Hawaii part 3

Wednesday the other 10 members of the family drove way down south again to go to on a zip lining adventure. I of course, being 6 months pregnant with twins, could not join that activity and Casey was sweet enough to stay behind with me. We lounged around in the morning, did a little shopping/looking around in Hanalei, came back to the resort and went down to the beach and then back up to the pool and by that time everyone was coming back! It was really good for my body to have a pure relaxing day with no activity, I sure needed it. I am sad I had to miss out on so many things because I was so far along being pregnant but it's ok, I will go back again at some point (and make sure I'm not pregnant) and get to experience it all again with Casey). Here's some random scenery photos of this down time day. The flowers were so gorgeous and grew EVERYWHERE with ease!

 It seemed as if my brother Weston and Casey were always in cahoots teasing Scott and later Whitney about something or another.

 The day before after kayaking we stopped at this yummy little food truck with these two siblings. How I love me some good tacos!

 Casey was happy there was a Puka Dog really close to our resort just in Hanalei. I think he ate there 3 times. I'd have to agree, those hot dogs are dang amazing and totally out of this world. Pineapple relish? My mouth is watering just as I write this...

Thursday was, you guessed it, more snorkeling! I think the group all went to Queen's Bath this day, again, the hike was too much for me so Casey and I stayed back (bless his heart) he's so sweet to say that he and I will get to experience for the first time ourselves another year. I think that afternoon a bunch of people went to Secret Beach. Casey joined them this time but, yet again, too much of a hike and I missed out. I saw videos of him being happily thrashed by waves as he tried to body surf them, that man is always making me laugh.

Now that I'm writing this all the days are a little of a blur now. Friday I think we went and snorkeled tunnels beach again (it's just that good!) and went back to Lumahi beach in the afternoon. Mostly the week consisted of lounging on beaches and snorkeling, I'm definitely not complaining though.

Funny story about these chairs below: My parents and my uncle and aunt switch off on this time share in Hawaii. They don't provide beach chairs though, boo. And chairs are like $20 or more everywhere. So the first time they all went together, they bought chairs and then triple bagged them and hid them in the jungle until the next time they'd come, HA! Such a "Holman" trait/thing to do and it made us all laugh but I APPRECIATED it so dang much! Seriously, those chairs made all the difference for me at those beaches. So thank you to my mama and Uncle Bill.

always turtles to be found!

Friday evening the storm began making it's way through (well actually the said hurricane/tropical storm) so everyone kinda secluded themselves seeing what the next few days had in store for us all! We played a few games and had a good old time of it all amidst the rain.

Saturday was a pretty gloomy day, the hurricane had turned into nothing but a big rainstorm but the waters were much higher everywhere, the water choppier, and the sun covered. Casey went snorkeling with Logan and Blair at the beach that our car had problems at earlier in the week. We drove a little further down the road and he tried body surfing at this one beach with some pretty sweet waves. He was the only fun/crazy one who did and I admit I was both afraid for his life and jealous I could not get on a boogie board and join him. After the body surfing stint we walked up and down some of the shops in the nearby town. Actually everyone else walked and I chose to sit on a bench pretty soon after we got there. You guys, walking became a lot of work for me this trip, ha.

By the way, Casey became quite the bird man this trip, feeing all the little chicks at the beach (picking them up too) and then at our resort he was always sitting on the balcony with bread in his hand waiting for the birds to come eat out of his hand and sure enough they did. I will have a strong memory of Casey singing the "toppins for birds" song from Mary Poppins.

Sunday was a strange day, all of our flights were red eye, but we were booted out of our timeshare at 11 or something but since it was Sunday we also didn't want to do water activities really. So we took our time packing and getting ready to leave and such. Once we did leave we did a little tourist picture taking at places we hadn't before, we admired all the new waterfalls all over the mountains from the rainstorm, we visited a couple waterfalls we could drive to, Casey kept trying to catch more little chicks, we visited the lighthouse, and we did a couple last minute stops a shops we had forgotten to buy stuff at. It was a good relaxing day but I was just dying to get back to my little boy. I haven't written about it thus far but being away from Maxson for so long so dang hard. I missed that little boy so much and would eagerly wait everyday for the time we got texted pictures of him or got to FaceTime him. Having him come to Hawaii with a nanny in tow would be the perfect vacation.

