Hawaii Days 1-4

So I have finally gone through some of the pictures I have taken here in Kauai so far. We got in late Friday night and were picked up by Mom, Dad, Bruce and Debbie (my aunt and uncle, my mom's brother). We ended up grabbing a bite to eat at this little hole in the wall noodle place that I would have never guessed even had a restaurant in it (I think that is what the locals like about it). They must have plenty of business because when we came and sat down it took another 15 to 20 minutes just to get their attention! It was good, I don't know if it was because it really was good or that we had just been on the plane for 7 hours with only peanuts and water.

We are staying at North Country Farms, which is a little organic farm on the north side of the island. They have a couple of little "cabins" that they rent out. It is definitely rustic but absolutely beautiful and a great location. The other great thing is that they have a whole bunch of different veggies and fruits that you can pick any time and as much as you want...yummy!!!!

There was a queen bed and pull out sofa inside and then this sleeping platform with very necessary mosquito net outside on the porch.

Picking lettuce for our dinner salad

Our first full day we headed to the beach, of course! This snorkeling spot is located at the very end of the road (yes the main road ends and does not go all the way around the island!) and is called Ke'e beach. We just enjoyed soaking up some sun and snorkeling around the very protected bay. There was also a botanical garden near by that had more plants than flowers but went through the different native and foreign plants seen on the island.

A view from the road of the some of the many beaches along the way

Getting ready to snorkel! Belly pic week 22 :)

I can't get enough of this water!!

A cave along the road to the beach

One of my favorite flowers, Bird of Paradise, that was at the gardens.


One really cool thing about Kauai is the dramatic cliffs that you see in the background. It may look a little familiar, many movies including Jurassic Park and 6 days 7 nights were filmed on this island.



My absolute favorite flower, the Plumeria....if only I could grow them in the Pacific NW :)

One evening we headed to a near by beach to get some sunset shots. As you can see from the pictures, the clouds were not cooperating in giving us any spectacular pictures but we still got some good ones :)

My uncle Bruce being his normal self :) He kept us laughing!



Sitting, watching the sunset

The next day we hit yet another beach; is there anything else to do in Hawaii? This beach, however, was a "play in the surf, wave jumping, boogie boarding" beach. And that is exactly what we did! :)

Debbie jumping the waves

Mom is getting so tan that she is going to start looking like she lives here!

The "kids" playing in the surf

Matt landing on the beach

After our wild day at the beach we got "cleaned up" and went to a Luau. Mom and Dad have been to this one before and I must say it was a lot of fun. The family that puts it on owns a huge garden and they open it up to everyone before hand. There was a huge buffet, a really cool international performance (they had dances from all the Hawaiian "cousins", ie. New Zealand, and Tahiti), and of course the Mai Tai cocktails, dad loves Mai Tais :)

They had a bunch of peacocks roaming around the gardens.


Bruce and Debbie

Me and Matt

Of course Mom and Dad...this was before Dad had any Mai Tais!!


The Boys


Bruce helping the poor statue out with its booger problem :)

No, this wasn't the "international" performance :) While we were eating there was a Hula demonstration and at the end they invited people to come up and learn on stage. As you can see Mom and Bruce were the only brave ones in our group!

Well, that is it for now. Michael and Eileen just got in last night (Wednesday) and Bruce and Debbie left, probably on the same plane! Be ready for more beach pictures :) On a completely different subject, Matt signed today with Digital Scirocco, a start-up in Seattle, so we are officially headed up north....I had better get in as much sun as I can here!!!

Camping at Whistler Bend and Rylie's first swim lesson

So many of you know that Matt and I are in Kauai right now and may be wondering what is with this title and post. Well, I figured that I hadn't got these photos up yet and I have some extra time to do this sort of thing here on vacation that while I collected a few more photos of our trip, I would catch up on some posting that is long overdue. So, here are the photos from our camping trip to Whistlers Bend park over memorial day weekend and some of Rylie's first time going to the swimming pool. I have included the post I had originally typed for our camping trip but had saved as a draft for the past 3 weeks since I didn't have the photos to go along with it. I plan on trying to post every couple of days during our trip here....we will see how that goes :) No promises!!

Here we go...

Written 5/31

Sorry for the delay on these photos, I was waiting on my new computer....don't have all the photo stuff downloaded yet but working on it :) Please bare with me that the program I have to work with is a different one so none of the photos are cropped or messed with since I have no clue how to do it yet with this thing!

Anyways, we all had a great time camping, playing disc golf and hanging out. Matt and I got there on Wednesday night to make sure with the Memorial day crowd that we would have a spot. Oh, I think we got there in plenty of time :) David joined us for a round of disc golf on Wed night and camped from Thursday night on along with little miss Rylie. The rest of the crew; Krystal, Bryce, Beth and Jacob showed up Friday. We even had some dinner guests on Friday night; Kari, Ryan, Asa, Rogan, Rasha, Steve, Cedric, Debbie and Orlie all came out for the evening! It was a mini reunion :) We were actually talking about (actually Kari came up with this) getting together a camping family reunion at the group sites at Whislter Bend tentatively scheduled for early August '10....yes I know that is a long way off but with this family you have to!!!!

