"A" Mountain hike

1.18.2014

This morning we were hanging out and Ryan asked what we should do today. I sputtered out "lets hike A mountain". So we got dressed and off we went. On our drive over I asked Ryan if I would regret this like I was regretted and cursed the Camelback hike until we got up to the top a few years ago and he said no. He was wrong, that hike kicked my butt and my lungs were burning.  I was so happy when we reached the top.  It has motivated me to get in shape now. Ryan carried Nixon all the way up and still managed to motivate me. He wasn't huffing and puffing like me. It was really worth it and I'm glad we did it. We are going to hike that mountain more often now! 

Christmas & New Years

 Krispy Kreme Donuts had a buy one dozen get one free dozen deal so I printed off two coupons so I could give one to someone.  I know I'm so kind thinking of others.  I had no intentions of using both b/c that is a lot of donuts.  But I got there and had to make a fast decision and poof I came home with 4 dozen donuts.  I ended up giving two boxes away so in the long run the coupon didn't save me any money, it ended up costing me.  I'm so lame and 15 pounds heavier. :)

 Ryan surprised me one night and made a fire, hot chocolate and we watched Home Alone 2 by the fire.  He called it my holiday surprise.  He is so cute!

 
Molly joined us of course. How did I get so lucky!

 Every year we make sugar cookies to give out to people.

 

 Cash giving Molly some love.  He's so sweet. I don't think Molly is sharing the excitement. 

The Harper Nativity.   It's always a good show.  

 Mark played the guitar and Braeden played the cello while we sang Christmas songs. 

 Santa came to spread some Christmas cheer.  We all have to take pictures of course. 

 The Harper girls

The Harper boys. 

The party took it out of Ryan and Molly.  They both were wiped out by the end. 

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!!!  Santa came! 

 Santa even brought Molly a present.  She had a bone in her stocking.  

 We were suppose to have a spending limit this year of $100 each but Ryan splurged and got us Iphone 5 and me a little gun.  He such a rebel.  It was a fun surprise for me.  I stuck pretty close to the budget so he got clothes and fun little things.  Lets just say his Christmas wasn't as exciting. There's always next year.  

 Christmas Day at the Harpers

 Love our little family

 Its always a mad house when its present opening time.  Its always fun to see the big mess. 

We spent Christmas night with the Gardners, night at the Flemings.  The Nativity is always fun to watch.  Since their family is filled with girls, its always fun to see who gets to play Mary.  

NEW YEARS EVE!!! We didn't so anything to exciting this year.  We stayed home, got pizza, Mallory and Todd McClellan came over and we played games.  It was a fun relaxing night.  

The boys wanted to get a fire going while we played games.  The boys couldn't get it to burn for more than 30 seconds so before we could start playing the boys had to get it burning.  Molly is hoping they can get it going so we can start having fun again.  

They finally got it to start.  We are so proud of our boy scouts.  Happy New Year!!!  Bring it on 2013!

Ryan's Hunt and My Hunt, yes I said my Hunt

 

This year Ryan and I both had hunts.  He was sweet enough to put me in and I was lucky enough to get drawn...ya?!?

 His was in unit 6a for deer, riffle and mine was in 6a for an elk, riffle.  

I went scouting with this handsome man in his area. 

Afterwards we drove through Sedona then on to Jerome.  I have never been to Jerome and it was the cutest little town built on the side of a mountain.   

 

I'm 14 weeks here.  While driving around Jerome we came across a VW festival.  We stopped and walked around and found this monster VW bug.   

We went to the "haunted Jerome Grand Hotel at the top of the mountain.  It was really cool inside but no ghosts followed us home. 

After the hotel we ate at the Haunted Hamburger.  It was so good, loved every bite.   

Ryan's hunt was in the first week of November.  He would go up there when he could and wasn't having any luck.  The night of his last day he was getting ready to head home and a little group of deer came right by the road and he took a shot and got one. 

I'm so proud of him!! His first one ever!

My dad helped him take the meat off the bones. 

 Molly wasn't interested in it at all.  She sat on the couch or would walk by the back door but would not go outside. 

 

That's as close as she would get.  It made me laugh so hard.

