Family Celebration!! Hawaii Day 1 & 2

Lots of people from Ryan's school were getting their wives extravagant gifts for graduation, and I told Ryan I didn't want a piece of fancy jewelry for anything like that... but I thought after two long years our family could really use a good family vacation together! And my wish was granted :) We both felt it was a good time for us to do something like this - no babies, finishing school, before moving and starting a new busy job. I am so glad we were able to make this happen!

We took a night flight there and didn't land until 1:30 am... Brinley and Casen slept about 2 hrs on the 6 hr flight and Marlee only slept 30 minutes! By the time we got our luggage, rental car, drove to the hotel, and got to our room, it was 3:30 am!! We are all so exhausted!

Waiting for the luggage, they were seriously such good sports despite being sleep deprived!

The kids were crazy in the car while we were waiting for Ryan to get the room keys. Apparently this is what kids do at 3 am! They were climbing in and out of the car windows too :)

We woke up early to this beautiful view!

Brinley was the first awake and happy as could be.

And then there were three :)

Fruit and dry cereal for breakfast. I knew they would be hungry the second they got up and before we could go get food, so I was actually prepared! :)

We hit the beach as soon as Daddy woke up and the big kids sprinted for the water!

After some time at the beach we tried out the pools. The kids loved this tunnel and water fall. Although Marlee was not a fan of the "cold" water :)

And back to the beach, Marlee was a big fan of the sand.

Brinley wanted to have us make a mermaid tail and take a pic to send to her friend Bree.

Watching the waves!

We found this tiny little crab, it was so cute!

The landscape everywhere was so beautiful.

Watching the fish in the pond! We went and had pizza with some friends from Wharton who happened to be there the same week as us.

DAY 2 :  Breakfast on the balcony again! The kids choose french toast sticks, eggs, fresh pineapple, bananas, and orange juice.

The kiddos loved the hot tub! The water was a little cold in the shade the next morning.

Love these girls!!

We had fun playing over on these rocks. There were tons of crabs sun bathing all over them. Case was brave enough to climb up on his own and jump off a couple times.

Casen helped me make shish-ka-bobs for lunch, he was such a sweet little helper. Love him.

For lunch we grilled chicken and shish-ka-bobs. Such a beautiful view!

3 little monkeys in a tree!

That night we had dinner with our friend Rob and Janelle and a couple of their friends as well. Such great people with neat stories.

The kids went to Aunty's Beach house at the Disney Resort while we were at dinner, they had so much fun!

PROM weekend at Wharton in San Fransisco!

As a pre-celebration to graduation at Wharton they held a "Prom" party. It was SO fun! My little sister Jessica was so awesome and flew in from AZ to watch the kids for us. I was so grateful to feel completely safe leaving them with her. She is awesome. I am so glad I was able to go to San Fransisco with Ryan for the weekend. It was a really nice get away for us, even if he was in class most of the time!

I love the trees and tall buildings here, such a beautiful city!

This is a cool little walkway above the streets that allows you to walk far with out having to cross all the streets, plus it's pretty :)

Jess was great and sent me pics of the kids to keep me happy, she knows me well :)

Katti and I had fun walking around together and doing some shopping.

Friday night we went to dinner with Rick and Katti. They live in Las Vegas too, but on the far side so we don't get to see them very often. Such a great couple. We went to a Prime Rib place for dinner and it was fabulous!

Had to get a picture of Ryan walking to school. He has been making this walk from Le Meridian hotel to school about 1.5 miles away several times every other weekend for two years!

I LOVE the farmers market there! Seriously the best! I would go all the time if I lived there :) The mexican food is fabulous! Here is my view :)

You can see the market and the Ferry Building in the background.

We got invited to dinner with about a dozen other couples. Lindsay and Caityln did such a great job. They had place cards and had us rotate after each course (3). It was so fun to get to chat with everyone and the food was amazing!

Our "prom" shot! Probably should have put my hand on his chest so it would have been a true prom pic...

Hilary and Janelle are two of the three other LDS wives that graduated with Ryan. Both so nice. Hilary will be in NYC with us this summer for training and moving to Houston as well!

They gave out a bunch of awards, they were all seriously so funny! This was the award for the "cutest couple"... I actually thought they would be calling a a married couple, not someone with a "bromance" as they call it.

These are some of our friends from school, Brian lives in Vegas near us and his partner Ray lives in LA. Brian is a Director at Allegiant Airlines and Ray is a writer for Nickelodeon. They are so nice and it's been great getting to know them!