 Kirk and Whitney: the selfie pros

 photobombing Kirk and Whitney's selfies

 A view of Lumahi beach from above. And our resort in the distant background.

The flight home was AWFUL. We left at 9 pm, midnight AZ time, and got back at 6 am AZ time. My back was even worse coming back on the flight, I had the middle seat, Casey the window and there was the tallest man ever on the aisle seat with a bunch of his kids across from him so I knew he wouldn't switch. I had to get up a ton of times again for the comfort of my back and got maybe 15 minutes of sleep at the most. I was dog tired for the next day but oh so excited to see Maxson!

Hawaii was such a wonderful trip and I'm ever so thankful my parents invited us, that all my sibling made it work to go as well, and that we too were able to make it over there even me being 24/25 weeks pregnant with twins. Such a fun trip that we'll always forever remember! 

(I may blog about Hawaii another time when my siblings give me their pictures. Ahem, siblings!)

You never know

After listening to Elder Bednar's recent CES devotional I made an effort to find various LDS centered accounts to follow on Instagram, thus far I had only followed friends or bloggers I really like. Well today the mormon channel IG account posted this video:



Heavenly Father knew I needed to watch this video today. I was completely pitying myself all morning long.

Last night at 11:30 pm I went into Maxson's room trying to find the humidifier to use in my room for the night since I had had not the best night the night before with a stuffy nose. Of course I woke him up and after Casey and I trying to get him down multiple times to sleep I ended up getting up with him at 12:20 and bringing him downstairs to play in the dark and not just cry/scream in his crib.

I was exhausted by 1:30 and grateful he didn't fight me going to sleep yet again. I figured since he'd lost 2 hours of sleep that night he'd sleep in; not the case.

8 am wake up call came around, I didn't have a great night sleeping once again because of my nose and now I woke up with a terrible chesty cough that hurt, oh and I'm 8 months pregnant with twins if that makes a difference in the kind of quality sleep you can actually get.

I decided to get up with Max and let Casey keep sleeping since he'd been missing out on so much sleep recently from staying up studying for a test.

And side note, the night before I had about killed myself by having to go grocery shopping at 9:30 pm thus killing my back and giving me tons of contractions. This grocery shopping trip was a big one because we were literally out of everything because grocery shopping is overall really too strenuous on me.

I was banking on the fact that when Casey got up, he could watch Max, and I'd go back to sleep since he didn't have class until 1. He awoke at 9:40, showered real quick all to run off to a physical therapy appointment I didn't know about at 10.

I was struggling. I didn't want to have to put a movie on for Max or give him my phone and he just kept getting into small things that would be better that he didn't. He wasn't really into playing with toys by himself either. I was not feeling so hot with being pregnant achy, and now cold/cough achy, and tired from the night. I just wanted a break. At the same time I couldn't ask a friend to help out because I didn't want to chance sharing this cold of mine. I let him play in the bath for awhile which was good entertainment for a little but at the same time it takes so much effort to get him back clothed and not wild after a bath for some reason.

I was constantly looking at the clock hoping for Casey to come back, counting down until I thought he'd arrive. I finally opened up one of the family year books, 2013, and got Max to sit by me and look at the pictures while we pointed out everyone he recognized, family, friends, mom, dad, etc. Luckily that kept his attention until Casey got home, hallelujah.

I was so happy to have my halftime for a little until Casey had to go back to school at 12 for a lunch thing that I again didn't know about. While he was putting on Maxson's shoes to go outside, he mentioned that I left the van door open again all night long. Being in the vulnerable state I was, I blew up.

