Shane and Crystal

Mommy and Daddy took baby Harper to Grammy and Granddaddy’s pool today for the first time! He looked so precious with his little baby board shorts and matching pool hat on! His little sunglasses really just made the outfit! We eased him in the water, very slowly, because it was a bit chilly and we didn’t want to scare him. At first, he cried a little, but once he was in his little boat and comfortable, he was great! He liked it when Mommy and Daddy would push him around in the water. Mommy plans to take him to the pool a good bit this summer, and maybe even do a water-babies class with him towards the end of summer! Yippee for the pool!

I’m finally out for summer break from teaching and I’m already loving the time I get to spend with my sweet little “nip”. (My nickname is Cheeto, so Cheese “nip” just fits!) The three of us went to a little playground yesterday and Harper slid down a little baby slide (with lots of assistance, of course) and Mommy and Daddy took turns going down a BIG slide. Mommy did it three times, but Daddy only did it once! He’s tall and really got all tangled up in that tube slide…so much that he came out booty-first! Harper and Mommy had different emotions about it…Mommy cracked up and Harper cried. Oh well, it was still fun!

Hello! It’s Mommy again. I’m really going to try to be better about blogging now (at least for the summer), since I have more time. Harper is growing and changing so much with every single day. He still takes my breath away every time I look at his sweet angelic face. I get teary eyed just typing that…it’s mushy but true. He’s so healthy, he’s so beautiful, he’s so wonderful, and he’s ours! Thank you God, for this amazing little miracle you’ve given to us. I praise you for making me a mommy every single day—even when it’s 3am and he’s very restless!

I can’t get over how much he’s changed. He’s 4 months and 6 days old now and doubled his birth weight. He’s 5 3/4 inches longer, and just about bald! Haha! We wear lots of sweet little hats on that precious little head. He’s started eating baby food now (so far- rice cereal, green beans, squash, and a little applesauce). He’s a great eater and we enjoy feeding him. He’s a happy baby for the most part. He’s started smiling more and even giggles here and there. He doesn’t just pass out smiles or giggles any ol’ time…he saves them up for special occasions…just like Daddy said- He could win a staring contest anytime! He’s likes to sit up (with a little support), stand up (with a little more support), roll over from his belly to his back (not a big fan of “tummy time”), listen to music, read books, play with rattles, stick lots of things in his mouth, watch the “Backyardigans”, go to see the church ladies in Sunday School, look around at God’s creation outside, and so on! We try to keep him busy!

We are thinking of taking him to the pool soon. We’ve got him a couple of precious bathing suits, a little boat with a shade to sit in while in the pool, and so on…He absolutely LOVES his baths, so we hope he’ll enjoy the pool too!

He’s a good, sweet, cuddly, loveable little guy that’s just stolen our hearts!

Hello! This is “mommy”! I LOVE my new name. I had hoped to make a post sooner, but for **some** little reason, I just have a hard time finding the time to do that! The last three weeks have been the most wonderful, exciting, new, overwhelming, unsure, blessed, confused, tiring, amazing weeks of my life! Every day brings so many new experiences with my little guy. He’s just beautiful. I know that I’m a little biased, but he just is. I find myself just staring at him sometimes. We are so incredibly blessed with him, he’s just perfect! God truly looked out for him in my tummy and formed him into the perfectly healthy baby boy he is. I love seeing all of my family and friends with him. He’s truly just the center of attention and I enjoy see the joy that he brings to everyone who sees him.

We love taking pictures and sharing them with everyone. I wish everyone could see all of them…that would take awhile, though! There are hundreds and hundreds!

He’s doing really well. His weight is up to almost 8 lbs., and he LOVES to eat! He’s a good little baby, usually only crying when he’s hungry, sleepy, needs changing, and sometimes when he just wants to cuddle. I am so incredibly proud of him and SO incredibly in love with him. I’ve heard people say it my whole life, but there is just truly NO OTHER love like the love for a child!

Crystal
a.k.a
Harper’s Mommy!