Photo Booth! They had a photo booth and despite not knowing what exactly to do we still had fun posing! We got some shots with friends too but I don't have copies on my computer. I thought it was a great idea to have is there. They also had an 80's cover band and we had a ton of fun dancing with everyone! And I'm not going to lie, they had some of the best cupcakes I have ever tasted :)

Then we got to come home to these cute faces! :) We bought "Cinnamon Biscuits" at a little stand in the Ferry building and the kids LOVED them! Now Casen wants them all the time, too bad it's a San Fran specialty!

This sweet girl was asleep when we got home but excited to wake up to her Mommy and Daddy, although she headed straight for the cinnamon biscuit :)

First half of April - so many pics this month!

When Alex and Anna came to visit we made our last trip to Hash House A-Go-Go! The kids did great and the food is always fun :) It was great to get o spend some time with Alex and Anna, we miss seeing them more often!

Brinley hit the skate park one afternoon with Ryan and and Casen :)

I love visiting Floyd Lamb during the spring! The kids had fun following all the baby geese around!

Casen loves "Tony Hawk" brand clothes, he has quite a few shirts, probably half of which came from his friend DJ :)  Needless to say he was pretty excited when we were out shoes shopping and found these Tony Hawk shoes!! And so was I, cause they had no laces, yay! Happy kid, happy Mom :)

Maybe I should not let him wear the skater brand after all! He got this "skateboarding". He was laying down on the board and face planted when he went over a bump, his top teeth went right into his lip. SO SAD. One of the times he as cried the worst :(  The wound was about half the width of his lip and so deep.

We love this outdoor mini-gold course in Summerlin. One beautiful night we headed out there with our friends Kacie and Craig Berrett. First we grabbed some Ko-Mex (Korean Mexican) food, it was fabulous! We had such a fun night with them!

Casen talked me into taking him to the YMCA pool, it is open year round and I really should take them more often! He loves swimming! And Marlee had a good time too :)

Brinley drew this picture of Peter and told me to put it on Facebook. The kids really do miss their bunnies, so sad. She is better at drawing bunnies than me :)

I am going to miss the view of the strip :)

Casen and his trailers. He loves to build long trailers and see how many cars he cab load on there.

Casen and Audrey pushing Meg and Marlee, Marlee was loving playing with the big kids!

We went to the park in Aliante with the ponds, there were so many turtles this time! We even held a couple. This is the first one we saw and they had fun trying to get close to it.

The Nyes had us and the Blanchards over for dinner and we all had a great time! Just love getting together with those families! :)

Marlee put her "babies" to bed and then decided to go to bed herself. She loves babies and is all girl right now. You can usually find her in her high heels with her jewelry and purse on, pushing one or two babies in the stroller. Classic Marlee.

"Hotten Handy"

Marlee LOVES to be chased and I am glad I could capture her expression. So makes the cutest laughs while running around :)

Ice-cream for family night!

One night we met a bunch of Ryan's friends from school down on the strip for dinner and to go to the Marque Club. They were all so nice, it was a fun night out. The Club was pretty impressive and fun to go, but not exactly my thing :)  One of the guys said something to the effect that "This was it" he had reached the highest he could in life.  Oh what a contrast from what I want in life!

 More chase! Or as Marlee would say "Moooor shase!"

Looks like they've discovered something very important. Note, Marlee decided to go with a pair of my heels instead of her usual princess ones :)

Jessica and her boyfriend Mike stopped by for lunch on their way home from LDS General Conference in Utah. We had such a great time with them, the kids didn't want them to leave... especially Mike :)  He was so nice, sure hoping something working out! Plus Conference weekend was just great, I love hearing from our church leaders. Always such inspired messages that make me want to do better.

Casen's preschool took a field trip to the Anderson Dairy. Brinley already got to go so I am glad Casen and Marlee got a turn.

Marlee was in love with this owl and kept saying hi to it!

All the kids got icecream at the end, I'm not going lie, it was pretty good :) Here is Casen with Blake, he is is favorite friend from school.

Crazy Preschoolers! Casen Nelson, Meg Brown, Brody Bulloch, Jace Wagner, Blake, with Ali, Jacely (Meg's little sister Liberty) and Josh Wagner in the front. This is actually 2 classes, only 4 kids per class, it is SO nice!

The kids chose out their own jammies on a costco run. I love new jammies... different then the x-large t-shirts I ran around in as a kid. I should try that sometime though, cause I bet my kids would love it :)

I love waking up to this cute face, seriously love her.

I love when Brinley reads... and when Marlee will actually sit and listen for a second!

Casen built his first lego set, and all on his own! He was pretty proud :)

Probably the last "play group" at our house. The kids made pet rocks, it was actually pretty fun. Thanks for smiling Casen!