As I marched madly upstairs before I said too much I mentioned how HE was the one last night bringing in the groceries from the car, not myself.

I went to my bed fuming for being blamed for the door, fuming that Max hadn't slept in, fuming that I was sick and it wasn't even that comfortable to lay down, fuming that I have 2 more months of uncomfortable sleep still, and then to top it off one of the babies must have been kicking the top of my rib because I've never felt pain like that before, it was excruciating.

All I wanted to do was sleep but all the outside factors wouldn't let me. As I laid there I thought to myself "I should pray. That would help me right now." My tiredness got the best of me before I could act.

After about 20 minutes I heard a soft "mama?" coming from the stairs. "Mama?" getting louder "mama?" His voice was so sweet and pure that it brought a smile to my face, I wasn't sleeping anymore (although pretending to do so) but rolled around to see him at the side of my bed with red donut crumbs all over his face and hands (the main reason I was coaxed in to going to the grocery store last night for a big shopping trip was for a donut. But because I went so late they only had the already boxed up ones where you couldn't pick what you wanted. I failed in my box selection because I nearly hated every single donut in there, fail.)

I cleaned him off and pulled him into bed next to me where a big smile spread across his face. We went through a bunch of the same antics, he'd try to wake me up and I'd tell him "mama's sleeping you sleep too" he'd then lay down and nuzzle his little head towards mine and after about 10 seconds get up, go to his room, find a book, bring it in to me, make me pull him up on the bed, he'd ask for me to read it and then we'd start all over.

Then I convinced him to get his monkey so he could fall asleep with mama. He got his monkey, came back into a cuddled with me for maybe 30 seconds this time. Then he gave me monkey to sleep with while he read books next to me vocalizing all the pages in his little toddler talk, putting books on my face wanting me to read them, and continuing. After 10 minutes I realized he kept yawning and rubbing his eyes so I texted Casey to ask him to put Max to bed. So finally at 11:45 Max went to sleep without a fuss.

Now was meant for my sleep time, I'd catch up, I thought! Again, no such luck. My mind kept racing of things I needed to get done or really the things I needed/wanted to get done today but knew I wouldn't because of the way I was feeling. I kept needing to cough and sneeze giving me more contractions. I was uncomfortable. I couldn't breathe. It was just a nap that was meant to go no where.

That takes me to right now. I came down stairs to zone out on the computer for awhile, I looked through IG and found this video and the tear gates opened.

Although I feel like an absolute failure today I have my reasons. I am sick. I am growing two babies inside me. I am still giving Maxson love and attention and helping him grow. I did do dishes so Casey didn't have to later. Today I am not able to reach outside my home to help others like the amazing woman in this video but I can reach outside myself and help my family within my home. The little boy's prayer was my favorite "We're grateful we got everything done you wanted us to do today."

The Lord is our answer, our rock, our comforter, our Redeemer. His to-do list is always more important than ours. With His strength and our faith in Him, we can do it all, all as in what is truly necessary.

I'm grateful for this little video that brought me back to perspective. I'm grateful to be a mom with Casey by my side and the Lord pushing and pulling me forward when I've lost strength.

I'm grateful to be a daughter of God.

Heart melting

This picture is literally right now. Max came over to me, laid his head on my belly like a pillow and began looking at a book. Heart melter

Jamaica- a dental mission trip

So I think I mentioned this before, but the week before Hawaii Casey had an opportunity to go down to Jamaica with a bunch of other students in his dental class through the Christian Dental Society to do free dental work on the people down there. From my non-dental view of the stories from Casey and his classmates, everyone enjoyed it so very much. Being able to do TONS of dental work in one day on people who were so very desperate for any work to be done gave them all a wonderful feeling. When you're in the service of others you're in the service f your God. I loved that it made Casey more confident as a student dentist going into his 3rd year, I think it's given him a huge advantage and improved his attitude. I'm so happy he had this experience! So now onto his blog post: (it's been a long time since he's blogged on here!)

