Hawaii Trip - Pearl Harbor and Honolulu Zoo

Oh boy! I didn't know driving around a tiny island could take so long and so much of your day! We did a lot of driving the day we landed, but I figured that was due to rush hour traffic...nope. Traffic on this island is just awful...all.the.time!

Cute morning family picture :)

So today's plan was the zoo, antique shop, Pearl Harbor, and antique shop. Then come home. all those were on the other side of the island so we figured we'd hit them all up in one day. It was Larry's idea to look at the antique shops. I was surprised, but I kind of love making that part of our vacations since we started it in St. George last year.

To start the day off (another early day, thanks to me again...why won't by body sleep in?!), we had another wonderful breakfast at the buffet, Cara ate food really well, was extra giggly, and we got to give her some new fruits to try (we let her try the leftover papaya from the skin which she loved and some strawberries and other fruits from the buffet). We started giving her foods from our plates (just little bites) and she's been loving trying our foods. In fact, I think she looks forward to meal time so she can try different foods from our plates haha. Did I mention yet that traveling with kids is almost way more fun than by ourselves!

We headed out to the zoo and got there around 10 AM. It's a pretty small zoo, but they had a petting farm with goats area. That was so much fun! There was a lady who knew each goat and she was telling us little fun things about them. Like how one let me pet him and kind of relaxed a bit and she said "that means he wants his belly rubbed", so I did and he totally opened it up so I could rub more for him. They were so sweet, I could've stayed for hours. They even came up to Cara so she could touch them. she only did for a second, but it was awesome. They also had this koi pond type area with REALLY large fish. Like as big as Cara. It was cool to put her up to the aquarium to that!

I look like I'm screaming, but really
I was excited and trying to smile...

I had NO idea Koi got THIS big
They were as big as Cara!

Such a good daddy!

I was disappointed they didn't have any bears and their komodo dragon didn't come out at all, but we still got to see a good chunk of animals. Cara started to look so bored (but cute) so I took a couple pictures of her looking bored and the second I stopped she got this cute smile all of a sudden. Almost like a "no mom, this is fun, I swear I'm having fun!" haha. We ended up going to the gift shop after we were done and I finally found a sun hat for Cara. It is so precious! I wanted to get her so many things, but had to remember we didn't really have room in our bags so I had to keep it minimal (I only got the hat and a book and then a shirt for my brother to continue our "buy him a funny shirt to say thank you for taking care of our animals" tradition).

Petting zoos are my favorite!!

Literally right after I took this picture
Cara smiled. Didn't change position, just
Smiled. SO adorable (but I missed taking
The picture)

After the zoo we had enough time to get a quick bite to eat and go to Pearl Harbor. We ended up showing up like 2 minutes after our "tour" time, so they gave me their last two tickets for the next tour. My only complaint about how they run it over there is you can't bring ANY bags into the place (not even diaper bags) so you HAVE to pay to check them...THAT was annoying. But I grabbed my go pro and we checked the bag (luckily Cara was freshly changed and fed so we didn't really need it) and went on. We watched the movie you have to watch before going onto the shuttle boat, which I loved. It was interesting seeing clips from back then and see how crazy that time was. Cara even did pretty well..until the last 5 minutes when she started spitting and screaming "mamamamama" (in a joke type way) which was awkward because they tell you in the beginning it's disrespectful to talk during the movie...whoops! After that you load up onto the boat and they shuttle you to the walkway that's been built over the USS Arizona. It's kind of creepy to go on that and look down to see a boat that has all these dead bodies still stuck in it. But it's so peaceful and quiet too...very serene (I'm sure it's haunted for sure and would hate to go there at night!)

