Pre-Hawaii

Bennett Family vacation 2009: Hawaii. However, before heading to the Aloha state, we got to be in California for a night to spend some time with my family! After being picked up from the airport, Grandma took us to her favorite Japanese restaurant where we all had a very cultural experience. Seriously though, while we were waiting to be seated, I felt like I was in another country what with all of the asian languages being thrown around. Got to love Irvine, CA.

Mom & Dad

Luke using his chopsticks the only way he knows how...

The Vegetable Tempura that I ordered for dinner... it was delicious.

McKenna loved her teriyaki chicken.

Mom had the same thing in mind that I did, that veggie tempura was awesome.

After a quick night's sleep, we were up at 4:30 a.m. to head to LAX for our 7:00 a.m. flight. It actually didn't take us too long to get through security, but it was the beginning of a very long day of flying. Our tickets took us to Dallas/Fortworth where we had an hour to make our way to our next gate (sounds lame, i know, but that airport is huge! It took us 20 minutes to walk to our next gate), and then the 7 1/2 hour flight to Honolulu.

Albeit a long flight, we were so excited about this trip,

to see this place,

we couldn't have been more excited.

More pictures to come...

More yummy food!

I know I just did a post about delicious food, but we've (I've) been trying a couple more new recipes that were definite winners, and I want to share them with you!

Basic Crepes filled with peaches and topped with home-made whipped cream.

A soft-taco spread. I made a sweet-chicken recipe (a mock of Bajio's chicken), homemade tortillas (Chad's new favorite), black beans, homemade Mexican rice, and then Corn on the cob.

Corn on the cob with cilantro-lime butter. Mexican Rice.
Plum/Peach Buttermilk cake. It was delicious (especially with the homemade whipped cream), but it kind of fell apart as I was taking it out of the pan. I tried to piece it back together and it didn't look too bad.
Cream of Asparagus Soup. I liked it but Chad wasn't the biggest fan.
Sweet Potato Fries. This is a Bennett family favorite and sooo easy to make. Just cut up sweet potatoes in whatever shape looks good to you, drizzle them with some olive oil & add some salt and pepper and then throw 'em in a 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, until you can stick your fork in them and they are tender. Delicious!
Extreme Nachos (leftover Bajio chicken & then some grilled veggies)... this was Chad's idea and it was amazing.
Enchiladas.
Chocolate Bavarian Torte (Chad LOVES this cake... it is sooooo good).
Soft Tacos with cilantro/lime chicken, a mango/bean salsa, on homemade tortillas. Apparently we were going for a Mexican theme in our dinners for the past couple of weeks.

What can I say? I love to cook and we both love to eat!

Mom comes to visit

Mom came up to visit us last week for almost a whole week! She drove up to Utah on Tuesday afternoon and stayed with us until Saturday afternoon for a quick mini-vacation before her school starts again in September. We had an awesome couple of days just taking it easy. I'm sorry to inform you that I have barely any pictures of the week's activities, I kept forgetting my camera everywhere we went, but I'll just have to tell you about them anyway.

Some of the highlights of the visit included: an Ikea outing (dinner included), exploring the huge Tai Pan store, lunch at Cafe Rio, hanging out with Kimber/Jason/Kenzie, making dessert crepes at Kimber's house, and then taking mom shotgun shooting!

As mentioned previously, I forgot my camera almost everywhere we went, so this was her posed picture with our gun at our house. To truly understand the signifcance of such an event, you have to understand that Chad's mom is very opposed to owning a gun and keeping it in the house. However, we convinced her that shotgun shooting would be an extremely fun evening, and she decided to give it a try. The first time she fired the gun, she wasn't expecting the kick, and it suprised her a little. However, after a couple more shots she hit the clay pigeon and decided she was done.

Chaddy loves his mom!
Thanks for coming to visit us mom, we can't wait for you to come back and hang out with us again!

Almost time!

After planning our trip to Hawaii for the last 3 1/2 months, I can't believe it's finally almost time to actually go! The last week has seemed to go so slow because all I can think about it being able to go home for a day or two and then spend an entire week in paradise with my amazing husband (who desparately needs a week off). But here's a quick preview of what we plan to do.

Lots of snorkeling...

...to hopefully see plenty of sea turtles.

Chad plans on eating lots of shrimp, we hear the little shrimp stands are amazing.

We can't wait to see the Lai'e Temple, although it's closed right now, it still looks beautiful from the outside!
We plan on going on several hikes in the area, hopefully we will see a couple of waterfalls!
I plan on doing lots of reading on the beach.
...and then maybe convincing Chad to join me for a little bit.
We plan on spending most of our time on the beach, whether it be to snorkel, swim, or just enjoy the beautiful, warm weather.
Visit Pearl Harbor Memorial.
And make a visit to Hanauma Bay.

Just a few more days...

Hanging out with the Kenz

My niece Kenzie and I got to hang out this weekend while Kimber and Jason had a Saturday night date night. I just love this adorable little girl and couldn't help but take a few pictures. When we hang out, oftentimes we ride bikes...

We show our "baby" how to ride down the slide,
and then slide down ourselves.
We climb ladders,
go exploring down garden paths,
check out the local cuties,
...and read books. Lots and lots of books. Little Miss Kenzie has gotten extremely independent and insisted on reading this book all by herself. You can't tell very well from this picture, but she was holding her legs up in order to prop the book up. They weren't sitting on the chair, just suspended over the ground. It was hilarious.
Hopefully we can play again soon! Maybe next time Chad will be able to go too...