Olsen Family

Our life in paradise...

2011-09-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

So A LOT has changed since I last blogged... let me try and re-cap. In June we came to Canada for a family vacation and to go to Mike's brother's wedding. We had a great time and really loved seeing family, being outdoors in the fresh Canadian air and Bentley loved playing with his cousins. The wedding was truly beautiful. (I'll post picture to prove it!) So we say our goodbye's and are looking forward to going back to Hawaii ...BUT while we were in Vancouver everything changed. This is actually a long story but i'll try and sum it up. Mike's visa was denied at customs even though it was still valid until October. WE HAD TO MOVE HOME. Wow, it was so unreal, everything changed so quickly. He wasn't even allowed to fly back to help pack up. SO basically we ended up missing our(my) flight and got a hotel that night to figure out our new plans. I ended up flying with Jackson to Hawaii to pack up our place, finish working and move back to Canada. Mike took Bentley back to Edmonton. That was the longest month ever! Luckily 2 of Mike's sisters ended up coming to help me which was awesome. All of our amazing friends in Hawaii were so helpful too. We miss them so much (and the weather)!! So, basically that was our summer in a nutshell. Looking at my blog tittle I was thinking.. what am I going to call my blog now.. not that I really ever post much anyways ;) but I think I'll keep it the same.. we just live in a colder paradise now... :)

Red Rock Canyon

Bentley trying to feed the chipmunks rocks

Top of Bears Hump (you can see the town where my parents live in the background)

Bentley and I at Cameron Falls

Checking out a deer

Blurry, but I like this one.. Daddy and B going for a ride

Bentley at the wedding. Jon and Lindsey got married at the Cardston Temple
and their reception was at Echo Lake in Montana. So Beautiful!

Bentley's 3rd Birthday!!!

2011-04-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

Benny and some of his buds!

His FAVORITE toy right now.. nice work Madilyn!

Swinging on some vines..

We had an Easter egg hunt at his Birthday party and it was so much fun... maybe too much fun for me hiding the eggs.. the tree's were perfect! It was a great afternoon with some of the greatest people!
We took him to Chuck-e-Cheeze.. he's been talking about this for months!
We started off the day going to the beach, Bentley's favorite thing to do. It's so funny, several times we've had tourists ask for pictures with him! Maybe he looked like a real Hawaiian kid
Mike's takes every chance to "teach" him how to surf. It has payed off because he is really a fish in the water and loves dunking himself and holding his breath!

Baby Jackson..

2011-03-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

Suprise! Yes I'm still alive! We've just been without internet for a while so I kinda do feel outta the loop! Anyways, Jackson was born January 3rd and he is such a sweet baby. I'm really going to try harder and be better at blogging so that my family can see the boys more! So here are some pictures for now!

Coming January 11th, 2011...

2010-06-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

We are really excited! It's going to be so fun for Bentley to be a big brother. He kisses my tummy and says Baby but I don't think he really get's it yet. I've been A LOT SICKER than with Bentley but finally starting to feel better. Something really odd that has happened it I have a phobia of the sun since being pregnant.. I just want to be in a thunderstom and were a hoodie. I hope it passess because I DO live in hawaii! It's kind of crazy, I'll look outside and it will be all sunny and I'll feel really nauseous! I've been craving five-a-live tropical and Olive garden salad and breadsticks.. hmmm yummm

Mike's Graduation & Bentley's 2nd Birthday!

2010-05-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

Mike graduated April 10th, 2010!! So exciting! Although he still has one week left of spring term left. It was so great to have my parents here! They came for their spring break. It's a tradition in hawaii to give a lei when you graduate so their were some people with sooo many! It was a wonderful ceremony. Elder Clark spoke about the family and we ate at Lei Lei's that night (the restaurant at turtle bay), and I had the best fillet mignon ever! I'm pretty picky about meat, but it was hands down the best steak I've ever had!

We had a little pizza party at Kapiolani Park for Bentley's birthday! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends here in hawaii. The kiddies had fun trying to get the soccer ball pinata, I think Mike ended up breaking it.. Here is the big birthday boy!

Back to work...

