Moving on up

Alyssa finally out grew her infant car seat. She is only 21 lbs and her infant car seat held up to 22 lbs. She is 18 months and I thought it was time to be a big girl. She loves her new car seat. She always wants to "go go go". There is a cup holder which she thinks it so cool. She looks so old in her new car seat. It was about time though.

Today my mom, alyssa and I went and hiked to 1st falls on the way up Timpanogos.   Alyssa didn't like to be in the backpack carrier so she walked and was held most of the time. The leaves were very pretty.

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Eating Lunch

Alyssa is 18 months today. 1 1/2!!! I can't believe it. I feel like she has exploded since she turned one until now. She is not a baby anymore. Look at her, she is a toddler! =(
She is saying so many words I can't even name them all and saying more every day. Her favorites being Moo (actually she loves all animal sounds), No, Bubu(bubbles) and Go.
She loves hide and seek and laughs so hard and asks for more, more, more. She loves it when her daddy tickles her. She loves her friend Emma and is always said when she has to leave her house. (they are her babysitters, which makes me sad, but at least she likes it there)
Here are a few things we have done recently...

Riding a pony at Thanksgiving point. She loves it and kept saying Ney Ney all day!

Blowing bubbles in her new Fiji dress. A gift from Noelle, so cute!!

Splash Pad

Holding hands with her best friend

Today I took Alyssa to the Splash Pad. It is a public park that has a man made waterfall that flows into a river that the kids play in. It also has a spray up fountain.  We went with Alyssa's BBF Emma and her mom. It was a lot of fun. It was fun to do something after work with Alyssa. Especially because we had a rough weekend. Alyssa was sick with a high fever all weekend. It was stressful on me because she has never had that high of a fever and she didn't have any other symptoms so I didn't know what was making her so sick. This morning I was so happy that she didn't wake up in the middle of the night with a fever. Today she was fever free. I never thought I would be so happy to see the number 98!  Anyway she was feeling good enough to go to the park, yea!

Na'ili'ili Haele falls i.e 4 waterfalls

Trekking through the bamboo forest

This was absolutley my favorite thing we did in Maui. On the other post I talked about how we tried to find this hike but were unsuccessful. This time we tried to follow the directions to a tee. We also looked up satilite image to help us and googled info. Well we entered the bamboo about 200 feet down from the last place we entered. This made all the difference. It was a trail that lead directly to a stream. The first waterfall was pretty dry, only a trickle so we kept going through the bamboo forest, over the river and rocks to the second waterfall. A perfect hawaiian waterfall. There was even a "naturalist" who decided to take her top off and bathe in the sun.

2nd falls

third falls

Alyssa playing at 3rd falls with the locals =)

The next fall was tricker to get to. We had to scale a 12 foot rock face with a 1 year old. There was a rope to hold on to, so we passed her up as we climbed up. The third fall was actually the coolest. A huge pool. We meet some locals playing in the water and they let Alyssa play on their float.
Then my mom watched Alyssa and Russ and I went to the 4th falls. This required us to climb up a latter then bolder hop up a stream. Then swim about 150 feet up a stream to a tiny waterfall that we had to climb up, the across more boulders which lead to the 4th falls. It is the highest of all the falls. It was a small flow but in pictures when the flow is large it is amazing. We also found a geo-cache. we just signed the book and didn't take anything. On the way back down we had to cliff jump off the waterfalls into the lake below to get back down. It was so fun! We don't have pictures of the 4th falls because of the swimming aspect. Of course while Mom and Dad were hiking Alyssa decided to pop. I did bring an extra diaper but no wipes. So I used a large left as a wipe and that was that. It made it a complete experience. Alyssa did very well on the hike and loved playing in the water. She kept wanting to get back in.

2nd falls

1/2 Marathon

I did a half marathon yesterday. Russ was suppose to do it with me, but because of his GMAT studying he didn't have time to finish training. My goal was to run it in under 2 hrs. I did the Provo Trail half. It is a very pretty run. I was doing really good and felt really good until about mile 10. I was right no track to make my goal. Then the fatigue really started to set in. It was then all mental. I kept telling my self keep going I will make my goal. I did not walk the whole run and I crossed the finish line at 1:59.54. I was so happy, I did it. This is almost 20 minutes faster than my last 1/2 marathon 4 years ago. Yesterday I was very sore, but today I am twice as sore. I can barely walk. It is not as bad as when I ran a marathon ( that pain was indescribable). Every time I go down the stairs I say ouch, and now Alyssa is copying me and saying that too. Overall I am happy I did it and VERY happy I accomplished my goal.

Hawaii Post #2

Our favorite thing we did in Maui was the Road to Hana. We had so much fun finding waterfalls and seeing the beautiful scenery. The only hard part was when we were done we had to come all the way down the road with out stopping, all 636 turns. Needless to say we were a little nauseated by the end.

The Three Bears Falls

This first waterfall is the Three bears falls. It was really fun. Russ and I made our way over boulders into the pool to get under the waterfall. Noelle was making her way and slipped and fell on a rock and hit her head and cut her hand open. She stayed with my mom and Alyssa on the bank. Alyssa was such a trooper. It started raining but she was having so much fun picking up the rocks.

The first waterfall we actually tried to find was 4 falls, which we had directions from our Guide book. We had to hike through a bamboo forest and then across a ditch. Well we could only find the ditch and not the stream that would led us to the waterfalls. We ended up walking through a cow pasture but got this cool pictures. After an hour of searching we gave up. We were so disappointed that we didn't find it, that night we looked on the internet and found more instructions on how to get there. My mom, Russ, Alyssa and I went back a few days later to find it. That adventure will be another post.

We stopped at the "Garden of Eden" this was really beautiful. Many different flowers and trees. This one we are standing next to is a rainbow eucalyptuses tree.

We also stopped in a little town to get Banana bread and pineapple. The picture above is Russ after he climbed over lava rocks.

Hawaii post #1

I am going to do a few posts about Hawaii since we did so much and have so many pictures. First thing was that I was terrified of the flight. I thought Alyssa would be awful. Well to my great surprise she was wonderful. She was very tired and ready for a nap on the way there. With the help of our friend benadryl she slept from take off to landing. I had debated a long time about giving her benadryl or not since it is not approved for children under 4. I found an old dosing chart for her age. Benadryl use to be approved for children 3 months and above. I gave her about 1/2 of what her dose would have been. She had no problems and slept wonderful. It was a good choice. But of course she woke up at 4 a.m. Hawaii time the first few nights.

We loved the beach. Alyssa was very timid at first, she loved the sand and would make me get the water in her bucket and did not want to touch the water. One time Russ was helping her in the water and a big wave came and covered her, he pulled her up. She was a little scared but okay.
For the first picture, Alyssa was loving climbing in and out of her stroller. she decided to climb in the basket underneath and couldn't get out with out my help, I had to take a picture first.