Oh, this happened.

Every year, my Dad takes my sister and I on a business trip with him. It may sound strange, being that I'm 30 and my sister is a few years older, but the fact is, I have the best Dad in the world and it doesn't matter. No matter where we go, we can just revert back to our days of adolescence and my dad takes the wheel. The trips are quick and well planned. We always squeeze a lot of good stuff in. This trip was special for a few reasons. 1. It was to HAWAII 2. It was earlier in the year than usual, and 3. I lived on Oahu, so it was going to be fun to revisit with family.

Day one: Travel

We stopped in Seattle then had a LONG, TURBULENT flight to Hawaii. We landed around 9 or 10 and headed straight to our hotel in Waikiki and slept.

Day two: The North Shore

We had breakfast at Eggs'n'Things, which I went to ten years ago and his has since burnt down, and been rebuilt. Then, we drove to the Dole Pineapple Plantation for some pretty atmosphere and delicious Dole Whip. Then through Haleiwa, Kahuku, Laie, Kaneohe and finally back to Honolulu. It was awesome to see where I lived in Kahuku. More, surreal than I imagined. Lots of things were the same, some had changed and I really struggled to grasp the fact that I lived there for a short while- and voluntarily LEFT.

That night we had dinner at the Yard House in the center of action on Waikiki.

Day three: The Bike Ride

After Dad read his paper and finished up the business portion of the trip, we rented bikes and rode them down the beach of Waikiki and up around Diamond Head crater. There were a few unexpected hills..

On our way back down we discovered the soon-to-be favorite market, Diamond Head Market and Grill. It had lots of fun things to eat from scones, to cheesecakes to taro chips. That night we had dinner at Duke's, one of my favorite seafood grills, then saw Mission Impossible in the loudest theater ever built. I actually had to wear my ear buds in my ears to prevent damage to my ear drums.

Day four: Pearl Harbor

We ate breakfast at the new found Grill- and planned to return again for dessert.

I'm ashamed to say I had never been to Pearl Harbor. But in the time I lived on the island I only went to Honolulu 3 times. So this was a treat. It was well constructed and very informative. We watched the film then took the boat out to the USS Arizona, that lies just below the surface of the water where the memorial hovers over. The ship is still leaking visible oil... from the 500,000 gallon tank fueling the Arizona. The reality of what happened there really settled in. After Pearl Harbor we went back to Diamond Head to see the monument the huge crater. I started up the trail to the top of the crater with my reluctant family members. We were all wearing flip flops. Laura stayed behind and my dad I kept going. There's something about starting a hike and needing to finish it. We ascended 400ft up a windy switchback that scaled the inside lip of the crater and after a HUGE flight of stairs, we finally got to the top to see an amazing view of Waikiki. Good decision, I thought.

That night we ate at Tiki's... a seafood bar and grill located on Waikiki beach.

Day five:

We left our hotel at 6:45am and traveled to LA, where we had a four hour layover... I don't remember much... except the football game that everyone assembled to watch. We touched down in Salt Lake around 10pm. LONG day. But so worth it.

I'm so lucky to have a dad that not only enjoys spending time with me, but enjoys traveling with me enough to treat me to wonderful, memorable trips. He said Hawaii would be hard to top, but honestly, it doesn't matter where we go. These trips are always fantastic.

These are just pictures from my phone. The REAL pictures from my camera are here on flickr.

Bear Lake

The Trent's first Bear Lake trip was this past weekend. It couldn't have been better. We stayed at the KOA campground with Jen and Teagan. KOA's are GREAT. I've never stayed on an "organized" campground before, and the balance between sleeping in a tent enclosed by a fence, and between roughing it outside with a bathroom complete with flushing toilet and warm shower- made me completely comfortable. I love them. However, next time I wouldn't mind pitching the tent in a forest without the loud neighbors...

We spent our time with the super-fun Lamoreaux Family. We had dinner the first night there with many of them at Cafe Sabor. I'll spare the Cafe Sabor any embarrassment and just say they had an 'off night.' But we had some fun conversations and ate some reasonably good mexican food. Just be sure to never ask for a vegetarian mean and expect that they didn't just pull the chicken out of the already pre-made pasta.... Or expect there to be napkins and silverware for you. Or menus. But a nice night for friends and family to have a god time.

The beaches at Bear Lake are great. The water is nice and cool and the kids can reach for a great length of the shoreline. Jack and Teagan had fun playing in the sand and water. Jack could sit on a beach from sun up to sun down, if we let him.

Every one came to hang out at the beach and it was a BEAUTIFUL day, perfect for chilling at the beach and boating. Jen's Uncle Bob was the best host on the lake, he had a great boat, and this awesome raft that Jack, Teagan (and Josh) played around with at the beach while the others were out on the lake.

It's pretty awesome that Jen and I have been friends for 28 years and still get along swimmingly....

(I chose wisely when I picked my husband..)

This was Jack's first time boating! He was nervous about it, but I reassured him that because I know him best, I knew he'd like it. And I was of course right. But it took just a short w

hile for him to shake his nerves off, he had a few funny faces on and I took a lot of pictures of him just because every time I looked at him he had a new expression, and they were so raw it was like seeing exactly how he was feeling spelled out on his face. Cute thing.

