Let the festivities begin!

The halloween festivities have begun! From now until Sunday we have lots of halloween activities scheduled to make the most of money spent on this year's costumes.
We started out the morning by going to the local pumpkin patch to pick out a family of pumpkins. Because we were away for a good part of the month and it rained all last weekend, Emma, Ian, and I decided to forego the 45 minute drive to the farm and headed to the "patch" that we pass ever day on our way to and from school.
Even though it was a small patch, they still had some great photo opprotunities....

One of the children was cooperative

The other only wanted to pose on a rather suspect looking pumpkin horse

Ian really wanted to pull the wagon

But found it was much easier to ride in the wagon with the pumpkins

One more try with the less cooperative one

Although she did not really want to pose, she was really good at pulling the pumpkin wagon.
Don't our pumpkins look so nice??? When I went to pay, I found out that they cost a whopping $43.00!!!! With only $20.00 cash and they would not take credit, we left with the 2 smallest pumpkins for $10.00. We then went to the local grocery store and picked up 3 carving pumpkins for $9.99. I have now learned my lesson about the local pumpkin patches!
After we got home, Emma decided to make some pumpkin shaped sugar cookies to share with her teachers at the preschool fall festival tomorrow. Ian decided he will help by getting into my spice drawer.....

and shake sprinkles all over the floor. He shook this many sprinkles out in the 20 seconds it took me to react.
Luckily, Ian was also happy to help clean up

Even at 18 months, you must learn about consequences in our house :)
After a good nap for one, we headed off the Google for our 4th annual Googleween!
And now presenting our halloween costumes for 2010.....

Here they are! Our little Charlie Brown and Lucy!

Here we have Charlie Brown's quizzical look

He did not enjoy walking on grass, but he loved balancing on these narrow walkways (lucy was still be a little uncooperative with pictures, maybe tomorrow)

We had a great time hanging out with Daddy, collecting some treats, and eating some yummy snacks!
Stay tuned for more Halloween fun! We need to make use of those costumes!

Our Hawaiian Vacation- Waikoloa Village

On Tuesday, we headed out of Hilo to our next destination....Waikoloa Village on the resort side of the island. We spent each day at a different beach, spent a day at the amazing Hilton resort, and went to a Luau!
The first beach we visited was near our condo and had a great inlet for the kids to play in...

The sand was described as "salt and Pepper" and a little course, se water shoes were required

Playing in our own "swimming pool"

Splashing!

A view of our pool

Ian loved digging

3 of the 4 kids
The next day, we headed to a more beachy beach with better sand and great waves for everyone to play in.

Ian had fun with the sand toys


We built a sandcastle together
Emma spent almost the entire morning in the water

Boogie boarding with Daddy

She called it a boat

Running from the waves

Hanging out with friends

Catching waves

She was loving it!

Ian watched on

And Daddy took him out to enjoy the water!
On Friday, went to a Luau at another local resort

Dressed up

Ready for a party!



All for kids were wonderfully behaved on this vacation! They got along and played really well together

Sweet potato chips

Emma shows off her lei

Fruit punch!

Emma learned a hula dance
It was a great show! Ian sat for about one dance and then decided to have his own hulu party in the back!
On Saturday, we got day passes to the Hilton resort and Emma got to meet one of these!

She and I did the short dolphin discovery class

It was only 10 minutes and Emma wanted to know why it was so short, but you had to be 5 to do the 45 minute adventure (4 more months!)
We then spent the day swimming


Trying waterfalls

Any enjoying the sunset!
On Sunday, we were a little beached out, so we headed to the valley to check out the view

There was also a great rolling hill

We also enjoyed some fresh malasadas (Fresh filled doughnuts)

Always ready with a smile now!

Emma was concentrating on eating, not smiling!
We had a vacation! Mahalo Hawaii for a beautiful time!

Our Hawaiian Vacation- Volcanoes

During our three day stay near Hilo, we spent a lot of time looking at volcanoes and searching for hot lava. The first adventure we went on was a trip to the end of the road where we were staying that had been closed because of the latest eruption.

Ian in the lava field (He learned to say cheese this week, can you tell???)

Emma really wanted to see red lava and we were told that we might be able to see it going into the ocean here

The lava was really cool

And at the end of the walk was the blackest sand beach we have ever seen

There are actually coconuts being grown on the beach

But no hot lava
The next day, we headed to Volcano National Park
First stop was a lava tube, which is a tunnel created by lava

Emma and Zachary in the tube

Ian enjoyed being outside the lava tube

One of the craters

This is the closest we got to an erupting volcano

Emma checks out the steam pots
Then we went on a real adventure...Dan wanted to hike into the crater. Even though it was only about 2.5 miles round trip, I was a little worried because Emma has never hiked that far on her own and the trip was quite vertical. But......

We made it to the bottom!

All old lava rock

Emma make her mark

Ian checks out some lava rock

We were really proud of Emma

It was a truly awesome sight

Then it was time to go back up!

With a little singing and little bribing (we had cookies in the car) we made it back up to the start of the trail!
Out last attempt to see hot lava was another trip down the road from our house. The road was closed and we got close, but still saw no hot lava.....

Anyone want to buy a house or two? There are actually people living in this community with not power or water because their houses were not destroyed and the insurance companies would not help them.
Although we found no "red lava" we were amazed by what we saw.