Our day began at the big time of 2:15 am. Yes, boys and girls, you heard it right. We were going to bike down the Haleakela Crater—one of the world’s largest dormant volcanos! We were picked up at 2:45 am and driven to the Mountain Riders place where we watched an informational video. We all then piled back in (there were 13 of us, a driver named Kona, and our guide- hillbilly Bobby from Kentucky who was hilarious!). We had a sleepy 2 hour drive up to the top of the crater, where we got out of the van into about 30 degree temperatures and wind gusts of about 100 mph. We literally had to hold on to the rails to stand up—I about fell over several times. We had to wear these lovely bright blue (Shane) and yellow (me) wind suits and ski gloves (in Maui!). We already had on a couple layers of clothing, and these wind suits on top of them still didn’t do much good. The wind was fierce and we were struggling to even look out into the sunset, but boy oh boy was it worth it. The colors were just brilliant, pictures just don’t even do it justice, and the clouds were below up blowing UP the side of the volcano. We stayed up there as long as we could to try to see all of God’s wonder, and then headed back down to the van to have juice and a muffin. They had already decided not to bike down from where we were, due to the windy conditions, so we traveled on down to see if it might be less windy back down the crater a little bit. We got to the visitor’s center and it was still just too windy—they were worried about our safety—being blown off of a bike on the side of a volcano on your honeymoon trip to Maui is just not a good day. We traveled on down and little more and the winds died down a lot. We actually decided to travel back on up a little and go ahead and bike the remaining 29 miles (we only lost about 9 miles or so and we all felt a little safer at a lower elevation!). We wore motorcycle helmets and used our brakes very minimally. It was scary at first, but we all got the hang of it. They didn’t want us to brake, they wanted us to coast down, but that gets a little scary at some points in time! It was incredibly beautiful and such a neat experience. We stopped in a little cowboy town close to the bottom for breakfast. It was actually at a Mexican restaurant, but it was yummy. We met some fun people and enjoyed spending time with them. We hopped back on the bikes and continued down to to ocean level in the little town of Pai’a. We took some pictures at the beach (we had stripped down layers of clothing since it was hot again!) and got back in the van. We went back to the Mountain Riders place, tipped the dudes, got a t-shirt, and Kona drove us back to the hotel where we crashed for a little while (me for an hour, Shane for about 3 hours). I went down to lay out at the beach for a couple of hours.
I returned back to the room and we got ready to head to dinner and Warren and Annabelle’s Magic Show. We chose a restaurant called Kino’s for dinner. It was right on the water and we had yummy food (Shane had Opah again and I had Polynesian chicken). We ordered a “Hula Pie” for desert—that thing was HUGE and yummmyyy…we couldn’t even finish the one we shared. We left there and walked down to the magic show. Warren is a comedian/magician and “Annabelle” is a ghost that plays a piano in the parlor while we are waiting to go in. She will play anything anyone requests…it was really cute. We finally went in and the show was just wildly funny! He was very southern and had such fun, clean humor. He picked on people in the audience and named them characters on the Andy Griffith show. The guy that he picked for “Gomer” really got it good—it was hilarious. Shane answered a question during the show about the lady that owned the restaurant and made pickles. We got a buy one get one free meal voucher for that one! The rest of the show was so good and we would highly recommend it to anyone who visits! We left at around 11:30 and returned back to the hotel!

Again, I woke up SO early this morning. I woke up at around 5:30 (10:30 back home) and made myself lay there until about 6:15. I got up and typed for a little while before Shane rolled out of bed. We got ready and went to the town of Napili to eat at the Gazebo Restaurant for breakfast. We had heard some fantastic things about it and wanted to try it out. It is a small restaurant and we literally just stood in line to eat. We ordered white chocolate macadamia nut pancakes (they had a coconut syrup—holy moly!) and fried rice—weird, huh? It had eggs, bacon, ham, and vegetables in it. We put soy sauce on it. It sounds like a weird combination, but it was incredibly tasty. After we ate, we went down to the beach, where there were beautiful volcanic rocks that we could walk on, an amazing view of Moloka’I (another island), and a rainbow out over the water. You just don’t get much prettier that that! We returned to the hotel and layed out by the beautiful pool area for a little while. The wind really started picking up (the “tradewinds” were coming in—new word for me). We went inside and got ready to go to the luau, “The Feast at LeLe”. When we arrived, we were given beautiful lei’s and a choice of drinks—we chose the fresh “POG”. The luau was set up into different Polynesian areas, with food from each. While we were eating, there were various luau-type dancing performed by men an women in beautiful traditional dress. They did a really good job, but the food was a bit too weird and we didn’t much care for it. The views and the show were beautiful, so we still had a good time. After the feast, we returned back to the hotel where we crashed so we could get up extremely early the next morning!

We both woke up quite early, since we aren’t on “island-time” yet. We are five hours behind Georgia here, so that is taking some adjusting. We walked down to the concierge and booked the biking down the volcano tour and a sunset cruise. We walked around a little and took some beautiful pictures. We started getting a little hungry, so we decided to go get lunch at the Hula Grill, which we’ve heard wonderful things about. We took the shuttle to Whaler’s Village and were seated immediately, right on the water. We ordered the “Banana Mac” drink (wowie Maui yummy yum!). I ordered a barbecue sandwich with guava flavored barbecue sauce. It was served with fries and macadamia nut slaw, mmmmmm good! Shane ordered a fish plate which had “ Opah “ served with a white wine sauce….I tasted it and it sure was tasty. The view was lovely and we had a great time. We shopped around Whaler’s Village for a little while, then returned to the hotel, walked around a little more, then went back to the room to begin getting ready to go to dinner at Mama’s Fish House. Before we left, we discovered a Hawaiian drink called “POG” (Passion Fruit, Orange, Guava juice—mmmmm). We got dressed and once I put my new little polka-dot dress on, I realized a seam was torn. It was too late to iron something else, so I got a travel sewing kit from the front desk and literally sewed my dress, laying down in the seat of our silver PT cruiser convertible as we were driving down the road. You should just SEE the scenery as you drive. Between the mountains and the water and the smells….it’s just breathtaking. Mama’s Fish House was about a 45 minute trip. When we arrived, we were a bit early, so we had some great picture taking opportunities. When we were seated, they brought me a lei-since we are honeymooning. We were sitting right on the water, in the breeze. I ordered Mahi-Mahi with a coconut sauce. Oh MY Lord! It was served with pork, Hawaiian sweet potato (which is oddly purple), fried banana, starfruit, mango, friend pinapple, and poi (it soooo tasted like cement- ick!). Shane orderd the the macadamia nut crusted mahi-mahi. It was stuffed with lobster and crab. I don’t eat fish, but both of our dishes were SO fresh and not fishy and just incredible! For desert, we had the “Black Pearl”…yummm! On the way back, we stopped on Front Street at Ka’anapali beach and did a little shopping and looking around. We returned to the hotel and sat in the hot tub and took a late-night stroll on the beach. It was a wonderful, wonderful first full day!

