Saturday, August 27, 2011

We go beach

Last weekend we drove out to Haleiwa to get some Craigslist stuff and stopped at Sunset beach during sunset on the way home.
Love this little girl!


We like to play in bed when we first wake up. Here are the beautiful faces I spend all day with. Sometimes we play in Cora's bed, which is cozy, but in mommy and daddy's bed there are fun sheets to play under.All of a sudden our baby is looking so big, sitting on his own! He can go for a long time without falling over now.
He hates baby food but does a little better if it's something he puts in his own mouth. This was at the end of lunch, sleepy guy.But he woke up at the beach and showed off his new sitting skills.He's learning how to make the stinky face!Cora loves building sand castles with Daddy.
Ryan carved a sand seat for Cora and a sand Bumbo for Elijah.Elijah decided he liked the sand - both to play and to eat! I remember when we first moved to Hawaii, Cindy Wright, my former YW president told me that my babies would eat sand and not to stress over it. And this is the baby that spits all baby food out, even sweet stuff like bananas, sweet potatoes and blueberries.

Ryan also carved a mermaid tail for Cora - just barely got this pic snapped in time. See her little toes and knee emerging?This was the first time at the beach that Cora actually asked to go back in the water - she loved being in the ocean with Daddy! She didn't want to leave.

Ryan went for a ride before dinner - his first time mountain biking since we've been back! He went up to Pine Forest.
This Sunday we are giving talks in church - our theme is "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." Should be good. Sending you all our love from paradise!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

In paradise

Well here we are in Hawaii! Some of the things we've been up to since arriving:

Us with the kids at the Blaisdell for Keiki Hula.Ryan up by Crouching Lion after an intense hike with Megan and Jeff. The kids after church last Sunday.We celebrated Alvin's birthday with the family at our house. We also had a fun little party for Marcus' 15th birthday earlier in the week at Heidi's that we need to get pictures from.We couldn't get Cora to stop eating the chocolate shavings off the side of the cake.Yesterday we made play dough. Cora told me "This is for eating." I said, "No Cora, it's for playing." She insisted so I told her to try it but it would taste bad. This was her face after tasting it. (It's super salty and gross tasting, but safe to eat.) After she tried it she told me "It's not for eating Mommy, it's for playing."We are almost all settled in our house and loving it here. We all love our new place - we'll take pictures soon to show. My favorite parts are the kitchen, the reading corner, and my new (used) piano that we found for $100 on Craigslist!

Ryan's been working hard at the hospital as well as at home. Can't believe he's been working over a month now! I am so very proud of my Physical Therapist husband and we are all so lucky to have him. Elijah is growing so big and is really a pretty happy boy - although just in the past couple of days he's been working on pushing out his two front teeth, which is a little trying. (He got his two bottom teeth already, both at the same time as well, when we were moving out of our Twin Falls apartment.) Cora loves being close to her cousins, auntie and uncles, and grandma and grandpa.

We miss our family on the mainland but we know we are so blessed to have had this opportunity open up for us to be able to come work and live in Hawaii. Keep checking for more fun pics of what we are up to in paradise!

Leaving the mainland

Here's Ryan on his last mountain bike ride in Twin before shipping his bike to Hawaii.We left Twin on Saturday July 2nd after selling most of our stuff and boxing and shipping the rest. We went to Eric's house for a couple of nights before setting out for Seattle, where we shipped our cars from.

Here are the kids dancing at Eric's - so funny. I don't know where Cora learned those dance moves. Cora's definitely going to miss all of her cousins that she got to see so much in Idaho.

The drive was a bit of an adventure - we each had a car since we were shipping both cars, and we were trying to stay together the whole time. Of course, along the way, in a small town in Oregon, we ran into car trouble with the Cirrus. And we were driving on the 4th of July, so most of the mechanics in town were closed. Miraculously, the last number from the phone book answered, and we were able to get our car fixed at very little cost. We were definitely being looked after. A little ways before we got to Seattle we stopped at the Snoqualmie Falls.Even though we were all exhausted, we decided to head into Seattle to watch the fireworks - we just couldn't pass up the chance to see the big city firework show. Plus, Ryan and I were all hopped up on caffeine from our multiple Dr. Peppers while driving. ;)Our plan was to drive to Seattle, spend one night in a crappy motel with an airport shuttle, then check out but leave our stuff in the storage area at the motel and go sightseeing the next morning. In the afternoon we would drive and drop off our cars at the port and then catch a cab back to the motel, take the airport shuttle, and catch our evening flight.

