A Year Ago Today...

We arrived in Honolulu...a tired two year old, a newborn, two stinky dogs, 8 suitcases of luggage, one stroller, two car seats, one mother-in-law, and no belongings. But hey, who cares, we just moved to Hawaii. I would have pinched myself but my hands were too busy. Due to our extensive amount of luggage, we were fortunate enough to catch a limo straight out of the 70's! Velvet interior, plastic crystal champagne glasses, a non-english speaking driver with no teeth...but I'm getting a little off topic here. We survived many weeks with no toys, no furniture except some horribly distasteful rented stuff (2 beds, 4 chairs, a table and a TV) and living out of suitcases...oh, and adjusting to life without A/C I might add. I hear some snickers in my audience...what?..no sympathy for us? Anyhow, since I'm so reminiscent, I thought I would share some house pictures...somehow those have not made their way into blogging life.
Our House from the backyard.
Our recently renovated lower back lanai (patio for those who don't know the term lanai)
Our open concept dining/living area.
Alternate view of dining area.
Lower lanai looking out of breakfast room.
Breakfast room with view of Koko Crater.
Alternate view of breakfast area.
View from Dayton's Room.
View from dining room.
Our nightly view from almost any room in the house.
View of house from Makapu'u lighthouse trail. If you click the picture to enlarge it, our house is the one on the ridge farthest to the left with the reddish roof.

My Little Fish

We've been doing swim lessons with both Dayton and Saige for 10 weeks and they both graduated last month! We had a 1 month break and we just started back this past weekend. This time we decided that instead of going every Sunday with both of them we would alternate kids/parents each Sunday. So, this past Sunday was my turn to take Dayton. He had a horrible morning right from the time he stepped out of bed. Fussing about this and that, being mean to his sister, not listening (yes YaYa, your precious angel was being BAD)...so I really wasn't looking forward to it. Well, he was fabulous. For the first time he wore the swim belt (it helps kids learn to swim) and he stuck his face in the water more than he normally would AND used his legs and arms most of the time! He really did great - I was so proud of him. After, we went to the mall to hang out at the toy store for a bit and shared a Jamba Juice together. It was nice to have some mommy son time. Of course, once we got home he turned into a little monster again. This picture was taken on our last day from the previous swim semester.

A Problem With Pillows

Scott would say that I have an obsession with pillows and tell you that I buy 25 pillows over the course of a year. I think he exaggerates. I do buy pillows quite frequently, but that is because they never last. I need to find something that lasts. Something that doesn't lose its shape. Something that you don't have to flip over during the night because it becomes uncomfortable. Something that doesn't cause my ear to cramp up. And something that Scott isn't allergic to. He swears he is allergic to down...and I love down pillows. That synthetic down stuff just doesn't cut it. Well, recently I purchased one of those Tempurpedic memory foam pillows and I love it...it really is comfortable, but I find it a little small. It is smaller than your standard sized pillow and I like King sized ones. I'm also a side sleeper and find that it doesn't accommodate my jaw (of course, that could be related to my recent surgery). So we went back to the store so I could look at the side sleeper Tempurpedic pillows. First off, it is gross to "try out" pillows - no explanation needed. They were comfy, but too small. The lady suggested I try a Latex pillow. They came in King Size...I was so excited. There are only two types too, that made "trying" a little easier. Soft and Firm. I liked both but felt a little bit like my head was on a rubber ball with the firm one. I opted for Soft. It was 100$....Scott rolled his eyes and told the lady I've got a pillow problem. I've slept on it two nights now...both nights I've still had jaw pain. I'm hoping once my mouth heals up I will fall in love with my pillow. Until then, I'm sleeping on my back with my Tempurpedic pillow. The jury is still out on Latex. Hugs and kisses to my husband who has been and remains supportive during my search for the perfect pillow.

