Thank God I'm a Country Girl

My dad's dad has a large piece of land down the road from his house that has a little house and a large pond. We have been going there my whole life for family get togethers, and Bella had never been before. So for my granddad's birthday the whole family went out there to celebrate. There is a huge tree out front of the house with a couple of swings on it. Swinging is one of Bella's favorite things so she spent a lot of time having me or Grandpa swinging her.

Isabella loved sitting at this little picnic table with her cousins to eat. She found a new favorite snack - strawberries covered in whipped cream. This was her third serving.


After eating, we went down to the pier and fished for a while. Uncle Jared showed Bella how to hold the pole and reel in a fish. They caught several little brim that we had to throw back. My mom was showing her the worms and she would touch them and then just squeal! It was pretty funny.


My dad was the only one that caught anything worth keeping. A big 'ol catfish!


This was the first day in Isabella's entire life that I did not put her down for a nap. I kept thinking I would, but she was having such a blast so I just let her play. About 6:30 mom started kind of holding and rocking her and she just passed out! We put her down in my cousin's babies pack n play that she had out on the porch.


After she woke up we got in the car and left. That is when she started getting cranky. The funniest part is that as we were heading out she started crying that she wanted 'sweet milk' from Starbucks. She loves those Horizon Vanilla milks so I usually get her one when we go to Starbucks. So we are in the middle of nowhere in East Texas, probably 100 miles from a Starbucks and my 2 year old is crying in the back seat "Starbucks! Want Starbucks!" Haha. Ohhh I am raising a city girl. Note to self - take more trips to granddad's farm!

Hawaii: Maui

After the traffic and busy pace of Oahu, we were very relieved to get to Maui. It is absolutely beautiful and a much slower pace. We were also there in off season, so we had no traffic or anything. Not sure if it is usually like that.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. It was a beautiful resort. It is kind of set up on a hill away from the beach and you walk down this path to get to the beach and restaurant.

I had never stayed at a Ritz before, so I was excited and had some pretty high expectations. As soon as we pulled up, the valet says 'Mr and Mrs Trent?'. How do they know that!?! I seriously want to know if someone knows how they figure this out. Do they have the rental car records or something and read our license? It is amazing to me.

When we get to the front desk, same thing. They know who we are and tell us we have been upgraded to a suite. Yea! When the bell boy took us to our room he gave us the tour and I had to try to stay cool so as not to show myself as a Ritz newbie, but I wanted to be like 'Holy Moly!' The room was bigger than my first apartment. They had a whole bowl of fresh fruit waiting for us as well as a huge assortment of teas and coffee and I was just in heaven.

It was after dark when we got in, so we just ordered some room service and went to bed. The next morning I got up and put on my fancy robe and then went out on to the balcony. Again I wanted to just jump up and down. We had a beautiful view out over the pool and you could see the ocean on the other side of that. It was absolutely beautiful. We decided since it was our first day, and we were still tired from Oahu, we wanted to take it easy and be pampered for the day. So we rented one of the pool cabanas where you have your own fridge, TV, iPod dock, chairs and a waiter to get you whatever you want. It was pretty awesome I have to say. Here was our view from our cabana.


Another perk of going in February is that you are there in the height of whale season. I had kind of just forgotten about this, until that first night. We had reservations at Mama's Fish House, so we headed that way and on the drive out there I just happened to catch a glimpse of this in the water...


If you can't see that very well, it is a whale's tale sticking out of the water. We pulled over and Jason took a bunch of pictures. This whale was just slapping his tale on the water for I swear like 2 or 3 minutes straight. And this is just right off shore! For the rest of our trip, just about anytime you were looking out at the water you would see a whale either jumping out of the water or just a blow hole or something. They were so omnipresent that by the end of the trip you would just be like 'Oh yeah, there is another whale'. Ok, not really, it was pretty exciting every time you saw them, but they were just everywhere!

The second morning we found this little place called the Gazebo. It was this little random place in a little motel on the ocean. We got there right when it opened and still waited an hour for our food. It was worth it. If you go to Maui, eat there. I think it might have been the best meal we had and it was also the cheapest (which isn't saying much for Hawaii - everything is freakin' expensive). While we were eating we could see three whales jumping around. The waitress told us that morning before they opened that one of the whales gave birth! We started watching and you could tell one of the whales was a little baby whale! Crazy stuff.

That afternoon we had a reservation to go ziplining down the side of Haleakala. Right before we got to the point where we were supposed to zipline, we stopped at this restaurant called the Kula Lodge. This picture does not do the view justice. We were basically up on the side of this volcano, and there were all these tiers on the way down to sit at. There was a big wood burning stove for pizzas out there and the weather was kind of cool. I would highly recommend you eat here on your way up Haleakala.

After lunch, we went ziplining. If you have never done this, do it! It was SO much fun. It even started raining half way through, but we didn't care. It was a blast. We were going to go ahead and drive to the top of Haleakala after that, but then it started raining really hard and you could barely see around those curvy roads. We opted not to go careening off the side, and decided to head back to our sunnier resort.

