The big itch!!!!!

Over the weekend, Shane took me camping to Waipi'o Valley. Waipi'o is known as the "valley of the Kings" because it's significance in Hawaiian history where some royalty were raised and protected. Currently, the valley is only open to residents of Hawai'i and you can only camp there if you are invited by one of the 50 residents of the valley. When Shane mentioned he got invited....even though it was our 21st wedding anniversary weekend that usually results in overindulging at a nice restaurant and, if I'm really lucky (or Shane really wants to get more lucky) an overnight stay at a hotel, I hurriedly packed up the gear and high tailed it to the valley.  I think all the mosquitoes did too!!!!

Then, we got to hang out in paradise. We've been lots of time into the valley, this is the first time actually camping there though. The only thing I could think in the morning.....other than, "is it possible to scratch ALL of your skin off?"....was, what an amazing view! It did not disappoint, sadly my bug repellent totally did! Here are a few pictures, which are no where as amazing as the real thing, but you can use your imagination to fill in the blanks on this one!

Sadly, Buddy didn't join us because he was being a pooper scooper and didn't think hanging out with a bunch of Shane's co-workers sounded like the most amazing time for an 18 year old....what a weirdo! I always loved hanging out with my dad's old codgy co-workers! Just kidding, my dad didn't even hang out with his co-workers! Hopefully next time he'll join us (I'm totally crossing my fingers there will be a next time)!  So all in all a super fantastic, my fingers are still crossed,  day!

 

Vacating the vacation!

Since Buddy turned 18, I thought we should have one last hurrah as a family and do a family vacation to celebrate. Buddy and I planned a glorious trip to Europe with lots of sightseeing and even a train ride on the Orient Express (which is really the Venice-Simplon line).....our bank account and our reality maker (that would be Shane) decided otherwise. Like the amazing improvisors we are, Buddy decided that we should take Shane to visit southern Utah because he kept saying he didn't remember going to the National Parks there, even though he grew up in Utah! Since we were in Utah, we thought we should cuddle some kitties....

Do some puzzles with my dad....

and cuddle the kitties some more!

We started out at Bryce Canyon, which I had actually never been to before. It was a great start, since we wandered upon this awesomeness before even getting to the National Park!

It was evening when we arrived in Bryce, but that didn't stop the boys from taking pictures.....

Since one member of the family isn't really into 12 mile hikes (SHANE). Before we even left to go on our southern Utah vacation, one of my niece's joked that I needed to choose carefully which hike would be  THE HIKE that Shane would join us on, because we knew chances were....it would only be one! With that in mind, on the drive down to Bryce Canyon, I made an executive decision to call some people to do something that would join my love of getting outdoors for long distances, with my love for torturing Shane under the guise of saving him from a long hike!

Meet Shane's mule Sally....Sally likes to eat every plant that she crosses paths with, and she enjoys walking perilously on the edge of cliffs!

Yep, those would be the cliffs! 

We had a fantastic time, and sooooo well worth the money to get to the bottom of Bryce Canyon to explore! It was AWESOME! After the horseback ride, we hopped in the car and drove the 1 1/2 hours to Zions National Park! First on our to do list was the one hike Buddy and I would saving Shane's leg muscles for....Angels Landing (it's named that because one of the first guys visiting said that it was so high only angels could land there). We totally lucked out and won a lotter permit to get to the top the day before...Anyway....here are some pictures of our strenuous hike up...

This is the boys pointing to the top of the Mountain that we are climbing... 

The boys of course, had to stop and take lots of pictures....not sure if it was so they could catch their breath or try to take mine away by getting super close to the edge...

Seriously! Boys! 

So once you get to the top, you really aren't at the top and you have one more perilous climb to do. Here is the vantage point of the last leg of the journey.

It's only .5 miles, but it's .5 straight up on a very small, rocky path that you have to hold onto chains to climb....

I'm not sure if any picture will do justice to the fear in your heart that this hike will give you. My death grip on the chains was real!!!! Although, I will say, I am loving the lottery system because there were way less people than when Buddy and I did this hike 6 years ago and I still have nightmares about us falling to our death because we were literally climbing over people to get down because there were waaaay too many people on the trail. Anyway, here is the view from the top, so now you don't have to do it!!!

My fear of heights...and my desire to continue to breathe didn't allow me the opportunity to take a ton of pictures on the way up the perilous stretch, so I decided to get some action shots of the boys coming down....

Yep, that's Buddy's idea of an action shot for me! I'm just waiting for the call from a modeling agency for him!!!!

The next day, we geared up all of our remaining leg strength and hiked a little bit of the Narrows....

