Summer travels...Thoughts of Hawaii

We had a fabulous time in Hawaii and since it was no extra cost in airfare to stop there on our way to Japan, I figured we might as well since the kids have never been there and they give us grief when we go.  Might have been a mistake since they loved it so much!

Loved bodysurfing/waves and spent hours in the ocean

Khalif walking out into the street in front of two cars and Ainsley saving him

Crappy hotel but nice view

Eating Safeway food and loving it-chicken strips

Smells in the hotel 

Valet parking

Loved looking at the turtles 

Kids trip to ABC store by themselves and starting a load of laundry 

Seeing the manta rays and blow hole

Cats and mongoose everywhere at Hanauma Bay (only one friendly cat)

Waiamanalo beach, peaceful and quiet, but Jellyfish!  Khalif got stung first and then Ainsley but hers was not nearly as bad

Feeding the fish bread and snorkeling with those crazy fish

Playing the game floppy fish

Surfing-easier than expected 

Beauty of Hawaii/sunset/blue water

Wrong turn and grumpy mom

Warm rain while getting ready to surf

Warm ocean 

No need for a pool 

Glass elevator 

The lagoon (crowded beaches in Waikiki)

Long waterway and people canoeing 

Stressful trip to the airport....made it only five minutes before boarding

Being awoken out of a dead sleep on the plane by Khalif who waited too long to get to the bathroom and was running in place while waiting in line, but thankfully made it. 

In awe that every seat had their own t.v.  Flights were a piece of cake!

 Jellyfish sting on Khalif's leg

Bodysurfing!

Manta rays and blowhole

Trying to bodysurf!

Surfing

Amazing turtles

 Where we stayed...

High Trek Adventures

This is a new ropes course in Everett.  I was surprised all the kids wanted to do it, especially Reggie since he is afraid of heights.  Everyone did great!  The boys (except Spencer) were ready to be done earlier...Khalif may have decided he doesn't like heights.  It was kind of a bummer because they stopped before they made it to the zip line and it was a pretty mild zip line, so it would have been good for a first try.  It was quite a workout for me because I had to clip the lines of the shorter kids on and off and make sure we were not holding up others.  It was very enjoyable though and I would totally do it again :)

Conquering his fear!

Zip line!

4th of July

Lake Cavanaugh parade

Maggie and Ainsley getting ready for nail painting on the 4th.  Their plan was to ask for a donation, but they were to busy to give anyone a manicure.  Too bad....they could have made a little money!

 First and only customers.  They were free since they were just testing.

Lots of playing in the water because the weather was great!  The lake was strangely quiet, maybe because it was a Tuesday.  We livened it up with some tubing!

 16,000 firecracker roll.  I love Cadia's reaction!

Little pyros!  Not so little anymore....

Tubing and boat issues

The kids FINALLY got into a water sport, well, almost a water sport.  Tubing!!!  They actually like going fast and Reggie and Spencer even fell out a couple times and they wanted to do it again!  Maggie and Khalif were very nervous to go fast, so they went slow for a long time, but by the end of the summer, Khalif had no partner because Maggie was going fast too!  Unfortunately, Ryan ran the boat out of gas because the guy who got the boat ready for summer didn't fix the gas gauge as requested and Ryan didn't listen to my dad about putting more in.  Now know that when the fuel pump doesn't get gas it burns up, so no worky.  The bigger problem was finding a replacement since the boat was made in 1994 and the first kit we tried from Mastercraft didn't work and the kids were so disappointed.  What do you do when you don't have a boat to pull the kids, you use the party boat!  It wasn't quite as fast and somehow grandma, Aunt Jeanne, Dad and Liha (it was happy hour on the party boat so there was definitely some alcohol involved!) ended up going and it was a riot, until we went over a big wave and then that boat lost all speed.  The lower unit went out and that was a much more expensive fix.
Liha, Ainsley and grandpa video:  to view click (arrtwade.blogspot.com)

  Khalif's 10 seconds of speed

Ainsley, Spencer and Reggie video

Looking for the grandma/Aunt Jeanne pics.  I will post when the Rinehardts locate them.  Only 1 picture...video is on Facebook and I can't seem to copy it, but here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/irene.schroers/videos/10211924259735701/.  It was fun!

This happened right before our trip, so mom worked hard to find a fix.  Every lead seemed to dead end until she found a mechanic in Arlington who got a completely different fuel pump and got the appropriate connectors, so we were up and running the day after we got back.  The kids were soooo excited and we spent hours and hours tubing for the rest of the summer!

1st half of the summer

Lots of much deserved relaxation

 Jump off the dock onto the floatie game.  Lots of time spent perfecting this!

 Party boat rides.  This was before it warmed up

 Making pizza for dinner.  I decided it would be a good time for the older two to do some meal planning and cooking since we have a little more time in the summer and they really should know how to cook for themselves.  It didn't go over well, you would have thought I was making them shovel crap, but it was a bit better once they accepted it.  Ainsley isn't a big fan of cooking taco's...said they tasted different after seeing the raw meat.  Reggie enjoyed bbq'ing quite a bit and took the easiest meals he could.

 Biking around the lake

 Reggie/Ryan time at the races

 Playing in the sand.  Lots of that this summer

 I had to take a picture.  He assured me it is to rehabilitate his partial knee replacement.  I told him its o.k. to continue and be healthy by exercising!!!

