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.