The Bean Bag Boogie And Other Things

Given my current inability to be overly interactive with the kids I've taken up body movement and sign language. Haha...well, not really, but in order to play with them I need to do things that don't involve much speaking. So, Dayton and I have learned a new song/dance called "Rockin to the beanbag boogie"...If I had more time I'd type out the lyrics or if I were more technically inclined I would post a sound byte. Saige likes to stomp her feet to the beat so that is kind of cute too. Other than that, Dayton has been doing a lot of reading, mess making and torturing the dogs. As you can see from the picture, his #1 girl is still Dora. In this picture he was taking a nap with her in the bouncy seat and under the blanket. By the time I got the camera he had pulled the cover off. Good thing I didn't catch them kissing! What else is new with him? Hmm...well, he has this horrible habit of dumping his chocolate milk over his food and eating it, so I have limited the chocolate milk for a bit. He's started to take an interest in saying and attempting to write his ABC's. Oh, and he is currently obsessed with getting a "party hat" for his birthday. That's all he talks about...and his current favorite saying is "oh man"! Saige is having a developmental growth spurt right now...at 14 months she has over 20 words and experiments with new ones each day. Neither her mouth or her feet stop moving. She still follows her brother everywhere and likes to run off with his toys. Lately she's been into climbing onto/into places and getting herself stuck. She is obsessed with walking around wearing rubber gloves and trying on other people's shoes. Today she discovered the joy in spinning in circles. As for me, I am slowly recovering and attempting more foods. I'm still uncomfortable but not in pain so that is all that matters. I do have a bothersome stitch hanging though. Last night I had the brilliant idea that I could make/eat french toast so this morning I was practically salivating while getting it ready. It wasn't meant to be though...both my eggs rolled off the counter. Scott is recovering from his weekend spent looking after the kids...yes I know it is a week later now..he took up drinking beer again. The dogs have survived "no more sleeping in our bed" training but I don't think they are happy about it. I've had to clean up 3 messes and 2 pukes in the past couple weeks. I'm quite sure they are intentional "accidents". Shey has made her own bear den in the corner of our bedroom and during the night her clikity clackity nails tap on the walls as she is dreaming. It's really quite aggravating but I can't complain since now I can actually move during the night. Tula has been passing out on her comfy dog bed beside the bed but she is still suffering from hair loss on her tail and chattery teeth when you look at her wrong. She is such a sad case.

Post Surgery Update Take Two

I know I know...get over it right? Well, it's been 4 days...the PAIN level started to decrease yesterday and I was able to go a whole 6 hours without Tylenol. Then last night happened..my bone sockets decided to dry up and cause the most excruciating pain. I kept staring at the clock waiting for the time to pass so I could take more pills. I wandered around downstairs, rinsed my mouth with warm water, brushed my teeth...it was quite awful. So, this morning I made a trip to the oral surgeon to see what was going on because apparently (so they told me) the pain should be going away not getting worse. They dug into all my sockets and discovered they were hollow (the bottom two) and my bone was all inflamed so they filled it with some gauze soaked in something that tastes like cloves that should keep it numb for a week. I'm not at all ashamed to say that I lay there in that chair crying my eyes out - it really was the worst pain I have ever experienced. This Saturday I'm supposed to get the gauze taken out and a new set put in for another week, so it looks like my diet of yogurt, shakes, mashed taters and anything else blender worthy will be sticking around. Good thing, cause I really needed to lose the 6 pounds! (NOT) But to keep my spirits bright...sweet Saige has started to say "wove woo" (I love you) and Dayton climbs into bed with me each morning and says "you all better net mom?" "You tokin yet?" (Are you all better yet mom? Are you talking yet?) I might not be able to smile really well, but I can still hug!

Post Surgery Update

Well, I didn't chicken out though I did try and come up with some potential reasons for cancelling my appointment. The front desk lady at the surgeons office was pretty rude - she actually told Dayton that he needed to sit down on the chairs and be quiet. She had 3 inch fingernails so that sort of explains it all. I am now minus all my wisdom teeth, haven't eaten since Thursday and have an array of drugs. I'm pretty tired from not much sleep (unfortunately the pain meds don't make me sleepy at all) and I've been lying on ice packs on and off. I can't really yell at the kids or the husband so they are all probably enjoying that. Minus all the gross details I just wanted to let you all know that I didn't die. Just incredibly sore, hungry and tired. Hope you are all well and that our friends and family in Texas fared well with Ike and aren't without power for too long. Love to all. I'm off to take up residence on the sofa to dream about a nice piece of pizza. Sorry no before and after pictures from the surgery!...I know you're all disappointed.

Waiting For Daddy & Some Other Priceless Moments

We waited on the back lanai so that Dayton could watch for the boat with Daddy and the car. He waved and said hello but didn't quite understand why the boat went past our house and not "to" our house. Sometimes I just don't have responses ready for such grown up musings! Scott made it home, our suitcases remained packed and tucked away for at least a week, the house got vaccuumed (there was enough dog hair to cover a bald dog) and we all crashed quite happily into our own beds. Dayton still talks about spitting in a bag on the boat and I'm so glad that is his most memorable moment from vacation! So until next vacation, that concludes our first family vacation as a foursome. The following pictures are just some cute moments I managed to capture with our "not so great" camera....and yes, that boat in the distance is Scott waving to Dayton!

