Celebrating Easter

We are still in somewhat of a jet lagged stupor here, but we did manage to have a wonderful Easter. My mom and grandma drove down early Saturday morning and arrived to a house with only Erik awake. They checked into G.G.'s (Great Grandma's) hotel room and hung out until 10:30 am, when Luke and I finally woke up. That's crazy! Anyway, we enjoyed hanging out, sharing pictures from the trip with them and talking.

This morning our plan had been to attend the 9:30 am service at church. No children were awake at 9 am and the Mommy and the Daddy were only barely so. Good thing there are two services! We easily made it to the 11 am service and were blessed to be there. We sat next to good friends and had a great time worshiping the risen Savior.

Erik and I made Easter dinner together. We glazed a ham and made scalloped potatoes from scratch. It was lots of fun and turned out really well. We are going to experiment a bit with the recipe for the potatoes. We are thinking of making them one of our specialties. Erik actually popped out to the store Saturday night to buy a mandoline - one of those fancy slicers. It worked really well. All the potatoes were thin and evenly sliced. I sound like a commercial for the thing. :-)

Anyway, we wish a wonderful and joyous Easter. Here are the pics!

Happy Paul with Happy G.G.

G.G. reading to Luke this morning from Beatrix Potter. G.G. taught second grade for over twenty years. I love listening to her use her teacher voice with Luke. She was also the one who taught me to read the summer I turned four. I had no idea we were learning anything important at the time. :-)

The boys in their cutie matching outfits from Oma. Socks don't count.

Four generations! Luke was already down for his nap and wasn't able to be in the picture, but Paul was more than happy to provide his happy face.

Mahalo, Maui!

Today was our last day in Hawaii. We fly out tomorrow in the early afternoon. It has been a wonderful trip. At this very moment, the sun has turned the sky over our condo an amazing shade of pink. We are actually sitting in our living room area enjoying it. Luke has reached the end of his vacation rope and is watching Veggie Tales. There was actually a tape here in the condo when we arrived. Whew! Anyway, here's the day's recap:
I went whale watching this morning! It was so much fun. I loved being out on the water and there were quite a few whales to see. None of my pictures turned out, but Alex has a better camera, so I might be able to high jack a few for my scrapbook. I could have spent all day out there. At one point they put a waterproof mic into the water and we listened to live whale song. So very cool. I also learned a lot of cool information about whales. Baby humpback whales gain 100 pound a day! That makes me feel better about the five pounds I'm pretty sure I have gained here.
This afternoon we spent time with some friends of Dave and Lynne's who have a place just down the coast. Luke walked on the sand for the first time! Yes, we have spent the entire week carrying him. He's just very cautious, folks. But it was great to see him exploring up and down the beach.
In closing, I have video footage of our first day here. We didn't get it downloaded to the computer until just yesterday. Regardless, it is a fun little tour of our condo (when it was still clean) and a short scene involving Luke getting up from his nap. It's about two minutes long.

Road Trip to Lahaina and Other Adventures

Yesterday after breakfast we loaded the family into the rental car and headed up the coast to Lahaina. My goal was to show Luke the banyan tree there. We arrived just after 9am and the town was already packed with tourists. I was so surprised. Everywhere else we have gone that early has been relatively dead. Regardless, we found parking, walked a few blocks and found ourselves looking at the coolest tree ever. A banyan tree grows by sending down roots to start other trees, but it is all connected. This tree was huge! Luke absolutely adored it.

He also found the north pole. In The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh there is a chapter in which Christopher Robin, Pooh and all the others go on an "expotition" in search of the North Pole. Pooh, or course, finds it. In our family picture below, Luke is hugging what he proclaimed to be the North Pole. "Oh, I found the North Pole!" In Maui. Well done.

Other adventures yesterday included taking Paul to the swimming pool for the first time. It was just like a really big bathtub in his estimation. He spent the entire time drenching the Mommy holding him. That kid loves to splash!

Not sure what the plan is for today. Luke is playing at the beach with Grandma. Paul is sitting in his saucer chilling out - very Hawaiian of him. I'm thinking about taking a nap. Beautiful. :-)

There it is, folks. The North Pole of Maui.

