The Miskin Family

This summer I put Tanner in charge of the governors reading challenge for our family. He kept track of all the minutes we read, and then filled out the info and mailed it in. At the beginning of November we got a giant packet in the mail with all the certificates for completion, and a bunch of coupons for free meals and such. I guess I should have looked over the entry form before he mailed it in. This is two of the certificates. Just a hint, it is not Tanners or Alexandra’s.

Either Tanner doesn’t know how to spell Nadia and Natalya… or they couldn’t read his writing. Both are possibilities.

One day the kids were bored so they started playing with our big legos. All of a sudden Tanner came running into me, “mom, you have to come take a picture of this and put it on the blog”. So, here you go Tanner, your epic lego tower.

Okay, she is really 7 months now, but at the beginning of November Alexandra turned 6 months old. At 6 months Alexandra was sitting up like a pro, and she started crawling! It was a surprise but this little thing was just crawling around on the floor.Luckily she doesn’t get into too much trouble yet.

At this time Alexandra was starting to eat a lot of real food, and loves it all! She also has become more smiley, but still doesn’t laugh a lot. When we do get a chuckle it is the cutest thing ever! Her brother and sisters still love her to pieces and insist on holding her all the time, and even fight over it. Tanner will wake up in the morning and goes in to Alexandra’s room and watches tv while he plays with her and takes care of her until I wake up. Alexandra is still waking in the night to eat, but I really don’t mind those extra minutes I get to spend with her. She is also very tiny for her age, but I love it!

Here are her stats:

weight 14.4 18th percentile

length 24 in 4th percentile

head 16 in 17th percentile

I feel like Halloween was super rushed this year because of our trip to Hawaii. We still were able to have fun though. I love buying the kids Halloween shirts, but unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of all of them this year.

Because we came back Friday morning, we were able to go to our wards Truck or Treat Activity that evening. I was smart and had all the kids Halloween stuff ready before we left on our trip. Tanner was a demon, Nadia was Princess Tiana, Natalya was Princess Snow White, and Alexandra was a witch! The truck or treat was packed! So, we are really quick, ran into Princess Rapunzel (Natalya’s friend Halle) hit up the “Trunk or treat” portion, and headed home.

On Halloween Tanner and Natalya’s school did a costume parade, and then I stayed to help with Natalya’s class party. They played a lot of fun little games, and I loved meeting all of Natalya’s friends. I had to get a picture of her and her friend Gavin, he is the cutest!

Later that evening the kids got all dressed up in their costumes, and per tradition, Aunt Kristana came. This year I decided to take the kids out trick our treating, so we all (even Sasha) went out, along with Aunt Kristana. We made it partially around the neighborhood and the girls got tired. So, we dropped them all off with Dad and Aunt Kristana, and Tanner and I finished up the neighborhood! Next year I am going to stay behind, I think I prefer to hand candy out and see all the cute kids! The kids got a haul, and even Sasha was allowed to indulge a bit.

Our last day! Though our flight was not until late that evening (a red eye), so we had the whole day to hang out. When we woke up that morning Trent took the older kids to the pool one last time, and I stayed around to clean and pack. And we were off! Our first stop was to return our snorkel gear and boogie boards.

Next came Whalers Village. When I was in Maui on a family vacation at age 12, I remember going to Whalers Village. It is basically an outdoor shopping mall. We spent a few hours looking through all the shops and finishing up our souvineer shopping. We also ate lunch there with some of our leftover food we still needed to eat up!

From there we headed to the aquarium and it was a great way to kill several hours. The kids loved see the giant aquariums full of fish, sharks, sting rays and other aquatic life. There were some outdoor exhibits too! While we were there, we ran into another family with a daughter named Sasha, we mentioned our baby’s name was Sasha. They then explained that their daughters name was Alexandra, but her nickname is Sasha! And of course we told them our is the same.