I woke up pretty early with a case of the “Wedding Day Jitters”. I had been doing so good up until this point, but my tummy was just a fluttering! I tried to eat a little breakfast…(we’ll just say that didn’t stay down where it was supposed to) and then headed out to Melissa and Company Salon. My mom, Tiffany, Natalie, Lindsay, Linda, and I were getting our hair done there. Some of the other bridesmaids came there after they’d gotten their hair done in other places. Victoria was there shooting pictures…My hair turned out absolutely perfect! It looked the way I that I’d envisioned it to look for the day of my wedding. We did make-up and attached my finger-tip veil. Tiffany and I set out for the church and when we got there, I had to remove the make-up, except for the eyes, and try again. Girls are just funny about their make-up and it didn’t look quite right. The girls helped me climb into my dress and Linda corseted me up! They all helped me get my shoes and jewelry on before the cathedral veil was finally attached. I was ready! All the bridesmaids looked gorgeous in their dresses and the flower girls were just picture perfect! My mom was a hottie in her dress of red! We waited for Victoria to finish up pictures with the guys, and then we took pictures. She did a couple cute things with us…the next thing I new, it was time to go! My uncle Tony and my dad both came to see me (they both cried) and then we went to go get ready to go into the church. Natalie and I stood outside by ourselves for a few minutes (this is when I realized that I really had to go to the bathroom, but knew that I’d just have to hold it…for what ended up being a VERY long time!) We chit-chatted for a few minutes, then she went in and my dad came out. Daddy and I stood there for a couple more minutes, then they told us to come in! The the music began, the doors opened, and every jitter that I’d had up until this point completely went away! I was so excited! I saw Shane standing there beaming at the end of the aisle, I saw all the wonderful people that were there for our special day, and I just took off down the aisle with my daddy. We practically tripped the whole way there, but I didn’t even care. I was just overjoyed with excitement and happiness. We said our vows perfectly, we lit the unity candle, we went and gave roses to the special women in our lives (that was a surprise), we said the Lord’s Prayer and kneeled to pray, we exchanged the rings (they FIT!), I did a little dance, and then we saw the “special video presentation”. This was supposed to be set to Steven Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here”, but Shane, my dad, and his dad had a different plan. It opened up with humming of Amazing Grace and a “In Loving Memory” portion ( I cried when I saw my Grandmama and Granddaddy looking down at me). It then proceeded into the Feather Song and my dad’s voice again, but with pictures of me through the years to match! It was gorgeous!!! Just when I thought it was over, it transitioned into a song that Shane’s dad had written for him and pictures of him growing up! The song was called “Crystal and Shane” and it was just wonderful! The whole video was so touching and I know I will never be able to watch it without crying…but that’s okay. Shane did a wonderful job putting it together and I will cherish it forever! The next thing I knew we were pronounced as husband and wife, we kissed, then the Hallelujah chorus was played, and we headed back down that aisle! WE WERE MARRIED! We were escorted off by ourselves for a few minutes while the guests went on over to Roselawn, then we took pictures for awhile. An old timey car took us over to Roselawn where we, along with the wedding party were introduced by the Deejay. It was so great to see all of these people there to celebrate with us! Shane and I danced our first dance (to Jim Brickman, “The Love of My Life”), I danced with my daddy (the Feather Song—ironically I’d chosen this song before I ever knew anything about the poem), and Shane danced to the Hawaiian version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with his mom. We cut the cakes, fed each other (all of his groomsmen sang Rocky Top when we cut his cake), drank out of our glasses, then headed down to the carriage house for dancing and fun! We had SO much fun (my mom got jiggy with it on the dance floor—my dad, well he gave it his best shot),we took more pictures, threw the bouquet, flung the garter, danced our last dance (to Sara Evans and Vince Gill’s “There’s No Place That Far”),then we all gathered together to let brown and ivory balloons go before we left. We said all of our good-byes, then the old car picked us up again and we left! It was the most perfect day, I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful time, and I am so appreciative to everyone who was a part of it!

Off to the Renaissance Hotel and then to Maui!!!!