Aloha :)

We made it back from our vacation to Kona, Hawaii, sadly, we didn't want to leave. The weather was absolutely perfect, 81 all day, 70 at night, never too hot, never too cold. We first stopped off in Phoenix, AZ to meet our new nephew, Grant Scott Munger, who finally arrived on Feb 25. We stayed a few days with Scott and Diana, Lilia and Grant, enjoying the relaxing beginning to our time off. Lilia and Laney had a great time playing together. We visited the zoo while we were there, Laney loved the birds that were just wandering around, pigeons and such, and the wallabys, which Lilia kept calling the Koalabees...too cute. The series of pictures right after the zoo I took of Laney playing with one of Lilia's doll house things. It's a pink plastic shell of a house and when she got in it she pushed on the doorbell which sounded like a cat meowing. That made Laney make an "o" face and then crack up, Scott and I, and Laney for that matter were laughing so hard, she just kept crawling in and out and making the sounds that made her crack up, she loved it. We had a hard time keeping her out of their swimming pool, which isn't heated, but we were not successfull, within the first few minutes we were in the backyard Lilia and Laney were both wading in the water in their clothes. Oops. On Sunday we said goodbye and continued onto Honolulu airport where we barely missed our flight due to a downpour in Phoenix right as we were ready to take off. So we waited in the airport for another hour before catching our flight to Kona, on the Big Island. While waiting though, Laney just took off walking and didn't fall anymore. She was doing pretty good, but had intermittant spills and would crawl here and there, but something clicked at the airport and she just took off. She even mastered turning and pivoting on one foot without falling over, which makes her squeal with delight when she relizes she didn't fall. In Kona, we swam in the pool at our resort, we snorkeled in the ocean, we did this stand up paddle board, we relaxed, we saw humpback whales, spinner dolphins, and sea turtles, and had such a wonderful time. We walked a few miles everynight after we ate dinner and would just listen to the waves crashing, Laney would point at the waves, I'd say "that's a wave" so she would wave at them...it was so cute. Laney's favorite things on the trip were all the birds, the ferrel cats that were hanging around our resort, and all the dead leaves and flowers that were laying around. She would collect them and hand them to Scott and me, or she would throw them into the pool. She also was loving that we were all together all the time. If one of us left the room to go do anything, she would point and make a come back sound until we did. She is saying 'ball' now. She recognizes all different kinds of them, even the bueies out in the bay she would point out. She also is holding up her finger in the "one" position when you ask her how many she is. Scott's favorite part of the trip was being with us, and swimming with Laney. My favorite parts were the whales, dolphins, and turtles, and being together. On Friday we went on a whale watching boat, Scott got sea sick, Laney did too a little, and I was trying to comfort them and squeeze in some pictures of the whales. We saw a bunch of whales, we saw one jump way out of the water too. Then we saw these little "spinner" dolphins, they called them. They were about 5 feet long and swam right up along side the boat. They were jumping out of the water and playing, they were so cute. I loved it, Scott was glad to see land again, and Laney just wanted a nap! We saw more whales off the shore of this beach on Sunday before we left. We saw a cow and a calf playing. They came shooting way out of the water multiple times and would smack down of the water. It sounded like fireworks were going off when they would hit the water. That was definitely a high light! On Saturday and Sunday we saw turtles. Saturday we went snorkeling at this little beach where some guy in our resort said he had seen turtles. The fish were so beautiful and colorful, I didn't know that fish came in those colors! Scott and Laney and I were all just wading out in the ocean, I had just snorkeled and I said that I really wanted to see a turtle...then poof there was one swimming out onto the rocks to sun himself. The other turtle we saw at a different beach walking along a quiet shore, Scott just looks over and says 'oh there's a turtle'...too cute, they just cling onto the rocks for a bit, sun themselves and then swim back out. Laney loved swimming in the ocean, she was so boyent her little butt would just shoot to the surface which made her laugh. She didn't however like the sand! For some reason dry, wet, soft, didn't matter, she was having no part of the sand touching her feet. The picture I took of her foot in the sand was on Monday evening when we were on our walk after dinner, I just sat her down took the picture and she clung onto my neck and whipped her head around shaking it 'no'. Everytime I'd try to put her down in a softer sand or dry sand, she would just cling on like a monkey, her arms tightly around my neck and her legs curled up towards me. It just made me laugh. She also loved the little geckos that would come visit us on our porch, she would point to them and get all giggly. But the birds were by far her favorite! There wasn't a bird around that didn't get pointed out, chased after, and laughed or squealed at. We were sad to leave such a beautiful place and come back to reality, but we were left with some pretty awesome memories.