a place i've travelled too

Christmas 2 years ago in the  Puerta Plata Dominican Republic. This is my favorite picture of me and Harrison.I loved it there- it's beautiful. Especially the water- so clear and gorgeous.  We had the opportunity to go climb up waterfalls and then slide down them- its one of the best experiences I've had in my whole life. Exhilarating- the feeling that you get when you know you are just alive and happy.This was a great trip. And I loved being with Johnsons there.

Hanauma Bay!

our day trip to...Hanauma Bay

Panorama of Hanauma Bay

This is a national Park preserved by park officials so it is fullllll of coral and bright fish and they are everywhere! So beyond beautiful. I loved it. Great life experience. My favorite fish was about 3 feet long and was rainbow colored everywhere! I wanted to take it home just to look at it all day. I could  not believe how friendly the fish were- they'd come right up to you. You watch a movie before going in on how to preserve the reef and that they don't like you to touch- lol- anyways this was amazing do it if you go- and rent snorkle gear- its wayyy better than packing it. I'm glad we did that

We went snorkeling in Hanauma Bay during the last couple days of the trip. Let me first say that It is a very wise thing to put sun screen on your lower half if you are going snorkeling Ill let your minds think about that- yeah I never ever burn- but apparently if you go snorkeling all day and don't put sun screen on and your backside is out of the water you get the idea...My but was soooo burned I could hardly walk that night- we went to target to distract me from my sunburn and I had to ride on the back of the cart while brandon pushed me- pretty hilarious now- not while I was in pain- oh man Never felt a sunburn Im so serious- THEY HURT!

cool shark sandcastle- they used coral for teeth made me laugh

yep were nerds- but nerds together

is the water not gorgeous!

This was actually the inside of a volcano 2000 years ago but it flooded and washed away the other side leaving the bay and all the marine life. Its a fav site for scuba divers also.

Top 5 things we loved about Hawaii

1. TREES AND VEGETATION THEY ARE EVERYWHERE AND GREEN AND IT SMELLS GOOD ON EVERY CORNER YOU GO TOO! THE BANYON TREES WERE MY FAV. They reminded me of Swiss family robinson- I wanted to climb them soo bad!

don't make me leave the palm trees!
2. How colorful everything isI dress like my crazy 80s self here in bright colors and nobody thinks Im crazy!

I was super drawn to these surfboards they made me happy all week I loved the gradation 

and the color of them. Dosn't hurt that johnson looks studly.

I also loved this wall- 

And this one- there are murals everywhere- Its really cool to see artists point of view everywhere I turn.

3. The food! We ate at hard rock cafe chilis the cheesecake factory- had french crepes on the beach for breakfast, mexican probably every day. We also had the opportunity to attend a traditional Luau- we made friends with a couple from Ohio who had 3 little boys- It was a super cool experience I highly recommend it. If you ever go to Hawaii.  Entertainment while you eat- tiki torches everywhere- they give you fresh laes and The night show after is also fabulous. It was pretty awesome to see them take the smoked pig out of the ground eat out of pineapples. AND...The rice was so yummy tasted like coconut!

oh and my new fav place yogurt land! It was cute inside - and basically you can mix your own ice cream and toppings and you pay by weight which is cool that you can make your own portion sizes. I got tons of fresh pineapple on mine with chocolate cookie dough yummmmmmmm. We ate this by a little pier and we were the only ones there- it was so secluded and just refreshing/fun. We neeeeed this in calgary. I miss ice cream shops. Maybe because I worked in a dairy back home.
4. The beach - many hours of beach time doing.....nothing but playing in the waves

The waves in Waikiki are legendary. Powerful and fun- they broke my shoes!

We wrote notes back and forth to each other in the sand when one of us would go down to cool off- it was fun:)

5. Being together I think just being able to have fun together was the best part. Nothing to worry about. No kids that come before each other every day. It was super nice to stay out till 12- walk on the beach if we wanted too-sleep in- eat in peace-and cruise in our amazingly fun car! I loved just going on drives and walks at night and just talking -really that was probably my favorite part. More on our adventures tomorrow- right now I havn't slept in 24 hours and Im thoroughly exhausted and jet lagged from the flight home.note to self- never book a flight in a turbo propeller plane againI think brandon secretly likes that I squeeze his arm to death when we fly.

DEFINITION OF PARADISE

So our trip started off amazing. I get a little nervous on small planes. I don't like taking off landing and any type of turbulence. Luckily Brandon distracted me by just talking and loading videos on his i pod for me to watch. Luckily our connecting flight had tvs in the headrests- you could also play games like bejeweled and trivial pursuit with other people on the plane. Super fun. I won a round and I give credit to my humanities teacher Miss Keim for teaching me facts about poland and russia. I really do love history it's one of my very favorite subjects. 

We start to land in oahu and I get my camera out... I had a surprise waiting for Brandon.