The view from lunch near Pearl Habor

As we were in line to head back to the island Cara started to get really really giggly and we realized it was past her nap time. She kept laughing at me saying hi to her, it was too cute and funny! This is when we discovered Cara gets delirious when she's sleepy and starts acting goofy...I kind of love it! When we got back to the island I wanted to do more (they had a museum, gift shop, memorial walk way, battleship, and a submarine to see), but since Cara was sleepy and Larry hates doing those things (I do end up usually dragging him to them) we decided to call it quits and head back. We decided Cara could sleep in the car while we drove around looking for the antique shops we found online, but unfortunately one of the shops didn't have parking ANYWHERE near it and the other shop didn't seem to really exist (we showed up at the address, but we didn't see it anywhere near by). So we had to scratch that plan and head back to the hotel. On THAT drive Cara woke up and was getting cranky for some food so I hopped in the back to feed her (to avoid having to pull over and feed her outside the car or anything) and for some reason she was REALLY giggly then too. She kept laughing (like from her gut, really very entertained type of laughing) whenever I'd look at her, which would make me laugh a lot, which made her laugh more. I called it our "giggle off". I think she was just desperate for human interaction or something at this point (she slept a lot today, but was either in the stroller, car seat, or a carrier for most of the day). It was too funny and I wish I had recorded it because those laughs were the cutest!

On the shuttle to the Memorial

On the Memorial, you can see the ship on the left side

these giggles though!!

As we drove our long drive back to the hotel I started to notice a ton of houses were just on cinderblock stilts. It didn't look very safe, but a lot of people parked their cars in these spots and I kept thinking "what if someone hit that or came home drunk or something...your whole house would be history. So Larry and I started talking about the houses and joking about it. Larry made some joke about if someone wanted revenge and brought a sledge hammer to the house and started hitting at them and one of the people living there would have to say "oh crap honey, we only have like 3 hits left before that corner is history!" I laughed and laughed! Even though today didn't go as planned (we didn't get to see antique shops, the zoo was pretty dead, and we were late AND had to pay to check our bag at Pearl Harbor), it was still such a good day for memories.

Cute little sunhat we found that finally fit her!

Yummiest dinner!

The only other drawback to today is we've learned Cara LOVES straws, she loves to try and eat them, she likes to play with them, she just lights up when we give her straws. Well we let her play with one in her car seat as we were driving and she accidentally stabbed her face and cut her little cheek with the straw today so we had to take it away and console our sad baby. Poor little girlie :(

After all that driving we figured Cara could really use some wiggle time so we ordered room service for dinner and just vegged out in the room. It has probably been my favorite night because it was just so chill. I know I've already said it, but this vacation rocks so far! And now that Cara has eaten and is asleep it's time for me to sleep as well (since apparently sleeping in is just NOT going to happen here!).

Hawaii Trip - Beach Day!

Beach Day...you picture it, you dream about it, you think it's going to be great. But sometimes not everyone agrees with the beach. Enter Cara!

Turns out...I couldn't adjust

Morning sunrise on our balcony

 

Today was actually a great day. I ended up waking up at 5 while the baby and hubby slept (apparently my body is the one that can't adjust to a new time zone or something). I just sat in bed looking at Instragram waiting till an appropriate time to wake the others up. I wanted to go back to sleep, even tried a few times, but it was no use, I was awake. I was worried it was going to be a long day, but it wasn't so bad.

First things first, we used today as a "get used to the new time and place" day. We got up around 7, got all of us dressed and ready to go, then went down for our free breakfast buffet. I fed Cara her food while we ate and we just hung out for a bit. We learned the pouch food may be the way to go here since Cara can feed herself basically and we just watch her. While we were eating we got plenty of comments along the lines of "oh she's so [cute, adorable, perfect, etc]" of Cara. Made me feel so special to be her mom!

After breakfast we headed out to go grocery shopping to get Cara some diapers and food and some bottled water for all of us (bottles for her and just drinking for us) for while we were here (another great tip I read about)...yes we went grocery shopping in vacation, that's what you do with a baby. We had two grocery store options: Longs Drugs and Foodland. Foodland had a great selection of most things we needed (including POG juice, which we didn't need, but we love to get while we're in Hawaii). They even had a checker named Cara, but hers was pronounced Care-a. She was checking out a super drunk lady (who was buying vodka at 10 AM and slurring her words and couldn't stand still to save her life) before us and when it was finally our turn she kind of rolled her eyes like "can you believe these people?" Haha. We told her she had the same name as our daughter, who was peacefully sleeping in her car seat and she was bummed she couldn't say hi to her. But again, the friendly thing you could tell made her day and she was so nice to us! We also went to Longs to see if we could find a sun hat since Foodland didn't have one and we thought it would be good to give Cara while we were out and about. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed in that part. Hopefully we find one somewhere along our trip.