2010-02-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while eh? A lot has changed around here. Let me start off in November where I left off. We went back to Canada and spent Christmas holidays with family! It was great. I went a few weeks before Mike and got to experience the -57 Celsius cold!! Which was so ridiculous! I wish I took a picture of what it looked like outside.. it truly looked like opening the door to a deep freeze, if that makes sense, but pretty frost. Mike had fun making a 6 foot high slide out of snow, a skating rink and an igloo. Watch the video on YouTube and you'll understand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqG5BfnDANw
I think the adults had just as much fun as the kids!

Bentley is doing well, he is talking a lot more and is still obsessed with getting our keys and trying to get in the drivers seat. He could stay in there for hours but we haven't been letting him since he is getting older but he doesn't seem to be forgetting about it! Also, he has been going potty, #1 and #2 quite often on the potty. I didn't really think of starting him this early but we found a brand new potty seat thing at a garage sale for $3 and he wanted to use it!

Mike is busy with school and trying to make plans for after he graduates in April. As for me, I've come to grips with having to go back to work to make ends meet. This week was my 1st week back and I'll be doing 50 hours. Usually I'll just do 3x 12 hour shifts a week. I really do feel to lucky to have such a great job especially considering unemployment is at it's highest now. So I just have to look at the good side. I really miss being home with Bentley but it works out that Mike will mostly be home to watch him.

Lastly, I've been really really grateful for EVERYTHING I have been blessed with recently. I don't know what it is but recently there have been so many people I know going through very difficult trials. I'm so lucky to have Bentley and such a wonderful husband. One of my best friends in Canada who is a nurse too just recently went to Haiti to help. She told me a really touching story, here is it. So they camped out at an orphanage and there was a little boy about 2-3 who came up to her and kept trying to ask or tell her something. He kept asking and asking and she just thought he was asking for candy and she said she didn't have any. Well she found a translator and all he was asking her for was to be HELD... isn't that so sad! I just cried when she told me that! It's so important to CHERISH our kids!

Well, to leave on a lighter note, you guys HAVE to check out this video! It is of Mike's really good friend here who went swimming with whales and dolphins, by himself, with just snorkel gear. He is a man vs wild kind of guy...the video is incredible! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfmfT7IAZk

what we've been up to..

2009-11-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some random pictures from recently. We've been to the zoo I don't know how many times, Bentley just loves it. Lots of birds for him to chase around and goats to harass... poor goats. Bentley and I will be going to Canada in a couple days and staying till new years eve! Believe it or not I'm really excited to be in some cold weather and were some jeans and a hoodie without sweating! Our A/C broke here so it's been uncomfortably warm. Mike will join us after his exams in December. Im going to work while I'm there and try to save some money for next semester.. I CAN"T wait for Mike to be done school!!! We still arn't really sure where or what we'll be doing afterwards. Isn't that exciting (in a sarcastic voice). I'm really looking forward to settling down somewhere and actually having an income!

Halloween

2009-11-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

This year Bentley was Bam-Bam. My friend has a little girl around his age so we made their costumes out of the same "dress." The only fabric store I could find here is Fabric Mart and all they had was aloha print stuff.. not even ONE animal print! So we ended up finding a dress that worked to cut out. Aren't they adorable! We went to our ward halloween party on friday which was a lot of fun and on saturday to Ala Moana mall for trick or treating. We gave him a lolipop and he was going off the wall running around! It was hilarious! I think his favorite part was getting the helium balloon!

KONA VACATION!!!

2009-10-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

So we took a family vacation to the Big Island this weekend and it was so amazing. One of our good friends installs home theater systems at Four Seasons resort in Kona. He had some work to finish up and invited us and some other couples we are friends with to stay the weekend and this UNREAL house. We went to Four Seasons last year with the same friends, so we were so excited to go back. It was so beautiful! We had a very relaxing weekend. We are so blessed to have made such amazing friend here in Hawaii. Michael and I also went kayaking at Captian Cook. The snorkeling was amazing, so many cool fish and we also saw a monk seal while we were in the water! I was kinda freaked out but thank goodness I was with Michael and not alone. It was hard to come back to our SMALL one bedroom apartment afterwards...

Sunset at Four Seasons

Benny Burrito

Front Door courtyard

Olya and I at the Lava fields

Family Picture (Bentley is really good at saying cheeeeze...can you tell by his smile?)

