Hawaii here we come!

As most of you know (all two of you that read my blog), Amanda and Brett live in Hawaii. The last time we were there was when Carrie was 4 months old for their wedding!  We decided to have a Gontarek family vacation together and rented a house in Kailua, which is on the west side of Oahu.

It was so much fun to see the cousins playing together - especially Tristan and Andrew who are 2 months apart.  They were definitely 2 peas in a pod.  I am surprised that the house survived them actually.  There was a whole lot of raucous, shooting, car ramming, and general rough-housing.  At one point, they were licking water off of the lounge chairs.  Hmmmm...

We ventured out of the house a few times.  One day we went to a sea life park fairly close to where we were staying. We saw sea lions, dolphins, sharks, etc.  The kids favorite was definitely the pineapple ice cream that Aunt Amanda introduced us to. We also went twice to the pool where Amanda and Brett take the kids all the time in downtown Hawaii. On our last night, we got to see an amazing fireworks show from there.

Another highlight was the yummy Kahlua pork Amanda made us one night.  I am going to try it this weekend!

But the best part of the trip was just getting to spend time together as a family.  I learned all kinds of good tips from Aunt Amanda and we discovered that are both closet Bachelor fans.  Now I have someone to text about it!

Thanks to Amanda and Brett for showing us around their city and to Kay and Jerry for renting the house for us. 

Here are some pictures.

P.S. Check out Brett's web-site.  I got to see some of his inventory first hand- it is beautiful!   http://www.ponowoodworks.com/about-pono/

View from our house



Cousins

This was pretty much the theme of the week except with lots of noise

Gigi and the Kids



G-Pops was a hot commodity at the house.

Paul with his ADORABLE nephew - Max

Brett, Amanda and Max

Gigi and her boys

In the kitchen devouring Brett's guac