Happy Family

Splashing Mommy is fun.

Maui Marine Adventures

The main highlight of the day for all of us were our respective marine adventures. Erik and I headed off at 6:45am to go snorkeling with Krista and Alex. We went to an area called Ahi Ahi (I think). The water had a fair amount of surf - something both Krista and I described as "being oceany." Despite the waves, we all made it in. I confess to being the most chicken of the four. Erik and Alex coaxed me in and I'm really glad they did. It was super fun and we saw lots of fish. Bright yellow, striped, pretty fish. Dark black, crazy-finned fish. I'm too lame to know the names, but they were really cool. We also saw some absolutely stunning coral. I just loved it. It was a little hard getting back in to shore, but a good workout for the legs. Next time we are going to visit a more secluded cove with less surf.

Luke and Paul, meanwhile, spent the morning with Grandma and Grandpa. They all visited the aquarium located less than five minutes from the condos. A good time was had by all and Luke was well behaved. Music to this mother's ears.

For dinner Erik took me to the Seawatch Restaurant at the Wailea Golf Club. Famous for its sunset views and amazing food, this place did not disappoint. Macademia nut encrusted brie, goat cheese and beet salad, fresh uku, and Hawaiian bread pudding. Wowza. I won't need to eat any food tomorrow. As for the sunset, the pictures do not do it justice, but I'm going to tweak the contrast when I get home to my computer. God did a beautiful job tonight and I don't think He'll mind if I help the pictures out a little. :-)

Luke enjoying the fish at the aquarium.

Paul enjoying his new St. Patty's Day bib. Thanks Grandma!

Amy and Erik enjoying time together at the Seawatch.

Hawaiian Sunset

Mellow on Maui

We started our day one hour later than yesterday...5:30 am wake up instead of 4:30 am. That's improvement. We are encouraged. :-) The boys had a very mellow day that included some time playing with Grandma and Grandpa as well as an evening spent with Krista and Alex. More on that a bit later.

This morning we read Matthew 21 to Luke and told him the story of Palm Sunday. It was super cool to be able to look out our window and point out the palm trees with their long, waving branches. Luke liked the story so much, he had me tell it twice! It's always a challenge to say it in the exact same way. I can tell that he's trying to memorize the events, and he likes it when we use the same words and phrases. We always start by reading straight from the Bible, but then we tell the story in our own words, using some of the dialog from scripture. This is the way he hears the story at BSF and I can tell he really likes it. Although we missed worshiping with our friends back home, it was a blessing to remember Christ's triumphal entry and the shouts of Hosanna heard that morning so long ago. Amazing to me is that Jesus knew those same voices would be shouting, "Crucify him!" in less than a week's time.

Erik gave me the opportunity to have some time to myself this afternoon and I stole away to the beach for a long, quiet walk. The area we are in is not at all overly crowded. Although there were other folks out, I spent 90% of my time in solitude. It was delightful! I took some pictures on my phone...forgot the camera again. They didn't really turn out, but I know what it looked like.

Tonight Dave and Lynne took us to dinner at The Waterfront, an award winning restaurant about five doors down from our condos. As mentioned before Alex and Krista watched the kids. I love them because they don't take any guff from the two-year old and love him despite all his guff giving attempts. Dinner was amazing. Really amazing. I had onaga, a long-tailed red snapper, sauteed "en bastille." So yummy. I took a picture of my plate. See below. It was an absolutely delightful evening filled with laughter and insanely good food.

In even more important news, Paul turned eight months old today. Here's a picture of him with Sprout.

The humidity has totally turned Paul into the curly-haired cutie. No styling product was used on this baby at any time before or after the taking of this picture.

Luke and Paul

My dinner - so good.

Erik, Amy, Lynne, and Dave

Happy!

Maui Madness

Okay. I didn't sleep so well last night. First night in a new place. Wasn't sure how the boys would do and kept checking on them. Finally at 4:30 am, I just decided the night was over and I got up. Not surprisingly, Erik was pretty much awake at this time as well. Paul joined us at about 5 am and by 5:37 am, the whole family was settled around the breakfast table. I'm thinking the time change hasn't kicked in yet. Breakfast in the dark was lovely and Paul took an early nap at 8am. Luke lasted until 11am.