 Regal movie day!  My kids only ate 3 tubs of popcorn!

 Hmmm.   A mystery.  Mom and I were driving and an owl flew over which was amazing and then I looked down and saw this on the window.  A drop from the owl?  Or a crawl out from the engine where it was living?  I was going to pull over and put the wiper on to get rid of it but mom flipped the wiper wand before I pulled over and it took flight over the top of the car, ha ha!

We also had some visitors in our pantry.  After we figured it out, they were quickly caught and the family of five is no longer snacking on all our food!  They seemed to really enjoy pumpkin seeds.

 Splash wars.  Lots of this and tag

 Warming up and resting

 Trampoline time!  Many, many hours spent on this.  Grandma surprised the kids with a trampoline this summer and it was so much fun for all the kids.  Stella and Ruby came over a lot and they had fun talking about Harry Potter, tubing and playing in the water

Happy birthday Dad!

Drive to Washington

Mt. Shasta with more snow than I have ever seen!

We decided to detour on our way to Washington this year.  I have always wanted to go to Crater Lake, so that was our first stop.  We were very surprised to see all the snow in June!  It wasn't just a little snow, there were several feet and it was cold.  The scenery was amazing...starting with the pull-off where you can see how the flow of material and steam carved out a deep ravine and then the lake.  We watched the video at the visitor center, so we learned a bit about how it was formed and why it is so unique.  Ainsley was complaining much of the time...boring....cold.  I get it, but hopefully, someday they will appreciate it.

We left there a bit later than I thought and it was a long drive to the hotel near Portland.  Ryan was working the next day and I requested a hotel near I-5 since I knew we would be tired from our long day, but he decided to book a hotel near where he was going to work.  It was a bad idea.  We were toast from the car ride, listening to Ainsley push Khalif's buttons and then him yelling at her in irritation.  Then it went from that to Ainsley laughing at him for miles.  It was a very unpleasant few hours and when we finally got to the hotel, 45 minutes west of I-5 they didn't have his reservation.  Or they did, but it was at another hotel a few miles away.  Unfortunately, he was trying to be efficient and unloaded the car since the check-in line was long, so we loaded up the car and headed to the other hotel.  It was almost 9 o'clock by this time, well past Khalif's bed time.  We arrived at the other hotel and Ryan couldn't find his wallet.  He left it at the front desk at the first hotel!  So, we had to go back.  I was laughing a bit at this point because it was such a mess, but Ryan didn't think it was so funny.  It was nearly 10 by the time everyone was in bed and I told the kids if the clock said anything before 8, to close their eyes and go back to sleep.  This has been a real challenge for the boys, so I wasn't optimistic, but I woke up at 8:00 and it was quiet.  Ryan snuck out at 7 am.  Unfortunately, this hotel had a frosted glass barn door for the bathroom, so I couldn't go to the bathroom without waking up everyone, so I laid in bed and waited and waited.  Finally, at 8:45 I had to get up and sure enough the light woke everyone up moments later.  That was o.k. because we had to get down to breakfast before it ended.  So, I now know that they can sleep in!!!  After breakfast, I had a long talk with them about the day before and that life wasn't all about them anymore...mom and dad get to do things that they enjoy and they will tag along with positive attitudes.  And, we will be kind and respect one another and not have anymore of their nonsense.  They apologized and things were definitely better, but that could have been because we left there and went to Great Wolf Lodge and had an amazing time on the water slides.

That was the first time that I've had motion sickness from water slides...Ryan too.  It was a good workout and we were happy to be moving after sitting in the car for so long.  They had a wand game that the kids also enjoyed doing, but it is clear that Reggie is hitting his teen years and not interested in doing as much as he used to.  Just wanted to hang out in the room and play video games or read, so we had yet another talk.  It was important to me to get this figured out before the summer started and we went on our trip overseas.  It made for a very rough start to the summer, but I think Reggie accepted the summer reality after about 4 or 5 days.  Not a whole lot that I expected....Reggie had to work out every other day, they had to brush their teeth everyday and Reggie and Ainsley were planning meals and helping prepare them.  I got so much grief for this, but I think it is about time that they start helping and learning to fend for themselves.  They don't have the time when school starts to do this, so summer seemed to be the perfect time.

Wedding!

Anthony and Emily got married on August 5th and it was such a beautiful day, all around!  You can see the happiness on their faces in the pictures below....so happy to have Emily part of our clan!  Don't they look nice all dressed up :)The pastor has preached at the lake before so my mom and dad knew her.  She had a really nice message, different than a lot of weddings and I enjoyed it.  So glad the weather was nice and the venue was just perfect.....they thought of everything.  I'm glad pinterest was not around when I got married.  So many more detail touches which were really neat, but I'm sure a lot of work.  We enjoyed playing Cornhole.  What a great idea to have things for the kids (and adults) to do outside :)

 Grandma and Ainsley ripping up the dance floor!

 I have no idea what was going on here!

It was the kids first wedding and I'm not sure they knew what to expect, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and the food was amazing!  Ainsley had a particular hairstyle she wanted (a bow made out of hair) and it was a little tricky for me to get it just right, but I think it turned out o.k.

Don't they look nice all dressed up :)