After the aquarium it was about time for dinner. During our trip Trent researched everywhere we ate to make sure we ate at the highest rated eateries. So, the one place we had not gone to yet was a shrimp truck. This shrimp truck was in the middle of industrial Maui, and totally a locals place. The people we ran it were true Hawaiian’s and Trent said they were missing half their teeth too. Trent ordered two shrimp scampi meals, and one Thai shrimp meal. Because it was just a shrimp truck we had no where to eat, so we found a local park to eat at. This park was definitely a locals only hang out, but it was a perfect place to go on our last day. The shrimp was AMAZING. I have never eaten shrimp so tasty in my life. It also came with rice and crab salad, and all of it together was seriously the best. I know I will go back there if we return someday. I dream about that shrimp.

After dinner we hit up the local McDonalds for some ice cream (and to kill more time). Tanner was still hungry so we ordered him a meal to eat. We laughed because one ice cream cone was more expensive than Tanner’s hamburger and fries. While at McDonalds we had the kids change into their PJ’s and we made sure everything was packed where it needed to be. We made one last stop at Walmart (we were seriously in need of killing time) and then we drove to a beach near the airport to watch the sun set one last time, and let the kids have a little sleep before we got on the airplane.

Our flight home deserves a post it self. I still shudder when I think about it. We had one baby that didn’t sleep at all (though she was happy the whole flight), a 5 year old with an ear infection that caused her to wake up screaming every 30 minutes or so, a 2 year old who had night terrors, and a mom and dad who got NO sleep. I think everyone around us loved us. The only highlight was that we got to watch X-men: First Class and Tanner slept almost the entire flight. We had a layover in LA where we had some breakfast and then boarded a short flight to San Fransisco. Our flight was empty, so we had the entire back of the plane to ourselves, and our own stewardess that just happened to be e member of our church!

My dad picked us up from the airport and I feel asleep (as did the kids) as soon as we got in the car, and I slept until we pulled into my parents driveway. I spent the first part of the morning asleep, then my Mom and I went to go visit my newest niece Anabel (who was born while we were in Hawaii). After the visit we took a quick trip to the Ghiradelli outlet to restock our chocolate supply and share a dark chocolate shake with my mom. LAter that night we went out for chineses with my parents, my brother and his family, and my grandpa. We were able to get some cute pictures of the cousins!

Trent had slept the entire day, so we deiced to leave that night and drive through the night again to go home. On our way out of town we stopped at a gas station, and seriously I thought we had entered a scary movie. There were thousands of black birds just hanging out. I was surprised Trent even got out of the car. I stayed put and had my camera ready for when they attacked.

From there I slept most the way home (and the kids did not even wake up at all until we got into Salt Lake City). We arrived home just after 9am. We had such a fun trip, from visiting family, to being in Hawaii. We feel so blessed to have been able to make this trip! My biggest fear was that one of the kids was going to drown while we were there. I am so thankful that did not happen (even with Nadia’s many near death experiences).

This was our last full day in Maui before we headed home. Therefore, we tried to squeeze in a lot! As soon as we woke up Trent took the kids out to the pools while Alexandra took a much needed nap. After she awoke, I joined them. The pools at this place were really nice, there was a great kid pool with a water slide, waterfalls and caves, and even a toddler section with a “beach” full of tiny rocks to play in. We went down the water slide a few times and then played hid and go seek in the pool.

When we were done swimming we went back up to the condo for lunch and got ready to head out to a beach in Lahina called black rock (where we heard as some great snorkeling).

After arriving on the beach we noticed a huge crowd gathered together looking out towards the water. My first thought was that someone was drowning, but then I saw this giant mass appear from under the water, it was a whale! As we were standing there Trent mentioned that it was early for  whale season. This is when the Hawaiian Shaman appeared out of nowhere and said “early whales means hard winter on main land”, and then disappeared…

Okay it didn’t really happen that way, but that sounds better. After Trent mentioned it was early for whales, a local food vendor  said that as long as he has lived in Hawaii, this is the earliest he has ever seen whales. He then mentioned that the earlier the whales come, the harder the winter is in the states. So, you heard it from me, “hard winter on mainland”.

