HITZ CLAN

I'm a few weeks behind... But I'm not beating myself up too much with as much as we've had going on. Our house is still on the market. Unfortunately there has not been very much traffic and we decided to list it for rent and see what kind of response we got from that. Within two days of listing we had to couples very interested in renting. I'm not really bothered which direction we go. I figure as long as the mortgage gets paid that's all that matters! Of course the difference is that we won't be able to buy a new home in Hawaii if we don't sell right now and get our equity out of it. On the other hand, we may not want to buy anything there. We already know that we will rent for about 6 month to a year just to check things out.

So here it is, another Sunday afternoon and I'm finding that I have a few minutes to work on the blog. We had Stake Conference this morning which meant we had the entire afternoon to ourselves! I even squeezed in a NAP- the first time in FOREVER!!

My baby, Kolea is getting so big. She will be 1 year old in two weeks! But I wanted to post her 11 month old pictures b/c she's so pretty. =)

I just love how her eyes are off set by the blue pillows behind her. She's silly.

Next, came my dad's 61st birthday! Mom had already left for Utah (for Emily's upcoming baby shower) so we kids treated him to our favorite Mexican Restaurant, 3 Margaritas! They always treat us like kings when we go there- and this time was no different. Happy Birthday Dad!

August 1st was Emily's twin baby shower. It was a lot of fun to have all of the girls together. I even left all three of my kids home with Ryan (thanks honey, I love you!) This is a diaper cake that Tamara made. She is so dang creative!

We went swimming at Tamara's pool the night before the shower. Where is Tam?? She's home working away of course! Doing things like that cute diaper cake! We missed you in this pic Tam. But thanks for putting us all up at your house so we could all be together!

I made this! Ryan gave me a fruit bouquet for our last anniversary and I'd saved everything. I thought it would be fun to recreate for Emily's shower. It wasn't as pretty as the original, but I think it turned out quite well. And it was fun!

OK, so I don't know about the rest of you but we've been having a crazy and semi-cool summer with all of the rain we've had. Nearly every afternoon we get a bit of a storm. And I don't mean just a low key sprinkling, I mean a storm!

This particular afternoon we were at the park and didn't make it home (running) before these huge raindrops began to fall. The kids were already wet so they decided to dance in the rain- and get soaked! Kolea and I watched from the safety and dryness of the garage! You've heard of "singing in the rain?" This is dancing in the rain by the Hitz children. Check out my photographic timing!

And now we've moved to the street where they can really splash around!

OK... Noodles? Really guys? And Gabriella decided that she wasn't wet enough yet.

And there we have it. The final end to our progression of "how wet and disgusting can I get?" Although you've got to admit, it's pretty funny. Do you see how black it is around her? Gross! I made the kids strip in the laundry room and then run naked up to the shower. This may be TMI but Gabriella had grass clippings washing out of her bum!! Ha!

I love Sundays when my children are clean and in their Sunday Best. I was lucky enough to catch this-- the cutest picture ever! SISTERS! Ya gotta love 'em. Don't forget to tell your sister how much you really love her!

Silly kids. =)

We end on this note- bath time. Kolea used to HATE (yes with a capital H-A-T-E) bath time. It wasn't until I forced her into the pool over and over this summer that she lightened up and now LOVES (yes all capitals here too) it! The other night she was nasty from dinner so I stripped her down and put her in the tub. Then Hunter came along with his fudgescicle and Kolea took it over.

Yay! Happy, fun, wet... BATH TIME!

So let me just say before I get into what we've been doing the last 3 weeks...

Gabriella got in trouble and is up in her room, crying. She had the option of getting hot sauce on her tongue or going to time-out in her room (which is what she chose.) I heard the door open and close and she started crying really hard and calling for me. I realized that she'd locked her door (the lock is on the outside) and then gone into her room and closed the door. Yes, she locked herself in. So I asked Hunter to go unlock the door, which he did and the crying stopped.

This is sooooo Gabriella. A couple of minutes go by (well maybe ONE minute) and no one is paying attention to her. So what does she do??? Open the door and turn the lock and close the door. She locks herself in AGAIN and immediately starts crying. Nice. Well the second time was about 4 minutes ago. Hehehe. She's really not happy. But I'm letting her cry b/c she did this to herself- twice. Just to get attention. This is what happens with no Sunday nap.

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To pick up where I left off from the last blog, the day after we saw the Prophet at the Red Rocks concert it was Ryan's mom, Ginger's 50th birthday (June 30th.) All of her family flew in to join us in celebrating with Ginger. We went to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park to go for a ghost tour. For those of you who don't know, the Stanley is the hotel that gave Stephen King his inspiration for his book The Shining. Although there is much more history to the hotel (that is a thousand times more fascinating) than that little tidbit. There were also parts of Dumb and Dumber filmed at the hotel.

