The Four Seasons

 

Charlie and I are fully aware that when we go on a trip like this it may very well be the last one in a LONG time so we always splurge a little (or maybe a lot) and try our best to REALLY enjoy ourselves.  Our biggest splurge on this trip was that we stayed at The Four Seasons hotel while we were on Maui. 

 

Charlie and I both agree that it was worth every dime.  We both spent most of our time there just shaking our heads in disbelief of the beauty of this resort and the AMAZING customer service.  We had a hard time even wanting to leave to go do things....it was just that good.  If you ever want an opportunity to be treated like a queen I highly suggest you give this place a try.

 

We knew we were in for a pleasant stay when we pulled up with our car and were greeted by no less than 3 staff member that greeted us with leis and whisked us off to the front desk and took care of all of our luggage for us.

From the time we reached the front desk until the second we checked out we were from then on greeted by every staff member by name.  While checking in we were given heated towels to wipe our hands off and some of the best lemonade and pineapple skewers to munch on.  As far as making a good first impression....these people have this down to a science.

 

 

We were then taken to our room.  From the second we walked in the door I knew I never wanted to leave.  Let me just name just a few of the amenities of this place:  robes and slippers, the best pillows and bedding I have ever slept on, closet lights that turn on automatically when  you open the doors, homemade marshmallows, L'Occitane bath products which I am pretty sure is french for "Hi, am expensive and fabulous!", built in sound system and a bathroom bigger than even my own.

Oh, and the breakfast buffet...don't even get me started.  Let's just say they had every food you could possibly imagine and I ate the best bacon in the world every single day I was there.  In fact, we ate so much breakfast each day that we never ate lunch even one day on our trip.  I still managed to gain 5 pounds but every delicious bite was well worth every bacony pound I put on.

 

Have I convinced you yet that you MUST go here one day?  If not, keep reading.  I am pretty sure that I have been spoiled for life and any hotel after this, no matter how nice is going to pale in comparison to this place.

This was the garden view from our room.  To afford an ocean view would have left us bankrupt but I assure you the grounds here are breathtaking and every room has a good view as far as I am concerned.

  Here is a view from one of the pools.  Yes, one of the pools.  There is also a kids pool and an adults only pool just in case the whole 2 kids that were there were getting on your nerves. 

 

One of the best parts about the pools again, was the service.  They had pool people assigned to each small section and as soon as they see you walking towards a chair they coming running down to set your chair up with towels and get you anything you may need. 

 

They also come around all day and bring you ice water, and cold towels, and muffins, and pineapple, and freezy pops and this is where I am not joking people...they even have chilled bottles of Evian water that is in an aerosol can and they come and mist you down when you look like you are getting a little too warm from the sun.  I honestly feel like laughing even typing this, that is how ridiculously nice the service was.  I mean if getting misted down with Evian while you lay in your cabana staring out at the beach after a hard day of reading, swimming and napping while listening to the waves does not make you feel like a queen....I don't know what would. 

What made us laugh was that we kept looking around at everyone else to see if they were as amazed by this place as we were.  Surprisingly they all seemed like this was just normal life.  We were also astonished to say that the average age of the people staying there was maybe 36.  And as if I don't already feel uncomfortable in a bathing suit it did not help that every other woman there was tan as could be and all weighed less than 120 pounds.  No joke...not one.  Charlie and I were for sure a little out of our league with this group and we were the ones that looked like the old out of shape couple. 

 

One of the things we really loved were the ocean front cabanas.  They have these cabanas that look right out to the ocean but they have hedges all around them so they are totally private.  We spent hours and hours here just napping and reading and watching the ocean.  It was so relaxing.

  Our first night in Maui we stayed at the hotel and ate at Spago which is a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and this was our view.  Really?  I can't even believe I was so lucky.  The food was delicious and I think I gained 3 pounds there just from the amazing bread.  I never knew I could get so excited over bread. 

 

So there you have it.  My official stamp of approval to anyone who ever wants to stay here.  We loved every stinkin' second and will dream of this place for years to come!

Pearl Harbor

 

Our first official vacation day we went to visit the USS Arizona Memorial as well as touring the USS Missouri battleship.  I am glad we took the time to go visit here as it was very different than anything else we did on our trip.  The memorial itself was simple and beautiful.  I found this aerial photo of the memorial where you can get a better sense of what lies beneath the memorial.

 

 Here is the wall of names of the people that were killed aboard the Arizona on December 7, 1941.  I loved the way this beautiful window let light into the room. 

This memorial was peaceful as everyone is quiet and respectful.  It was a moving experience to be there.  Below you can see the oil that is still leaking from the ship, they call it the "sailor's tears".

One of the most interesting things was that we happened to be there on a day when they would be burying one of the survivors with the ship.  There were few survivors but the ones that did survive are able to be buried back with their ship and their shipmates if they so choose.  The picture of the box below shows the survivors that have passed away since then that have returned to be buried here.  The red white and blue tape is covering the name of the man being buried that day with his ship.  I think they said that there are only around 17 remaining survivors.

Once we left Pearl Harbor we headed to visit the USS Missouri which is docked right across from the memorial.  We had a great tour guide who shared with us many interesting facts about this ship.

This ship is huge and it is hard to look at a picture and have any concept of it's size.  Wandering around inside makes me wonder how anyone knew where anything was.  They actually have a full dentist office inside.  I guess I've never thought about having your teeth fixed while on a battleship but it was sure cool to see.

This ship served in World War II as well as the Korean War and the Gulf War until it came to it's final resting place here in 1998.  Just one of the guns that Charlie is standing by weighs as much as a space shuttle and shoots bullets that weigh as much as a car that can hit a target with pin point precision 25 miles away!  Pretty darn amazing.

