Hawaii - Day #1

Everyone was up early and really excited to start our adventure today by traveling to Hawaii!  All the kids had their own backpack and filled with what they wanted to entertain themselves during the 5 hour plane ride.  Our kids backpacks were almost as big as them!

The kids found our plane in the airport pretty quickly...

Aunt Renee had brought some games for the kids to play to help pass the time by before we boarded.

Once in the air, Dustin got this great shot of us leaving the Bay area....next stop Hawaii!

Dad Twogood took advantage of the 5 hour flight with a nap!

Logan stayed glued to watching movies on his iPad (surprise)....

Are we their yet?

Oh, we almost are!  Check out the beautiful blue/green water with coral reefs below!

Ah yeah....now THAT is what we came to Hawaii for!

Aloha in the airport!

We gathered up all our luggage for the 10 of us and picked up our rental cars (two minivans).  What is the first thing you do when you land for a 10 day vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii?  Hit up Costco!  We needed to get food and drinks for our condos.  It was also lunchtime and a Costco hot dog just sounded good!

Once we were re-energized and had our minivans full of food we headed to our resort - Hilton's Kings Land.  Our family was staying in a 1 bedroom unit...here are some pictures:

This was our neighbor out near our back patio...

At this point in the day we were getting exhausted.  Up early, long flight, 4 hour time difference from Utah...yeah it was a chill evening.  The kids enjoyed the pool, we cooked up some dinner and then relaxed.

To Hawaii....almost

This afternoon we boarded a plane and headed to Oakland, California to meet up with the rest of the Twogood clan for our trip to Hawaii!  While in the Salt Lake City airport waiting for it to become time to board, one of the Delta pilots came over and was talking with our boys.  He asked which plane they were going on and both boys pointed out the big airport windows to the plane at our gate.  The pilot smiled and told us he was the one that was flying that plane to Oakland and when we got inside the plane to stop by the cockpit to check it all out.  So we did!

I don't think our boys knew exactly what to do, the had never been up to the very front of the plane before.  The pilot asked them if they wanted to sit in his chair and the boys declined.  The boys did ask for a picture and they did request I post it on Facebook (which I did).  Right before the plane was going to land the pilot has sent 'wings' to our seats for the kids...they were in heaven.  It doesn't end there.  We were slow to make it down to baggage claim after we deplaned and ended up walking with both the pilot and copilot.  We had a pleasant conversation about our planned trip to Hawaii the next day and the boys told them all the 'cool places' they had been by taking planes so far in their life.  I was impressed....so impressed that later that evening I submitted a letter to delta.com explaining our day and how I felt both the pilot and co-pilot went out of their way to make a lasting memory for my kids.  Hopefully they get recognized!

We met up with our family, checked into our hotel and hit up the pool!  No slowing these kids down! We were quickly reminded that Logan still needs to wear his water wings...no matter how much he says he can swim on his own he isn't quite there 100%.

We wrapped up the evening with some Round Table Pizza (Jen's favorite from when she was a kid) and then tried to go to bed early because we had a 9am flight to Hawaii the next day!

Golden Key

Today Zach achieved a major milestone at Challenger School.  He earned his Golden Key!

As a kindergartner the students at Challenger work all year to learn how to blend sounds, digraphs, irregular vowels, consonant blends, one and two vowel rules.  Basically by mastering all of that Zach can read ANY word.   It was a LOT of work, but Zach WANTED it!

Here is all the kids in his class that have earned their Golden Key so far...

The best part is Zach earned his Golden Key the day we were leaving to board a plane to meet up with family in California for our Hawaii trip!  Dustin went to pick Zach up from school at lunchtime on our way to the airport and his teachers,  kindergarten director and the office secrataries were all waiting and applauded Zach as he left.  Definitely a memorable moment!  Way to go Zach....now he has the 'keys' to move to 1st grade!

Swim Lessons

We've had the kids in two sessions of swim lessons this winter.   Apparently not many parents think of having their kids in swim lessons when it is snowing outside...which means small class sizes!  The first session each of the boys were in a class of two kids total.  The second session Logan was in a class of 3 and Zach in a class of 5.  This was a big difference from the lessons they took last summer when it was totally packed!

Zach and Logan were born fishes.  The loved EVERY minute of there lessons and any minute of free swim time they got before there class they were being kids in the water.....

Zach progressed up to a level 3 - he just needs a summer of swimming in a pool.  Logan graduated up to a level 2 - he also just needs a summer of swimming in a pool!

Crazy super heros

This is how we roll in the Gray house....

Crawfish

Logan came home today with this cool looking crawfish hat.  He was so proud!

Autorama 2014

ThunderPig was in the Salt Lake City Autorama show again this year.  Dustin enjoys this car show because his dad normally comes to town and they get the truck ready together for the show...and then they get to check out all the other cool cars during the 3 day indoor event.  This year Dustin's brother, Eric, was also able to come join the car show fun!

While the kids and Jen were browsing the show on the last day we stumbled upon a ThunderPig knock off...it was a 57 Chevy, same make and model as ThunderPig...just not as much bling.

ThunderPig still looks way cooler!  Then kids also found BUMBLEBEE!  They got so excited and kept trying to look 'under' the car to see him.  I am sure everyone around us got a good laugh.

At the end of the show ThunderPig earned a 'class' award.  We were pretty surprised to get an award this year because we found out that the judges put ThunderPig in the full truck category.  Normally ThunderPig is judged in the street machine category.  The full truck category had all the high end trucks in the show that never get driven and were on stages in the show!  We'll take what ever award we get!!

We are not sure if we are going to put ThunderPig in the Autorama car show next year...I think it is time to drive ThunderPig more for our own pleasure :)

He can RIDE!

Today was a special day for our family....Zach finally started riding his bike on his own with no training wheels!  He let go of that fear and pretty much got in on the first try!  Of course Dustin was a great teacher...

 

Go Zach GO!

Some of our neighbor friends cheered Zach on the whole time!  These kids have a blast together.

It is going to be a full summer of bike riding in our house!  I bet we get Logan off his training wheels this summer too!

Retreat to Vegas

With the holiday weekend (Zach had no school for President's day) we decided to venture a bit south for some warmer weather and extra fun......we packed everyone up and headed to LAS VEGAS!  The top priority of our kids when ever we stay in a hotel is a SWIMMING POOL....

They made lots of new friends at the pool...kids just like them!  Everyday they kept asking if they were going to see their new friends at the pool.

The hotel we stayed at off the strip had plenty of family entertainment for us to enjoy.  There was a full blown movie theater.  We took advantage of it and went and saw the Lego Movie.  There was also a 65 lane bowling alley.  So...we bowled a few games!

In the end Dustin beat us all...

They also had an indoor equestrian center at the hotel.  There was a calf roping competition going on during our whole stay and it was FREE to watch!

During our three day stay we did venture on the Las Vegas strip for the kids to see some 'highlights' for kids their age.  We went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay...

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe...

 We hit up the M&M factory and the kids picked out something to take home.

We even kept them up late one night so we could head down to Freemont street for them to see the light show.  I think they ended up being more impressed with the balloon animals they got...

It was great to get away from the normal hustle and bustle for a bit.  The best part was not needing to wear a jacket to be outside for 3 days!