Michael and I at the Kona Temple

Bentley at the Kona temple

Captian Cook bay

Dining and Kitchen area

Pretty Sunset.. i loved the outdoor furniture too!

Family picture by infinity pool

My favorite chair.. sorry excuse me and my bathing suit

Bentley having fun at the pool

SLC

2009-10-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our trip to SLC. We really loved the city and were sad our time there was so short!

The Marathon...

2009-10-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Here are some picture of the marathon! I'm so glad I actually did it! There were several times I was considering backing out but Mike convinced me to I should do it! It went pretty good considering I really didn't train as much as I could have.

So at 5 in the morning everyone took a bus up the canyon to the start line. I was pretty scared because I didn't know anyone at all. I ended up sitting by these 3 ladies that had run about 20 marathons! craziness. The first 14 miles were in a beautiful canyon with a river and big tree's and the last bit was down and around Logan residential areas which wasn't as interesting. The last 6 miles were very hard.

So a couple miles into the marathon I kinda had a mini freak out. # 1- I realized I forgot my running belt/pack which held my energy gel packs at the start line! #2- Also I realized that my nike plus chip which keeps track of my miles was off! So during my training I though my longest run was 18 miles but really it was probably 15 or so! #3- At about mile 8 I was trying to change my music on my iPod and I accidently shut off my workout history (not really a huge deal more annoying than anything) #4 I really wanted to see Mike along the way because I was running alone and needed some support. I guess he had stopped and waited a couple places but didn't want to miss me at the finish line so left early.

I realized a couple things from this experience relating to life.

1) When you make good goals, there will always be things that try to stand in your way of doing things.
2) When things go wrong or not exactly as you plan (which they always will) you just have to keep the end in mind and go forward!
3) Sometimes we hope for someone to aid us along our journey but some things we have to do on our own....
4) but after all you've done all you can, we can always rely on the Lord to help us.

The last 2 conference talks I listen to at the end of the race was about the atonement and about the mother who was digging in the frozen ground with a spoon to bury her child. I think by President Monson. How could I think I was in pain listening to that! Needless to say it was an overwhleming expereince to see Mike and Bentley at the finish line!

2009-09-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Well Hello! Hmm. I'm kind of ashamed it's been, what like 5 months since I posted last! Yikes. We are all alive and well. We really enjoyed our summer here in Canada and loved spending time with family. Wednesday we head our to Utah where I'll be attempted to run my 1st marathon on sat! Then back to Hawaii! We've missed it there so much! I'm sad, my sister Sarah was training with me but developed a bad cramp that lasted ALL the time... so instead she'll be getting an ultrasound on sat.

Just a quick update of when we've been doing, Mike's was working at his brothers landscaping company, I've been working part time at the Grey Nuns Hospital-and loved it there, and Bentley is growing up fast. He's attempting to talk with not much success.. basically he just says ..uhhh. uhhh and points to what he wants. He can say bubble, bath, ball... etc.. but not on demand. We'll work on it. He LOVES being outside and is obsessed with cars and keys! I'm looking forward to being home with him in Hawaii. Not much time right now for a detailed update but thanks to Kat for giving me a kick in the pants to finally post something! Hope all your summers went well. Wish me luck on saturday.. I'll need it!

Here are a few pictures of the last few months.... more to come next week!

Excited.

2009-04-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

Family picture at Punchbowl

Curly haired Bentley

Visiting Daddy at school

Blowing Bubbles on the deck

Just being cool

Mike builds a huge pit for Bentley when we go to the beach.. it's great!

Bentley LOVES steering wheels.. can't you tell by his face!!

Just woke up

Playing at his friend Krew's 1st Birthday!

Taking a walk across the street

Well, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and decided I should finally do a post already! We fly out of Honolulu tonight and arrive in Canada tommorow! I'm so excited to see family and also for them to see Bentley! Plus he can play with his cousins and he is turning one soon. Just so much to be excited about. Just a quick update on the family, Mike is done school for the summer and we are moving to edmonton till the end of September (that's when fall semester starts up again) He only has 2 more semesters left! yippy! I finished working in March because my visa expired, so for a month I just go to play with Bentley at home. Bentley is growing up so fast. He is 21 pounds now, starting to walk and starting to talk just a bit. Apparently he can only say things that start with "B".. like bath, bubbles, ball, beach, etc... He is just too cute. The last couple months is has gotten the CURLIEST hair! I'm curious if it will stay like that is canada because it is so dry there. Anyways, I better go finish packing! Snow...here we come!

