It's 9:30 at night and Dan is still hard at work putting together the playground set that we bought earlier this week. They had it marked down at Sam's club to clear out the last item, so we bit the bullet and got it. We had looked at it every time we were in the store for weeks now. The kids can hardly wait for him to get it assembled. It's only 4 large boxes of hundreds of pieces of wood....
Last night we went to Ko Olina lagoons for a picnic dinner and short swim. Cole brought his new snorkel mask to try out and he totally took to it. Dan swam him back and forth across the lagoon with his little mask and snorkel and he loved seeing the fish. So now he's upgraded from goggles and holding his breath to a full snorkel mask and snorkel. With his floaties on he just swims around snorkeling like he's been doing it all his life.
Finished another scrapbook page tonight. Here it is. Should be off to bed soon so we can bike ride in the morning.
I just finished taking another Jessica Sprague digi class, this one was on photo editing and effects. So I had to play with a few of the things I learned, here's the result.
We went to the Hawaii Farm Fair last weekend which was a lot of fun. The boys got to see lots of farm animals raised by 4H kids. There were food samples and also some games for the kids to play, including one where they try to catch fish. Lucky me, we now have two goldfish again. Hopefully these live a little longer than most of our fish. They are cute little guys, I'll give 'em that much... Cole is my animal lover, he reminds me of me as a kid. Adam is a little wary around most animals, but Cole just dives in there amongst the goats, pigs, dogs, cats, insects, pretty much you name it and he'll try to pick it up and play with it (yes, he has many a cockroach friend here and I've just learned to accept it. But his 'friends' are not welcome in my house...) The kids had swim lessons this session again. I had to take a few pictures at swim lessons, I can't believe next week is the kids' last lesson already. Summer goes very fast here since school starts at the end of July. Adam is not the best swimmer in his group by far, but he seems to enjoy it. He's signed up for the next session too. Cole just loves his lessons, since he is 3 now he is old enough for the big kid class where it is just the kids and the instructor (no parents in the pool). He has taken to the water like he is part fish. In general, he is my fearless child, I wonder if I need to worry about hospital bills down the line. Cole REALLY enjoyed snorkeling at Pupukea the other weekend and so he wanted to practice at home using a real snorkel with his googles. I think he'll have the hang of it and really be able to see more fish the next time we go out. I really need to plan a weekend to go to Haunama bay snorkeling soon! Adam has been taking a Kindergarten Readiness class for the past 3 weeks and only has two classes left. He has really enjoyed it once he got used to his new class and teacher. I hope this helps him a little when he starts his full day kindergarten. He has not had any preschool here since we moved too late last year to get into most of the good part-time programs.
One thing he has definitely improved in is his confidence level in writing. I could get him to write his name and maybe a couple other words before he started this program and now he will try to write most anything. He didn't want to try writing much because he couldn't do it well. I think just seeing that the other kids couldn't write all their letters perfectly convinced him it was OK to try it and make some mistakes. So I was so proud of him the other day when he asked me to spell out words so he could make a sign for his door (he was having a pretend party). This was by far the most he had ever written at one time. Well I need to be off to bed soon since my two little alarm clocks will be up at 6:00 on the dot.
Here's a picture of my recently toothless kid... He just started a Kindergarten readiness program this past week. I asked him how he liked it after his first day and he said 'I didn't like it that the teacher told me what to play with. I want to do what I want'. I just laughed and told him that he'd better get used to that one. After church today we went up to Pupukea Beach. This was somewhere I stopped briefly at once before when I gave my mom a tour of the north shore. I remember thinking it would be a perfect place to take the kids to because it had a natural breakwater of rocks surrounding a giant tidepool area. So today we finally made it up there.
The day was gorgeous and the place was packed. We stayed inside the sheltered area, but apparently there is also good snorkeling in the bay next door based on the number of snorkelers and scuba divers there. On a less busy day we should try that area, I bet there may be some live reef there. But I thought this would be a good place to get the kids' feet wet (and their faces) and try to see some fish in the tidepool.
Here are some shots I got with the waterproof camera. No idea what the fish are, but there is a sea cucumber in the second one and a sea urhcin in the third one. We climbed over the rock breakwater to a large lava rock flats near the ocean. This little fish took to snorkeling like he'd always done it. He didn't actually use the snorkel, but he held his breath and looked for fish. He's perfecting his technique here in about six inches of water... I think we'll have to come back again to this one. I'd also like to try Hanauma bay with the kids once they get a little more used to snorkeling. It's supposed to be a good snorkeling spot but also quite popular and busy.