What Daddy Missed On The Plane

Well, he missed waiting in line for a boarding pass with 2 kids for 30 minutes; which is always fun, struggling through airport security, managing the public bathroom for pre-boarding potty time and getting into our seats on the plane. Do you know that they actually made me take the shoes off of both kids? Not one person assisted me either..which I suppose is a reflection of why airlines are all losing business these days. Once seated...well, Dayton actually never quite sat (as you can see from the photo) I managed to keep him occupied for the whole flight by letting him take pictures and sitting by the window. I kept Saige occupied in my lap with a roll of Ritz crackers. She didn't particularly enjoy take off or landing and the short 45 min flight actually felt quite long in my world. Once we landed I managed to find a taxi that would take us without carseats. We made it home in one piece with a close call with motion sickness due to the bumper to bumper traffic and Dayton not being able to see out the window. Again, Saige was occupied in my lap with a pack of cheeze-its. Once home, we waited and watched for Daddy from our back Lanai. Photo to come in next post...

What We Missed On The SuperFerry

As you all know, we decided that it was best to not further traumatize the kids (or ourselves) by returning via ferry. So, Scott decided to brave the rough seas alone with the vehicle. Here are a few snapshots of what we should have seen on the way to Maui.

Another One Of Those Rare Sibling Pictures

I am always trying to take pictures of the two kids together and for those that have two kids; know that it is a feat in itself. While we were on vacation, both kids were pretty good about sitting or standing still long enough for me to capture a couple moments. I think this was taken on our last day. Dayton was hiding from Saige behind the shutters; which she just thought was the most hilarious thing ever.

How Cute

To take a small break from the Maui trip and back to some older photos and moments: Dayton has a love/hate relationship with his sister. He hates that she is always following him and grabbing the toys he is playing with, but he loves when she wants to play "his" games. He is endlessly screaming for her to "dome pay" (come play). The problem is that she doesn't yet understand his rules. She likes to taunt him and then run from him. Something I really need to catch on camera because it is so funny! On occasion I catch a rare moment like this one. Rare because Dayton never sits still and because of the book he chose out of his hundred others! Thanks to Aunt Sannie for all the old books! Dayton loves the little critter books. His favorites are "A trip to the dentist" and "I was so mad".

Other Than Resorts

I guess I was expecting Maui to be tropical everywhere, but it turns out that much of Maui (at least the area where we stayed, which is considered South Central) is farmland! There were sugar cane fields all over the place; apparently 37,000 acres currently under cultivation. I didn't realize that they burned the fields to cultivate it and while I didn't see that while I was there, I did see the nasty pollution from the sugar plantation.

Through The Eyes Of Dayton

This may be another one of those stories that turns out to be anti-climactic for the reader, but for the mother (meaning me) I am still quite amazed by it. So one morning I was cleaning up from breakfast and Dayton kept saying "wook mom a bork" over and over. Now normally I can decipher his language but I hadn't drank my coffee yet and really don't think I was awake. I kept telling him I had no idea what he was trying to say and he kept repeating himself, hoping I would understand. Finally, he realized that I had no clue and he needed to find an alternate means of telling me as it was obviously important that he get his point across. He went to the utensil drawer and was reaching around inside (of course I'm telling him to get out of it, not knowing that he was still trying to tell me something). He got out a fork and brought it over and placed it on the floor and pointed to this patch of sun on the floor and said "wook mom, a bork...same same." Ah...I finally understood and in my amazement I managed to capture the moment on film. He was trying to tell me that the sun on the floor looked like a fork. I still can't decide if I'm more amazed at his creativity or his ability to find another way to communicate with me. Of course, every morning now, he looks for the sun patch and tries to decipher what it looks like.

Ali'i Kula Lavender Farm

A beautiful drive up towards Haleakala National Park brought us to a really neat Lavender farm. It certainly wasn't anything exciting; just really pretty. The drive got a little steep and I actually felt a little bit light headed, but that could have been because I was trying to take pictures while driving and look at our guide book. The kids slept through it all. It smelled so fresh and was about 10-15 degrees cooler up there. If you stood close to the fields of lavender you could hear a slight buzz from all of the bees. I think on one of the pictures you can actually see them. We would have loved to do the full drive up to the summit but it was over 10,000 feet up and consisted of one lane switchback roads. Given the success of the Superferry, I didn't really want a repeat in my car! Another thing to add to the list of must sees minus kids! Are you all tired of our journal of the Maui trip yet?

Prayers For Family & Friends

We hope that all of our friends and family have found safe haven out of Gustav's path. We will continue to watch closely. Love from all of us.

Driving Around

The following pictures were taken while driving around the area where we stayed so some of them are not the best, but beautiful anyhow. Some of the gardens were pretty amazing.