The stories: Luke and I spent time in the pool and on the beach today. He would rather sit on the edge of the pool with his feet on the top step. I'm cool with that. The beach was all about finding things to throw in the water. These was actually a tad challenging on the beach in front of our condo, but we managed. Washing off the sand wasn't the most fun afterward, but nobody died. We have also started going on gecko hunts. Grandpa and Luke spotted a gecko yesterday and Luke has been looking for it ever since.

Paul is crazy close to crawling. We are blessed to be in a condo that has carpeting in the living room and bedrooms. He rolls around, but then spends a lot of time up on all fours rocking. If it's not this week, it's going to be soon after we get home.

We are tired. It is 9:30 pm here and has been a long day. Hopefully the internal clocking is on island time now and we can all sleep in a bit in the morning. Here are the pics!

Paul has learned to nap Hawaiian style - very mellow. :-)

Luke could not look more like his Daddy than he does in this picture. This is exactly what Erik looked like at this age, except with longer hair. It was the seventies.

It's going to happen. Soon.

This is the lawn outside our unit that leads to the pool (about 15 feet away) and the beach (about 25 feet away). Pretty sweet. The look on my face in the picture is a little odd because Erik, the photographer, is holding Baby Paul, and I had just noticed that the trade winds were a touch too cold for the small guy. Oh well. Luke looks adorable enough for both of us.

Aloha from Maui!

We made it! The trip over was so smooth. Both boys were perfect for the flight. Paul slept during take-off and giggled through landing. Although Luke skipped his usual nap time, he still managed to hold it together until landing. We won't talk about the baggage claim incident. Oh well. Nobody is perfect and this two and a half year old has done remarkably well, all things considered!

We were met at the airport by Aunt Krista and Uncle Alex. It is so fun to be here with them. They arrived a day in advance to do some reconnaissance work. They found snorkel gear at the bargain price of $9 for the entire week. I am very excited! They also got the 411 on a good place to go in the early morning. We might not make it tomorrow, but we will make it before the week is out.

The Luke story for the day. Shortly before we left home Luke asked if we could go for a walk. Looking out at the grey, rainy day I promised him that we could go for a walk together every day in Hawaii. Today we took our first walk. We opened our sliding glass door, stepped off the patio and immediately saw a beautiful, long-legged bird. I think it was a heron of some sort. Luke told me he wanted to touch the bird. I said that the bird probably wouldn't let him. As Luke moved closer to the bird, it would gingerly hop and spread its wings to evade him. It was stunning and hilarious all at once. When the bird finally flew away Luke called after it, "Wait! Wait!" I'm sorry I have no pictures of this nature dance. I promise to carry my camera at all times from now on. Here are some shots of the boys in the plane and the parents a little too giddy.

Happiest Baby On the Plane

Best Behaved Boy On the Plane

Silliest Parents Ever - No children present at time of photo - hence the goofy grins

Tangents

In honor of our imminent departure for Hawaii, I have changed up the blog a bit. Sadly there was no template with a tropical theme. Regardless, I shall do my best to blog from Maui. Having never traveled with both boys, I have no idea how much time I will have for such things. I am assuming that we will have internet access. Perhaps it would not be such a bad thing if we didn't...I used to journal with a pen and paper. No, really. I did.
Just yesterday I received a letter in the mail. It wasn't telling me that I might already be a winner. It wasn't offering me a credit card with 0% APR on all credit transfers. It wasn't even an obligatory thank you note. It was a letter from an old friend. It was hand written. It was refreshing and delightful to hold it in my hands and read it again and again. Antiquated, I know. But refreshing nonetheless. And not in the sense of clicking the refresh button on your web browser, hoping the page being loaded will "work" this time. More like a breath of fresh air, trite thou it may sound. You should try it some time. In case you were wondering, we initiated contact with the man who did our pre-marital counseling to tell him how blessed our marriage is and grateful we are to him for all he taught us. We sent a hand-written note to this old friend (admittedly after having found his address on the internet), and he responded with a letter of his own. Lovely. Don't get me wrong. I would die without email, texting, blogs, and google. But it was lovely nonetheless to get a real, old-fashioned letter in the mail.
Sorry there aren't any pictures. I haven't taken any because the camera is packed!