I was a little sad the boys didn't want to adventure more on the trail because I love a good hike with chest high water....but the boys had cameras they wanted to protect.....lame-os!!!! Next time I'm bringing some dry bags so they won't be able to give their lame excuses anymore! 

We left southern Utah to go back to Erda to stay with my dad and sister just in time to miss the flash flooding that happened the next day....and to torture my dad with some more puzzles while the boys played video games with Buddy's brother Kevin! 

So all in all, a super fantastic, vacation that we have now vacated, day (s)!

 

My boy....

Since I caught up on my posts, not too much has happened. It's the constant barrage of cooking, cleaning, yardwork, repeat. A few weeks ago I took the boy to the movies. We made a deal, Barbie for me and Oppenheimer for him. The clothes in Barbie were phenomenal....Buddy even agreed, which is how 2 weeks later he ended up with this treat....

He may never truly confess how much he likes a sweatshirt based off of a character in a Barbie movie, but he took it with him to a beach trip with some friends.....I think that speaks for itself! In other, not at all related news, Shane came home with some expired life jackets! I don't know about you, but EVERY TIME a flight attendant puts one on for the safety briefing, I just want to pull the red strings....

 Weirdly, Buddy just wants to blow it up like a freakazoid. I would try to claim no relation, but that's really hard when your kid looks so much like you! 

Shane's cousin and his wife are visiting for a week, they have rented a very cool car while they are here that I'm sure Buddy will be trying to finagle his way into getting a ride out of them before they leave....I actually don't blame him!

So all in all a super fantastic, I love my boy, day!

Caught the rewind....

 So, according to the pictures in my phone, this will be the last catch up for this last year. I'm pretty positive there was much more that happened last year, but according to my photos....it wasn't that important to me since I already deleted the pictures (or I had a double chin, which is probably more likely the case).... Anyway, last August, my niece that was going to BYUH decided to come out and spend the week with us, and we are soooo happy that she did! She was supposed to come a few weeks earlier with a bunch of friends, but someone caught COVID again. Stinking Buddy and his immune system (or inability to use soap and water on his hands...the debate is still out). Since it was just her, we could do some fancier vacationing ....

We took her 4 wheeling at Umama falls...which included a jump off a cliff into a lake.

We also stayed the night at a treehouse that had a zipline. It was pretty spectacular...and tons of fun. I have no idea what else we did with her, pretty positive we had a fantastic time doing it, whatever it was! Then my brother-in-law and his girlfriend came for a visit and we cuddled the cows as one does....

So all in all a super fantastic, all caught up, now I should actually do stuff to post about it, day!

Not planned....

Halloween is Buddy's absolutely FAVORITE HOLIDAY OF ALL TIME. Buddy will plan months in advance what he wants to do to celebrate the day, whether it is a party or setting up a free haunted house at our place. He loves ALL of the things related to his favorite holiday. Unfortunately, we live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific that hasn't quite grasped onto all the amazing fall themed festivities! That just gave us a good excuse to go to a place that really knows how to do fall right (possibly because they actually have a fall season).....Buddy and I hopped on a flight to go to Utah for two weeks this past October so we could ring in the holiday in style....Seriously, nothing says Halloween like a large pumpkin entryway....

Or a large cow? 

and some ears of corn?

Weirdly enough, our trip to celebrate Halloween allowed us the opportunity to hang out with my day....

Go visit a hot spring...

And go on a hike with what used to be my favorite sister....

That is until she took me on a hike to the top of a very high mountain (which was awesome)....and then we didn't started descending said mountain until the sun was setting. That could have been a cool experience...if we had prepared to do that. You know prepare, as in have flashlights, snacks....possibly a bear gun!

I took solo pictures of my personal dash to the bottom of the mountain while singing at the top of my lungs to scare the bears away. I'm pretty positive my sister owes her life to me.

While we were visiting my dad, I called and made a reservation to go see Shane's dad before we left. I got a phone call from Shane's stepmom that she didn't think he was doing very well. Buddy and I took off to go visit them. I'm going to keep my comments short on this, but I will say that Buddy and I had the honor and opportunity to help care for Shane's dad. I don't know if you can have a good time dying, but I feel like Charlie really went out with a bang, he had such a great sense of humor and made the best one-liners up until the very end. It was a very special time for us. Shane's family all got to make it out to see him and Charlie planned his own party for after the funeral where the kids played their instruments like the Partridge family. 

A few days later, Buddy had his birthday and officially became a man....at least from a legal standpoint. We took all of the family to Lagoon to celebrate.

A few days after that I turned 50...

Exciting!

So all in all a day!