Ahhh, isn't that better?


That night we went to the Old Lahaina luau. It is the oldest one on Maui and I loved it. I am an adventurous eater, so I enjoyed all the interesting food (except the Poi - seriously who likes that stuff?). I also loved all the dancing and the stories. I thought it was great. Jason enjoyed it for one reason only. You get one guess...

Our last full day on Maui, we decided to go exploring some more. I had read about these pools you could find if you really went looking. They were made of lava and the ocean had filled them in. The book I read this in was the only place I found any information on them and I am SO glad we sought them out. It was probably my favorite thing we did. You had to follow very specific instructions to get to them, and we got off the trail a couple times, but finally found them. We were told to look for a 'heart-shaped' pool. We finally came to the top of a cliff and saw this.


It may be hard to see, but the middle pool is kind of a heart shape. You had to kind of scale down the side of a cliff (it wasn't actually as hard as that sounds) and then there were all these little pools. It was the neatest thing. We were the only ones there at first, so we kind of felt like explorers who had discovered something all on our own! After a while a few other people came, but we got some cool pictures of it. This was the view over the side. I mean where is water this blue?


We got the first couple who came down next to take this picture of us. That main pool was probably 10-15 feet deep.

This mountain was the view across from us at the pools. Anyone know what this is called? It is too unique looking not to have a name.


After leaving the pools we kept going around the north part of the island to find this small town that touted it had the 'Best Banana Bread on the Planet!'. There is a part on the map that our rental company gave us that says 'do not take your rental car past this point on the road'. Well, that is where we headed next. The next 2-3 miles around the mountain was a one lane, curvy road. If you could not see around the curve, you just prayed no one else was coming around at the same time. If they were you both slammed on your brakes and whoever had the widest berth would kind of back up and let the other person go. It was exciting (read terrifying) to say the least. But we got our banana bread, as well as some delicious coconut candy, and made it back to our hotel room alive. I don't know if it was the best in the world, but it was certainly tasty.

Our last day we spent shopping in Lahaina, and then took an overnight flight back to Dallas. I honestly was not sure what to expect in going to Hawaii. Maui is my in laws favorite place on the planet, and so I worried it had been built up a little too much. No chance. Maui is amazing. There is SO much to do, and see there, or you can just lay at the pool and enjoy the beautiful scenery. It is so beautiful and the food is so good and the people are friendly and I will definitely be going back one day.

Hawaii: Pearl Harbor

We finally made it to Pearl Harbor. This second morning on Oahu our shuttle arrived right on time. They had our reservation. Everything was a go. The guide on the bus was a wealth of information. He told us all kinds of interesting facts on the way there.

I don't know what I expected for Pearl Harbor. I think in my mind I had it envisioned as a tacky, cheesy tourist attraction. It was nothing of the sort. First off, it is beautifully landscaped. Take a look at these pictures...



Beautiful right? Second, there are so many moving monuments and tributes throughout the memorial. This is one of the submarines. You had to pay extra to see this and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it!


This an anchor recovered from the USS Arizona.


And a bell...


There is also this area that has a ton of plaques with the name of submarines that were lost in WWII. Each plaque had the name of the sub, who the commanding officer was, how many were lost in the attack and then a brief synopsis of what happened, in many cases it is just what they think happened, to that sub and the men on board. At the bottom of each plaque it has a headline saying 'On Eternal Patrol' and then a list of the men's names who were lost at sea. That part was probably the most heartbreaking for me, besides the USS Arizona.

We had a while to look around, then we had tickets to the movie you watch before heading over to the Arizona. It is pretty sad how little knowledge I have about things in history. I mean I guess I know a lot about Germany's involvement in WWII, but I knew next to nothing about Japan's role. I seriously had no idea how powerful they were at that time in history, so this movie we watched was so interesting in recounting what led up to the attack at Pearl Harbor. On a separate note - if you have not read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, read it. It has a lot more information on what went on in the Japanese camps and such as that. SO moving.

After the movie, you get on a ferry and head over here...


I have seen the image of this memorial a million times, so to see it in real life is kind of surreal. You can see the ship right under the water and there is even still oil leaking, just a few drops a day, in to the water from the ship.

Here is one of the smoke stacks that sticks up above water.


A look inside the memorial.



This wall holds the names of all the men on the Arizona.


I have always heard that lines for Pearl Harbor are crazy long, but we never saw any lines. I guess maybe since it was an off time of year. We went to Oahu, mostly just to see Pearl Harbor, so I was glad we did get to go. It was a very interesting and moving memorial.

After that, we got back on the bus and it took us on a tour of downtown Honolulu and then up to the Punch Bowl cemetery. Again, our guide had so much interesting stuff to tell us. We even saw where Obama went to school. Haha.