I had to leave at midnight and get no sleep to arrive in Jamaica at noon, which was when all of us were supposed to arrive, but I ended up sitting around until like 4 o'clock and then we finally left for our lodging, which was 3 hours away. Lon met me in Michigan at our layover and we took the same flight to Jamaica.

This restaurant is called the Pork pit. It was actually very yummy and legit. I was always hesitant about getting sick until about 4 days in and I just figured whatever they were feeding us was ok for my belly. I made out ok.

We had a scenic outlook right from our balcony. It overlooked the ocean. We ended up staying in the treehouse as it was called so 5 of us guys shared a 2 bedroom home that had all the amenities that we needed to live and smell ok. It was quite beautiful. This beach was what we had to walk through everyday to get to the main house that we had morning devotionals in and ate all our meals when we were around. There were ravenous dogs that would attack and bark if you walked during the day unless you run crazy at them, which one of my friends tried out first hand. One of the girls got scratched and jumped on one morning. Sometimes I think wild dogs should just be shunned somewhere or maybe domesticated.

Another few pictures of our balcony and a little hammock area outside our house.

So many different fruits were in plentiful form, I loved their bananas so much better than ours in America, they have a mango taste to them it is amazing. I tried a lot of different types of fruit I hadn't tried before and trying to remember their names is killing me.

We got to spend a few days just relaxing one in the beginning and one at the end, We went to a secluded waterfall and just swimming area with ziplining through the jungle and over the falls. I bought Max a little souvenir of Jamaica.

 This is our little clinic in a backroom of a church, where for 4 days we did dental work from a time frame on average from 10:30 to at least 8 o'clock at night. I was exhausted by the end of each day as you can tell from the next photo set down. I ended up somehow dressing in the same clothes as Lon unlplanned.

This was our instrument table, wouldn't you be intimidated if you had to walk in and this is the first thing that you saw. These people were just so grateful that we were doing their dental work and literally I don' t think I heard one person complain about getting a shot and very rarely would someone complain about anything. Noone had a gag reflex, they are just a very humble people at least where we were at.

Me doing some work with my friend Katie and Lon, It was so nice to have people you know accompany you with the dental care. I enjoyed gaining more friendship experiences. We helped people feel a lot better about themselves because they would come in with black spots in their teeth and leave with white ones haha. The calculus in Jamaica was unprecedented, I called it like pulling off the layers of an onion, it would just fall off like a mountain. Kinda Gross

I ended up doing a lot of operative, which I kinda chose to do because I wanted to feel comfortable coming back to the states and being able to do bread and butter dentistry ( Drilling and Filling). I came back very comfortable giving injections, getting rid of cavities and pretty comfortable with extracting teeth. These are a few of the people I worked with. It was funny it would rain and everytime it did we would lose power and it would come back on in like 10 seconds. So lucky we had our lights so we could see or we wouldn't have been able to function.

Loved seeing kids getting help they needed. We just needed to educate them on what to do. A lot of people had never seen floss before. Pastor Roe is in the upper right picture. She would lead a singing devotional every morning before we started working on patients. So I would get a double dose of spiritual experiences every day. 

So I was told by a friend that I didn't need to bring any scrub tops, but that was a poor choice to follow haha. I ended up just using whatever Jessica (our lead Dentist) gave me. She let me wear her favorite Kitty cat scrub top that I got many weird looks from people while wearing it. We even had cool t-shirts to wear that I actually really like.

This was the biggest man I had seen in Jamaica, he couldn't speak English very well at all, but we pulled out a few of his teeth and he was happy. This is the wall of fame. Every school that comes has a space that they choose and they leave their hand print of memory from the trip that will last until the place is not used anymore. I had a great experience, I was happy to come back to the U.S though after my week was done. I missed just being able to drink water and not worry if I would be sick or not. I had a great time! It was well worth the money to bless others lives, but seeing the improvements in myself. Thanks Jamaica it was great!