THE CRAMERS ARE BACK!!! We've been on vacation for the last month, except for the 4 day interruption where Klaron had to work. Now we're settling back in, doing laundry, FOOD SHOPPING and getting back to life as usual... at least for the next couple months.

I love like picture of Teagan. This is pre-vacation but I love the pure joy he has about just being outside with his coat and boots on.

One week after Teagan turned 1, Klaron turned 29. OH MAN, my man is almost 30. We started with dinner at Black Angus then went camping. Winter and its cold outside style complete with twinkle light stars. Klaron got a tent for his birthday. A really big one. We tried setting it up in our living room but the room wouldn't hold it.

We even had a camp fire that crackled and everything...SO COOL.

I love this... this is how a city boy racks his leaves. HA.

HA HA HA!

Before we left for Christmas in Gridley we went on the Train of Lights in Fremont, California. It was so cool. The train was completely covered in lights. One car was open air and we could sit outside.

Teagan was all bundled up and toasty.

We even got a visit from Santa on the train. This is defiantly a new Cramer family tradition.

During the week of Christmas we thought we lost our camera so we have no pictures of Christmas!! So sad. But camera or no camera we still had a great Christmas in Gridley. This was the start of our month long vacation. We had everyone in town, Andy from Idaho, James home from his mission, Joey from next door and us. Christmas Eve all 16 of us slept at mom and dad's house. And that's probably what got us all sick. The next week a different person was sick each day. We came home with sore throats, coughs (that I just got over) and runny noses. Merry Christmas right? Isn't that what the seasons all about.

We came home January 1st and Klaron worked for 4 days. Then we started our vacation again. This time in Oahu, Hawaii...

Thursday, January 7... we drove to San Francisco and stayed the night in a hotel across from the airport. Our flight left at 8:45 in the morning. Next to us was Aunt Tamie, Carson, James, my mom, Aunt Sam and Uncle Mike and Steve. We were meet by about 10 more people when we got to Honolulu. It was going to be kind of a big party. We got to Honolulu at 12 noon. When we went to pick up the rental car they offered to upgrade us for a "small" fee. So we went from a lame sedan to a super cool 4 wheel drive Jeep Wrangler convertible. WHEN IN HAWAII DO AS THE TOURIST DO!! It was awesome.

DAY 2: Saturday, January 9th. We drove to the North Shore. The first place we stopped was Haleiwa for MATSUMOTO'S SHAVED ICE. This is no ordinary shaved ice. They put ice cream down in the bottom and that is what makes it just a little taste of pure yum-o-ness.

After Matsumotos we drove to Waimea Beach for a swim. But when we got there the waves were huge and we could only swim in designated areas.

So the reason we all went over to Hawaii was my cousin's first birthday. She is one week older than Teagan. The Hawaiian tradition is to make the first birthday a huge party, huge as in wedding huge. So for the party we went to an exclusive country club and had a luau, complete with face painting, photo booth and a balloon animal making clown. It was amazing. To bad for the birthday girl, she goes to bed at 7:30 and we saw her twice the whole night.

My mom and Teagan got matching turtles, I LOVE my butterfly eyes and James thinks he's so cool with his traditional native mock tattooing.

He actually started a trend.

DAY 3: Sunday, January 10. We went to the local church. Outside they have these AMAZING Banyon trees. The tree branches grow down to the ground then grown roots and actually become trunks. SO COOL!! After church we spend the rest of the day at my Uncle's house in Honolulu. He lives right on the ocean so we took his sea kayaks out in the waves for a bit.

DAY 4: Monday, January 11. Surf lesson day!! James and I took surf lessons first thing in the morning. It was way fun.

This is us coming in after our lesson. James did really good but I will probably need another lesson or 2.

James decided this was his new favorite thing to do.

After the lesson we walked down to the International Market Place and looked at all the fun booths. There was tons of touristy things to buy, dresses, shirts 7 for $20, necklaces, even a real shark in a bottle. Yup.