 

 

 

One of the coolest parts for me was getting to stand on this spot.  This is where the table was that they signed the instrument of final surrender that brought WWII to an end.  So while on this ship you could see the USS Arizona memorial where WWII began for us while standing in the exact spot where WWII was officially over.  Very interesting.

 

Aloha!

We have arrived home from our most relaxing and fabulous trip to Hawaii.  I thought I would give a quick preview of day 1 so that it will keep me going on the rest of the posts.  I will warn you that most of the pictures are of just the beautiful scenery and that my camera and my camera skills struggle to even remotely capture the beauty of what we saw.

 

We were off on a 15 hour day of travel getting up at 4 A.M. and LOVING every second of it.  It is amazing how wonderful simple things like driving in a car or flying on a plane can be as just 2 adults sans 5 kiddos.  We were in heaven! 

We arrived at the Turtle Bay Resort very tired that evening but were thrilled at the beauty of where we stayed.  We originally had booked a hotel right in downtown Honolulu but switched to this hotel on the opposite side of  the island and boy am I glad we did. 

 

Honolulu is a big busy city and felt nothing like what I wanted Hawaii to feel like.  The north shore however was far less busy and it was beautiful and tropical and everything we were hoping for.  A little bit longer of a drive, but well worth every scenic second.  Plus, we rented a convertible so we put the top down and just sucked in huge deep breaths of clean beautiful Hawaiian air. 

Ahhhhh...relaxation here we come!

 This was our resort and below is the view from our room.  We slept with our balcony doors open the two nights we were there and fell asleep and awoke to the sounds of waves breaking on the beach.  This hotel is as close to the water as you can get.  In fact, due to changes in building codes if this hotel were to be built today it could never be built as close to the water as it is. 

Going to this resort is awesome because you just walk right in.  No doors, no turnstile thingys....it is just all open to nature.  I can't even imagine living somewhere that it is so nice all year round that you don't even need a door!

Because of the time change we were pretty much up by 4 A.M. every morning.  I think the latest we slept was until 6:30 and one day we were even up and at it at 2:30 in the morning.  Don't worry, there were plenty of pool side naps and early bedtimes each  night.  We watched the sunrise each day and it was wonderful.

 

 

Here we are early morning on our first day of vacation watching the sun come up.  The moon and the stars were still out when we got to the beach. 

 

 

The rest of the shots are just from our sunrise that day.  There are many more of these to come.  I am missing it all already!

 

Chicago visit

I've said it before but I can't say it enough.  We LOVE having some family within driving distance to be able to go visit once in awhile.  All of our other family require 7 airline tickets for us to see so a 5-6 hour drive is a breeze for us.

We took the week of the 4th to go visit Grandma and Grandpa and spend some time with some cousins as well.  Ross and Diane...please never move!!!!

I absolutely adore this picture.  This is typically where you will find grandpa in the chair with one of the grand kids telling them all a story about "Jake and John" and it always ends up in a tickle fight with hysterical laughter.

 The week we were there it was hot....like really hot.  All of our outdoor plans had to be switched to indoor plans or involve water of some kind.  We found some fun new places and the kids had the time of their lives.

We found a place called airtastic that was filled with inflatables.  The kids had so much fun we went twice while we were there.

 We watched fireworks with the family and we even had our very own secluded viewing spot right under the fireworks.  And let me tell you, to find a secluded spot to watch fireworks in Naperville is unheard of.  I won't reveal our spot ever because I would hate for the secret to get out but it was a PERFECT night.

 Here is where the water comes in.  We had to get a bit creative since it was so hot and grandpa had a great idea.  He came up with a game of swords and shields.  Basically it is grandpa attacking kids with a hose while they do their best to defend themselves hiding behind sleds and buckets.  They were out there forever and had such a great time.  Good idea grandpa! 

 The bishop of Ross and Diane's ward has a beautiful pool and he very kindly offered for us to be able to come and use it.  When he offered I don't know that he really thought we would come every single day but he saved our vacation.

It was so nice to get out each day and spend some great quality time as family and cool off in this beautiful place.

This is the truck that Logan spent the entire trip playing with.  It is actually grandpas truck from when he was a young boy that his father made for him.  Logan loved it and I have already requested that it is put in the will to give to Logan.  I have a feeling though that this may end up in a battle of the kids just like The Santa!

 We ended our trip with a night of fun at Medieval Times.  The kids had so much fun cheering on the green knight and eating "dragon" with their bare hands.

 At the end of the night Morgan was awarded the Queen of Love and Beauty sash by our green knight and she was so thrilled.  She wore it all the next day and all the way home.

It was another great trip to a place that feels like home to both of us.  We also placed an offer on an investment property while we were there so if it all goes well we may be back sooner rather than later and that is just fine with me!

Field of Dreams

A few weeks ago my kids got to do one of the coolest things ever. 

We have a beautiful baseball field here in our town and  they had a special night for Scouts and their families to have a camp out on the field.  We got to go watch the game as a family that night with some great friends and when the game was done the scouting families got to go and set up their tents right there on the field.  I headed home with Logan since he is not quite ready for camping yet.  I was sad to have missed the fun night but the kids had such a blast I think we will for sure do it again net year.

 They set up camp and then got to watch a fun baseball movie up on the jumbotron and eat popcorn all night.

From what I hear they all got to stay up very late but they had an absolute blast.  I hope Logan is cooperative enough by next year so we can join them.  I love special summer fun things like this and I am so glad we live in such an amazing town that offers so many great opportunities for families.