Florida Jan 12

We all flew down to Florida for a little vacation/time-in-the-sun this past January. Our trip there turned out to be a bit of an adventure (read: stomach bug, Seattle blizzard of 2012, 19 hours of travel, feverish child, missed flights, stand-by travel, rental car, and husband and wife tension) but we made it there in one piece and only six hours later than we were actually scheduled to arrive. There were moments when we thought we would make it much later than we did but with optimism (I was determined to be happy), persistence and a bit of luck, everything turned out just fine... and we are still happily married.

In total we spent a 6 days in Florida. Three days were with Babe and Pops, Chris' parents, (and we even had a nice pool-side lunch with his grandparents one day) and during our last couple days we spent time with CiCi, my step-mom, my friend Shannon (and her little boy- Camden), and Chris' college room-mate, Ryan.



We swam, flew kites, played cards, went on boat rides, ate way too much, took long runs on the beach, toured the Miami Seaquarium, and  had a date night (thanks to CiCi). It was a good trip.

(Camden is a CUTIE! Just look at those eyes.)

 They play really well together. I just love it! 

 Big time... Driving CiCi's boat. :) 

 That girl was a stinker... Finally she feel asleep. 

 Fearless.

 Sorry for the eating picture. 

Filling in some gaps...

So I have some serious gaps on here... I could bore you with the usual excuse. "We've been busy." but I've decided to stop saying that (odds are I will return to saying it, but for now I veto the words "we've been busy.") .

After all, isn't being busy a given of life? Everyone is busy. (Not just people with small kids, people with high power careers, people with older kids, or etc.)

In some ways, I think that being busy is one of the hidden truths to living a full life. It is like the secret ingredient to your grandma's green bean recipe. You need to add just the right amount to make life sweeter. But if you add too much it will make it taste just plan awful and if you add too little... Well, then it has no flavor.

So why don't we embrace the busy and stop using it as a blanket excuse as to why we ... ?

I'm not going to do it. Not today. Nope. I will just say that I haven't made updating this blog (and especially my other one) a top priority. I have made the choice to allow other things to trump it (cough Facebook cough).

I am sure I will have periods of time when I permit myself to put this on the back burner, but I am going to really try to keep up with our life story on here. I love it too much.

I love reading the fun things that my kids have said or done, seeing how big they really were at six months (boy, was Wilson really big?!) and documenting what they wore for Halloween every year.

I love reflecting on my favorite moments and even my not so favorite moments. Chronicling my family's life  is one of the best things I could have ever done for me (and the kids).

At least this way when my hippocampus starts to malfunction I'll always have something to correct me. Right?

So. Here I am. Choosing to blog and successfully avoiding folding two loads of laundry and NOT Facebook stalking anyone. I'm blogging... about June... in October.

June 20-28, 2011-

The kids and I flew from Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale. We were able to see CiCi and one of my best friend's Melissa and her kids. Lissa, Charlie, and Clara flew down from Ohio. Lissa, the kids and I have vacationed the past two summers together and we hope to continue to meet in Lauderdale (or somewhere. anywhere.) every year.

We have the best time together and so do our kids. Our kids are the same ages and play fantastically together. It is really amazing. No fighting over toys or arguing because the other won't play each other's games or listen to each other's music.

They just enjoy each other's company, even after one week of sharing space and toys (and listening to Katy Perry and Justin Bieber for the 100th time). I hope I'm not jinxing us...

Charlie's face cracks me up here.

These two are just too cute.

While we were there we celebrated Melissa's birthday with a much needed girls night (our great friend Natalie even drove down from Orlando to join us), we ate at our favorite spot (the Rustic Crab Inn), soaked up the sun, enjoyed the intercoastal on Carol's boat, stayed up WAYYY past our bedtimes (oh yeah- we're talking big. time. like, 1 a.m. BIG time.) talking, laughing, and crying every night. It was one of the best times/vacations of my life.

Aren't they beautiful?

One other thing that we (or rather Wilson) did was take swimming lessons.

He had three lessons with Betsy (and one lesson with coach Jesse Vassallo, her husband, who is a World Champion Swimmer) at the Pompano Aquatic Center. It was a fantastic experience (for both Wilson and me) and I hope to see them every time we are back in town.

Caught kissing on the boat.

Wonderful memories were made. I kick myself for just now posting this... It doesn't do it justice.

We have been busy...

