My poor baby...

Well, Friday night, after our beloved Royals got postponed, we endured the incredibly horrible weather for our drive home. The rain was coming in sideways and it was hailing.

To make matters worse, a party bus stopped on the on ramp to I-35 South... in the middle of the freaking pouring rain. Then, in case it wasn't bad enough, he put it in reverse and backed right over the hood of my car.

Yep, a wreck.

And then, the guy had the nerve to ask if WE ran into HIM!?!?!

What a jerk! We saw your reverse lights you stupid party bus driver!

Yeah, that is my foot...through the hood of my car.

My favorite month because...

...of August birthdays!!

My adorable nephew, Ronan, turned 2 on August 15th!

These pictures were about 2 weeks before he turned 1, which means...

I need a Ronan fix! (and Jonas, and Jeremy, and Brandy!)

Please note in the picture below...

Ronan was VERY unhappy when we stopped walking.

But he's still soooo cute!

My big (middle) sister turned the big 3-0 on the 16th!

I cannot believe that we're getting so old!

I have been so lucky to have such amazing sisters to look up to!

Um, yep, we're in matching bathing suits...

We're that cool.

My amazing mom also has her birthday in August, on the 17th!

What an awesome month!?!

This is celebrating "Mom's Weekend" in college.

This could be one of my favorite pictures of my mom and I.

Doesn't she look so trendy? She is!

We were watching "Footloose" at Theatre in the Park!

Prayers for Grammie

My Grammie was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer just before we left for vacation. While we were gone, she had a radical hysterectomy and is currently preparing for radiation and chemotherapy. She is a very strong woman. However, the doctor told her that she has only seen about 10 women in her entire career with uterine cancer as advanced as hers. Please keep my Grammie in your prayers.

Maui Recap

Since we've been back from our amazing vacation for nearly a week and haven't blogged about it, the chances of it actually happening are getting slimmer by the minute. My wonderful sister, however, did an excellent job of keeping it up-to-date. So, in my extreme laziness, I am attaching her blog reports so that you can, in fact, see how much fun we had!

Traveling: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/07/maui-vacation-getting-here.htmlDay 1: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/07/maui-day-2-raftingsnorkel-trip.htmlDay 2: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/07/maui-day-2-raftingsnorkel-trip.htmlDay 3: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/07/maui-day-3-lounging-in-lahaina.htmlDay 4: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/08/maui-day-4-road-to-hana.htmlDay 5: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/08/maui-day-5-ziplining-parasailing-and.htmlDay 6: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/08/maui-day-6-beach-luau.htmlDay 7: http://michelspot.blogspot.com/2010/08/maui-day-7-tattoos-and-windsurfers.html

Maui Day 7

Today was a free day. Millie and Dad went bead shopping all over the island. Josh, Chris, Kendell and I hung out on the beach and went to Lahaina to do some mild shopping and site-seeing.

While in Lahaina, we saw someone famous... Do you know this famous person?

Yeah, that's Carlos Santana! And he called me "LOVE"! :) Very exciting!

That night, we went to our Luau. It was really fun. I wish I could move like those girls. I practiced in the bathroom the next day, and no, I look nothing like them! However, we got some really good pictures!

Yeah yeah, I know, I have bug eyes...

Maui Day 6

Ziplining

Today the Michels split off from the Powells/Perkins. Chris went parasailing and met Putty from Seinfield! Very exciting!

The rest of us went on a ziplining tour. It was very fun! Mostly because I got videos of Josh and Dad making fools of themselves!

That night, we all went out to a nice dinner on the beach. We took this opportunity to take romantic couples pictures. Here's ours...

Maui Day 5

Day 5 - Road to Hana

Today was an awesome day! I had been dreading this day since we started planning the trip. This "road" is one of the most windy and narrow roads in history. No really. I am pretty sure there's some kind of study to prove this fact. And for those of you who know me, know that I get car sick. It all started in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania...

Anyway, this road may be windy and narrow, it is gorgeous! And there are hidden waterfalls along the way. Our guidebooks gave specific stops and mile markers to look for in order to pull over and hike back through the forest to find spectacular views and waterfall pools to swim in. I, however, did not swim. I'm a pansy. And it was COLD water. Thank you Kendell for pointing this out.