Unfortunately I didn't turn around and get a picture of the front of the hotel, but this view is looking out at Estes Park from the vast receiving area.

Here are family and friends in the basement at the Stanley waiting for the tour to begin.

OK- Freaky! This was a dark set of stairs leading up. I reached my camera up into the darkness and snapped a picture. This is what I saw. In the movie, one of the kids says "redrum" over and over which as you can see says "murder" backwards. It totally freaked me out.

Here we are in Room #217. Again, you'd have to read the book or see the movie to know some of its significance. But Stephen King got his inspiration based on his actual experiences while staying in the Stanley hotel and in room #217.

While filming Dumb and Dumber Jim Carey was scheduled to stay in this room. He lasted 3 hours. Why? Probably Mrs. Wilson's ghost, but they don't know for sure. He's never talked about it. But let's just say that he refused to stay in any other room in the hotel and chose to stay at the Quality Inn down the street!

Here we are in the caves under the Stanley hotel. It was built on top of the rock b/c F.O. Stanley (the original owner and builder) didn't want to use dynamite. He was very "green" that way. The "spheres" you see in the picture are considered to be spirits or ghosts. That is the way they manifest themselves to us. (So it is said.) This is the one picture I had that contained a ton of the spheres all around Ryan and his uncle Tom. Creepy? You decide. But the tour is absolutely fascinating.

Still in the caves. "They say" that a little girl's ghost hangs out right where we were taking this picture.

SURPRISE! After the tour we went into a large dining hall where all of Ginger's close friends were waiting for her. We had a beautifully catered dinner.

And then it turned into a murder mystery dinner! What fun! This is Grandpa Ben (Ginger's father) who turned out to be the "murder victim." Ryan was assigned to tape off the "dead" body just like at a crime scene.

We all had a blast and "caught" the murderer. Happy Birthday Mom!

G'pa Ben and G'ma Diane stayed at our house while they were in town. The kids had a ball chillin' with their great grandparents.

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Now we are on to swim lessons! The kids have been loving their lessons this summer. We were driving to the pool when I caught a glimpse of Gabriella in my rear view mirror. Luckily I had the camera on me. =) Can we say excited??

I caught Kolea in the perfect moment as she started to fall. She fell over and was submerged all except for right around her face. It was hilarious. And she loved it.

You can see how the sides of her hair are wet from tipping over, but the front is still dry. Haha she is so white. =)

That's my boy. Hunter has finally got it down. Make mommy proud!

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The 4th of July was very low key for us. It rained and rained that afternoon and we did our own thing at home. I ran to Walmart with the kids at the last minute to get some sparklers. Ryan did pizza in our backyard pizza oven that he built and we hung out. I realize it's light outside and they were doing sparklers, but it's really about 8 pm in this pic and Gabriella was going to bed soon. Nice socks Hunter.

Yay! The rain has stopped (for now) and God sent us a rainbow.

After the pizzas were all made, Ryan put some ribs in the pizza oven. Yummy! They didn't come our of the oven until 10 o'clock pm! But they were worth the wait.

Silly kids. Kolea pulls up on everything now and wants to walk and be a part of everything just like Hunter and Gabriella.

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Many of you may already know this, but on July 10th Chick-fil-A will give a free meal to anyone who is dressed as a cow. Free chicken? Sign me up! So with my mom's help, we pulled together a couple of cow outfits for the kids. The pigtails in Gabriella's hair even have bells on them. (You know, a cow bell!) They were really cute.

Hunter was super excited to get his picture taken with the cow. His sign says "Eat mor chikin."

Ella even got her face painted. She is in cow heaven. Although once we went over to the play area in the mall, other young children thought she was a bit frightening!

But that didn't stop Kolea from having a grand time!

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Ahh our cruise. Ryan and I left on July 11th for a Caribbean cruise. It was a short 6 day/5 night adventure. We've never been on a cruise before and I think we really lucked out with how cooperative the ocean was. It was smooth sailing the whole way.

Saturday morning our flight had mechanical problems. A couple of hours after the plane was scheduled to depart they put us on another plane to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. This was a problem as far as timing for Ryan and I. We were supposed to be checked in on the boat no later than 4 pm. We arrived at the gate in Florida at 3:58 pm. Luckily we were meeting some friends on the boat for the cruise. Ryan began talking to Chad the moment our wheels touched down. Authorities on the boat said that as long as we got there no later than 4:15 pm then we could go on the cruise.