Hair Cut(e)

Luke got his hair cut on Monday. He sat in the special chair and everything. He was very well-behaved and earned himself a warm milk at Dutch Brothers. If you don't know Dutch Brothers, I'm sad for you.
Here's the picture! The silly smile is because he didn't really want to have his picture taken.

More Sick

When I went into Luke's room this morning he said his ear hurt. We are fortunate to have a pediatrician with Saturday hours. Turns out the poor guy has not just an ear infection, but bronchitis and tonsillitis to boot. Antibiotics are happening along with a new medication for his lungs. They make a chewable pill for asthma now. It's not as effective as an inhaler, but is meant to augment what we call "the puffer." This is good because I often wonder how much of his albuterol Luke is really getting when he shoves the inhaler out of his face most of the time. In the pharmaceutical industry this is known as a compliance issue. Did they invent that term with the two year old in mind? Yep.
Regardless of being super sick, Luke is still cute. See him below wearing his Captain Heartbreaker jammies and playing with his bus.

Paul, thankfully, has stayed completely healthy throughout this bout of illness. Please pray that he continues to be protected. Bronchitis in the little lungs isn't any fun at all. In celebration of his good health, we shot this video of him last night. Those are actually all happy noises he is making. There is also a cute little surprise at the end!

A Sick Day

Luke is sick. Poor little man has a fever and a cough. He spent the day on various couches in our house. At one point he fell asleep sitting upright in Daddy's chair. I had to take a picture. We did get him safely moved to his bed.

Yes, that is his tongue sticking out of his mouth. Poor guy.

In other news, Baby Paul continues to practice what I am now calling his "stance." He gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth quite often now. It's pretty crazy to think that he will be crawling soon. It's been so convenient to have him stay where I put him. My guess is that the port-a-crib is going to feature more prominantly in our daily routine, and even with that I'm going to get much less done around the house. These pics were taken tonight. I couldn't resist the cuteness.

The stance

The smile!

Sweet Baby Paul

At this moment I am sitting in my basement with Baby Paul next to me in his exersaucer. It's about fifteen minutes before his bedtime and I think that most babies at this point in the evening become crabby. Paul is something different. Every time I stop typing and look over at him, he gives me this very slow, sweet smile. It's almost like he's too sleepy to smile quickly, so he does it slowly instead. I promise you that it melts my heart every time. Here's my best attempt at video. The lighting is terrible. I'm looking at him at the beginning, then I purposefully look away and back again. Very subtle change, but we mothers live for this stuff.

Date Night and Other Good Times

Erik and I went on a date tonight. Woohoo! We went to a pub and took in some pizza and a movie. "Enchanted" was pretty entertaining. The part where they burst into song and Patrick Dempsey's character remains completely in the "real world" is hilarious to me. Grandma made an evening of it with the boys. Luke did well until the toothpaste overcame his manners. He would eat the whole tube. Grandma is smarter than that. Poor Luke.

We managed to get Luke into his pajamas by performing the "pajama dance." If you are unfamiliar, don't feel too left out. We made it up tonight out of desperation. Sing the classic, "Manamanuh" but put the words "Pajama Dance" there instead. It was an instant hit. But you can only hear it again if you are wearing pajamas. It worked.

In other news, during his pre-bedtime play Paul got up on all fours and rocked for about ten seconds. It was very exciting and we immediately grabbed the camera. He didn't exactly repeat the skill, but there is one shot that is pretty close. I don't think he's convinced that anything can beat rolling to get where he wants to be. Put a toy in front of him and he just rolls, turns and rolls again.

Sorry about the sock in the mouth. He's also teething like mad.

The action shot. He is, however, moving backward.

From earlier in the week...Luke got a new slicker that looks exactly like a fire fighter's coat. His new favorite thing. Those are his pajamas underneath.