Napping buddies...even matching how they nap

We ended up going back to our room and taking a nice family nap in the middle of the day. Cara slept great last night, which I attribute to the fact that we brought her sheet and bumper from home (the sheet was another good tip I got, the bumper was my own though since I didn't want her to get trapped in the crib here). And when I say family nap, I mean Larry and Cara napped, I still couldn't sleep (sleep is for the weak...apparently) so I continued watching the surf contest that was going on 5 miles up the road from our hotel on the tv. It was actually pretty impressive to watch them compete.

We did learn today that vacation Cara is a much happier person. I'm not sure if she could sense we were more relaxed and happy or she just liked being in a new spot, but she has been such a happy-go-lucky baby so far.

 

Lunch time for us!

We found a kitty!!

 

After nap time we went down to the beach to introduce her to the ocean. Unfortunately she did NOT like it much. Granted, my vision of how this would go is Larry would carry Cara as he walked into the ocean to slowly introduce her to it. But it was a really windy day and the water was VERY choppy so Larry kind of sat her down on the beach and let the waves come up to her. He picked her up if they came up too strongly, but she had already decided she hated it. I tried to take her out with me, but I felt uncomfortable with how much the water was moving me around. So I let Larry play with her on the sand (where water couldn't get to her) and I swam in the ocean for a bit. I only lasted about 10 minutes before I touched what I thought was some sort of ocean creature and decided I was also done with the beach (I'm really more of a pool person).

She was NOT an ocean fan at all!!

After I went swimming, I went to comfort her a little

After all that excitement we hit up a Mexican restaurant (Cholos) we had seen so many commercials for it got me craving Mexican food. It was SO delicious (or at least my enchilada was). Parking was difficult, but they were definitely a "get you in and out in a hurry without feeling rushed" sort of place. I was very pleased. And it was near this really cute market and other restaurant called "beach house" that I might want to try while we're here. Once again, we fed Cara her dinner at the restaurant and then let her nap on the way home. We got back, fed her the last bottle, got her ready for bed, and now I'm signing off so I can go to bed now. So far I'm loving this vacation and I'm regretting saying I wanted it to be over with just so I'd know how well Cara travels. Hopefully it goes wonderfully slow after this. Tomorrow we're doing Pearl Harbor and the zoo!!

Cara NEVER puts her head on our shoulders
This is how we knew she was tired
From an eventful day

G'night world!

Hawaii Trip - Travel

So while I was pregnant with Cara I had semi-seriously decided we needed to take her to Hawaii when she was around 7 months old. This was because my mom got her a cute little Hawaiian shirt to fit her at 6 months old and that's when my mom shared with me that I was 7 months old when they took me. This was right around my birthday so I thought it would be perfect. When she was just two months old we booked the trip (through Costco) for this week. I was so excited...and then realized I'm going to be on a plane, travelling far away, going back in time and trying to get a 7 month old to adjust to a time change...how bad was this going to be? I won't lie, I almost stressed out about it more than was excited for it. I decided to read everything I could about tips and tricks when it came to traveling with a baby, how to get them to adjust to a new time zone, and what was going to make this as easy as possible. The week leading up to the trip I was telling Larry I was almost more excited for it to be over with so I could know how it was going to be to travel with a baby. Had I known we had the best baby of all babies I wouldn't have stressed out nearly as much! Haha

Had to get some Hawaii-themed shirts for our trip

Especially when they are 50% off!!

We got so lucky today in so many ways:

