalua for 2 nights and then moved closer to the conference at Wailea where we stayed the other 2 nights.  We stayed at the Hotel Wailea which included a traditional Japanese bathhouse which I don't think we completely figured out.  The actual room was a little older and different from a typical American style hotel, but the gardens were beautiful.

We enjoyed Maui Tacos multiple times. 

Wailea Beach

The view of Molokini from Wailea beach.

The kids had a great time with Grandma Mindy and probably would have been content if we had stayed another week.  We were very happy to see them.  There is no doubt they are extra cute after having been away.

This is the schedule we printed out and left with Grandma Mindy.

Florida Fun

We spent the last week of the summer in Florida, August 12th - 19th.  Matt had a conference in Destin and we got to tag along.  We left a little late on Friday so we took 2 days to drive the 14 hours.   We stopped half way there to stay the night in a hotel and we were setting up the arrangements for everyone to sleep.  Kylee did not appreciate the set up and was upset.  She let us know that she would be sleeping in the bathroom.  We thought she wasn't really serious and would give up and finally come get in bed.  We woke up during the night to find Kylee had made her bed of towels next to the toilet and had fallen asleep.

We got in to Destin Saturday afternoon and we were able to spend the late afternoon hours in the ocean. While hanging out on the beautiful white sand, clear water beach we saw 2 seperate weddings in the few hours that we were there.

We didn't have reservations for the hotel of the conference until Sunday, so we stayed somewhere else on Saturday night and then transferred to the other hotel after church. The hotel had a great room set up.  There were bunk beds just as you came in the door.  This where Kylee and Brayden slept.  There was a TV attached to the wall opposite the beds.  This made for a great place for all the kids to hang out and sneak in some TV watching.  The rest of the room included a king size bed and a queen pull out couch so that everyone had a bed without any kids in ours, a hotel rarity for our family.  The large and comfortable room had a great ocean view and was a fun place to hang out between our adventures.

Monday (designated a travel day) we got to enjoy Florida.  Matt rented a jet ski for a couple of hours and took turns taking the older 3 on a ride.

When the Conference started on Tuesday Matt had a pretty nice schedule each day, which meant plenty of family time. The kids and I slept in and then went to the pool to swim for a couple of hours while Matt was at his Conference.  A little past noon or 1 Matt would meet us and we would spend the rest of the day with him.  That meant a lot of beach time, swimming in the hotel pools, and exploring the Destin area.

Here are everyone's favorite memories for the week.

Kylee enjoyed all the swimming she got to do and meeting new friends (she is very good about introducing herself and finding people to play with). True to her love of critters she also enjoyed when Matt found "Jam" the jellyfish.

Brayden's favorite was riding on the jet ski.  A few weeks before our vacation he had a new interest in them and wanted to watch youtube videos about jet skis. 

Julia loved doing all the swimming at the beach and pool.  She got really good at swimming without her vest.  Her fantasies came true when Matt made Julia into a mermaid with a tail made out of sand.  Julia had fun going out in the ocean on the boogie board and going up and down on the waves.

 Blake's favorite was playing in the water. 

Mom - I enjoyed being on the beach in the evening hours, with most everyone cleared out and the sun going down with a beautiful sunset.

 Dad - the view from the balcony, relaxing on the beach as the sun went down, being able to take care of a TDY while enjoying time with my family at the same time

There was lots of swimming at the pool and hanging out at the beach.  So much that the kids, by the time we headed back on August 19th, were saying the beach and swimming were horrible.

Spring Break continues in Dallas

For the 2nd half of Spring Break we went up to the Kenitzer Resort in Dallas. Carlos and I drove up on Thursday while Matt stayed in San Antonio to work.   The Gaspar de Alba's had driven from El Paso to Dallas to visit for the week, so we were able to see them for a few days before they headed back.  The evenings were filled with dance competitions on the Xbox with the older cousins.  Sadly we have no pictures of these entertaining evenings.
On Friday we were all lazy about heading out for the day.  We did a little bit of sight seeing by driving around and then we ate at Cousins BBQ.  We thought the name fit the table full of cousins that were there.

When we did finally get to the Fort Worth Zoo it was packed with people.  We tried to see as many animals as we could since there were only a few hours left before the zoo closed.  Blake really enjoyed seeing the white tigers.

 

Katrina and her family left to head back on Saturday, while we went to the Mom and Popcorn Company candy store in McKinney and then to the Dallas Arboretum. The Arboretum had beautiful tulips throughout the park and an exhibit with 7 castles inspired by fairy tales to explore.

Christmas

Ryan invited the whole family to spend Christmas at his house on the mountain.  At first the thought of a two day 22 hour drive was a little daunting, and flying with four kids, winter clothes, and Christmas presents was even less appealing.  But after thinking it over we were very excited to see everyone and spend a Christmas with some real snow.

We drove to El Paso with Grandma Mindy on the Monday after the weekend of Brayden's baptism.  We spent the rest of the day in El Paso doing a little last minute Christmas shopping.  Knowing the second leg of the trip would be about 14 hours with a winter storm forecast, and not wanting to arrive on iced Utah roads late at night, I went to sleep early in the evening so that we could start our drive at about three in the morning.  There was snow on the ground when we arrived the next afternoon, but the roads ended up being OK.

Ryan and Nathan were there when we arrived.  Ben had planned to be there, but work scheduling issues ended up keeping him flying with Southwest the whole time we were there.  The Morris's also didn't end up being able to make it down from Idaho, but it didn't put a damper on the vacation. There were several inches of wet snow on the ground and the kids spent a few hours working on snowmen, but were happy to come inside before long.  

Ryan's house was a great vacation spot.  I had wondered how exactly a family Christmas would work at an executive bachelor pad without a toy room, but it ended up being perfect.  Ryan's roommates were all gone for the holidays and we had the run of the house.  The house is huge and and we had the basement to ourselves.  In the basement, we took one large room, Grandma Mindy another (with Kylee and Brayden on the floor of the big walk-in-closet), Nathan lived in the third, and a fourth went unused.

Christmas Eve we continued our family tradition of opening pajamas and the kids made cookies for Santa.

Christmas Day

playing intense Kinect

dress up

lots of lego building

Christmas day we all drove up to Salt Lake for a soup dinner with Grandma Mindy's cousin Cathy where we got to catch up with David Waldrop and the Walkers among others.

Nathan's Birthday

We all had a good time exploring, especially after Ryan showed the kids some of the house secrets.

We flew remote controlled helicopters in the large open living room and the kids watched a big screen movie on the twenty foot high living room wall with the new sound system Ryan had just replaced.

We got to catch up with Grandpa Caldwell and Nana in Las Cruces on our way back to San Antonio.