Bentley surfing the sand

2009-03-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

Trip to Canada

2008-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

So during American Thanksgiving, Bentley and I flew home to Canada for my sisters wedding. Mike had to stay home because he had finals. We were gone for almost 3 weeks.. way too long be be away! It was so great to see family though and be there for her special day. Bentley had lot's of fun with he cousins. I made the cake for her wedding so I'll post some pictures. Isn't she beautiful! I was so excited to see snow for the first time in 2 years.. but after 1 day of -20 something I had enough! Bentley is growing so fast, he starting crawling when we were there, and he has 2 of the cutest little teeth! Oh yeah and I chopped my hair there too.. more pic's next time...

I got Tagged...

2008-11-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

My friend Mel tagged me to post the 6th picture in my 6th folder.. so here ya go! Mike and I had just moved across the ocean to start our adventure in Hawaii. When we first got here we spent a lot of time at the beach (I didn't have a job quite yet), walking EVERYWHERE (no car), missing family and loving our new friends! Thanks Melody!

So here are the 6 people I tag.
1) Ashley Crenshaw
2) Aunt Marilee
3) Julie Whidden
4) Lyndsey Olsen
5) Vinnie Feller
6) Chelsea Wood

The Big Island and Halloween!!

2008-11-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

In October we got to the Big Island with some friends and it was so wonderful. We stayed at this ginormous house for free because Mike friend installed the home theatre system them and had some finishing up to do. We didn't even see much of the island at all but that was ok because we just wanted to relax!

For Halloween, Bentley was a "curious george", Mike really wanted to be the man in the yellow hat but we didn't really find a good costume for that.. so I guess Bentley was just a monkey. We took him trick or treating to Ala Moana mall and he fell asleep within 10 minutes! Halloween is a lot more fun with a kid!
Halloween night we had some friends over and played a massive game of Settlers of Catan. It was a lot of fun!

Finally something new!

2008-08-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, I've been really terrible at keeping this blog up. Mike started school at BYU hawaii yesterday and I've been back at work for about a month. We are still living in honolulu and mike is driving to Laie 3 times a week. Right now we are on the waiting list for married housing there. It works out that mike can be home with Bentley when I work. I can't believe he is 4 months already! He is starting to get real squirmy! He loves to laugh and go swimming with daddy and chew on anything. He makes life just so much fun! We love him to bits! hmm i really don't have much else that is new. I'm really hurtin for some idea to make this blog interesting.. maybe I'll volunteer myself for some of those "tag" things to change things up! Anyway, here are some pictures of what we've been up to. My sisters came to hawaii for a few weeks to babysit while Mike was still working in Canada. It was a blast.

Some Firsts..

2008-06-22T21:09:00.001-07:00

Wow, I can't believe Bentley is 2 months old now! Here is a picture of him at the zoo.. looks like he really enjoyed it eh?

Bentley's first time swimming.. he LOVED IT.

This is a shirt Mike made for him.

Just chillin in the sleeper Auntie Sarah gave him... so cute.

Some of my favorites...

2008-06-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

So these pictures aren't the most current but they are some of my fav's!

2008-05-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

O Canada

2008-05-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well, we are now back in Edmonton staying with Mike's Parents and it has been so great to be around family. The flight went really well and Bentley slept pretty much the whole time. The hardest thing was trying to nurse sitting next to a stranger.. so really i guess the flight went great.

My family came up for the long weekend and we blessed Bentley in Mike's home ward. He did great and didn't make a peep until mike held him up to show everyone. I feel so lucky to have such a great baby.. he really doesn't even cry unless he's hungry. However lately he has been doing this grunting thing during the night.. he'll be fast asleep but make this funny sound, so of course I get up to get him but he's usually still asleep.. It wakes me up but at least it's better than him wailing! He's growing so much as you can tell by his double chin and has also smiled a couple time which melts my heart!

Well here are some pictures I hope you enjoy!

Bentley Michael Olsen has arrived!!!