HI!!! Long time no talk... Where have we been? Well, we were on vacation for a month (28 days counting travel).
Hope you haven't missed me too much. ;)
We were in Florida and Ohio. Our time away was great. I'm still catching up. These pictures are from Florida.
They can serve as your teaser until I am able to update the blog again. Soon? I hope. I need to catch you up on May and June...

Thanks for stopping by. Let us know that you were here (AKA comment)... and how you are. What's new Buttercup?

Hawaii 2010

Hawaii was great. My dad arrived the day before to help us with the dogs while we were gone, which was a BIG help for us and we are very grateful.

We flew out of Seattle on the direct flight to Honolulu on the 11th. The flight was long. 6.5 hours. We realize the travel time could have been much longer so no complaints here. Wilson flew awesome and Nora did pretty well. She fought taking a nap for awhile but eventually gave in for a short rest. (I think she is too afraid she'll miss out on something so she veto's napping).

By the time we arrived to Honolulu (2 am PST) Wilson was exhausted! In fact, he was SO tired that he fell asleep in the stroller and didn't wake until morning. We were able to transfer him onto the bus, into the rental van, out of the van, carry him into the hotel, change his clothes and place him in bed with out waking him up!! Now, that is tired. (I wish I could do that!) Needless to say, he was beyond excited to wake up to sunny weather and the ocean!

We stayed our first night on Waikiki Beach. I choose the hotel we stayed in because of its location and the fact that the Honolulu Marathon was going past it the next morning. (Wilson is really into races right now. He likes watching triathlons on TV and is always pretending to be a runner.)  Our plan was to sleep-in but the Marathon started with fireworks at 5 am (which freaked me the hell out because I thought we were under attack) and just as I got calmed down enough to sleep... the kids woke up. But having three hours of sleep didn't matter because (as I repeated with delight the first 24-36 hours of our trip) "we were in HAWAII!"

We went down to breakfast, enjoyed the beach and pool, had lunch in downtown town Honolulu, admired the runners hobble in pain through-out the city, went to Hickam AFB for groceries and beach goodies/toys, then headed to Barber's Point Naval housing. (Our home for the next four nights.)

We had a cabin/duplex on the beach, which was amazing. Location = perfection. Cleanliness = disgust.

Nora's clothes were black the first night... It was so bad we went to the nearby Safeway to buy a mop and bleach, but the cabins were on the BEACH! Hey, I can clean in exchange for location. Besides, it is neat to know that we were staying where Navy military members lived during WWII (if you are reading the book Unbroken they are mentioned in the book-- if you aren't reading it you must purchase it immediately).

During our stay on Oahu we visited Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation and North Shore, went on a whale watching tour, went to a Luau and relaxed at the beach.

Nora and Wilson both LOVED the beach. Wilson and Chris dug giant holes and tunnels in the sand and Nora  crawled right in the middle of them. She would grab fist full after fist full of sand and promptly proceed to shove it in her mouth. Then she would crawl to a new spot and dig a hole with her little feet. She is a total beach babe!

Pearl Harbor was extremely memorable to me. I, along with Wilson, became emotional watching the video and visiting the Arizona memorial. In fact, Wilson still talks about the "bad guys" attacking the ship and how the "good guys had to fight back". He tells us we are the good guys and that daddy was a good guy. He has even begun to tell me that he wants to be in the Army... Don't know how I feel about that. We'll see. :)

Arizona Memorial

The North Shore was cool. The Dole Plantation was not really what I expected. We did the train and had some pineapple ice cream which were both... okay.

 The Luau was fun. It was cheesy but I like cheesy. Wilson loved watching the girls dance and ate enough chocolate cake to feed a small family (he is my son!).

Look at Wilson doing hula! 

He love his daddy! 

All in all, Oahu was fun but we could have spent less time there. That came out wrong... Maybe I should have said, I wish we could have spent more time on Kauai.

After five nights on Oahu we flew to Kauai. Chris had to leave early (for a meeting in Ohio about the job in  WV) so our time as a family on Kauai was shorten. Regardless, we still fell in love with the island.

