Day 4 in Hawaii

Sunday was Day 4 in Hawaii. We went to church in the morning. When anyone got up to talk they said Aloha and the congregation says it back. We came back and took pictures outside our Hotel room because the landscaping was so gorgeous. There is also some pictures of the inside of our hotel room.

Dinner cruise continued

The last picture is of Kami pretending she is Rose from Titanic. I thought it was pretty funny. The others are scenic pictures of the Napoli Coast. If you look real close in the water you can see dolphins swimming near our boat on the first picture below.

Dinner Cruise

Saturday afternoon we went on a dinner cruise. When Taylor asked me if I wanted to go on a dinner cruise I had a big cruise ship in mind, white linen table cloths, waiters etc... The "dinner cruise" was more like deep sea fishing to me. The cruise was on a catamaran with about 25 people. Due to the "small boat" (smaller than the cruise liner I had in mind) I kind of felt sick on the way out. Anyhow- the purpose of the cruise was to see the Napali Coast. We viewed the coast on day 2 from the Waimea Canyon drive but wanted to see if up close from the water. The cruise was about 5 hours and the food was pretty good- salad, rice, chicken, pork, bread, and cookies. Remember the purpose of the cruise was to see the Napali Coast; however, on the return trip we were fortunate enough to see whales, dolphins, and sea turtles- all an unexpected treat. Just before we arrived back into shore we were able to watch the sun set which was beautiful. I have not watched many sunsets before. Just before the sun disappears the last color of light that you see is a green dot…pretty amazing.

Day 3 continued

This photo is of me and my brother-in-laws friend, Rachel. We are in front of the Hyatt where we did not stay but has such beautiful landscaping. We then took a walk over behind our hotel. We found some cool caves.

Day 3 in Hawaii

Saturday morning we drove to Wailua Falls and Ho'op'l Falls.

Day 2 continued

Day 2 in Hawaii- Overlooking Waimea Canyon

1. Got up at 4:30 a.m. because we couldn't sleep. There is a 3 hour difference from California.
2. We left our hotel at 6:45 a.m.
3. Drove to Waimea canyon in our cute little convertible with the top down and the radio blarring. It was so much fun.
We drove up to Waimea canyon to overlook the Napoli Coast. This coast line can only be viewed from the canyon, boat or plane. It was breath taking.
4. We stopped at a local snow cone shack with macadamian nut ice cream in the bottom and snow cone on top. It was so good.
5. We went to Spouting horn. Where water shoots up through the coral reef.
6. Next we went to the beach for a couple of hours and saw a seal beached, digesting it's food. As soon the seal is beached someone ropes off the area to protect the seal. The water was a little chilly. Taylor did some snorkeling and really enjoyed it.
7. Then we drove to Kipu Falls. We hiked through a sugar cane field to get to the waterfall. It is a 25 foot jump from the top of the falls to the pool below. There was also a rope swing. I am usually adventerous but this made me a little nervous. Taylor said he would jump so I did too. When I jumped I leaned back and hit my legs and bum smack on the water. It hurt so bad. I have a major bruise and my leg and bruised my tale bone. It hurts so bad. Then we crossed over some slippery rocks and I slipped and cut up my legs. We still had fun.
8. Went and ate dinner and then picked up Taylor's parents and their friends Ken and Kami at the airport.
9. Crashed in bed because we got up so early. Slept really good.

I don't have all the pictures from this day so I will post some more later

Day 1 in Hawaii

I haven't blogged in a while because we have been on vacation with Taylor's family. My mom flew in a few days before we left. She watched the kids for us while we gone. It was a great chance to rekindle our relationship. We flew to the island of Kauai, Hawaii on Thursday, April 23. We arrived that night about 8:00 p.m. and just settled into our hotel room. This silly picture Taylor took of me is in the airplane. I was eating some candy and watching a movie. This was the best vacation we have ever been on. I will be posting every few days because we did so many fun things. Hope you enjoy.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno!

This is where the Tonight show is filmed and our ticket to get in.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno!

On Thursday, April 16 we were able to get tickets to the Tonight show with Jay Leno. Taylor has a customer who has a friend who works for Leno. We had to go down to the NBC studios at guest relations and wait in line for our tickets. We then were seated in the studio. It was really cool. We sat there for a few minutes and then Jay Leno came out and talked to us about how the show was going to work. They tape the show live and then just put in a couple commericals. The show started filming at 4:00 p.m. so they can have it ready for Eastern time zones. The show is exactly one hour. Some people got to go take pictures with Jay Leno if you were sitting close. We had farely good seats but were up high. They gave away t-shirts, footballs, frizbee's, etc. The producer threw them out to the audience. The show was funny. Jessica Alba from Fantastic Four was there and Bob Saggett was promoting his new show. It was cool to see them in real life. Jessica Alba is gorgeous. She had on this strapless dress she kept pulling up entire show; it was funny. Bob Sagget was a little weird. They also had a singer there called Johnny Lang. He wasn't very good. Overall it was a fun experience. Here are a bunch of pictures outside the studio, of course you can't take any inside.

Easter Egg Hunt

We just had a little Easter egg hunt in our backyard. Callie collected all the eggs. We couldn't get Preston to pick any up. They had fun. It was a nice Easter weekend. We had some friends over for dinner on Sunday and talked with Callie about Easter and the resurrection. She really listened.