Even though I got sick/nauseated overnight in the motel, we stuck to our plan and did our sightseeing in the morning. Here we are at Pike Place Fish Market - cool place, we wished we had more time and money.Then we dropped by the Space Needle.*Warning - long travel adventure story ahead*
After that we headed to the port - only to find out that Matson, the shipping company, was closed that day for a union holiday. So after many hours on the phone with Matson, Delta and other companies, we wound up staying another night, and dropping off the cars and flying out the next day - which was Ryan's birthday. So Ryan spent his birthday traveling instead of relaxing in Hawaii. It was quite a headache, but Matson did redeem themselves somewhat by paying for all of our extra expenses - our flight change fees, meals, and hotel. And since I was sick and we were all still recovering from our trip, it wound up being okay that we had another night in a hotel (a nicer one this time) to rest.

So the next day we dropped off our cars and went back to the hotel to take the shuttle to the airport. Of course, the shuttle wound up being very late, but we figured we had plenty of time still. I should mention that we had the two kids, two carseats, 5 check on bags, three rolling carry-ons, two backbacks, a laptop bag, a diaper bag, a stroller, and a baby hiking backpack. We figured that checking a 50 lbs bag was cheaper than shipping a box, and we were planning on using SkyCap. Unfortunately, the hotel shuttle was not allowed to drop us off where there was a SkyCap - we had to go on a couple of elevators and across a bridge to get to ticketing. I still don't know how we managed it and we definitely got looks. Once we were at ticketing, an inept Delta employee cost us 30 minutes more than it should've taken us to check in, and then we had to run through security and to the gate, still with our kids, stroller, backpacks, baby carrier and 3 rollerboards. A train ride and several out of the way elevators later and we arrived at the gate, running, out of breath and sweaty, just in time to claim our seats and avoid having them taken by a crowd of people in standby. I've never been at an airport still trying to get to the gate when the final boarding call is announced. We were the last ones on the plane. Luckily the kids were pretty good on the plane and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Ryan had the worst end of the deal - after arriving late at night he had to get up the next morning for his first day at work - since we spent an extra day in Seattle he didn't have his jet-lag recovery time we had planned.

If you made it though this narrative, congratulations. The moral of the story is - we're so glad to be here and we will never be so crazy traveling again. And if we're ever tempted to, we can look back at this story and remind ourselves.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Family Portraits

One night we went out to the lawn behind the Herndon Fortnightly library for family pictures. The photographer was really nice and despite many uncooperative kids, got some great photos. After the pictures we all went out for ice cream at Dairy Queen and played on the caboose.
Mom insisted on this one.Cora found a rock and wouldn't let go of it. Little hoarder.That wraps up our Virginia vacation summary. We had a great time and we love all of our family so much. Even though we're far away we think about them all the time and hope to still see everyone as often as possible. Thanks so much Mom and Dad for hosting and bringing us out!

Fountainhead Park picnic and other fun stuffs

One day we all went to Fountainhead Regional Park for a picnic. There was some mountain bike trails and a fun little mini golf course that was great for the kids.
Kate made us all crepes a couple of times - thanks to her skills from her Farmer's Market job. They were so delicious!
Elijah in his old man tourist outfit.Auntie Aline!The girls on Grandma's porch in the matching shirts I made them.A silly way to sleep.This is the result of Auntie Katie's handiwork. We need to live closer to her so she can help me fix Cora's hair more. Cora just doesn't stand still for me - she doesn't trust me to not hurt her, and I just don't have the skills or patience to try very often.
Our handsome little man after church.Bubbles!