 I ordered anniversary leis for us to wear. So We were greeted by a traditional Hawaiian lady she was sooo nice she performed the lei ceremony where she kissed us on both cheeks said aloha and placed our leis on each of us. Brandon's smile was huge- I have to admit it was the best way to start out our trip. So fun so part of the culture. I highly recommend it. Then our Lady showed us to baggage claim told us all the really cool places to go and where to get the best deals. I remember walking outside and seeing the most gorgeous tree I have ever seen in my life. Literally like I walked into paradise. She showed us to the shuttle which then took us to the rental car place. When we went to get the rental car they asked if we wanted to upgrade our car for 10 bucks more a day and we could get a jeep or a mustang convertible.Now Anyone who knows me well- knows I have this thing with driving in cool fast cars and having really loud music on. The stuff you can sing to and not care if anyone sees you Natural high for me. This people has been my dream sine I've been 16 to drive a convertible that was red somewhere tropical. Brandon knows this is on my dream list. He took one look at me smiled and was like done...I love this man! Literally wanted to cry this day kept getting better and betterIt pays to book things online before- 

forgive the crazy hair i was super excited and schmaggy after 9 hours of traveling

can you tellbrandon was laughing at me

eyes on road johnson eyes on road!
So we drive our little convertible to our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani. The front desk people laughed at how excited I was to be there how I loved the flower arrangements and I told them it was our anniversary and we were excited to escape the canadian cold. The cute receptionist girl went to the back for a minute came back out and said we upgraded your room. I like happy people. Happy anniversary. WOW Our room had a balcony and we could see the ocean and all the city lights and night life amazing. 
We knew we needed to stay up so our jet lag wouldn't be bad so we went to chills and ate. Thats where we had our first date when we were in Rexburg. I remember playing tic tac toe with the coasters and the flip game with the coasters so it was kindve fun to reminisce.

 Then we walked around the international marketplace- its very fun there such a cool vibe. And finally we took a walk on the beach- and as cheesy as this sounds it was right as the sun was setting. The tide was high and the waves were so peaceful. I love being here with my best friend and Im so grateful for this memory I'll forever have with him.

happy feet in the sand- is our def of paradise

1 van one mom 3 kids under 3-and a 12 hour drive

So I went on a little road trip to Utah 2 weeks ago to visit my family. Brandon had Bid week so he wasnt able to come-but I really wanted to go and may I say my fam and.... Target was totally worth the chaos. So I decided to brave it myself with 3 little munckins call me crazy but I had a definite system I made a juice/bottles snack station a changing station complete with 3 huge packs of diapers juice cups fruit snacks crackers water bottles ect an entertainment bag with Ipod radar detector dvds and cell phone/gps chargers plus all my kids passports mine and a note from brandon telling the border guards I was allowed to take them by myself. I never ever want to watch the movie UP again in my life. almost the whole way down thats what they wanted to watch. Thank heavens I have the van with dvd players it sure helped-I got pulled over in Montana right after the border for going 9 over ...I know.. I was not thrilled. The guy came to my car and saw all 3 kids in the back with co co crying I think he felt bad when I told him I still had 10 hours to go. I also couldn't find my registration- thats when I started to cry- I was so flustered and the cop took pity on my soul and wrote me a warning- the next gas station I found my registration in my flustered state I knocked it out of the glove box to the side of my car... I ran the boys around the van one hundred times and we went on for another 3 hours and repeated this process. 10 hours later we made it to Utah all alive and sane... We

were al thrilled to be out of the car- see how happy my kiddos are../ I love this picture of greyson trying to blow dandelions - we all laughed pretty hard at his face

harrison is my climber this kid is so brave

me and my boys going down the slide

my gorgeous daughter- ahh I cant be more in love with her- loook at those big blue eyes

Grandma Grandpa and aunts/uncles were excited to play with the boys and my boys were even more excited to see them- more pictures to come tomorrow

LegenDairy Cactus Farm

So this last weekend us Nielsens and Larsens went on a small getaway to phoenix. It was so fun to be with friends..and it felt like I was in college again. So good for my little soul.

I had one on one time with Brandon and co co. She was amazing the whole trip and I loved just holding her- which is something I don't get to do a lot of at home cause I'm constantly chasing the boys..who by the way today opened my front door- deadbolt and all and went outside..looks like I need some better childproofing stuff-oh man one will kneel on the floor while the other climbs on top of him to reach things- HOW DO THEY LEARN THIS! anyways continuing on...

Co Co in her new ruffly swimsuit!

Brandon by the pretty fountain- I want one of these in my yard someday it was so cool!

this is a sad yet funny bumper sticker that made us laugh.

Keshia writing on peoples windshields...yes shes a nerd- and apparently also from manitoba!

the girls gettin a tan

the boys in these bumper car boats- seriously these things are super fun!

the girls on the minigolf course

guys getting ready to drive go carts at golfland- which nicks uncle owns- so basically we got in for free and got to try everything including the water park and arcade-

it was so fun I felt like a VIP!

SO THANK YOU MR UNCLE GUY OF LARSENS YOUR THE MAN!

- keshia has the good pictures of this i used her camera..so a post on that will come later

this flea market was amazing- i loved the rows and rows of pretty beads to make jewelery

card night!

so on Sunday after church we wanted to do something naturie so decided to go to this cactus farm and have a picnic- yeah didntthink to hard on that one picnic on the ground with cactuses hmm that might hurt! yeah were kindve idiots. We thought there would be a visitor center or something ...nope just a desert with cactuses- haaa so now I always say hey guys rememeber when we went to that amazing cactus forest- and we all laugh pretty hard.

I liked this one it had pink flowers on it - kindve like it had an accesscory! and yes...I am wearing runners here!- did not want to ruin my heels on sharp cacti!

riley and chloe on there first girl trip together as bfff friends

we even got to go to a suns playoff game! they won by like 30! WHOOOO

This is us dressed in purple for the game. Chloe wasn't a fan of the noise makers but eventually fell asleep. The vacation was super awesome. I loved being with my friends and enjoyed some much needed rnr.