playgrounds!

There are 6 playgrounds IN our neighborhood. We had to go find them all. Here's number 1: nothing too special, but we did find a dead centipede, so that was exciting!

Number 2: It has that padded rubber ground, which I like, but no shade cover.

Number 3: This one is fenced in, and has fake grass on the ground. This is the best one for toddlers.

Number 4: This one is also fenced in, but has more challenging equipment, so the big kids liked this one better that the last one.

Number 5 and 6 are together. Number 5 is a splash pad, with really FUN equipment. Number 6 is just behind it, and clearly the newest and most up to date equipment. The kids love this playground the best. There is SO much to do. We can walk or ride our bikes to all of these. Seriously, I love where we live.

The climbing trees here are amazing. Here are 2 different ones right near our house.

neighborhood beach

We live in a gated community here and LOVE it. We walk to the beach and pick flowers from the plumeria trees. Since our beach is kind of private, we rarely have to compete for space. After our first night here, we walked to the beach, and fell in love. It was still very early in the morning, but the water was warm and so beautiful.  There are little rock jetties to prevent the waves from getting too big on the beach, which makes it really nice for little swimmers. 

I love this picture of us. We are so tired, and exhausted, but HAPPY, so so happy. I can't believe we live here. It's just what we wanted.

jet lag

Sully knows first hand, that jet lag is a real thing.  Poor thing. He would fall asleep almost everywhere we went. Here we are at a restaurant (Aloha Salads - my new favorite place to eat, it's so good!) and he couldn't handle it. He slept through the whole meal.  After a few days, everyone was all caught up feeling much better.

MOVING!

In this family, we never do a normal move, where you pack up, you drive to the new place, unpack and then you live there. We spent several days traveling and visiting in lots of different places before actually getting to this point. On the 4th of July, we left Utah to go to Las Vegas where we stayed the night. We saw lots of beautiful fireworks while we drove, which made the drive more tolerable. 

July 5th, we left early in the morning (after jumping on the beds - of course), to drive to L.A. When we got there, I rearranged the carry-ons and backpacks and laid out the outfits for the morning. Lee and Stacy and Sakina joined us there with all the boxes that we had sent ahead with Lee in his big truck. It was such a HUGE help to have them bring all the boxes and Sakina. Grandma took the kids to the rooftop pool while I finished up the last few things.

The kids slept pretty well that night on their beds on the floor. They were happy that this was the LAST day before the move! No more hotels for a while!

Early in the morning on July 6th, Lee and Matix and I took Sakina to the airport to get her on the plane. Just a few days before, we were told that she actually could NOT fly with us on our flight, it was a panicked hour or so while we called and changed plans and figured out what to do, but everything worked out perfectly, and we actually saved money on her new flight. She flew with the "Pet Safe" flight, and had her own seat - still in her cage though. Matix was very nervous about sending Sakina on a plane without us. He cried. He also wanted to be in charge of walking her and feeding her ice chips to keep her calm.

She had to be under 150 pounds (including her kennel) to be able to fly, she was 145.5! That was cutting it close!

Had flown on the original flight, the temperature would have been looked at, since was considered extra large cargo, and would be under the plane. They would average the temperature of the the sending AND receiving locations and could not be above 85 degrees. We arrived at 11:45am, meaning, the temperatures they were looking at were 84.5 degrees (averaging 11:00 and 12:00 temps for Honolulu). Thankfully with the new flight, it didn't matter.

Watching the planes come in and out while we waited, made us more and more anxious. We were all SO excited!

Somehow I didn't get any pictures during the 5 hour flight from L.A. to Honolulu, but the kids did great! I had 2 kids in my row, and Paul and 2 in his row. Each seat had an iPad type device, and the kids watched movies and played games and had a great time. I also packed their backpacks with books, and little activities to have in case they needed them. Each of them took a little nap at some point during the flights, and they switched their seats fairly often as well. I am so proud of my well-seasoned travelers!  We got to the airport, got all our boxes and bags, and our driver took us to a rental van for me to get Sakina, while Paul took the kids home.

Getting Sakina went really smoothly, to my happy surprise. Jen, the most amazing pet customs paperwork liaison at Pearland Pet Health Center in Texas, got all of Sakina's paperwork (more than 25 pages of it) in perfect order, and sent it all in on time, and even called ahead (as did I) to make sure everything was ready for us to get her from the airport without having to put her in quarantine. 2 people ahead of me were turned away when they attempted to get their pets, but when I went to get her, there were no issues at all. It was awesome.  Sakina got off the plane just fine and she still had fresh ice chips. She was really happy to see me and get to our new home. Sakina thinks it's too hot here.

Lagoon

We went to Lagoon, an amusement park in Utah with some of the cousins. It was a seriously fun way to end our time in Utah. The little kids were pretty brave and went on lots of rides that I thought might be too scary for them, but the big boys were more nervous than I thought they would be and didn't go on lots of rides that I thought they would love. We picnicked before we went on the rides.

Sully wanted to go on every ride that he was tall enough for. He made terrible faces and screams the whole ride, and then said he loved it, almost every time.

Sully went on the Ladybug Drop ride, where they bring you up high and drop you down, and then repeat. It was probably about 30 feet high, and he wanted to ride with Baylee. She took good care of him, but he was NOT happy during the ride. Poor thing.

There were lots of adults and even more kids. So we all took turns with everyone else's kids. It was really fun. Looking back through these pictures, Matix said this was the best day of his whole life. He is a happy boy, and says that a lot, but still sweet.

We went on a ride with the steepest drop, so steep in fact that instead of going straight down, it actually inverts you a bit. It was crazy scary, and the tallest ride in the park, but since Kyson could do it, we had to try it out. It was awful and fun at the same time. I'm glad I tried it.

More rides. We were only there for a couple hours, but we packed it full of fun! Thanks for the awesome time everyone! :)