Aloha Part 1

 For my grandparent's 50th Wedding Anniversary (which is really only their 48th) they thought that they would bring the whole family to Kauai! They are the most giving people I have EVER meet! Talk about another amazing family reunion. We are getting so big now that it's getting harder and harder for us to all get together. At times we were all together, others with some of the families, and others we just stuck with my immediate family. My family arrived there a day before everyone else, so we became familiar with the area by checking out the pools, the beach, the local shops, and Kauai's famous Spouting Horn. 

You can never have too many Lava Flows. 

No worries, that chicken in the bottom right of the photo is alive. It's just sleeping. I think that was one of the strangest things, chicken's running wild on the island.  But whatever it's cool. Nothing is more relaxing than looking out at the waves, feeling the ocean breeze and hearing a COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO, RIGHT?!  I had to remind myself every time I heard rustling in the bushes not to jump... it's just a chicken. 

He rarely wears his glasses so when he does, i'm all like hubba hubba!

Our first adventure with the entire family was the Botanical Gardens. They were absolutely beautiful. You've think you've seen all the foliage there is, then you go to Hawaii and WOWZA! 

The garden's were so beautiful that we might have even stepped off the path for a little make-out sesh. ha... sorry, too much information. Not pictured: the millions of mosquitoes eating us alive. 

It looks like it wasn't just us who found these gardens romantic... 

 Another adventure we went on as the whole family was a river cruise up the Wailua River to a beautiful location called the Fern Grotto. On the boat ride we were serenaded by the ukulele and also learned how to do the hula. 

 

He is going to make the cutest daddy!

Up at the Fern Grotto, our Hawaiian ukulele man sang a traditional wedding song to my grandparents for their "50th wedding anniversary". It started off as just the two of them dancing and then we all joined in. 

The rest of the day we spent visiting local waterfalls, at the pool, and on the beach making sand castles.

 I LAVA YOU! 

The finished product. Notice my husbands poor poor chest. The sun worked him this day! A little advice... make sure to lather up on that sun screen. 

Week 26 Bumpdate

How Far Along: 26 weeks 

Size of Baby: Eggplant, Green Onion, and a Head of Lettuce. Every pregnancy app had a little something different, so try to envision how big this babe is by just picturing all those three foods all smashed into one. The roundness of the lettuce, the plumpness of the eggplant and the length of a green onion. That will give you some sort of idea. Oh and guess what? Baby is 2 POUNDS! 

Developments in Baby This Week: His little eyes are beginning to open and his brain is continuing to develop! 

Weight Gain: 21 pounds! I do have to say it's weird seeing these unknown numbers creep upward on the scale. ha. 

Maternity Clothes: I have three favorite t-shirts from Motherhood that I wish I could wear every day. They are the most comfortable things on this planet. But I guess I've got to switch things up a little bit, right? 

Sleep: Surprisingly really good. Almost too good. I think if I didn't have Taylor there to wake me up I would sleep all day long.  The weird dreams just increase in weirdness as the weeks go on. 

Food Cravings: I haven't really craved anything my whole pregnancy. Who knows if that''s normal.  But green smoothies have been at the top of the list recently. 

My Symptoms: Pregnancy Brain is real. LEG CRAMPS. I woke up yesterday with the biggest badest charlie horse in my calf. NO bueno. My linea nigra (dark vertical line that appears on the abdomen during pregnancy) has started to show up. But the most annoying thing is it's not even centered! How rude right?! It's either the line or my belly button. If it's my belly button than for all 22 years of my life I have had an off-centered belly button. How sad. ha. 

Movement: OH MY GOSH YES! It's my absolute favorite thing in this whole world. Some days he is super active and my belly is constantly bumping around and other days I will only feel some occasional movements. On the busy days  he gets so active at times that I almost begin to feel nauseous because my belly feels like it's literally going to burst. My favorite thing to do is to look at my bare tummy and just watch it bump around. It's quite the sight. I've seen an occasional elbow or knee or who knows what it is... roll across my abdomen. Our little baby boy is inside there! Oh I love it! 