Maui Day 4

Sunday was a beautiful and relaxing day. Josh and Dad went and played golf at Ka'anapali North Golf Course. This is where they play the Seniors Skins tournament and multiple PGA tournaments.

While they played golf, Millie, Kendell, Chris, and I walked the beaches of Ka'anapali. The beaches were very clean and the water was spectacularly clear.

This evening? Date night. You'll never guess what we had. Yep. Sushi. My fav! We went to Sansei Sushi just north of Ka'anapali. We ate some awesome sushi and enjoyed a nice evening with each other!

Maui Day 3

Day three brought a whole new adventure for us. Again we got up early this morning to make the most of our time in Maui. We headed down to Kihei for a snorkel/rafting trip. Let me just say, I hate snorkeling. No really. It is an awful experience for me. I do not like floating helplessly in the ocean and I usually get seasick. However, Josh...LOVES snorkeling. So, I compromised and went along. So glad that we did!

Our tour was through Blue Water Rafting where we were on a rigid raft with about 15 people. It was crazy. Watch the video at the link if you have time... We were hitting waves with no hesitation. It was a complete adventure and I would recommend this to anyone coming to Maui (except if you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, have had or has back problems/surgery, or get easily motion sick).

This is our boat (well, actually one I sniped off of the internet). If you notice the two blue ropes on either side of the boat sides, that was ALL we had to hold on to to keep us in the boat. We sat on the edges and held on to those blue ropes while our boat jumped 15 foot waves! My hands hurt soooo badly! We did a lava tour (awesome!) and on the way saw a pod of spinner dolphins (really awesome!) and even some bottlenose dolphins (SUPER awesome!). Our guides, Brad and Kapeli even thought it was incredible to see both. This was also a snorkel trip so we snorkeled in four different locations. The first was not nearly as pretty as I had expected. The next two were on either side of Molokini Crater. It was beautiful with bright colored fish and gorgeous coral. On our way back to the boat dock, we stopped off at Turtle Town and swam with giant sea turtles! So neat! They are very curious and would come right up to where you were. No touching though, they are protected!

That night we were exhausted! We all got a little too much sun and our tushies were very sore! We had a low key night where we went to eat at a Mexican place called Tia Juana's and then headed over to Walgreens (yep, really) to get our underwater disposable cameras processed. We will have to keep our fingers crossed that my turtles and dolphins turned out as well as I am hoping!

Maui Day 1-2

After an interesting start to our day, we finally made it to Maui on Thursday afternoon. Hawaii is five hours earlier than Kansas, so when we landed at 3:15 pm, it felt more like 8:15 pm. We were definitely tired. We hurried over to get our car rentals so that we could head to our condo. With a few hurdles there, we were finally on the road to our condo. We are staying at Ka'anapali Royal Condominiums. It is beautiful! It overlooks the pool, the golf course, Whaler's Village and of course, the ocean!

We took advantage of the time change/jet lag situation and woke up early the next morning. Early like 2:00 am. In every guide book that we read, it says that you must go see the sunrise at Heleakala (an inactive volcano) but that if you were wanting to see it, you should go the day after you arrive so that you can use the time difference to your advantage. PS It was FREEZING! We sort of rushed out of the condo and we forgot the blankets that I had laid out to bring with us. Oh well...

This is a before shot, while we waiting for that slowwwwww sun to make its way over the crater.

Finally... it was beautiful. Cold and beautiful!
We took advantage of the beautiful backdrop for a family photo op!

Of course, we needed on of Josh and I. Please note that I am literally as close as possible to him because I was absolutely frozen!

We lucked out on the car rentals. Kendell and Chris really wanted a convertible and we really wanted a Jeep Wrangler. He we are on our way back down from Haleakala back to our condo for nap time. :)

That night was our first real night in Hawaii. After playing in the pool and relaxing that afternoon, we headed down to Lahaina to walk around and eat dinner. We had dinner at Mai Tai's on the beach so that we could watch the sunset. What a full day!?! It came full circle watching the sun rise and sun set!