2008-05-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Baby Bentley arrived on April 20th. I was induced on April 19th at 9am and he was born April 20th 9:36am. He is such a joy and we love him so much. It's unreal how much you can love we feel for this little guy we barely met! It really is true that you just forget all the pain.. it's so worth it. But I guess I got an epidural so can I really complain! So a little bit about the labor part, I was induced by miso which causes you to dialate and I only progressed to 2cm after 8hours so then the Dr decided to start pitocin at about 8pm which was KILLER. I have to say the contractions hurt WAY more than acctually pushing him out.. which was what I was scared of. By 11pm I got an epidural which was heaven and I was acctually able to get some sleep that night. By 5am my water broke and I was almost completly dialated. So we starting pushing a while after that. Bentley's heart rate kept dropping so I had to go on all 4's which was kinda hard when you can't feel your legs. They also did an amnioinfusion which means they put more water back in me to cushin him. They thought they might have to do a C/S because he was so slow to recover but it all worked out and he was just fine! It was an amazing experience. Our computer broke down the day after we got home so that is why I haven't been able to post any pictures. So now I am loving being at home with him and just trying to get the hang of nursing! I have 12 weeks off work so we are heading home to Canada so Bentley can meet all his family. Here are just a few of my fav pic's, I posted a lot more on facebook. So hope you enjoy!!

2 days to go...

2008-04-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I can't believe my due date is only 2 days away. It's looking like I'll go over though. My Dr. said no longer than one week, so for sure by the 23rd we should have a baby boy! I'm officially done work now for 3 months! It seems like nothing compared to the 1 year maternity leave in canada i could be getting but at least it's something! Things are going good.. the last 2 weeks seem to drag on and on!!! I've been having contractions but nothing regular. Here are some pictures from my baby showers. I was lucky enough to have 2! My friends from church as well as friends from work put them on. They were wonderful and I am so lucky to have found so many AMAZING friends here so far away from home!

Surprise.. I posted something!

2008-01-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

So the biggest news I have since last time is we found out we are having a little boy!! I'm now 27 weeks so here are some pictures of my growing belly. Yesterday at work there was a baby born who was also 27 weeks so it was really cool to see exactly what size our boy is!! I've been feeling pretty good lately. I had been having some bad back pain from my siatic nerve but it seems to have eased up lately. One day it got so bad Mike had to get me one of those moterized wheelchairs while we were shopping at Costco.. so awkward to be in but I guess I could at least get around then.
Mike and I had a wonderful Christmas even though it was just the two of us. I never thought I would miss the snow but this year it just kind of felt like we were pretending to have Christmas during the summer.
My family also came after Christmas to visit. It was most of my brother and sisters first time on a plane let alone being some place tropical so they really had a blast. Here are some pictures!

Trip to Kauai

2007-10-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Mike and I decided to take a road trip to Kauai. I had 6 days off work and it was kinda last minute thing but it was so worth it. We initally were going to camp the whole time.. but only did for 1 day. (The Hilton was too tempting!!) Plus we didn't really prepare well enough for camping and our backs were sore from sleeping with no padding! Kauai was so beautiful. I loved all the waterfalls! Mikes favorite was Kipu falls, which had a huge rope swing into the fall pools! I didn't go off it though because I probably would have done a belly flop! And the baby probably wouldn't have liked that! So enstead I got some sweet pictures! Enjoy!

1st Ultrasound!!!

2007-10-03T13:10:00.001-07:00

So since I'm expecting and live so far away from family I thought keeping up with this blog would be good way to keep everyone up to date on the pregnancy! I still feel kinda wierd writing on this thing but hopefully that will get better with time. Hopefully I won't bore you!

On September 24th we had the 1st ultrasound. It was my first appointment so I wasn't really expecting to see the baby already! It was such a relieve to see the baby move around and heart beat. It looks like a little peanut... only 24mm long! So I'm officially due April 16th which is sooner than i thought! So now i'm 12 weeks along! I've diffenately got some regular prego symptoms like nausea, loss of appetite, and tiredness.. i'm just glad I haven't thrown up yet!

We found out I was pregnany August 20th which was perfect timing because Mike and I went home to Canada and were able to tell all my family! Most of my littler siblings didn't believe me.. I guess I cried wolf one to many times! But I'm going to try and post the video of me telling my parents! I think it's pretty funny!

2007-03-20T16:31:00.000-07:00