Hawaii

At the beginning of this month, Matt and I were lucky enough to get to spend a week in Hawaii to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary. The kids stayed home with grandparents. It was so wonderful. We knew they were in good hands and having fun and we enjoyed our alone time very much. I rediscovered how bad we are at relaxing on vacation. We always have to do and see as much as possible. Here's a recap of the week. We landed in Honolulu around noon on a Thursday. First, we took a nap in our hotel and then went to the beach, walked around Waikiki, had dinner, came back to the hotel, read a bit and went to sleep. The next morning we were at the moped rental shop by 8:30am and we rode to Pearl Harbor. We did all the museums there which took us about 6 hours.

Here is Matt at the Arizona Memorial with the Missouri in the background.

Here I am standing in front of the Missouri.

This is at the Air Museum. Matt's grandpa was the gunner in this type of plane. We also toured the Bowfin (a submarine) and a Maritime Museum.

On the way back to Waikiki, there was a little rain storm. We were riding mopeds and dressed in shorts and T-shirts. It was a bit uncomfortable but not cold. I kept thinking that at least I would end up with a good blog picture but half way back it cleared up and we were basically dry by the time we reached the hotel. In an effort to not waste our moped rental time, we changed clothes and then took off for Diamond Head Volcano (inactive). It was only a few miles from our hotel and the hike to the top is less than a mile, although part of it is very steep.

This was our view from the top of Diamond Head with Waikiki in the background.

The next day we didn't do too much in the morning because we had signed up to go SCUBA diving in the afternoon. We did two dives to about 40 feet and saw lots of tropical fish and a few eels, including a very large one that Matt found under the ledge of a reef. On the morning of our last day in Oahu we rented boogie boards and rode the waves. It was very fun. Then we layed on the beach for a bit.

These are the views that we had from our hotel window. Here is Diamond Head

and this is the eastern end of the Waikiki beach. Our next stop was Kona on the Big Island. We stayed at a lovely resort. This was the resort's private beach and the view from the outdoor restaurant where we ate breakfast every morning. We snorkeled in that bay twice and saw tons of tropical fish, a few eels and sea turtles that came within a few inches of us. It was beautiful.

This was our private hut (called a Hale on the island). There were no locks on the doors, no shades on the upper halves of the windows, ceiling fans but no A/C, no TV's or radios or clocks and we were not permitted to use cell phones or computers in the public areas of the resort. It was actually really nice.

Here is the view looking out from our porch.

Some local wildlife.

A friend on the outside wall of our hale.

One of the less exotic, but still very yummy, fruit plates we started off with each morning.

One day we went SCUBA diving with manta rays. I put those pictures on Facebook.

Our last full day we spent at the active volcano Kilauea.

Lava fields.

Lava coast.

Glowing lava in cauldron at night.

It was a great trip. Happy Anniversary to us!

Cute Stuff

The kids have been saying and doing a lot of funny things lately. Here's what's been cracking me up.

Claire called me Brenda all day today.

Joey this morning: "Dad, sometimes my undies get stuck in my bottom and I just pull them out."

When Matt goes to work we tell the kids that he is going to help sick people feel better or fix their owies. He has been having bad headaches the last few days and this morning Joey asked if Daddy was going to go to work to fix himself.

Grandma Nelson recently painted Claire's toenails with a glittery nail polish. Claire admires her "sparkle toes" often. Yesterday, the kids were coloring and the next thing I knew Claire announced that Joey wanted sparkle toes too and was that ok? I went into the room where they were to find them mid-way through coloring on their toenails with glittery crayons. I said yes.

Currently, in Claire's speech development, she is skipping all L, W and R sounds if they are in a consonant cluster at the beginning of a word. Therefore, she puts "kips" in her hair, her name is "Care", doesn't want to "skish" or "skeeze" the bugs, plays the "dums", etc. It cracks me up.

Here is Claire's version of "Jesus, Name Above All Names".

Jesus, name above oh knee
Bootiful Savior
Gwoh-wee-us Woh-oh-oh-ode
Emman-you Care (her name, no idea)
God is wiff us
Bwessed Weedeemer
Wiv in da Wode (live in the world)

For those of you who don't know the proper lyrics they are as follows:
Jesus, name above all names
Beautiful Savior
Glorious Lo-o-o-ord
Emmanuel
God is with us
Blessed Redeemer
Living Word

First Days of School

The kids started back to school this week. Joey goes to Pre-K three days a week and Claire is in the 2's class one day per week at a local church preschool. This will be Joey's 3rd year there. He really likes it even though he cried the first minute on the first day but then he was fine. The school is within walking distance and this year Joey has decided to ride his bike.

Had to add the silly face photo. I was lucky to get a nice one.

Claire wants to stay with him everyday.

This is Claire's first day of school. She usually pushes a stroller all the way with one (or more) of her "friends" in it.

Claire has some attitude.

But she was actually happy.

Joey wanted to give Claire a hug. Sometimes they are friends :)

I am looking forward to getting back into a routine and having 2hrs and 20min to myself once a week.

Bathroom Remodel: After

Here's the new bathroom! Our friend Justin did a great job. We are really happy with the new look and function (except for the water that leaked through the ceiling last night when I ran a bath for Joey but that wasn't his fault, it was because of the guy we hired to refinish our tub).

And this picture just cracks me up. Justin also installed some new lighting in our living room and this is a picture of the kids standing on the shelf in the closet, watching him work on wires in the attic, early one morning. Justin was so great with the kids. He let them "help" when they could or watch when they couldn't. They are both going through Justin-withdrawals this week.

Bathroom Remodel: Before

We decided to have our upstairs bathroom remodeled. Here are the before shots. It is almost done now so stay tuned for the beautiful, much improved, after shots.

You Know You Are a True Seattleite If...

...you attend a SeaFair parade in the rain. OK, it wasn't THE SeaFair Parade but it was the Lake City Parade which is part of SeaFair complete with the SeaFair Pirates and Clowns and the iconic pink Lincoln tow/toe truck. Neither kid liked the pirates. Claire liked the clowns and Ronald McDonald. Joey didn't. When he saw the tow/toe truck I asked him if he thought it was funny. He said that he liked that it towed but he didn't like the toes. Of course they enjoyed the candy as well. I think it was mostly a success. I know I had fun.

Art