When spent the rest of the day playing on the beach and taking turns going snorkeling. While Trent and Tanner were snorkeling, Natalya and Nadia were building sand castles. After a bit Natalya decided to get in the water. From where I was sitting (feeding the baby) I couldn’t really see the shore line, I could only see a few feet into the ocean. I wasn’t worried because Natalya had her life jacket on and I knew that if she went further out than the shore I could see her. After I bit I noticed I hadn’t seen her in a while, so I stood up and she wasn’t there! I kind of got a bit scared until I looked about 30 feet to the right of me and saw Natalya about 10 feet out . I started yelling for her, thinking she was caught in some current, but she couldn’t hear me. A couple close by noticed my predicament and the husband ran down the beach to get save Natalya. At some point she must have seen me and started swimming towards the shore. By the time the guy got to the shoreline she was out and running towards me. I asked her if she was ok and she was like, “Um, yah I was just going to see Dad!” So, she was in no trouble at all, she knew exactly what she was doing!

The snorkeling was pretty awesome, and I really enjoyed going out and swimming all around the rocks. It does get a bit scary at times when the fish get a little too close, and a little too big! All too soon it was time to head back for dinner. As we arrived it was sunset so we were able to snatch a few sunset pictures. While we were taking pictures the kids were running around. Natalya went to run back into the condo and she ran right into the glass door. It was pretty funny. That night we had an epic dinner (did I mention I did not cook one meals while I was there, Trent did all the meals for us!). We had fresh tuna, pineapple, crusty bread, avocado (Maui’s avocados tasted smokey, they were delicious), chips and salsa. After dinner we watched a movie and enjoyed our last night in Maui.

We woke up our last morning at our condo in Kihei. Trent and the kids went out to spend one last day at our beach and pool, while I pack and cleaned! By 11am we were gone. One our way out we ate at another awesome food place called Eskimo Candy. The seafood was divine, and we got to eat outside (I seriously could live in Hawaii).

We then took the long 45 minute journey to our new home for the next two nights in Kaanapali. The distance is only about 20 miles, but the speed limit and traffic make it take a little longer. All four of the kids conked out on the way. Since we were a bit early for check in we stopped at a place called “baby beach”. Baby beach is great because it is a local hot spot (which means not very crowded) and the waves break about 30 feet off shore, so it is super shallow and calm, perfect for kids.

After playing around for a bit, we headed to our new condo! I adored this place, it was so nice and all updated. There were board games and movies for the kids, and a huge lanai with an ocean view. We had our own master bathroom with a giant shower and separate giant tub, there was a tv in every room, and the kitchen had brand new appliances. Overall, I wish the condo in Kaanapali was on the beach we had in Kihei and it would have been perfect! After checking out the place we all bathed and got ready for the Old Lahina Luau!

Lahina is just the next town over and is the big tourist city. The Old Lahina Luau is the best rated and most popular Luau on Maui, and you have too book your table months in advanced! Luckily we had been planning this trip for several months, so we were able to get an awesome front row table! From the moment you walk in, to the moment you leave you are pretty much catered to and waited on hand and foot. We were all given lei’s and drinks as we were walking in, we were personally brought to our seats. Anything we wanted we got! Before the Luau started we were able to walk around and look at what some local vendors were selling. We bought two roses made from palm leaves, and Tanner bought a hand carved wood sea turtle.

We then headed back to our seats where Natalya and Nadia made friends with another little girl sitting near us, and Nadia also made friends with another grandma! The luau was served buffet style and the food was pretty good! Soon after we got our food the show started. We all enjoyed the show a lot, except Alexandra who just wanted to sleep. The show told the story of Maui and it was neat to learn the history of the island. During the show we were served desserts and as many drinks as we wanted! It was a really fun experience and I am so glad we were able to go.

