Road to Hana!

The only non-selfie from our trip, lol!

Checking out the first of two black sand beaches.

Our ride for the week.

This guy was cheering Chris on. The water was FRIGID.

Phew, he made it to the wall. And thank goodness, he said he might have drown otherwise. Dear.

Black Sand Beach....so cool. And so much cooler than the other one. The black sand was formed when lava hit the cold water and shattered.

To be continued......(it was a long day!)

Haleakala Sunrise!

We set our alarms for 3:30am in order to get to the top of Haleakala to see the sunrise. We drove for approximately 2 hours to climb 10,000 feet to the top. We were certainly treated to a beautiful show!

Driving above the clouds....super cool!

The shadow of the mountain on the ocean.

Carson - 21 Months

Our little one is just 3 months shy of her 2nd birthday and boy has she grown up this last month. She is speaking in full blown sentences and just today, she said "mommy, sit, potty" and then sat on the potty and peed. Ahhh! It is going by way too fast.

• Carson loves to put on yotion (lotion) after her bath. And she has to do it herself, not mommy.
• She is very independent. She is constantly saying "no mommy". This is usually in response to me trying to hold her hand walking down the steps or buckling her into her seat, etc.
• I asked her if I could hold her hand the other day and she said "no way". I asked her if she wanted to take a nap. "No way."
• This month she climbed the rock climbing wall on our playset. This is no small feat for such a little girl. She is determined to do anything her brother can do.
• She has started referring to things as hers, "my swing", "my water", "Reed's chair", "mommy's bed", etc.
• She has this cute little dance that she does where she moves her arms and hips back and forth when she is excited. She usually makes the cutest little face when she does, puckering her lips. Such a cutie!
• "Are you doggie?" She went around the house saying this looking for a stuffed doggie.
• She has also started asking why when I tell her to do something. Carson, let's go upstairs for a nap, "why?"
• We occasionally get a milkshake from Chick fil A. Now, Carson calls any kind of drink from CFA a "shake shake". She is never disappointed that it isn't a milkshake.
• Due to some bad direction from her brother, she now says things like "poopy head", "shutup", and "stupid". I can't get over how quick she has picked these things up and uses them correctly. Ugh. I hope I can get rid of this. No fun.
• She loves to pretend to be a baby and say "goo goo gah gah".
• She has recently started saying "I want _____", but it comes out as "Elmo _____". For example, "I want gummies" sounds more like "Elmo gummies". It took me a bit to figure out what she meant.
• "Datch you" = I got you.
• While we were away on vacation, she learned to say her whole name. See the video below.
• Every day since we got home from vacation, she says "mere, Mommy, mere" (Come here, Mommy.) when she wakes up in the morning. So sweet!
• She uses "mine" WAY too often. Anything Reed has, "mine". Dear.
• She has started counting one, two, three, four, six. : )
• For the most part, Carson is a great listener. She will usually do things that I ask her to do and stops doing things I ask her to stop doing. There are times, however, where she runs as fast as she can the other way.
• "Doing, Mommy?" She wants to know what we are up to, lol!
• She is such a sweet little girl. She usually says "hello" to everyone we going into the gym or the preschool or even in a store.
• She continues to love "Wheels on the Bus".
• "Mornin".

"Carson Blaire Jarrett"

There is something precious to me about a little girl brushing the hair from her face. I am not going to tell you how giddy I was the first time Carson did this. I am crazy, I know.

Hawaii!

Chris and I just got back from a wonderful, relaxing, much-needed, only-the-two-of-us vacation in Maui. This was our first week-long vacation post kids and while it was hard to leave Reed and Carson, it was great to get away just the two of us. We are so incredibly grateful to our parents, who stepped up big and kept the kiddos for 4 nights each. Thank you so much for allowing us to take this vacation!! And thanks for taking such great care of our kiddos!

We stayed the week at Hotel Wailea. We opted to stay here instead of a large resort. The more I researched all the resorts, the less I wanted something like that, so we decided on Hotel Wailea. We were so pleased with our decision. And the views were incredible!!

We spent the first day at the beach and then headed to dinner at Mama's Fish House. The only downside to the hotel is that it is not located directly on the beach. The benefit is that you have these wonderful views above instead. They do have a section of the beach where they have someone setting up chairs and umbrellas for you and giving out bottles, but that's about it. They also share the beach with the Four Seasons and the Grand Wailea, so it was crazy packed. That was the one and only day we spent at this beach. Thank goodness there are plenty of other beaches on Maui! ; )

On the way to dinner, we stopped at Ho'okipa to watch the surfers. So fun!!

The restaurant gave me a lei before dinner. It smelled so great!

We spent the second day taking a little drive up the west coast of Maui. We stopped off at a lookout point that is supposed to be a good place for whale sightings. We didn't see any whales, but the view was pretty amazing. (We were fortunate to catch some whales jumping out of the water when were in our room one day.) We stopped off at Leoda's and got a yummy snack before we headed up to one of the prettiest beaches on Maui, Mokule'ia or Slaughterhouse. We also stopped back by Lahaina and did some shopping along with a necessary shave ice, not called "shaved" ice in Hawaii. Yummy!

The wind was whipping here...as you can tell from Chris's hair.

More details and pretty pictures to come.