He loved riding on the boat, and he was fine with going fast as long as one of us was sitting with him. He'd often come crawl on my lap and wrap my arms around his little life vest. It's so strange because sometimes Jack is so fearless and brave, and at times where I expect him to be just fine he suddenly has this vulnerability and gets so shy. It's very unlike him. But once you get him out there and going he perks up.

The best was when we started wake boarding and Jen got up immediately and was perfectly gliding behind the boat. Jack was SO impressed with Josh's skills, he was cheering him on telling him how well he was doing and how AWESOME he was. When I went out (I haven't tried to wake board for ten years, and didn't even succeed those ten years ago...) I finally got up after 5 or 6 tries and Jack watched me crash every time. I was fine, the crashes weren't TOO rough, but when I got back in Jack told me he didn't think I was cut out for this sport.

He wasn't beaming with pride like he was when Josh got back in the boat. Then Jen tried wake surfing, something I've never seen (thus making me feel REALLY old..) but it was quite awkward and tricky. Not to mention the water was getting choppy and making it more difficult. But Jen kept falling down and Jack turned to me and said "That looks like YOU, Mom!" Then of course, Josh tried it, got up instantly and then cruised around and made it seem like he was almost bored. He grew up surfing so Jen and I didn't let it get us too upset.

I'm glad Josh had so much fun, this is stuff he should be doing more often. Jack too. The water in Bear Lake is usually pretty cold (so I'm told,) but this year it was so nice. Even Jack jumped in so he could see if he would 'really float' in his life vest. He didn't turn blue, which is a great indicator the water is a decent temperature. I'm really proud of myself for finally standing up on a wakeboard. I've had a fear of water sports, and after telling Jack that he couldn't say he didn't like boating until he tried it, Jack told me I could say I didn't like wake boarding until I tried it. He was right.

Then came the part for tubing. This was another thing that I thought once Jack did it, he was gonna LOVE it. We got him onto the raft without any issue (I threw the "you can't say you don't like it till you try it" thing RIGHT BACK AT him.) But when Bob gave Jack the signals to "slow down" or "go faster" Jack took control on the raft and kept giving Bob a thumbs down. After about 1 minute Jack started yelling "We're done, Bob! We're Done!" It was pretty funny. Not to mention the expression on his face.

On the last day, we went to Minnetonka Cave, a pretty sweet cave only about 20 minutes away that drops 60 degrees once you get inside. After being yanked around by a boat and crashing quite a few times, my muscles weren't too stoked about the 888 steps going up and down this cave, but I actually handled it quite well, not to mention Jack, who was probably low oxygen at that elevation. He did great and had a good time.

Jen and Teagan had already done the cave before but let us in on the little secret that at the end of the cave (3000 ft in) they shut the lights off. It is definitely the darkest dark you have ever seen. With that cold temperature and extreme darkness... I could sleep like a baby in there. We had a great hike in and a great hike out, the tour guide sang some sweet chamber music in the "ballroom" on the way out, then showed us a baby bat at the opening of the cave. All very interesting for parents and children alike.

I only post this picture of Jack the look on his face is that of some rabid creature we could have run into in these woods. He was wired and tired all at the same time.

This is was such a fun trip and Bear Lake is such an awesome place (I had 3 raspberry shakes...) we will certainly be going back again... and we'll be dragging all of you with us :)

Where there's a Flo there's a way..

A long, long time ago, our family took a trip to Florida with Josh's entire immediate family and all their children. I spoke of posting about it here, but sadly, was too intimidated to document this week long trip to a place I'd never been. There were 1200 pictures, many days in the sun, sporadic outings to various spots near West Palm Beach..... and I just couldn't bring myself to narrow it down to one blog post.

However, my father-in-law made a point to remind me that I hadn't finished what I started, and I needed to follow through with my promises. So here we go.

Toward the end of June, we flew out to West Palm Beach and met up with Larry, Mayetta, Tasha, Derek, Lori and Bruce.... and everyone's offspring. The resort was beautiful and the air was thick with smells of the ocean that was just a boardwalk away from our swimming pool.

Jack had a plethora of cousins to play with. He had so much fun and could name them all for you. All 9 of them. They ran back and forth from swimming pools to rooms, and playgrounds to the beach and really kept themselves busy.

I was asked to take a family picture, so I did what I could, and we came out with a few. Not to mention one of the very few pictures of our own little family..

There were many beautiful things around us. It was fun to have the lenses I did, and take such great shots.

Each and every day was spent at the pool. The extreme humidity and heat combined- practically mandated it. But it was a really nice pool and we always had a place to gather. It was great. Plus the resort provided lots of fun activities, like for example the Magic Show, which was truly hilarious.

It was Mayetta's Birthday on the 24th, and all the adults got to go to a nice dinner, while a couple of teenage strangers watch all 10 of our children. It was wonderful.

We got out of the Resort one day to go to a Water Park, my first actual waterpark experience. Jack was very hesitant at first, but once I pushed him down the slide and he saw how much fun it was, he was thrilled and couldn't stop going up and down repeatedly. These are my brother-in-laws... posing for next years calendar.

We rented a Kayak for an hour or so and took turns taking it out, which was fun.

All in all, it was a great trip, and a fun time to get to know Josh's family better. We are grateful that his parents gave us the opportunity to have such a fun time and enjoy each other's company.

Till next year!