Kauai - Pedersen Family First Annual Vacation

It started out pretty rough - 6 of us crammed in an 8 passanger SUV with 5 people's luggage, rush hour traffic, at 6am!  

Avi trailing her backpack Mimi got her.  

 Finally there!

 Avi, while FaceTiming with Daddy, said, "Can you drive over to Hawaii and read me a book tonight?"  She missed her Daddy who reads to her every night.

 Avi and Boppy really getting into constructing sand castles!

I looked over and saw Avi shoving sand down Mila's diaper.  Mila didn't mind at all!  Ha!

  

Avi and I wanted some ice cream, but I had to change Mila's diaper, so I asked Avi if she could wait in line (it was a LONG line, too), hold the money, order, and then get the change and ice cream and bring it to me. She agreed and actually did it!  I was so proud - and she was, too!

Mila!

This yarn was for Pacha until she had her baby.  She had her baby about 5 days after this picture was taken. I was thinking about her a lot and how far away I was.  

 

I love my momma!

I love this little monkey!

  Waimea Canyon - stunning views and all I can stare at is this little baby in my arms!

Locals that can make more money doing this than construction which is their profession.  

Take out Mexican food on the beach!

Avi and I took a little hike on the path on the other side of our fence! Can you believe all this was just 10 feet from our back door?!

Avi took this picture!

Avi climbing the "pancake" rocks.

We took Mila out there when she woke up!

... Mila and Clementine.

Finally Finn arrives!

oh, and Brant, Reef and Aryn, too!

Extra curls in all this humidity!

Diaper change.

This restaurant had amazing mixed drinks!

Even Michael's into it!  (Daddy's arrived!  Life is complete.)

God, thank you for every one of these moments.

Happy momma!

Mila's just happy to be part of the bunch!

Mila, Aryn, Reef and I went hiking the end of the road trail.  Good, long hike!

 This is the most stunning hike in the world.  And my second favorite hike in the world. Not bad!

Oh, I love you little Mila! 

Aryn's hiking strategy - the 3 B's: baby, barefoot, beer!

Bali Hai!

Easter Sunday!

Got all four kids in one shot!

checking to see if any teeth came in during the photo shoot.

 Brant and I had fun hiding all those eggs - think everyone else was pretty hung over and didn't want to go outside in the bright light and bend over to hide eggs!

 Avi is just so happy to be with her sister!  She sings to her.  I love seeing all the love they share for each other so effortlessly and naturally.

At our favorite restaurant.

 I was surfing at this beach half an hour earlier when Pacha's baby Max was born.  

Love this picture of my mom - you can see how precious she is holding Reef and this moment with him.

Date night!  They closed the bar at 9pm, but kicked us all out by 8:55pm!  That's okay, we had a nice walk on the moonlit beach nearby!

The yellow dot is Avi, the red dot is Mimi.  Avi was having a meltdown and Mimi went back to her, thanks Mimi!

My favorite picture from the entire trip!

mahogany forest

 Avi led the hike - she was so far in front of us at times we couldn't see her!

Double kayaks are difficult to sync paddle!  We had fun, though! 

Saw lots of these turtles on our kayak trip.

walking on water.

our guide ate a lot of chocolate.

this beach had massive waves this day - the biggest seen by locals all year!

I seriously didn't even know Reef was there - I don't think he knew!  He just slept! Sweet, babe.