Two Yummy recipes

These two recipes are from both my sisters. The tortilla soup is from my sister Heather and the pasta is from my sister Britney. These are really good. I hope you like them as much as we did. I only have a picture of the pasta, sorry.

Tortilla Soup

makes about 4-5 servings

1 can cream of chicken soup
2 chicken breasts boiled and shredded
1 can chicken broth
1 cup salsa
1 teaspoon taco seasoning(or to your taste)
1 tbs. cilantro
1/2-3/4 cup corn (can use frozen or canned(drained))

Boil chicken until tests done. Can use chicken broth from chicken or a can. Shredd chicken. Combine all ingredients together and stir. Heat through. Serve with tortilla chips, shredded cheddar cheese, and sour cream. It is so good.

Sun-Dried Tomato and chicken pasta

1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic chopped
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes cut into pieces(dried or in oil) easy to find
1 cup chicken broth divided
1 cup cream
2 chicken breasts (shredded or chopped)
1 tablespoon exta virgin olive oil
4 leaves basil chopped(or dried to your liking)
1 1/2 cups bowtie or penne pasta

Cook pasta , drain and set aside. Meanwhile melt butter, add garlic, and cook for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and 3/4 cup chicken broth. Turn heat to medium and boil. Reduce heat after boiling and simmer for 10 minutes until the tomatoes are tender. Add the cream and bring to a boil, stirring until thickens up. Season chicken with salt and pepper and warm the oil and saute the chicken until cooked and brown. Set chicken aside. In the same pan used for the chicken, bring the other 1/4 cup chicken broth to a boil and scrap the pan juices from chicken. Add this to the cream sauce and stir in the basil. Toss the pasta, sauce and chicken together. I added parmesan cheese because I had some shredded up in the fridge. It was delicious.

You gotta watch this

Taylor saw this on Yahoo news and we both were amazed. This woman will blow you away. Copy and paste the following address in your web browser.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92464?fp=1

Lesson Learned

Last night after dinner we told the kids we would take them out to McDonalds for ice cream. They played at the play place and then we came home. Taylor and I went to bed and I woke up at midnight and wondered where is my cell phone. I remembered I left my purse under the table at McDonalds. I stared panicking. I ran downstairs and called and someone answered and said someone turned it in about 9:30. The store managers verified in front of their cameras that there was no cash in it. I had $20 bucks in my wallet. So the person stole the money and then decided to be nice and turn it in. At least it was not a lot of money. I tried to go back to bed but just kept thinking about my credit cards. I tossed and turned for about an hour. I finally fell asleep and the kids woke up at 6:00 am so we went and picked it up. All my credit cards and license was still there. Oh, and luckily my cell phone was still in my purse. I have only had this one for about 6 months. We just wonder if the person wrote any of my information down. So I will be more careful of where I set my purse and make sure I don't walk away from my grocery cart at the store.

American Idol!

My brother-in-law, Chase, signed up for tickets to American Idol a year ago. They told him he had 4 tickets available for Tuesday, April 7th. He was going to be out of town so he gave them to me. Isn't he so nice! So yesterday we left Yucaipa at 10:30 a.m. with my friend Jenni, her daughter and her friends daughter. They are huge fans of the show. And of course, so am I. We drove down to Chase's work to pick up the tickets and got there about 11:30. He works in Orange. From there we proceeded to Hollywood. We had to be in line no later than 1:15 p.m. It took us 2 hours just to get to Hollywood which put us arriving at 1:45. We were so sure we wouldn't get in to see the show. We were so bumbed. We found some people waiting to see if there was anymore room in the audience. While in line I saw Derek Huff from Dancing with the Stars pulling into CBS televison city. So cool. He drives a black Audi. About 20 minutes later the producer came out and said come this way. I was like no way. We start to walk up the stairs into the American Idol theatre. The experience was so unreal. Surprisingly, it is very small. The cameras make it look so much bigger. We actaully went to the dress rehearsal part, not the live performance. But it was pretty much the same. All the idols came out and sang and even Ryan Seacrest was there. He was standing like 3 feet from us. It was so cool. All the idols sang so good, even though the judges didn't think so that night. They had pretend Judges filling in. The pretend Simon looked for real. They all immitated Simon, Paula, Cara, and Randy extremely well. My friends daughter and her friend got to be up in the maush pit. They touched Danny Gokey and Chris Allen. They were so excited. I thought Adam Lambert did so good and Matt Gurad too. Also Sinbad was sitting across the aisle too. It was really cool. We had such a great time too. I am sorry I don't have any pictures. They wouldn't allow cell phones or cameras. They wouldn't even let us take pictures outside of the building either. So Dumb! We did get some pics with a cell phone of my friends daughters, friend. I will hopefully get those soon. Thanks Chase for the tickets. It was a great day.

Friends!

These are the girls I went swimming with yesterday, Jenni and Liana. The other picture is of Preston helping himself to Jenni's chips.

Palm Springs!

We went to Palm Springs yesterday with a friend to go swimming. We left our house and it was breezy and a little chilly. But in Palm Springs it was great. The water wasn't too cold either. The kids had so much fun and Callie got more brave in the pool as the day went on. She even went under water. They didn't want to leave. We were all very tired at the end of the day.

All dressed up!