Anyways, hope everyone had a good relaxing holiday weekend off. Ours was great until we got back to Corvallis and I got the news that my manager is quitting effective next Friday....which just means crazy chaos for the next couple of months :( oh well. Here are some pics from camping;

"yeah, so what if I have a dirty face, I'm camping out here ya know!"

Rogan (7 months) and Rylie (10 months)

Uncle Bryce decided Rylie needed Cheerio horns


Sorry Krystal, I know you just woke up but I had to put this up with Rylie's "Alfalfa" style going on


Crazy Aunt Bethany

The ever inviting, ever mesmerizing fire

A couple of weeks after our camping trip, Matt and I headed back down to Roseburg so Matt and David could play in a disc golf tournament together. From the sounds of it, they both had a great time. Although they both returned home on Sunday completely sleep deprived and exhausted. (I didn't think disc golf was that strenuous!) Anyways, while the boys were playing I stayed at my parents house and hung out. Krystal and I did take Rylie to the YMCA to take her into the pool for the first time and see if she was going to take after her mom or aunt and be a great swimmer! Well, I think you can see from the photos that the answer to that question is YES. She absolutely loved it and was smiling and giggling the whole time.

Underwater

Re-surfacing

That was fun!

Ok, now that I am caught up, get ready for some Hawaii photos!!

It's a...........

We had our ultrasound today and the technician was pretty sure (she says she has never been wrong) that we are having a......

















......GIRL!!!!!

I was so sure that it was going to be a boy that I am still in shock! I didn't know what to say for a while after she told us. Even before she had said anything I saw the image on the screen and saw the tell tale 3 little dots or lines that is a girl. I am attempting to put up some pictures and even a short video. She seems to already have found her thumb! This ultrasound has our due date at October 21st which is what our first one said as well, so I think I am going to change it on my calender to the 21st....although I wouldn't be sad if she decides to come a little early :) Anyways, that is our crazy news for the week, and yes I still have camping photos from a couple of weeks ago to put up, I haven't forgot :)

Sucking her thumb already!!!!

I have an anterior placenta which means that the placenta is attached to the front of my abdomen as opposed to the the back, which is more common. That is what you see there on the right side (the left side of her face), so no, it isn't a tumor :)

little miss was quite the squirmy thing, she was moving all over the place and loves to have her hands up by her face like she is about to punch someone :)

So here is the video of our little one, it is pretty amazing what technology can do!

Bend, Seattle and Belly Pics!

So once again I am playing catch up :( Partly due to my very uncreativeness of late and also due to my stupid computer....again. But hopefully the later part will change here in a week or so when I get my new computer! :) Anyways, for a quick catch-up.....

Bend-
At the end of April we headed over to Bend to hang out....I also worked one day which easily paid for the trip over. Since it was almost a month ago now....boy, I am behind....I don't have a whole lot to type. I took a few fun pics of Brooklyn though;

"I know I'm cute...."

Run Brooklyn from that crazy dog!

Awe, she loves her :)

Somebody's hungry and wants more food!

Now was this before or after she had that second plate of food?

Seattle-
A couple of weekends ago we headed up to Seattle to hang out with Jon and Tami and of course Audrey. Once again we ate too much (this time though I didn't drink too much :), and had a great time. The weather was awesome (something that Jon and Tami were both trying to convince us happened all the time in Seattle...yeah right, I know better!) Matt found a disc golf course near by and since he always has his discs in the car ready to go, we all went out and played, sort of :)

What's a trip to Seattle without a silly pic of Audrey?

the little league slugger...


While Audrey was at her t-ball game, we went on a walk through Discovery Park, I know you can't see them but those are the Olympic Mountains...one of these days I am going to get a good photo of them so you all believe me :)

Audrey making a beautiful throw

....and watching her disc sail perfectly into the basket


...look! there's her disc, Matt has some competition :)


Did I mention it was Mother's Day? Happy Mother's Day!!!

Belly Pics-
I really thought I had taken more between 13 and 17 weeks :( Man, I really need to get on it, so here are week 17 and 18....definitely see something now, some clothes seem to make my belly pop out more than others :) Had a super boring appointment mid-April, in fact it was so non-eventful that they scheduled me out 6 weeks instead of the usual 4 weeks for the next one! The next appointment I assume will again be pretty routine but the week after (June 3rd) we have our big ultrasound and if Frog cooperates for the camera, we will know what we will be having! ;) Just a couple more weeks!

17 weeks

18 weeks