That night we took my Uncle Rich's jet ski out.

DAY 5: Tuesday, January 12. SHARK CAGING DAY. We all got out early this morning and went to Haleiwa Harbor to slip #35 where the North Shore Shark Adventures boat was waiting. James, Steve, Uncle Reg and I were going to go 3 miles out into the ocean and be lowered into the water in a shark cage. Crazy, yeah just a little...

There were 2 other groups with us, we let them go first so that when we were ready to go there would be lots of sharks.

We were given a snorkel and mask so we could see under water.

And then I went in...

Once all of us were in they let the cage out about 20 feet away from the boat. Being in the cage was a little eerie. You could stick your hands outside of the bars if you wanted to, which is what my Uncle did trying to touch one of the dozen sharks we had swimming around our cage. We saw sandbar sharks about 4 feet to 7 feet long.

The rest of the day we spent in Laie. I got to see my old house again, where I lived 10 years ago. We went to the temple and BYU and The Point.

DAY 6: Wednesday, January 13. A few of us drove to Kualoa Ranch near Chinaman's Hat. The ranch is about 4000 acres of pure beautifulness. They offer different tours, this is the Movie sites tour. Kualoa Ranch was were Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Lost, Mighty Joe Young and tons of other movies and TV shows were filmed. This dead tree we're in is from Jurassic Park the scene where Alan and the two kids are in the clearing and are hiding from a stampede of dinosaurs.

One of 4 Godzilla footprints.

After the tour we went back up to BYU where I got this cool sweatshirt.

On the way back to Honolulu we stopped at this interesting place. There were a bunch of large boulders arranged in groups that were supposedly birthing rocks. ANYWAY...

We decided to have a palm tree climbing contest.


Teagan turned out to be a tree climbing natural.

DAY 7: Thursday, January 14. Klaron, Teagan and I decided to hike Diamond Head. This turned out to be a very cool hike. We started in the crater pushing Teagan in his jogger. The trail was supposedly very uneven and when you got close to the top there were supposedly about 300 stairs and a tunnel and a winding staircase, not very stroller friendly. But we were pretty determined to do it. We made it up almost all of the "paved" but still rocky and uneven trail but had to ditch the jogger right before the stairs. Teagan walked a little bit of the way up but was carried on daddy's shoulders most of the way.

The view from the top was amazing. After the hike we met up with everyone at Waikiki Beach. So surfing was fun but the new thing now is "Paddling." This is done with a surfboard but you stand up on it and paddle with an oar. AND I WANTED TO TRY IT. So Klaron got on a surfboard and I got on my paddle board and we paddled out to sea. The area we were in was so shallow, we could see the bottom and the rocks. I was doing so good on the paddle board too, I was standing up, paddling and thought I was really cool. BUT THEN, I fell off. As I was trying to get back on my board my feet brushed the rocks below and ONE OF THESE...

SEA URCHINS. Yeah they hurt!! I didn't know what it was at first so I brought my feet out of the water and saw black needles sticking out of BOTH feet. Klaron tried to pick them out but they were so fragile and would break leaving pieces stuck in my feet. We quickly paddled back to shore. When I told everyone what happen James went asking what we should do to get the needles out. He was told an old Tahitian remedy... VINEGAR and PEE!!!

So here I am soaking my feet in a hotel trashcan full of vinegar. A few minutes later James came in and offered me his pee to stop the pain. So we got another hotel trash can. For 2 hours I sat in Aunt Tamie's hotel room soaking...one foot in vinegar and one foot in donated pee.

DAY 8: Friday, January 15. We all drove back up to Kualoa Ranch and took the Ocean Voyage tour. This tour took us on a catamaran ride around Chinaman's hat. The view of the island was beautiful.

This was our last big adventure in Hawaii. We flew home the next day. What a fun vacation!! But now we're all vacationed out and ready to relax.