On Sunday we decided that we would attend church, and just go to sacrament meeting. Church was at 9am (eeek!), but since we were waking up around 7am every morning that was no problem for us! The view from our lanai Sunday morning was amazing, and I couldn’t help but take pictures of it (and a picture of Nadia eating her breakfast).

Church was awesome, every one was very welcoming of “the visitors” and I always enjoy attending church in different areas. I love that our church is the same wherever you go, you know just what to expect and the spirit is always felt.

After church we headed back and I was able to get some pictures of the crazy kids.

We then  used the rest of our Sunday as a sightseeing day. We packed lunch and headed to the Iao Needle. This area of Maui had some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever experienced. I didn’t know things could be so green! The pictures do not even come close to capturing the beauty. My favorite part was the wild chickens. I get a kick out of wild animals roaming around for some reason. There were also a lot of cool looking birds  The hike was short and easy, perfect for kids. Except when we were almost done, Nadia just sat down and refused to move, she even said she was going to just stay there forever! Overall, the views were amazing and we were able to see some awesome looking plants and flowers, including banana and guava trees.

The hike did not take as long as we had expected, so we decided to take the drive up to the Haleakala volcano. It took us about an hour to get there on a super twisty road. The kids all started feeling a bit car sick, and I unfortunately only packed the essentials for the short hike we took. Luckily we survived, and I got a kick once again out of the wild cows and goats roaming about all over the place. The other cool thing we were so high up we drove through the clouds, and ended up over the clouds. When you looked down off the volcano you could only see clouds below. We made a few stops once we were on top, each with different views. The craziest was looking down into the crater and the fact that it was freezing cold!

We then raced back to the condo so we could catch one more sunset from our lanai and let the kids swim one last time in the pool. Come Monday morning we were leaving our little home for 5 days so we could go experience a different part of the island. That night for dinner we had surf and turf tacos. Trent used the meat and shrimp leftover from previous dinners, chopped it up, made a sauce, and served it with warm tortillas. It was amazing!

Kihei on Dwellable

Saturday was another early wake-up! This was the day of our snorkeling excursion. We had to be at the dock by 7:45am. Good thing we were used to waking up early!

On our way to the boat dock, we noticed a lot of smoke in the sky. As we drove a long we soon saw the reason. Apparently every year the farmers burn down the sugar cane fields, and we happened to be there for the burning of one of them. I wish I would of had my camera out, but at one point we drove right past the field, with the flames just inches from the road! The heat was amazingly hot, even form the car, but is was a cool thing to see. While we were on the boat ash started to fall from the sky onto the boat and everyone sitting on it. The captain said they call it “Maui snow”.

Our excursion included a light breakfast, lunch, and all you can drink sodas and juice. The food was actually quite good, included breads, fruits, enormous sandwiches and pasta salad. On a side note: I was extremely disappointed in my soda options on the island. Everyone mostly had coke, diet coke or root beer. I am not a coke person… and if I do have coke I want cherry or something in it! Even in the grocery store the variety was limited. I am not an every day soda drinker, but I I was on vacation and I wanted to indulge… too bad.

Our excursion took us to the tiny island of Molokini, population: 0. It is used as a bird and animal habitat, so no one is even aloud to step onto the island. The snorkeling here was pretty cool, I wouldn’t know though because of the baby and Nadia (who obviously cannot snorkel). Trent and I tried to take turns, but between him helping Tanner and Natalya and going out and coming back, there was about 3 minutes for me to get into the water, then come back out! But I was able to get some cool pictures, see some fish from the side of the boat, and watch Nadia make friends with another nice old lady.

After every one came in we headed to the next destination: Turtle town! This time I went out first with Tanner and Natalya. Tanner lasted about 3 minute. Tanner said a giant sea turtle started chasing him, and followed him back to the boat! He was too scared to go back after that. I luckily was able to see a turtle down on the ocean floor, it was pretty cool.