• You know it's a good sign when people look at your baby and go "oh my gosh, look how adorable she is!" I was told I would get a lot of judge-y eyes and people giving looks like "oh no a baby?!" But I didn't see one person with that look
• We got to the airport early and they actually put us in a separate line since we were traveling with an infant and we were the first ones in this line, no one was in front of us so we got checked in really early and the lady was super nice.
• We got to be in the TSA Precheck line! I've never done this, but man was it awesome! I'm not sure if it was because we had a baby or what, but it went SO smoothly (no removing belts or shoes and they just did a quick body scan and check of our baby food and that was it).
• We got to board early. This we actually missed when they called for "people traveling with infants" so when we showed up I was like "okay, guess we have to wait our turn", but others were like "shouldn't you go up to the front?" and then a worker told me to just go on up and the other worker at the door just had us scan our own tickets. It was pretty awesome.
• We got the whole row to ourselves! I didn't think that was going to happen, but it was SO amazingly helpful during the direct flight to Hawaii (a 6 hour flight no less!). AND they gave us blankets and pillows, which made it so comfy!
• Cara didn't really cry once! She whined a little when she got tired, but we had a great comfy set up for her and she napped TWICE. Two really good naps too! And she ate awesomely! Even though there were plenty of distractions (which really doesn't mix well with a wiggly baby), but she powered through!
• Cara LOVED the decent of the plane and didn't seem to mind take off one bit. She ate her pouch food (which I got specifically for her to eat during take off) way before hand, but she didn't complain or grab her ears or anything.
• We got free movies on the plane. Like new movies! And Larry and I both got to watch two of them, each. I chose Baywatch and the 5th Pirates movies. Larry chose Shrek and one called Ghost in the Shell. Mine were awesome!
• When we landed a few people made comments about how great of a traveler she was. She even made faces at the babies who did cry almost like a "what's wrong with THEM?" kind of face. It was so cute. Larry and I secretly high fived each other with our eyes haha.

Wiggle time at the airport

Sleeping SO well on the plane

Eating with Daddy

Watching movies, playing, whatever

 

I did get some great tips for traveling with a baby, here's ones I learned and good ones that were helpful:

1. Be friendly to the airline workers. They deal with stressed out, angry people all day long (no one is a really happy traveler) so if you are friendly to them they are not only friendly to you, but usually help you even more than normal.
2. Bring enough toys and food to keep them entertained for the times they can't wiggle. We brought a soft toy, a teether toy, and a couple other smaller-ish ones so that she never seemed to notice she couldn't wiggle around (and was actually trapped on just our laps).
3. Keep baby in their PJs and a sweater and bring an extra sweater for yourself to act like a blanket for them. Since we were given blankets, the extra sweater I brought cushioned her from the seat belt buckle so it didn't dig into her hip or anything while she napped.
4. Buy water at the airport. Then as you're flying ask for the hot water (which is really hot). Pour the hot water into the bottle (but only for about 1/3 of what the whole bottle will be) and then pour the rest from your bottled water. It will be warm, but not too warm. So I did 2-3 ounces of the hot water and then 4-5 ounces (for a 7 ounce bottle total) in the bottled water. I also pre-packed the formula and oatmeal so that al I had to do was add that, shake it, and hand it over to daddy to feed her.
5. Bring a boppy pillow to help support your arm while the baby sleeps. We also brought a binkie, which Cara doesn't take, but she liked to play with them right before she slept. I also rubbed her face for about 10 minutes to calm her down and get her to close her eyes. It was a great combination.
6. Definitely work as a team. I let Cara nap on me (which really wasn't a sacrifice since I had the boppy pillow under her, the airline pillow under my arm, the blanket around both of us and then next to her ear so she had it blocked off from their constant announcements..it was a really comfy setup and I just watched movies as she slept), then she ate with Larry (who has always been good with getting her to finish her bottles). I was also happy to change her diaper and clean out the bottles too (with the remainder of the hot water to sanitize it as much as possible) since it gave me time to get up and walk a little.

Cara was confused by all the announcements
Made on speakers haha

Happy Mommy and Baby

Check out her vaca bed

After the flight we went in search of our rental car and ended up getting upgraded (for no extra charge) to an SUV - that being friendly thing REALLY pays off! And the car seat was actually pretty comfy for Cara - she completely passed out on the 2 hours drive to the hotel (which was only 38 miles away...but traffic was AWFUL). After we got checked into the hotel we fed Cara a quick dinner, then we went out to dinner (just at the hotel restaurant...it was okay), we got back to the room and fed her her last bottle and got her ready for bed. She's now sleeping and now that I'm at the end I'm signing off so we can go to bed too. I expect it to be an early morning tomorrow so I'd like to get as much sleep as possible.

Cara is SEVEN Months

I am SEVEN months old!

I like: Food (especially from mom and dad. Her favorites right now are Pizza and mango juice), rolling and turning and scooting around, chewing on anything and everything, swings and wind, mom's shiny jewelry, and mornings (she's a big morning person...like her mom).

