Sunday, August 28, 2016

Maggie's Birthday

Maggie turned 5 this past Tuesday.  She was so excited for her birthday that she woke up early, even before Daddy.  First things first, open up presents!

Maggie has been begging for an American Girl Doll diner.  Hmmm, I wonder what could be in that enormous box?


Hooray, the diner!  Maggie and Kate have spent hours and hours playing with the diner and feeding all their dolls and stuffed animals.  Thank you Dedushka and Grammalene!




Kate gave Maggie a special musical snow globe.  Maggie loves treasures like these! 

 Birthday breakfast was cinnamon rolls, as requested by Maggie.



For a special birthday lunch we headed to McDonald's with best friend, Caitlin. 


 After lunch Gramma and Papa stopped by for more presents!

Maggie started kindergarten the very next day.  Her teacher was kind enough to let us celebrate her birthday at school and bring cupcakes for the entire class.  I made multi-colored vanilla cupcakes that were a huge hit with her classmates.

 On Sunday we held Maggie's birthday party.  Maggie was very insistent on having a Frozen party. We invited several girls from preschool and we asked them to come dressed as princesses.  The first activity was decorating princess crowns.


The next activity was a scavenger hunt.  Daddy did a great job creating and hiding the 10 clues for a very fun-filled activity!

The girls had to go down to the end of the street to find a few clues too.



At the end of the scavenger hunt they found Elsa snowflake wands that I made.  

Beautiful princesses!!!

Daddy was the snow cone master.  We figured Frozen = snow...snow cones!

  Thumbs up from the birthday girl!

Next project was creating Olaf snowmen out of socks.   


I love how different and cute all the Olaf's turned out!

Pinata time!


Cake time!  Maggie requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  We made a small compromise and I used vanilla frosting on top to create snow.



Such a fun party!  It brought me so much joy putting on this Frozen party for our little princess.  Too much fun!!! 

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Maui Vacation 2016

We just got back from an amazing 12 day stay in Maui.  I took too many pictures to count so I have made 4 separate blog posts for 4 different categories of our trip.  At the end of this webpage, make sure to click on "older post" to get the other 2 blog posts from this trip.


It has been over 2 years since our last travels to Maui and this trip has been much anticipated.  Directly off the plane, our first stop was Aloha Mixed Plate in Lahaina for a late lunch.  The restaurant is oceanfront with a great view and amazing island food.  It was a great way to kick-off our trip! 



We stayed in Napili for our first 4 nights on the island.  Napili is a gorgeous part of Maui with a lot of rainfall.  The scenery is lush and green.  Rainbows are a common sight,  The weather is cloudy and sunny but always warm and perfect for swimming at the beach.

View from our condo's lanai

Rainbow over the Napili Shores Resort

Playing checkers

The Gazebo restaurant and one of the resort's pools.

Morning sunrise from our lanai

The koi fish were some of Maggie's favorite things to watch 

Beach and boogie boarding time!




"Little hoppy" birds loved it when Maggie, Kate and Will fed them chips.  It freaked me out how many birds would come to get fed so I stayed back and took pictures.



One unfortunate incident in Maui occurred when we had to take Kate to urgent care due to a respiratory infection and pink eye.  She had had a high fever for over a day but rest seemed to help her feel better. While out to dinner on our 3rd night, we discovered that Kate's eye was pink and goopey.  We located the nearest urgent care and they had to call in a doctor since it was after-hours.  Sure enough, she had pink eye so we had to get her antibiotics and eye drops.

While waiting for her prescription to be filled we witnessed a spectacular sunset.

The next day we headed to the Whaler Shopping Village on Kaanapali Beach for Hula Pie.  Will treated us to the Original (macadamia nut ice cream and Oreo cookie crust) and a S'more Hula pie.  It was AMAZING!!!


We ate breakfast at Napili Shore's restaurant, The Gazebo, twice for breakfast.  This restaurant is my absolute favorite breakfast destination.  Their macadamia nut/pineapple/banana pancakes are to die for!  Will stood in line for us, starting at 6:45am so we could be in the first seating at 7:30.  He is my hero!








Swimming at Napili Bay Beach




 Dragon's Teeth:  The location of the last lava flow in Maui.  This short hike was well worth the trek to witness these amazing lava formations and stunning vistas.


Maggie loved exploring all around the lava formations




More from Napili Shores...checkers, again

Shuffleboard

Gecko sightings

Beautiful, lush grounds

Activities on the lanai

Pancakes on the lanai

Lahaina Town.

We always love strolling down Front Street, looking in all the eclectic shops, finding all the "silly sailors", exploring under the famous banyan tree and taking in all the sights.







Love those sunsets!!!


Pure Happiness!!!