Names: Figuring out the name of your baby is a very difficult decision. There is so much that goes into it. It's not just a baby name.  The baby is going to grow into it and become old with it. So it has to be age appropriate... at every single age. Oh and initials. You got to watch out for those initials. My mom gave me this tip. They almost named my older brother, Austin Steven Smith... but clearly those initials wouldn't have worked out. (hahaha)
I respect those that are so calm about the matter. For some reason I worry  A LOT about naming our baby. But no worries, i'm not going to go into labor quite yet stressing about our babies name because we finally picked it! It was the first boy name we had liked since the beginning. Although we liked others, we always fell back on this one. It just felt right, like that was already his name. So if you are one of the few that haven't heard it quite yet, our little baby boy is going to be Everett Jay DeHart. 

One of many

For the weekend we decided to head to San Fransisco to do a little sight seeing and to stop by and say hi to Tay's brother, who lives in San Fran. One thing that I absolutely love about this place is how close everything is. San Fransisco is only about 45 minutes away! Our first stop was Golden Gate Park. Which is partially deceiving because, although close, you can't see the Golden Gate Bridge. But you can see a lot of other things. For example, ducks. There are tons ducks and geese! I told Tay that we  need to always have a loaf of bread on hand because there are ducks everywhere here. Not only in San Fransisco but near our apartment as well. Feeding ducks at the pond is one of my favorite childhood past times. So from now on you will find a loaf of bread in my purse. ;) We walked around the park and watched all the cute couples row across the pond, listened the the live music being played, and watched all the ducks. 

Funny story: During our walk we came up on several pigeons in the middle of path. Right as they started scurrying out of our way, there was in the middle that darted directly towards my face. I don't think I could have screamed louder. I positively scared the pigeon, Taylor, and the two women walking towards us. I swear it was going to peck our eyes out. I really do not like birds. My pregnant bladder almost couldn't take the laughter that followed. 

The Golden Gate Bridge is absolutely breathtaking. We found the perfect spot on our way to Tay's brothers and got out to view it more clearly. It was a little windy to say the least. Which made it difficult to take pictures together (My hair in his face and all). I regretted not bringing a hair tie. My hair was a tangled mess afterwords. But we managed to get a few so that's all that matters! 

Now this one is a money maker. Real good view, am I right? I mean that bridge is so... so... so nonexistent. 

That's my boy :) 

After almost being blown away out on the coast, we meet up with Tay's brother Zach. We took the Subway to Union Square which is The Time's Square of San Fransisco to eat lunch. Zach had the brilliant idea to go to the Cheesecake Factory, just what this pregnant belly was craving at the time. The Cheesecake Factory downtown is on the top floor of the Macy's building which over looks all of Union Square AND has patio seating. So clearly, we had to sit outside and take in this amazing view. I do have to admit I did think of the movie San Andres a few times while downtown. But hey, it was the most resent connection I had with the city. It's safe to say that we made it out alive. 

 After lunch we continued to walk the city. Zach showed us all the cool sites and we even walked down to the Bay Bridge. That thing is huge. But I think I am still a bigger fan of the Golden Gate Bridge, you just can't beat that red color. Maybe that's what they need to do with the Bay Bridge. Paint it red! HOW COOL?! 

 San Fransisco, you were good to us. We will be back. 

Drivin' the Coast

To finish our amazing weekend, we drove down the coast and stopped everywhere we could. The first stop was Point Lobos. It's right in between Monterey and Carmel along the coast. It was about a mile hike in through tall green trees. These tall trees were very unique. They had this fury green stuff hanging off of them. It honestly looked like the Grinch's fingers (green and fury). We got pretty creative with this stuff and made Grinch mustaches even. It was a little rainy and cloudy but the view was still gorgeous. We hiked around the cliffs for about 2 hours, taking pictures, finding animals, and talking to people from all around the world.

We stopped again and again along the coast on our way to Big Sur. As we drove south the sky began to clear up and sun came out. We stopped at what we thought was Big Sur and took a million pictures. As we were there, we both thought we had remembered thinking Big Sur was a little more magnificent then this semi descent bridge we had been looking at. But we agreed that all the pictures we had seen were probably over edited. So we got in the car and kept driving for a little longer. Then, BAM, we came around the corner and there were cars parked everywhere along the side of the rode and there it was A HUGE gorgeous and magnificent bridge. We both looked at another and laughed oh... that's Bixby Bridge! Everyone at the other bridge was probably thinking why are these people taking so many pictures of this little bridge. Yeah, now we know. 

WOW, the views were absolutely incredible. Driving down the coast we couldn't help but drop our jaws at all the beauty.