 

We did some family pictures and I had to
Take this awesome one of Cara being so
Observant at the Capital

I dislike: Getting her nails clipped (like HATES it), being stuck in her high chair or car seat when she wants to just wiggle around.

I am now: So apparently I (mom) forgot to do a weight check in, but she's in 6 months clothes, starting to grow in to 6-9 months, and level 3 diapers. That's about all I got for 7 months.

Her monkey legs/feet

Peace & Love

A Typical Day looks like: I (mom) got a new work schedule so since I go into work later I wake Cara up at 7:30 (sometimes she's already up and just entertaining herself, sometimes she's still sleeping), I get her diaper changed and into clothes and then feed her her first bottle at 8 (we don't want her to learn to eat RIGHT when she wakes up so she doesn't learn to just wake up when she's hungry or anything). I then leave for work after she eats and burps and leave her with dad to stay upright for a little bit. I work 9 - 5 now so I get home between 5:30 and 5:45, during that time Larry feeds her at 11:30 and 3 like normal, she naps every 2.5 to 3 hours (depending on how long she napped before), she gets 2-3 naps a day that last 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. After I get home we say hi and visit for a minute. At 6 we eat dinner while feeding Cara a jar of baby food, after dinner we do our "activity" for the night, she gets her last bottle at 7 and then we play until 7:40 when we get her ready for bed. She is down by 8 and then we do our own thing at that point until we go to bed.

 

Got a new toy from Daddy and
She loved it!

Teaching Cara oral health

Took her to the park for the first time.
She liked the swings as you can see

Ready for sippy cups?

This Month I: became obsessed with not only scooting and sitting up, but pulling myself up on my parent's hands. I love scooting around and now that I'm teething more I've decided feedings should take much longer than they used to. I also now can say gaga, baba, mama, and dada along with "hey" and "yeah", but I don't know what those words mean just yet. It's still fun to practice saying sounds!

She keeps pulling herself up on things

Introducing Cara to Christmas

I put her on the container and she was SO happy
She loves to smack them like a drum

Parent's Notes: We pulled out the old activity mat with the piano and turned the piano up so that Cara could play it while sitting up and watching her start to pull herself up on that and then on the walker was so adorable. She did that ALL on her own, we didn't show her or anything, she just got curious and started doing it. She is OBSESSED with pulling up on our hands and will start to laugh once she's standing (she even started snorting while laughing which is the cutest thing ever). Her little legs are so strong and she's loving using them for many things (including kicking us away while changing her or anything that involves her maybe sitting still for a bit! Haha).

Finding natural teethers

 

Update on last month's goals:

• Cara is a sitting pro. She doesn't know how to put herself up or how to go from sitting to laying without just face planting, but she loves sitting. And while she doesn't crawl, she scoots like a champ haha. It's really fun to watch her scoot across the room towards a toy or something she REALLY wants.
• Well the only real Thanksgiving movies I could think of were Pocahontas and Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving so we watched those. We fed her a Turkey baby food on Thanksgiving and she liked that. Other than that, it was just a general month. We have started Hallmark Christmas movies though so that's a fun one.
• We're doing signs and I know she knows eat now, but she can't do it yet. We did add Grandma and Grandpa and Bath to the routine too.
• She LOVES being in her own room. She sleeps so great throughout the night and has even taken a few naps in there. It's AWESOME!
• We're trying new foods all the time and we even started adding Peanut Butter or some strawberry jelly at the end to help avoid those allergies.
• Cara is doing much better with others. We visited my aunt's house (with grandparents and cousins) and Larry's mom's house and while she did get uncomfortable and started to cry, she did get used to the people quickly. We also had Thanksgiving at our house so we had Andy, Rachel, Jena, Skyler, Cailyn, and Grayson over and she didn't seem to like ALL the noise and people around, she did get used to it and even ended up loving the kids being around her. She even reached out to Jena to be held. They also got to see a couple smiles from her which was awesome. She's such a cutie!

Goals for next month:

• Get Cara working on sitting herself up and crawling.
• Work on getting her to wave and clap
• Watch Christmas movies and shows.
• Go on our first vacation with her...I'm a bit nervous about the time change and the plane right. But we'll try it.
• Work more on signs and the "mama" and "dada" sounds. I'd like to add please and thank you to the routine now.
• Still work on new foods and people being around her.