Huffman Happenings: Alright, let's finish up this Hawaii stuff!

Time around here lately has been pretty sparse for me. Dane's been working like crazy for the last month - like literally working the last 21 days straight between Consilium and the firehouse. He's finally done this Sunday and we can have our husband/dad back. With him being gone me and the boys have been on our own and I'll admit that after 21 days without my extra set of hands on the weekends has made this mama start to go a little batty! But we've all survived and it's almost done. Blog posting has not been a priority and I have yet to post any pictures from October. But hopefully this weekend I can get caught up since soon enough the holiday madness will also begin. Also a completely different topic but for anyone who may be concerned, my grandma (who lives on the south jersey shore) and her house survived Sandy. She headed inland with some family and stayed in the Philadelphia area to ride out the storm. My dad got into town as soon as he could and he and grandma actually made it onto the island and got a look at her house yesterday. She had about a foot and a half of water filling the house and all beds, chairs, etc. (anything that's not wood) is destroyed but a lot of stuff made it. She surprisingly has power and my dad's pretty optimistic - he's just got a lot of work ahead of him. Her tiny little house has made it through yet another storm! So our thoughts have been with those on the east coast but we're happy to know that she and her house were ok. And we're glad to know we'll still be able to go visit her in good ol' Townsend Inlet. Alright and now to finish off our Hawaii pictures...

We only spent 3 days in Oahu and that was plenty for all of us. We stayed in the Waikiki area and were pretty shocked with how swanky it was. There were a ton of high end stores and a lot of tourist - not exactly what we're into. But we saw some good stuff and were happy to go - just probably won't go back but we'd all go back to Kauai in a second.

We hiked up Diamond Head and I carried our giant "baby" up. I got a lot of comments from people who couldn't believe I was going up carrying him. The hike was about 1.5 miles each way and pretty straight up to the top but when you're used to the altitude we all felt like we could have run up it. The long flights of stairs with almost 30 extra pounds definitely made my legs burn though.

Pretty views from the top

We stopped and ate lunch at a picnic area at the bottom afterwards. There were seriously hundreds of birds around.

Carter enjoyed chasing them

We went to a beach that our old neighbor Dave who is now stationed in Hawaii suggested. It was really pretty but kinda crowded and you had to pay to go.

Our little beach babies loved swimming though.

We headed up to the north shore one day which is where my parents were staying. We stopped at Banzai beach and I seriously could not believe the waves. And crazily they were only about 1/2 the size they are during November/December time when the storms come in. If I were to go back to Oahu I'd love to go back at that time and see the really big waves. It was unreal and I cannot believe people go in there.

Landon kept trying to make a break for it though - didn't scare him apparently :)

Here's the view from my parent's room on the North Shore - rough huh?

Their hotel had a slide and pool and Carter was obsessed with it. He had to go by himself so I walked him up there and was skeptical he would go. After some coaxing he tried it out and then kept running back up to go again. He loved it.