Aloha and Mahalo!

Can you guess where we just got home from? Oahu, HAWAII!!! I can't explain how incredible it was. Just so relaxing, fun, and adventurous. It really was paradise. We went with my brother and sister in-law Brady and Melissa. Melissa is pregnant too-we're only 2 1/2 weeks apart! So, we both waddled together and peed every 15 minutes together :). So precious. haha. As a quick overview, highlights of our trip were lots of beach time and snorkeling, saw 7 whales collectively, snorkeled with a sea turtle, went to Pearl Harbor, went to the Laie temple to do sealings (SO gorgeous), the Polynesian Cultural Center, Hunama Bay, Diamond Head Hike, Punchbowl, and the Dole Plantation. And for a more detailed day by day play by play with pictures see below :) (Warning: Picture OVERLOAD but I couldn't help it:))

Thursday: Long 3 flights to get to Oahu. When we arrived we went to dinner and grocery shopping for breakfasts and snacks (we had a kitchen in our hotel)





Friday: Snorkeling at Hunama Bay (a nature preserve bay-SO GORGEOUS!!!) and saw so many fish!, went to the Honolulu Aquarium, Chilled at the beach, went shopping on "the strip" of Hawaii, went to dinner
Hanama Bay:




Snorkelin' it up at Hunama Bay:







Aquarium:






Saturday: Whale watching (saw 5 whales), Diamond Head hike (very uphill 1 1/2 mile hike with a GORGEOUS view of the island from the top!), Delicious snow cones after hike (I still think about this shaved ice!), boys went snorkeling while us pregos sat on the beach and we got to see a MOM AND BABY WHALE JUMPING out of the water from the beach!!! (Incredible!), went to see the movie "We bought a Zoo"-super cute!

Whale Watching:






Diamond Head hike:
(View of Diamond Head (what we hiked) from the whale watching tour):











I'm drooling right now:



Amazing whales Melissa and I got to see from the beach:




Sunday: Church (the most beautiful LDS church I've ever seen!), Punchbowl Cemetery (Memorial cemetery for vetrans-so gorgeous and neat-also had an amazing view!), went snorkeling and saw a HUGE SEA TURTLE that was swimming with us for a while at an arms length away!!!
Church:



Punchbowl:






Our friend the SEA TURTLE!:




Monday: Pearl Harbor (We saw the USS Arizona, the bowfish submarine, the Missouri Ship and the meuseums), went to the Dole Plantation and ate yummy pineapple ice cream, and went to the North Shore and watch surfers and the sunset

Pearl Harbor:














Dole Plantation:






North Shore (Serious Waves):










Tuesday: Temple Sealings at Laie Temple, Polynesian Cultural Center
Temple:





PCC:










Wednesday and Thursday: Flea Market, Snorkeling/Boogie Boarding/Beach Hopping

It's a New Year!

Happy 2012 everyone! Since Christmas we went ICE FISHING and Shoe Skating at Utah Lake! It was so much fun! My bro and sis in law live RIGHT by the lake, so we got to go with Darrin's family. A bit scary at first stepping on the ice, but became a lot of fun. It was such a GORGEOUS day-pretty dang warm for end of December! Plus, my feet didn't even have to hurt from ice skates :). Bonus! Parker LOVED it too!
My Bro and sis in law caught 8 fish between the two of them, Darrin caught one, my pole caught one (I froze out before then...:(), and his other brother caught one too! All in all a fantastic day! Here are some pics:








And for New Year's we went to Darrin's parents and ate yummy food, played "Minute to Win it" Games and watched the ball drop :). Plus I got to take some pictures with my cute sis in laws. 3 of us are prego. One due in March, I'm in April and the other due in May! How awesome is that?!

Minute to win it games:





Us Prego sis in laws:



All of the sister in Laws youngest (Mua) to oldest:


We had a great new years eve :)!

Christmas 2011

Our Christmas was wonderful! It was packed with good food, family, fun, games, etc. On Christmas Eve, we went to Darrin's family's for dinner, games and the traditional Nativity Story acted out by all the grandkids which is always fun! Last year Parker got to play baby Jesus, this year he was a little big for that so he got the part of a Shepard :).



Doesn't he make a cute little Shepard?

After Christmas Eve at Darrin's family's we headed over to my parents for our traditional PAJAMA OPENING and reading of "The Night Before Christmas". My Mom also made these INCREDIBLE books for each of the Grandkids that she gave to them on Christmas Eve. The book has letters to Parker, family history of me, Darrin and Grandparents on both sides! What a treasure!!

This is what our house looked like Christmas morning:



It was such a great morning spent opening gifts and stockings. Then we were off to church with my sister at 9am. The program was filled with wonderful music and the spirit. I thought it was really nice to have that time set apart to think about the savior and feel the spirit. After church we headed to my parents for breakfast and gift opening/exchanging. My Uncle Richard was able to be there even though he's been in the hospital for the past few days and so it was SO nice to see him!

After my parents, we went back to Darrin's family's and did the gift exchange/opening. And then we did Dinner and games.

We were SO blessed with SO many generous gifts all around! It would take me all day to name them all but to name a few I got LASER HAIR REMOVAL from my Sweetheart :), an extra FREEZER (YAY!!! I cannot explain how SMALL my freezer is!), gloves, COZY socks, "Our Best Bites" cookbook (:)), new KNIVES (mine were TERRIBLE!!!), an apple corer, slicer, peeler (Already used it-LOVE IT!!), FHE book, Bluray player, a Mani-Pedi, a DOUBLE STROLLER and more :) My goodness when I list it all out I realize even more such how much I'm SO blessed. I have such a wonderful family!

Darrin got a new HP TOUCHPAD (which he's been on NON-stop since Christmas :)), a cozy LONG blanket I made him, an XBOX game (can't remember what it's called), an air compressor, staple gun, fishing pole, and more!

Parker got a BASKETBALL HOOP which he LOVES, a remote control TRUCK, CARS, BALLS, Pillow pet, SNOW GEAR (YAY! He LOVES the snow!), Potty Time Signing Time, Lego's, toys and more!

WOW! What an amazing Christmas we had. Here are some pictures:






Darrin, his Dad, and some of his brothers ALL playing on his new Touchpad :)








Parker checkin' out Dad's new toy:


Parker's first try with his new BBall Hoop:


NBA Parker with his new BBall Hoop:

Accident Prone and Gingerbread

Well, it's been busy here and we've had a few accidents lately...
1. Parker slipped on some water he spilled in the kitchen and fell onto his face on the tile resulting in a FAT lip. Poor guy.
2. I feel down the stairs while holding Parker. It resulted in a bruised lower back, heel, and elbow. But luckily Parker, me and the baby are all ok.
3. Darrin split his head open by accidentally hitting the top of his head on an open kitchen cabinet...OUCH! He had to get 7 staples in his head-without even getting it numbed. I can't even explain how much blood and nastiness there was.

ALL of these things happened within a WEEK!!! Can you believe it?! But luckily we are all ok and alive :). Could have been much worse.

Parker's Fat lip:



I didn't get any pictures OR video of the fall down the stairs-crazy right?! haha.

Here's some proof of Darrin's accident:



On a happier note, we recently made our gingerbread houses (our yearly tradition :)). Here are some pictures:




And lastly, some cute pictures of the newest invention at the Simon household. They made the table into a slide and the kids were going nuts. Parker sure likes him some slide :)