All about Quin: An Interview of a 4-year-old

How old are you?  Door (a.k.a Four, see previous post for explanation)
What is dad's job?  to make the fire
What is mom's job? coloring
What is your favorite thing to do? take a bath and make it hot
What is dad's favorite thing to do?  play race cars with me and give me a bath
What is mom's favorite thing to do? color and play race cars with me
What is Dallin's favorite thing to do? play toys and take a nap
What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Spicable Me (a.k.a. Despicable Me)
What is your favorite thing to eat? chocolate, chocolate's nummy!
What is your favorite place to visit?  Brent's house
Who is your best friend? Brent
What do you want to do when you grow up? Go to Disneyland
What is your favorite toy? McQueen from Cars 2
What is your favorite color? Blue, like Thomas
What are you good at? Having fun!

Quin's Fourth Birthday

8:00am:  Wake up in Park City, Utah.  Go grab some continental breakfast at our hotel.  Quin was allowed to choose whatever he wanted for breakfast.  His selections included: fruit, scrambled eggs and Sprite.  He mostly just drank Sprite.  Breakfast of champions, I know.

 8:15am:  Perfect showing "four" on fingers.  A month later when asked how old he is, Quin will reply:

"Door" (he has a problem with the "f" in four)

He will then proceed by explaining:

"You put your thumb down and that makes door fingers!"

It is pretty stinkin' cute

 9:30am: open some presents in the hotel room.  The favorite gift?  Diesel 10

To better understand Quin's love of Diesel 10 refer to previous blog posts

12:00pm:  Quin's favorite meal:  Kraft Mac N' Cheese courtesy of Arby's

12:30pm:  Head to the Alpine slide.  Quin and Mommy went first.  I was white knuckled on the ski lift!  I didn't want this to be Quin's last birthday, who seemed to have know fear of being up so high!

1:30pm:  Mommy screams the whole way down the slide and Quin laughs.  Success!

 4:00pm:  Head over to Heber City for Dinner at Burger Keen.  If you have a kid who loves trains you MUST go here!  Quin was in heaven!  Not only do they have an awesome soda machine with flavor boosts, but they have models trains running through the entire restaurant.

6:00pm: Quin's favorite part of Burger Keen was the train table complete with Thomas the Train characters. After about 2 hours of playtime we were able to drag him away.

It was a great "Quin style" day.  I love this four year old!

Aloha Kauai: Hawaiian Adventure Part II

Top 4 Highlights from Kauai:

1.  The beach.  To the left is a picture of the boys and I at my favorite beach ever!  The water was tame for paddle boarding, the sand was perfect for digging (for the boys) and there was great snorkeling. Yes I overcame my fear of fish on this trip.  But we will discuss that more in #2 and #5....

2.  Here is picture of me, my BFF Mark and a giant tuna that I caught while deep sea fishing! 

 Okay, Okay.... so I didn't actually catch this fish and neither did Mark.  This leads us to our story.
What is the best place to get authentic Hawaiian food in Kauai you might ask?  Mark's Place.  Yep, it's true according to me and tripadvisor.  While at this eatery ordering a Teriyaki Beef plate Mark came up to me and said I needed to get my camera.
"Why?" I asked
"Because I have a giant tuna coming." Mark replied.
Hmmmmm.  I thought to myself.  I don't really like fish.  I don't think I want a picture of a giant tuna.
"Oh, I don't have my camera." I said.  Mark shook his head and walked away
10 minutes later I still didn't have my Teriyaki Beef (good food takes time).  I saw a truck drive up.  Mark walked outside.  "This must be the big fish"  I thought to myself as I remembered the camera on my phone.  I went outside an saw Mark and Hawaiian guy #2 pulling out this giant tuna.
"I want a picture" I shrieked to Mark in my most touristy voice!
"Only if you hold the tuna." Mark replied.  Now we had a problem.  I don't like touching fish.  Ever since I was 5 and felt a fish swim across my leg at the beach I have been deathly afraid of fish touching me.  However this was the moment for me to conquer that fear.  With 2 hands I held up the tuna and got this amazing shot.  Yep, that's me an my 212 pounder.  Fear of fish....conquered.

3.  Hanging out with the Donaldson Clan.  The Donaldsons are one fun group of people if I do say so myself.  The boys enjoyed being poked, wrestled, tickled and teased by all these fun people.

4.  I don't have a picture of this one, but I went on a Catamaran ride of the Napali Coast.   While on the boat ride we saw a pod of about 20 dolphins swimming alongside our boat.  What might be cuter than 20 dolphins jumping and swimming by you.  Try a baby dolphin.  Yes I saw a baby dolphin and he did a little jump like 10 feet in front of me.  Kill me with cuteness, it was adorable!

This boat took us to a secluded snorkeling spot.  May I note that this snorkeling spot was about 20 minutes away from the beach where the girl on Soul Surfer had her arm bitten off.  Scary! However, feeling empowered by my tuna experience I jumped in the water.  While snorkeling guess what I saw?  If you said "Shark" you guessed right!  While it was only about 2 or 3 feet long, I still saw it, in the wild.  And I still have both arms, in case you were wondering!

Aloha Maui: Our Hawaiian Adventure Part 1

Here is my top 5 of our first week in Hawaii:

1.  We went to the pool a lot! While at the pool Dallin usually looked like this:

He much preferred crawling around the perimeter of the pool and occasionally trying to sneak back in by himself when Mom and Dad weren't looking.

Quin on the other hand LOVED swimming in the pool.  At any point on our vacation if asked what he wanted to do he would always say "swim in the pool".  His favorite thing to do was have Bryce throw him as high as he could into the air and violently splash down into the water.  Boys....sheesh.

My Mom and siblings stayed at the Marriott in Maui where they had an awesome pirate pool.  Needless to say we usually sneaked over to their pool during the day and played pirates.

 2.  We also discovered an awesome waterslide at our resort.  It was a pretty tame so even Dallin and I rode on it.  On the right (strategically hidden by the foilage) is a pic of me going down the slide and below is Dilly crashing into the water while Bryce sacrifices himself so Dallin isn't submerged.  Nice work Bryce.  This waterslide gets the #2 position in my "Highlights of Maui" entry because it was loved by all members of my family.

3.  Hiking

Let me preface this entry by saying that I don't love hiking.  I enjoy "long walks" but not hiking.

This is a picture of the family after a "long walk".  We went to a specific destination and walked around, climbed a few stairs, jumped off a couple rocks, and an hour or two later were still all smiling.

Below is a picture of a select few of us after a "hike".  I chose to show this pic extra large so you could see our faces.  Notice Kyle's unimpressed look, Haylee's fake smile, my grimace and Quin's face which is screaming "just get me out of here!"

 This Hike was the road to Hana.  This picture was taken during the only 5 minutes that day it wasn't pouring down rain and were weren't either a.walking in mud or b.slipping and falling on death rocks.  Am I wuss when it comes to hiking?  Probably.  Or maybe I just needed better shoes....

The one highlight of the road to Hana was the black sand beach.
 That was cool.  And so was my nail polish....

4.  Lavender Gardens

Who knew that Maui grew beautiful Lavender gardens?  Not me!  Who sampled a crazy amount of food with lavender in it?  Me!  I tried:

Lavender herbal tea

Lavender scones

and Lavender brownies

Delish! And the boys thought so too!

 5.  Surfing Goat Dairy

I included this one because Quin and Dallin really liked feeding the goats.  My mom and I really enjoyed eating the goat cheese truffles.  It was a win-win on both sides.  So it makes my top 5.

Soon to come....Part 2: Kauai