After turtle town we headed back to the dock. This is a great example of what it was like to bring 4 kids to Hawaii… okay, maybe it wasn’t like the the whole time, but the kids were pretty tired by day 4! And poor Alexandra, the majority of her naps were taken on Trent’s lap. I do not know how she survived the trip! She was the least grumpy of the kids, and was pretty hang loose the entire time!

When we returned to the condo Tanner and Trent took off to a good boogie boarding beach, while the girls and I stayed behind and did laundry, took a nap, and swam in the pool. After the boys returned Trent told me to go take off on my own for a bit ( he did this A LOT during our trip, so it really was a vacation for me too). I went to the beach in front of our condo and just swam for an hour. I love swimming in the ocean! For dinner that night Trent and Tanner picked up food from a awesome Fish and Chips place and we ate outside on the Lanai. Seriously, all of the seafood we had while in Maui was amazing, and this place was pretty good! After the kids were in bed that night I went out to my favorite destination: Foodland. Okay, not really my favorite destination… but my favorite grocery store in Maui! Everything there was  reasonably priced (plus we got a discount with our condo key). This is the place I bought my reusable cold storage grocery bag. It was a lifesaver on the trip. It kept our drinks and food cold that we would take to the beach, and it zippered closed so it would also save our electronics from getting sand in them on the beach. Oh, and they had a redbox:) My purchase that night was several single serve slices of bakery fresh cake. They were like 2 dollars each and soo good and my favorite was the passion fruit cake. What was the most expensive food item in Hawaii? Oreos. Over 5 dollars for a pack of Oreos… who knew!

Friday was another early wake-up, but this time it was on purpose! Trent, Tanner and Natalya were going on a helicopter tour and had to be dropped off around 7:30am. Trent was super excited about the tour and I am glad they were able to go. I am a little sad I didn’t go, but my fear of small aircraft overtook my desire to go, plus someone had to stay back with the baby right?

After I dropped them off Nadia, Alexandra and I went to the best souvineer shop on the island: walmart. No really, walmart had a entire souvineer section, and had the best prices by far! The food section was pretty fun to wander through also. The strangest part was when we went to check out, they didn’t have plastic grocery bags! Apparently in Maui (and all of Hawaii) they discourage the use of plastic grocery bags and encourage you to use reusable bags. Walmart took it to the next level and don’t even give you a choice. Needless to say it was a bit awkward carrying all my stuff out by hand. We ended up spending the entire time there, and as soon as we got in the car, Trent called saying they were ready to be picked up!

Trent loved the helicopter tour, but the kids did not seem to impressed. In fact they seemed more excited about their posters they got rather then the tour itself! On a somewhat side note.: Trent is not one to be talked into buying stuff EVER, especially unneeded things. However on this trip he was talked into buying all sorts of things: posters, helicopter tour video, the aforementioned snorkeling trip… Just had to throw that in there, because I think it is funny. I do have to say the dvd of the tour was pretty cool, it was fun to see all the things they got to see, without actually getting in the helicopter.

From there we kind of wandered around a bit. We ended up at a mall with a giant farmers market going on. It was pretty cool, but the kids were all being grumpy so we didn’t look around too much. From there we headed to a beach on the north side of the island that is a great spot to watch surfers. It was pretty cool to see all the surfers, and there was even a little girl about Natalya’s age catching some waves! Again, we would have stayed longer, but the kids were getting pretty grumpy at this point, so we left right as the waves were getting good and the wind surfers were coming out.

Another side note: On the plane from LA to Maui Trent sat next to a guy from Morocco. He and Trent talked the entire way. Apparently the guy is a huge wind surfer, and goes to Hawaii several times a year. Later Trent googled his name and found out he was ranked 20th in the world in wind surfing! He was the one who told us about the place to watch the surfers.

For lunch that day we ate a taco place right across from our condo. I had fish tacos and they were not the best, but the fish was so good and fresh tasting. Trent had a chimichanga and it was so good! You probably are wondering why we chose a taco place, well Trent researched every place we ate at, so all the restaurants were highly rated either on urbanspoon.com or yelp.com. We also hit up a gelato place after lunch that was pretty good.