We stayed at a condo across from the ocean and on our first day there we saw two gray reef sharks and some sea turtles right off the shore. Seriously, we were literally standing on the shore and could see them. I even grabbed Wilson's swim goggles and tried to get a better look at the shark. It was AWESOME! I wish that I could have had my face in the water the whole time (maybe next time).

view from our balcony

Both the kids caught a bit of a cold and needed some R&R so we stayed put the first day (Wilson and Chris went swimming and we ate pizza at the condo). The second day Nora slept her cold away while Chris and Wilson snorkeled in the ocean and pool. Our last day with Chris we explored the island a bit and went to see the other Navy facility (Barking Sands- also mentioned in Unbroken), Waimea Canyon State Park, then I went snorkeling (FINALLY) and I even took Wilson out with me once. I loved it. I especially loved hearing Wilson yell "FISH" through his snorkel. His excitement absolutely made the vacation for me. It was fantastic! I can't wait to expose him to more situations like that. That evening we celebrated Nora's first birthday with spaghetti and chocolate cake. Chris left late that evening and Nora ended up waking up every hour because her stomach was so upset. Guess the chocolate cake wasn't such a good idea.

At the Canyon

The next day the kids and I lounged by the pool (in the rain). Then, bright and early the next day we headed back to WA for Christmas!!

Our flights home were fantastic. All airport and airline staff were amazingly helpful and the kids traveled perfectly. We were surrounded by three other families (counting my children there were seven kids in four rows) and even ended up with a row to ourselves (because the woman who was seated with us choose to sit in a middle seat rather than be surrounded by all seven children-- Can you blame her?).

My dad picked us up in Seattle and we made it home to a surprise... Christmas lights! (Thanks Dad.)

It was a great vacation, great traveling experience, and great welcome home!

Octoberfest

This weekend we explored more of Washington... On Friday morning we headed to Leavenworth, WA . Leavenworth is a small German themed town about four hours away in North Central Washington. It has a variety of festivals throughout the year. In October, it is Octoberfest. We couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to drive there. The leaves were amazing with vibrant reds and crisp yellows. Too bad that I didn't take any pictures of the landscape... 

Leavenworth's streets were lined with people of all kinds (old, young and in between), sausages were plenty, and the beer tents were full of German attired happy people. (If you would like to read about the history of Leavenworth click here). After touring the town and getting some German food we drove on to Wanatchee where we stayed for the night. 

Our "plan" was to stay in Leavenworth until after dinner but our parental duties required us to leave earlier then planned. (read: over tired children.) We knew we were pushing our stay as Wilson (and consequentially Chris and I) didn't sleep well the night before (Wilson woke twice from growing pains in his legs) and because he was so excited about our adventure didn't sleep a wink on the four hour drive. Before we had to leave our fantastic parking spot, we asked Wilson to sit in the stroller to rest his body for a little bit. Needless-to-say, the little man wanted nothing to do with anything that involved the word "rest" so he decided to RUN. Bet you can guess what happened after he tried to flee us and the stroller of leisure... You got it... we left. He had to sit his little "I don't want to rest!" bottom in the car. And he was out like a light in a matter of seconds. Big shock-right?. In fact, the little man was out so hard that he was snoring. In reality both kids really needed a rest as Nora fell asleep after a few short cries. When I look  back, leaving should have been the plan from the beginning. (Even though mom and dad really wanted to check out the beer tent.) 

Wenatchee  is referred to as "the Apple Capital of the World"  and is about 20 miles from Leavenworth. When we arrived in the Apple Capital I checked us into the hotel and asked the front desk to recommend some fun things to do in the area (Chris and the kids stayed in the car.). It turned out that there was a NAHL (North American Hockey League) hockey game playing that night. We had about an hour to kill before the game started so we drove around letting the kids finish their naps. When the kids woke up we headed to the hockey game. Wilson was excited (and so was I!)! He loves hockey and loved the game. We all had a blast! Our seats were fantastic- four rows from the glass and the home team, Wenatchee Wild, scored 4 goals while we were there. (We didn't stay for the whole game. We knew that we needed to get a decent night's sleep so we left at 8:30.) By the time we left Wilson had learned when to cheer and was screaming when the boys (the players were babies... 16-18 years young) hit the glass and was dancing when they scored.  It was really a great experience. LOUD but great. 

The next day we toured Wanatchee some more (Wanatchee is beautiful- by the way.) and Nora and I squeezed in a nap while Chris and Wilson went swimming in the hotel pool. After noon we drove back to Leavenworth stopping at a farm for a box of apples along the way. (side note: We now have 30 pounds of apples. So, who wants a pie?) Back in Leavenworth we filled up on sausages and enjoyed walking the streets. The kids even napped in the stroller (with no fussing!) while Chris and I drank beer in the beer tent. It was perfect!

We had a blast. I just wish that we took more pictures...