Aruba - Day 3

Today we switched Hotels. What a difference a hotel makes. Yesterday I was thinking, Aruba isn't a place we ever have to visit again. And today, I could live here. This room is as big as our upstairs of our house. I think about 850 sq ft. We have a room on the 10th floor. I sat on the couch and watch parasailers most of the afternoon. If I had to pick a window to stare out of while sitting on a couch in my depressed state. This would be it :) Check out this view.
Yesterday Aiden wore his first swim diaper. We emphasized many time that he needs to tell us if he needs to go potty. Even though you can go potty in a swim diaper, we thought it was a good opportunity for teaching him to tell us and, we didn't want him pooping in it because, lets face it swim diapers are expensive. Only one per day. Well I guess since we had stressed the importance of this, he felt it necessary to announce very loudly at the pool, every time AFTER he went pee.

The pool has a lazy river so around 9:30 at night, I decided I wanted to go swimming. We got some inflatable tubes and floated for about an hour on the river. Owen eventually fell asleep in my arms on top of the tube. We were literally the only people out on the river. It was so calm, well except for Aiden being there. In the day I swear there are thousands of people on this lazy river. Bumper to Bumper tubes.
What a great day! Today I love my husband! Today I love my boys! I wish I could bottle up this feeling, and let it out on those not so loving days.

Aruba - Day 2

We hopped on the bus to head up to the lighthouse today. It dropped us off at the last stop which was Arashi Beach. Aiden saw the beach so we of course had to do that first. I sat down with Owen on my lap in the very very shallow water and boy did he scream. He absolutely hated it. I'm not sure what about it he hated. The water was a perfect temperature. So maybe it was the waves as they came up and startled him. But we didn't last long. I got him out and held him under a palm shelter while Josh and Aiden played.
Then we decided to walk to the lighthouse. Along the way we saw two wild parrots on a cactus. It was a hot uphill walk but we made it. We looked it up after and it was about 3 miles. About 2 minutes up at the lighthouse and we headed back to the bus stop. Then back to our hotel for showers.
We went to my favorite stop when we are out of town, for dinner. The Hard Rock Cafe. Got ripped off by the waiter in typical Hanks/Aune tradition :)

Aruba - Day 1

Today we arrived in Aruba. Holy cow is it hot and humid here! The boys did great on the flight. Aiden hardly slept at all. Maybe 3 hours on an overnight flight. On the second leg of the flight, we all fell asleep. Except Aiden, I think the flight attendants kept an eye on him.
We arrived at our hotel. What an unpleasant experience. The reason for picking Aruba was that we had gotten an amazing deals on somebody's time share week, that they were unable to use. So we checked flights. We used all our skymiles points to get the flights. I thought, for an 11 hour flight, we should get more than a week in, so I booked us 4 extra nights using our Hilton points. So all in all, a very inexpensive vacation.
Then a few nights before it was time to go, we checked to see how close our hotels were to each other. Well it turns out they were not very close at all. In fact our Hilton hotel was on another island. Crap. It would cost $150 per person to change our flight. $300 per person to fly to the other island. So I searched for the cheapest hotel I could find. And boy did I find it!
We got to our room around 2pm. By 3 pm we were all in bed napping until 7pm. Then we headed out to find a grocery store. The lady at the front desk said to take the bus. We waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes. Folded up the incredible large stroller, Then took the bus about 2 minutes and got off. It would have been a 10 minute walk from our Hotel. Duh! But now we knew.
We came home to bed and had a freezing nights sleep. The bed was so hard, but we were too tired to care. The air conditioning had 2 temperatures freezing and freezinger. Oh and the sign said, "do not turn off air condition". Out of fear it would break, we did not turn it off.

Here are the boys in their stroller during our walk.

Even MORE Easter

Finally the boys professional Easter photo shoot.
Photos by Emilie
My favorite is the one of Owen making a funny face with crossed eyes.
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More Easter

Due to the Priesthood session Saturday night, we weren't able to dye eggs. So we did it Sunday.

The boys had adorable matching bow ties. Unfortunately the boys don't like pictures taken together.

In this one, Aiden's squeezing the bunny so tight, it's eyes look like they will pop out

I love Aiden and I looking at each other in this one.

Baby Owen

Just like our Christmas Card, I may have not ordered enough prints to send to everybody I wanted to, so.....

Owen will be blessed Sunday,
April 11, 2010 at 9:00am.
11420 S. 700 West, Draper,UT .
There will be a light luncheon following.
At the Hanks' 849 Alan Point Drive

Hoppy Easter

Aiden got a baby bunny for Easter. It is the cutest bunny I have ever seen. Aiden named him "Easter." I think he was confused because we told him the Easter Bunny brought him presents. Later Josh asked him if he had a good Easter morning. Aiden replied, "he's over there Daddy." Pointing to the bunny.

Egg hunt and only pictures I have of Owen.

I think Owen just may be smiling in the picture below.

Cute Bunny shots

Aiden showing me the bunny has sharp claws.

Merry Christmas

I didn't get all my cards sent out like I had hoped. So if you didn't get one...
We have mostly finished remodeling our house in South Jordan. A much bigger project than we had anticipated.

Aiden is a very rambunctious 2 1/2 year old. We have our hands quite full. He is very handsome and has SO much personality! He keeps us laughing. Aiden is spoiled rotten. Emphasis on Rotten.

We decided to have another baby. This decision was of course made before Aiden hit the "terrrible two's" or certainly we would have chosen not to. The new baby is due the beginning of February and we don't know what flavor it will be. We love surprises!

Josh is still working at Fusion-io and loving it and doing fantastic if I do say so myself. He also has a mistress, her name is work. Also this year he has become a much better husband and father, not that he wasn't great before, cuz he was.

Em finally got her Associates Degree, so as somebody put it, would now like to be referred to as "Associate Emily Aune." In addition she has been starting her Real Estate career and due to that and the difficult pregnancy, has become a much worse wife and mother.

We had a wonderful trip to Norway this summer. It has been a lifelong dream of Josh's to go there and we were very lucky to get the opportunity, even if a coke cost us $6.

Other than that, we are just chuggin along with the rest of the world. This time of year we are reminded of how very blessed we are. We are wishing you the same.

Love, Josh, Em, Aiden, and the fetus.
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This, That and The Other

I have wanted to blog but not really had much to blog about. So I went through our pictures.

My mom took me on a spa weekend to Mesquite. It was amazing! Owen got to wear shorts! Coming home was REALLY hard.


I have been able to get back to scrapbooking and I get to go out a couple nights a month while Josh watches the boys. Now there are 3 binkis in this picture. Wow! Finally I have made Aiden give up the binki except at night and nap, and he can keep it for those until he's 18 for all I care. I say "I" made him, because Josh had done it a long time ago, but I still let him have it when he was with me, which is most of the time. So YAY! He will sometimes take Owen's just to hold it and if he wants to put it in his mouth, he asks first and I say no, and he is usually good with that.


We finally got to meet Phoenix, my new nephew, born 3 days before Owen. He's bigger, has more hair and is more like a little person. But he has the undivided attention of 2 adults. Owen is a second child :)

We did our family pictures ourselves. Not bad for free.


We have been thinking of making an addition the our family. Just looking so far...

And we still have crazy dogs:)

the end