My hunt was the 2nd week in December and up by the Grand Canyon.  Ryan and my dad went up with me.  This was our little camp.  Isn't it cute.  Ryan did everything he could to make it as comfy as he could, and he did a great job. It was freezing there, seriously I haven't ever been that cold. It would get down to like 19 degrees at night. The second night we got the heater in the trailer to work so it was warmer but still cold.   I was 25 weeks pregnant the weekend we went up there.   I already didn't sleep that well and I didn't sleep both nights we were there.  I was never so excited for 4 am to come around. I may have had a panic attack or something like that both nights and cried for no reason.  The crazy thing is I knew I was being irrational but I couldn't stop crying and breathing heavy.  I was seriously a crazy prego girl.  I even convinced Ryan that I needed to switch our bed rolls around so our heads were closer to the middle of the trailer.  So weird.  I was happy to come home, not b/c I hated hunting but I was happy to sleep in my own bed.

This was my get up while we were hunting.  Ryan completely decked me out in head to toe camo.  Yep I even had camo boots.  My pants didn't stayed buttoned b/c of my belly but we kept them up.

These are the only two pictures I got and they aren't  even that great. 

 Ryan scoping for elk.  My dad and I saw four elk but they were too far to shoot.  Those were the only ones that we saw the whole time.  It was a great trip during the day, at night was a different story.  I was sad that we didn't get to take a shot at one.  I don't think that I will want to go hunting while pregnant again. 

Hawaii

9. 1.12

We went to Hawaii for a week for the first time together.  We went to the Kauai, the garden island.  I didn't realize what a long flight it was and didn't take any good snacks.  I was 11 weeks pregnant that week and was super nauseous anyways so I couldn't wait to get off that plane.

The island is so beautiful.  It has so many amazing trees.  They filmed Jurassic Park there, so if you have seen the movie you have seen how beautiful it is there.  I loved all the trees and clear blue water. 

The day we got there we went to Costco, and drove to our hotel.  After we settled in we drove and found a little spot where we could put our feet in the water, it was getting dark and really cold so we didn't stay very long. We went with our good friends, Todd, Mallory, Pat and Christine. 

Day 2: 

We woke up and went to church for sacrament meeting.  It was so cool to see their building and experience how they church over there.  You can go to church in shorts and flip flips.  Ryan did.  It was testimony meeting so every time someone got up to the pulpit they would say aloha and everyone would say it back to them.  There was no air conditioning either, just fans.  That seems to keep up cool though.  We meet a nice guy there, he invited us to play volleyball with him later in the week.  We defiantly took him up on that offer.

After church we went to a local farmers market.  It wasn't what we thought it would be.  There was only a few things for sale but they did have some delicious bbq that we stopped for.  I guess I was picturing a farmers market that has a lot of vendors with all sorts of fruit like in the movies. We did buy a pinnapple which was so sweet and yummy.

We headed to the beach and played in the ocean and waves after.

This beach was cool, it had some pretty big waves that we got to play on.

Day 3:

We kayaked down the Wailua River then hiked to a waterfall.  It was easier to paddle to the water fall then back.  Ryan and I had a good time trying to figure out how to paddle at the same rhythm but we never tipped over. :) Eventually he did most of the paddling while I cheered him on. It saved us from staying in the same spot.

On our Hike I found this monkey oh I mean Ryan hanging from a tree.

Ryan, Me, Todd, Mallory, Christine, and Pat

 Adam?? Where's Eve?

The water fall.  The water was freezing, I didn't want to get in but I was convinced to.  We swam and stood under the waterfall. When the water came down it hurt so bad, nothing like I thought.

Todd, Me, Christine, Pat and Ryan standing under the waterfall getting pounded by the water.

Todd, Mallory, Christine, Pat, Ryan and Me.

 

 Ryan setting up to block Pat's pass.  Ryan, Todd, Pat and Christine played volleyball while I hung out by the water.  Hanalei Bay was right by where we were staying it was the best beach ever.  Small calm waves, not crowded, volleyball courts and beautiful sand. 

 

Day 4:

We went to Hanalei Bay and did some shopping.  They had a lot of cool little stores along with this mermaind there.