As soon as we got back to our hotel, we checked out and walked down to the Moana Surfrider hotel Beach Bar to have lunch and a drink. We didn't get to spend any time on Waikiki so we wanted to at least have an hour just sitting looking at the water. We soon had to head out to the airport to catch our plane to Maui. Stay tuned!

Hawaii Trip - Oahu

For Christmas and our birthdays this year, my wonderful in laws sent us on a trip to Hawaii. It is their favorite place and we had never been, so they just really wanted us to go. Since we had never been, we knew we wanted to make at least a quick trip to Oahu and go see Pearl Harbor. So we decided to go to Oahu for two days, then over to Maui for five.

We left one morning and were at our hotel in Oahu by around 5 or so. My first impressions of Honolulu - crowded, trafficky, kind of dirty. It is basically a huge city. When we finally got to our hotel, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was beautiful! We stayed at the Royal Hawaiian right on Waikiki.


It is one of the oldest hotels on Waikiki. Just look at these doors. All the doors in the hotel had these old hand carved Hawaiian style doors.


We went to check in and they gave us leis, cold towels and a welcome drink. Then we headed up to our room where I found these waiting for me!

Did I mention we left on Valentine's Day? Jason thought ahead and called the concierge to arrange to have these waiting for me!

That night we went to eat at this Sicilain restaurant, Taormina. I had this delicious seafood pasta that reminded me of a dish I had eaten in Cinque Terre on our trip to Italy. It was divine! After dinner we crashed, knowing we had to get up at like 5 the next morning to make our tour to Pearl Harbor!

The next morning we went to wait for our shuttle to Pearl Harbor. I had called the night before to double check everything, where to wait, which bus we were on, etc. Well, when our bus gets there, they have no record of us. Mind you I have already paid for this excursion and everything. We sit on the bus for a while trying to figure out what the deal is. I call the company I had booked through and while I am sitting there on hold, the driver tells us we have to get off the bus! He says they can't wait anymore and we have to leave. Now readers, if you have never been kicked off a tour bus with a group of people staring at you, I will just let you know. IT IS HUMILIATING! The second I stepped off the bus, the company I was on hold for picked up and I just started crying in to the phone. That's right. I was that girl. The lady was so nice and tried everything she could think of to get that bus back or to get us on another tour. Unfortunately, ours had been the last one and there were no more for the day. We were leaving at noon the next day, so it would be too late. Did I mention the sole reason we came to Oahu was to see Pearl Harbor?

After some sobbing, deep breaths and realization that I was in Hawaii and should at all costs try to simmer down, we finally worked it out where we would take another tour the next day and change our flight to later in the day to go to Maui. We decided we would just do an extended tour of the North Shore that day instead of the shorter tour we had planned to do the next day.

So we got out our guide book, put down our jeep top, and headed toward the North Shore. We really started at the East shore and basically just drove in a loop around the entire island. Our first stop was the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. You drive in through a cemetery and then come to this breathtaking Buddhist temple.


It almost looks fake it is so beautiful. Here is Jason. =)


Before you enter you are supposed to use this wooden log to bang this huge bell for good luck.


After that, we headed around the shore and stopped to take some pictures of the beaches. If you are a Lost fan, you should know that they filmed a lot of Lost on Oahu. Can't you just see Kate, Jack, Sawyer and Hurley running out of those woods away from the smoke monster?


Here is another beach.


We actually looked up places you could go see where Lost was filmed, but the most obvious was this place. Look familiar?


Yep! That is the camp where the Others lived! It is actually a YMCA camp in the middle of nowhere!

We also got caught in the rain with our top down. We couldn't figure out how to get it back up so Jason would hold it while I drove and looked for a place to stop that was covered. We stopped a few times and tried to get it back up, but those suckers are impossible! After about an hour we found an apartment complex with covered parking so we pulled over. It took us and two passerbys to get the darn thing up and then, you guessed it, it never rained the entire rest of the day. Ugh.

Oh well. We got some shave ice and saw lots of surfers and had a pretty enjoyable day in spite of things. That night we ate somewhere close to the hotel and crashed, knowing we had to get up AGAIN at 5am the next day.

Life

One of my favorite quotes is "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". John Lennon said that.

Well, I have been planning to write in my blog more, but my busy life got in the way lately. Gosh, where are my priorities?

In all seriousness, life has been crazy the last few months. We bought a house and sold our house (in that order), had Christmas, a trip to Hawaii, Bella's birthday (and mine and Jason's in there somewhere), and Jason has been traveling a ton on top of that. So life has been busy and I have been super tired and stressed. I think trying to buy and sell houses at the same time is one of the single most stressful things I have been through in my life. I am definitely glad it is over.

Last week I got to go on a trip to Destin with some of my best friends and it was a seriously nice opportunity to wind down and relax. I feel like we are finally moved in to our house, now we just have to buy more things to fill it up!

Anyway, I say all this to say I apologize for not blogging more, and I really am going to try to do better. I have several blogs I will be posting in quick succession here shortly, so I hope you enjoy!