mainland or bust...

in july the kids and i packed up and headed across the pacific for a long 3 week visit with family. i can't even count how many times we have made this trip in the past 4 years, we are pretty much professionals. i always feel like supermom when we arrive at our destination and this trip was no different. i am supermom. 

 

flying out of kona.  

 

here we are waiting in a long line for our rental car. thanks to some very nice people along the way, we got off the plane, thru baggage claim, on the shuttle, off the shuttle, and into the very long line without *much* hassle. as i was waiting in line i realized i had forgot to get coen's booster seat from baggage claim. i just totally spaced it. gah! i called wes, who called alaska air and they told me to just drive up after i got my car and call them. those sweet ladies ran it right out to me. bless them.

long story short we flew into oakland. our dear friends from hawaii were in Oakland visiting their family, so we crashed at their house for the night and then headed up to oregon the next day. of course we hung out and had some fun together first.

 

good story:

when we got to our friends house they so kindly parked the car for me so i could unload the sleepy kids. well, coen woke up at 2am screaming from ear pain. i planned for this, being that we all had head colds. but all my meds were in my carry on that was in  the car and i had no idea where it was parked. so i told coen to just wait in bed and i would go find the car. so i ran downstairs and found the keys, and the ran outside and up and down the street with no luck. worried the kids might be howling for me, i went back inside. i returned to coen back asleep, so i decided to let it go. about 30 minutes later he woke up screaming again. so i decided i would have to wake up someone to tell me where the car is. once i knew the location of the car, i went back out. but this time the front door slammed behind me and locked! ah! coen was upstairs waiting for me, so i had to yell for him from outside to come down and open the door. thankfully that kids has superhuman hearing. he opened the door, and then i ran out into the neighborhood and got the bag. whew! exciting night in Oakland.

 



 

the kids were such good travelers. we got caught up in crazy traffic and it added a couple hours onto our drive. i think it took us about 8 hours total. AND, we only made one real stop at starbucks. we made a nascar fast stop for gas, but it hardly counts.

 

the kids were crazy wild when we got to grandmas house. coen just stripped off all his clothes and started running laps around the house. i don't know why. but we finally got them settled down and they woke up the next morning (really late morning, lazy hawaiians) to snuggles and rock painting. making all the travel totally and completely worth it.

fish-on!

 

last summer my dad took coen out fishing on klamath lake. it was a game changer for coen. he was totally and completely obsessed from that moment on. they caught a big fish that day, and coen loved every minute of it. well this year papa promised that they would go back and do the best they could to catch another big one.  coen slept over the night before, and you can see he was still sporting his macaroni necklace and face paint from the children's festival. they woke up super duper early, like 4:30am, to get up to the lake before it got to hot. it was about 8am when i awoke to phone call with a very excited little boy telling me, "mama we got a big fish!"  i would place a bet that coen was the cutest little fisherman on the whole lake. but then again, i am pretty biased. thanks papa john for the great trip and huge memories!

 

christmas in oregon!

we spent Christmas in Oregon with all of my family. it was magical and busy and a little bit of kid chaos. coen's big santa gift was a kindle fire, and marin's was a wooden doll pram. having all the kids together was the bestest part of the whole holiday.

 

fish on!

while we were in oregon my dad and his cousin took coen fishing out on klamath lake. no joke, coen caught a huge trout. like the biggest. on a tiny kid pole! that night coen woke me up twice to tell me that he was, "just dreaming about fish mama."

 

and so it begins....