We spent some time at Hanalei Bay afterwards.  They threw the frisbee around and found out it didn't float in the water.  Luckily we found some random seaweed crusted goggles in the water so that helped them find it.

Pat, Todd, Ryan and Christine

Looking towards Hanalei Bay where we spent most of our time.

Day 5:

We went on a catamaran boat trip to the west side of the island.  The roads don't go all the way around the island so the only way to see it is to take a helicopter or boat.  It was so much fun, I wasn't sure how I would do with being pregnant but I drank a lot of ginger ale so I only got a little nauseous. 

 Double rainbow!!!

Me Ryan Pat and Christine on the front of the boat.  That's were we spent most of our time except Mallory.  She gets motion sickness so she stayed in the back where is didn't rock as much.

Todd, Pat and Ryan

We were able to see dolphins, and sea turtles out there. The dolphins ride right next to our boat for awhile. 

Me, Todd and Pat enjoying the view

They let us off the boat and we got to snorkel for a bit.  It was awesome!  There were some really cool looking fish to see. On the way back the waters got really rough and it started to rain, that made me really nauseous.  I was happy to get off the boat at that point. 

After the boat trip since we were all the way on the south part of the island we stopped by the spouting horn. When the waves crashed into the rocks it would sent this huge water spout and make a whistling noise.  It was pretty awesome.

The weirdest part about the island is all the chickens.  Seriously they roam wild and its the craziest thing ever. 

We stopped by the light house too.  It was closed for tours but we got a pictures from where we parked.  The water there is amazing.

Day 6:

We hiked to queens bath.  Its a little pool that the ocean water pours into.  We snorkeled there for a little bit too. 

Ryan always seems to find himself in the water.

This is just a little warning sign on telling us "Queens Bath drownings 28"

"Unexpected large waves will knock you off rocks and sweep you out to sea!"

That didn't scare us enough to turn back

Ryan shaved a K into his chest.  I felt so honored.

Hiking in, it sure was beautiful

 

Queens Bath.

The water comes in from the right of the pictures and fills up the pool.  There are all sorts of fish in there so we snorkeled for a little bit.

Mallory and Me.

 After Queens Bath we went to Tunnels Beach to snorkel.  It wasn't as nice of a beach as Hanalei Bay but we had a blast.  Mallory didn't want to snorkel so she went on a walk. On her walk she spotted lots of sea turtles swimming really close to shore.  So we all went over there and got to swim with sea turtles.  We are so lucky she spotted those. 

 We drove to the furthest west part of the island to see the sunset but the clouds were in the way and covered it. 

  

This is a random cave we spotted on the side of the road.  Ryan and Todd had to go and check it out.

Day 7:

We rented mountain bikes and rode on a very muddy trail.  It was really fun.  I had a hard time figuring out my gears but still managed to get up some hills. 

Ryan, Mallory, Christine, and Me

Me, Ryan, Pat, Christine

We found this really pretty spot.  It was the most beautiful garden.  We all stopped and took a lot of pictures. 

 

Pat, Christine, Me, Ryan, Todd and Mallory

No we didn't poop our pants, we got that muddy from ridding the bikes. 

Todd, Mallory, me, Ryan, Christine, and Pat
After the bike rides we went to the beach for one last time.  Of course we went to our favorite beach, Hanalei Bay.  The water was not as calm as it had been earlier in the week.  There were huge waves, I only stayed in the water for a little bit b/c it was throwing me around.  Ryan, Todd, Pat and Christine swam for awhile.  Pat and Christine even got caught in a rip tide.  A surfer near by saved them and brought them in. 

It hard to see them but there are there body surfing.

These are random pictures we took of the island

Waterfalls coming down the mountains

Its hard to see but Ryan shaved a K in his chest for who else but me!!

 Hanalei Bay, looking towards the volleyball courts from the water

  

 Hanalei Bay 

 These trees were so awesome.  I loved how they were flat on top.

 

 
I think Ryan called this tree a walking tree.  It moves it roots and walks along the ground.  It was so cool looking.

The flight back home wasn't as bad as flying there.  I packed plenty of snacks and only got a small headache and nauseousness.  We had window seats so that helped out more too.  It was such a great trip. Can't wait to go back someday.