When we returned back to the condo we spent the rest of the day on the beach and in the pools. That night the condo place had a big birthday party for one of the long time residents. It was fun because they had hula dances, a singer, and a fire dancer! The girls loved it, which made me even more excited for the Luau later in our trip! For dinner that night we had coconut shrimp and enjoyed another night of Disney channel shows.

When you go to bed early, you tend to wake up early too. Go figure.

We all started waking up around 5:30am Thursday morning. If any of you REALLY know me, you know waking up before 8am is a huge sacrifice. So 5:30 is kind of a big deal. Once nice thing about waking up early is you get an early start to the day!

Our first excursion consisted of a “Triple D” stop called the Kihei Cafe. We were able to get there right before 7am to beat the crowd. It was a fun little place with huge menu! You basically walk into a little shack thing and order your food, and then all the tables are outside. One thing about Hawaii is you can eat outside for every meal, which is seriously my ideal lifestyle. And do not worry, of course I am going to tell you what we ordered!

Trent ordered a chorizo breakfast burrito, I ordered Bagels and Lox, Tanner ordered biscuits and gravy (which I was super excited about because  I wanted to try it) Natalya had a cinnamon roll and Nadia had french toast. Little fact about Hawaii (or maybe just Maui) they are HUGE on cinnamon rolls and banana bread. They are as popular there as cupcakes are here. I tried everything and everything was sooo good. The lox for my bagels was so fresh tasting, it was divine.

After breakfast we headed to the nearest “ocean gear” rental place and got out snorkel gear and boogie boards for the week. This is also when Trent was talked into going on a snorkeling excursion on Saturday. Ok, the final decision to go WAS my choice, but Trent made a compelling argument. We then headed back to the condo for a little rest, and so we could gather things together to head to a snorkeling beach. The pictures of Sasha are of her sleeping on her make shift bed. It was basically a blanket on the floor with some pillows to contain her. She loved looking at herself in the mirror while she fell asleep though! I believe while Sasha was napping, Trent took the kids to the our beach for a bit, and gave me some nice quiet time. And my fears from the previous day of wind and clouds? Well, the weather on Thursday (and very single day after) was PERFECT. No wind, no rain, and very few clouds.

So, next was the snorkeling beach in the next town over called Wailea.  The beach was really nice and had small waves and a great coral reef spot for snorkeling. This was Sasha’s first exposure to the sand, and she loved it. She would take fist fulls of sand and try to shove it in her mouth. Eventually she would tire of that and would just face plant into instead. She was a mess, but it was pretty funny. Sasha was not a fan of the water though, which made it interesting to clean her off.  During the entire trip Nadia had a knack for making friends with older ladies. I do not know what draws them to her, but she basically made friends with every older lady we came in contact with. So, if you see pictures of Nadia with random older women that is why. We had a lot of fun snorkeling and boogie boarding. I love snorkeling and so Trent and I took turns going out, usually with a child or two in tow. On this specific trip Natalya’s favorite thing to do was to have Trent or I pull her around on one of the boogie boards, Nadia’s favorite was playing in the sand, and Tanner’s favorite was snorkeling.  Also, every day in the afternoon the clouds would build up around the volcano, and it would look like it was going to storm, but it never did. It was pretty to watch though.

After we tired out at the beach, we drove around Wailea for a bit (so the kids maybe would nap). We found an awesome outdoor shopping mall and Trent dropped me off for about 30 minutes so I could do some shopping! Trent and the kids drove around some more and found a local vendor on the side of the road and bought some icee treats. Later that evening we headed back to the condo and after a swim in the pool, we had a delicious dinner of Tri-tip sandwiches with white cheddar cheese and dipping sauce, along with fresh pineapple. I joked with Trent that my favorite meals we ate were the ones we made ourselves. Trent cooked every meal while we were there, and they were all gourmet. After dinner the kids watched TV and conked out almost immediately.