Ryan and I were at the front of the plane and we only had carry on luggage. We literally RAN through the airport and out to the taxis. We asked the dude to get us to the dock as quickly as possible. Of course he asked if we would pay him extra for it. We arrived in 5 minutes. We paid him double. Ryan and I ran up to the dock entrance to go through security there and a women came out, closed the doors in front of us (blocking our way) and simply said "Sorry, you're too late. You can't go in there." It was 4:10 pm. I about fell over. Now imagine not only the stress of the situation, but also running to save my life (or my cruise) and it's 90 degrees out with 100% humidity. HELLO! I'm dying here!

Ryan got back on the phone with Chad and told him how we couldn't get through- the lady who stopped us got on the walkie talkie with her supervisor and confirmed that we couldn't pass. It went on like this for about 5 minutes. We were insisting that "they" had said if we were there by 4:15 (which we had been) then we could get on the boat. So this went on, blah, blah, blah and it was super stressful and finally the call came through the walkie that we could go. HORRAY!

We ran through port security with all of these port cops totally mad that we were going through b/c it was passed the time allowance, but we were able to do it. Then at the last second--- the boat was 20 feet away and some other big, black port cop comes walking over saying we can't get on. Luckily a guy from the boat came out and grabbed us and told us to follow him. We did it!!! We walk (very quickly) onto the boat right along side the last of the food that was being loaded! The whole reason is that by law, the boat has to send out a manifest with all the names of the people on it 60 minutes prior to departure. And you can't be on the manifest unless you are already checked in on the boat. They (the cruise ship) must have put Ryan and I on the manifest since our friends were there telling them we were coming (and obviously were weren't on the boat by 4 pm.) That's why the port policemen were so angry that we were able to get on. The cruise ship was actually breaking the law!! It was sooooo stressful that I felt like any minute one of the port cops would come onto the boat looking for us and tell us to get off!!! But it didn't happen. We were safe. YESSSSSSSS!

We made it!! We can relax now. Although we were so wired from our PRE-adventure to our adventure of the cruise. I think I've gone grey.

Us with Annie and Chad. We wouldn't be on the boat if it weren't for them. Thanks guys!!

This is our tiny stateroom. But when traveling without kids- we really didn't need much!

This is the formal night. We got a table for four so we could be anti-social the whole time. =)

This is my empty dish where there was once escargot. It was really yummy. But what isn't good when it's swimming in garlic butter and spices??

We took our own formal pictures outside. Chad is a photographer so we went with his skills.

Our first port of call was in Grand Caymen. Annie and I are chillin' with our person pirate friend. We went from the boat to an excursion to see...

STINGRAYS! They were so awesome. Do you see how big that mother is?? There is this place called Stingray City and it's about a 40 minute boat ride off the north end of the island. There is a huge sandbar where these stingrays congregate. They have been doing this for 30 years so there was no reason to fear them. So we snorkeled around and pet the stingrays. I even held one! They are so soft, like velvet.

Everyone knows that on cruises-- you EAT. This is a sampling of dessert we got one night for the four of us. It was typical for us to order extra appetizers, entres and desserts.

Marvlo was our stateroom attendant. He would do these funny towel animals for us each night when he turned down the bed. This was my favorite. I mean, how creative is THAT?

Second port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. Ryan and I have been here a ton of times. This is where we often come with his family for vacation and to go scuba diving. I've been certified for four years now. Here I'm almost ready to go. You can't see it, but my tank is already on my back. The water was 82 degrees and we went down 80 feet. We always see something amazing (beyond the cool coral and brightly colored fish.) This time it was a sea turtle that I was near enough to touch (but didn't b/c you shouldn't.) It was so beautiful. And so alive! It was munching knawing at a sponge!

This is after our dive as were were speeding along to a place where Annie and Chad could snorkel for a while. The water in Cozumel is the most beautiful than any other place I've seen it. This photo has not been altered in any way. That is the true color of the water! And that my friends is why it's called a tropical paradise!

Saying goodbye to Victor after a fun day in the sun (and water) on his boat. Ryan has been diving with Victor since he was 16 years old. Victor is who certified me. On one of my first dives he took me to a school of hundreds of fish. As we got closer and closer to them the fish parted. As our group continued forward, Victor had me turn around and I saw that the fish had made a complete circle around us. We were surrounded, 360 degrees by these small white fish. And what was even more amazing than being surrounded was that they were basically in a single file line all around. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. That and the grouper (fish) that was the size of my couch ottoman. For a fish- that is freaking HUGE.

All fun must come to an end. This is the last night of our cruise. We are tan, well I am and Ryan is burned. We came, we saw, we swam, and we ate until our hearts' were content. In fact, by the last night we all had about two bites of dessert and called it good. We were done, stuffed, and ready to see the kiddos. I am so glad that we made it onto the cruise (it really could've gone the other way too) but now I am glad to be home. Peace out.