Happy Independence day to you all! We celebrated our 4th of July with a ride on the triple and some work around the yard. We also consumed the requisite shave ice and hot dogs... This evening we went up to Schofield Barracks to their 4th of July festival. The kids did the petting zoo and a couple of bounce houses before we went and found ourselves a spot to sit amongst a sea of blankets. There was a nice concert by a military band and the presentation of the flags. Then the kids just ran and wrestled around until the fireworks started.
This was our first fireworks show as a family that everyone enjoyed. Last year, Cole was 2 and he spent THE ENTIRE show with his face buried in Dan's chest. He could not be coaxed to look at the scary fireworks for anything. This year he was simply precious to watch. The first few fireworks went off and he said 'These fireworks are AWESOME!'. Then he just sat there for the longest time, completely transfixed with his little hands clasped in front of him in anticipation of what would come next. Adam got a little scared when they fired off a whole volley of the really loud ones, but other than that he enjoyed the show too.
As I was watching the show and listening to the music, I thought it was appropriate that we were at the army base to celebrate our independence day. It made the fireworks display a bit more special knowing that we were surrounded by folks who were willing to sacrifice to serve their country. And it was a great show.
I finally, finally waded through the thousand+ pictures that Dinah and I took during her trip and narrowed it down to just over a hundred photos for a picasa album. It's a big one, but it was such a fun visit with them that we had to take a ton of pictures!
So here's the photojournal of our two week fun together:
Now that our visitors have gone home to leave us to our boring routines again (anyone else want to come visit?) our thoughts have turned to school. I know, school in July is crazy by mainland schedules. But here they have a week off for fall break, a very long Christmas break (3 weeks), and then another week in the spring. I guess that must all add up to a short summer break (about 2 months total). School starts here July 30.
So it's not even July yet and we've been out doing our school shopping. Never having had a kid in school before, I never realized how insane the school shopping lists are that the schools send home. They are very specific as to what they want and the list is long. So we've hunted 3 stores to find what we need, I think it is a bit overboard. Wouldn't it be easier for the school to buy this stuff in bulk and then have me write a check? Yeah, I know, trust a school district to find the cheapest, easiest option? I guess that just wouldn't happen...
Adam starts a Kindergarten readiness program next week so he will be in school a little earlier than the rest. I thought it wouldn't hurt to do it since he hasn't been in preschool and most kids here have been in a school setting before. It's only 3 hours a day and he'll go 4 days a week since he already has swim lessons on Mondays. I hope it will ease a few of his fears before he starts 'real' Kindergarten.
I discovered yesterday too that Adam has two very wiggly teeth. His first baby teeth to go! I was looking at him and his teeth were crooked but he always had very straight teeth before. I didn't think teeth just suddenly went crooked, but they do when they're wiggling and twisting around! I gave them a push and they leaned way over. So soon he'll have a cute toothless smile :) He's worried he'll lose them when they fall out and the tooth fairy won't come. We read a book from the series 'Toot and Puddle' and a character loses a tooth and then they have to go look for it. So hopefully we won't be on a tooth hunt once it falls out!
Well next on my agenda is to finally finish organizing my recent pictures so I can post a link to them here. Off to Picasa...
As I was driving to my tennis lessons this evening, I was blown away at how beautiful the rainbows were on my drive. The sun was behind me and I was driving towards the rain. As I almost reached where it was raining, the rainbows were so intense and close by that I could actually see the rainbow in front of the palm trees beside the road. I was ready to pull over and look for some leprechauns...
I haven't updated in a while! I've had one of my best friends from St. Louis visiting for the last couple weeks and she and her kids just left for home this afternoon. I don't know what we're going to do with ourselves tomorrow, we'll be lonely! But I have something scheduled each morning this week, so at least we won't be sitting around the house bored. I'll post some pictures of our whirlwind tour of the island with friends soon, but it may take me a couple of days just to sort through the pictures. Between the two of us we took about 1000 pictures in two weeks! It truly was fun to be a tourist again, we hadn't hit the popular sites in a while.
