Friday night fireworks

Every Friday night the Hilton puts on a fireworks show. Owen was excited to see it this time... the first time he ran and screamed and we had to high tail it back to our room. He did very well this time and just sat with Daddy and watched with his hands over his ears.

afterwards, we hung out with Derek's co-worker and his friend from Texas and Owen searched for lizards!

We also promised him an ice cream, so off to McDonald's we went!

Owen has learned to swim! He just realized that with his little water wings, he can float and thus, swim!!! I am hoping he gets better at swimming while we have so much water readily available to us here :)

4th of July

On the 4th of July we spent the day grocery shopping and doing a little beach time too. That evening we went to the open lobby area of the hotel to watch Fireworks. Every Friday night the Hilton puts off fireworks and the Friday before, Owen didn't do too good with them, he freaked out and screamed and we had to go home. So, I was sure I was going to miss the fireworks on the 4th. And just as I had suspected, Owen freaked! I tried to calm him down and told him to cover his ears. He kinda settled down when I told him we had to go back to where Daddy was sitting to get the room key, he then climbed into Derek's lap and sat through the whole show, covering his ears and burying his face in Derek's chest. After it was all done, he jumped up shouting "I did it!!! I like fireworks now!!!!" haha!

The above photos were obviously before the fireworks show!

Poor little guy!

a lil more Hawaii

I tried taking a few photos of Owen while he played in the Hilton Lagoon, but really I got a lot of the top and back of his head... oh and one kinda front view lol! We are moving to a new place on the 16th with a harbor view! It is 2 buildings away from the Hotel we're living in now, but this place has a full kitchen, bathroom (with tub!) lots of closets and dressers (all of our clothes are in suitcases here) and get this... a bedroom!!!! It only has one, but this whole open bedroom/studio thing we're in is super hard with Derek working nights. Bless his heart, he sleeps while Owen and I are in there most of the time... I'm so afraid we're bothering him, but he assures me we're not. Anyways, this place is cheaper, which I think his work will like. The downside is that there isn't a pool or a gym. But with the beach right in front of us and a 24 hour fitness down the road, I am sure we will be fine!

Here's my attempt to have him look at me!

This kid would stay here all day long if we let him!

Our first day in Hawaii!

Owen and I hopped on a plane Wednesday June 30th to meet Derek in Hawaii... err I wish we had just hopped on a plane and it was that easy! We got a call while waiting for my brother-in-law Josh to pick us up for the airport that our flight was delayed 2 hours, which meant we wouldn't be landing in Hawaii until about 2am Washington time... ugh! So, we tried to make the best of it and had dinner with my sister Danielle, Josh and mom. When we got to the airport, Josh helped us get all of our luggage out and to the ticket counter... Come to find out that Delta's website is wrong and they charge you $25 for your first bag and $35 for any after that. I wasn't expecting to pay other than maybe an overweight fee for my HUGE bag. Come to find out my HUGE bag weighed 88 pounds and I was going to be charged $175 to check it! Insane!!!! I started bawling... just so frustrated with all of it at this point... Josh helped me configure our things and consolidate the huge bag down to about 10 pounds by distributing the 18 pounds amongst the other bags... After paying $140 total for the bags we were on our way to the gate. While on our way, my tote bag that my mother-in-law so diligently made sure I had for the trip, broke! I tried to not panic.... but carrying two tote bags (she made one for Owen too), and my carry-on bag while trying to get a 3 year old through the airport was hard enough with fully in tact tote bags! I just tried to think "it's ok, one bag... no biggie!" then the other one broke... So, while walking through the airport I was carrying these tote bags like paper grocery bags... which aren't easy to carry! We finally got to the gate and I rested... We loaded up and Owen was so excited and kept asking why we weren't moving yet lol! After about an hour or so on the plane, Owen started crying and wanted to go back to Orting. He didn't realize the plane ride was going to be so long... he lasted a while and finally fell asleep about hour 4 or so. Which by then we didn't have much time left on the plane. Thankfully when we arrived, Owen was in good spirits and we headed to baggage claim, where so many people were more than willing to help out a mom with a 3 year old and a TON of luggage lol! Derek got a us an SUV to ride to the hotel in which was so nice... and relaxing! We got into the hotel room, climbed in bed and were out til about 830 the next morning! Derek took us to the beach and here are a few photos from that first outing!

Owen won't look at me in photos, he's just having too much fun on the beach! I have a feeling that all of my photos of him for a while will be of the back of his head! lol!

This next photo is from lunch that day, we went to Wailana Coffee House (which is just like a Shari's or Cattin's) and had spaghetti, grilled cheese and french fries! yum! :]