Easter...

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday with lots of sunshine, family, and of course - chocolate & candy! Adam was so excited about the arrival of the Easter Bunny - love to still see that magic in his eyes on these holidays. Not to mention the look on his face when he finds his basket and sees all the great treats it's filled with! 

Adding to the magic of the morning we had Easter Bunny pancakes. Adam got quite a kick out of them and while he thought they were super cute he had no problem digging in and eating that bunny right up! :) 

Dressed in our Easter Sunday best we headed over to Ommy & Poppy's house for lunch and lots of backyard play time. The dogs loved running around and Adam couldn't get enough baseball in with Uncle Shawn and Garrett. Fun being able to just sit back and watch the cousins enjoy their time together. 

Next it was off for more cousin fun with Olivia at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We had a huge Easter egg hunt which is still a big hit with the kids. Then a great lamb dinner finished off with an Easter egg cake that I made - large, colorful and tasty if I do say so myself. 

A wonderful holiday with an even more wonderful family. 

Meet Sadie...

We've been talking for a long time about getting a second dog. We have had so much fun with Liddy and we figured two would certainly be better than one and also thought it would be nice for Adam to get a pup that would only know life with him in it - unlike Liddy who we're pretty sure has yet to totally forgive us for bringing him home from the hospital - silly girl!

So that's how little Sadie entered our lives. A labradoodle with a standard labradoodle mom and dad (unlike Liddy who has a standard labradoodle mom and a toy poddle dad - thus her "mini" size), Sadie is likely to get up to and maybe above 60 pounds. This was a good idea right? :) In all honesty, we are just loving this sweet girl and look forward to having a "big" dog to compliment our perfectly "mini" Liddy.

So long Hawaii...for now...

Our travel back home didn't begin until 5:30 at night, so we soaked up some final rays, enjoyed one last tasty lava flow, and one last drive in our Jeep. All good preparation for the looooong trip ahead. 

We rode on three different airplanes, traveling nearly 8,000 miles back to good old Virginia. We made the most of our journey, with a nice dinner and some shopping in the Honolulu airport, free cocktails on our flight to LA, and watching golf on the flight from LA home. 

Of course for as tiring of a trip as it was, the greeting we received from Adam and Liddy when we arrived back home made it all worth it. Adam loved the goodies we brought back for him - especially the lava rock we scooped up for him on the beach where we wrote his name in rocks. Boy was it good to be home with our family. 

Though I know we left a little piece of ourselves back in Hawaii - all the more reason to return someday. 

Our last night in Hawaii...

Our week in Hawaii went fast but at the same time we really felt like we made the most of everyday, we found plenty of time to just relax, and did everything we could to fit in as much of the beauty of Hawaii as possible. That said - our final night was upon us so we dawned our leis and set out to live it up island style one more time. 

Going to a luau is definitely one of the things you hear as a "must do" when you say you're going to Hawaii, however with the steep price tag and the thought of a buffet dinner we weren't really keen to partake - though on the other hand I really did want to see the show portion of a luau. So you can imagine my delight when we learned that our resort puts on a free hula show every Thursday evening - right during happy hour at the tiki bar. I knew from the minute we checked in that this was going to be a perfect last night event. We weren't supposed to take photos - but after seeing nearly every one else break that rule - I did sneak a few. The show was perfect - festive, colorful, traditional, and only 45 minutes - the perfect amount of time - Andy agreed. 

After the show it was off to catch the sunset. Sadly the clouds got in the way a bit, but it was still a gorgeous view and I took probably way too many pictures - but that sky just kept getting prettier and prettier every minute! 

We capped off the evening by signing the check book (they actually give you the check in a book) and leaving our mark on what will no doubt be one of our favorite vacation spots!