Thanksgiving in Kauai

I am happy to say that I have finally been able to find some time to get my photos organized after my computer kept crashing, since having photos seems to be what drives my blog posts most of the time.  And although it is almost February, I am going to rewind a few months to share some memories (and videos!) from our beautiful vacation on Kauai over Thanksgiving.

November 2012 will be remembered as a roller coaster - lots of lows and highs.  One of the highs that came at a very needed time was this trip to Hawaii with Sam's parents and sister.  Sam's dear grandma had just passed away somewhat unexpectedly, so going to Hawaii for 10 days was a very healing and happy time for all of us.  Our time there was so nice and we found beauty not only in the island, but in the happy (and tired) faces of our girls.  Experiencing it with them was both trying and terrific, but something all of us (even Sasha) will remember.

The honeymooners in 2000.

Twelve years ago, Sam and I went to Kauai for our honeymoon.  Sam always said we had to go back for our 10th anniversary, but that didn't quite work out.  Fortunately, Sam's work allowed him to go to a conference on Kauai and we turned it into a family vacation.  Back in 2000, we had no idea what life would bring us.  We have all the things we hoped we would - a strong marriage, adventures together, jobs that make us happy,  a wonderful home, and beautiful children - but the reality is a bit different than we imagined.  I look back at this innocent couple in their mid-20s and am pretty happy with all the decisions they made along the way.  It's been a pretty great ride so far.  

But back to our trip.... Here are some of my favorite photos and memories, and even though it's only been a couple months since the trip, looking back on them already makes me feel nostalgic and sappy.

* We had a great rental home that gave us plenty of room, lawn for the girls to run around on, rocks in the driveway to play with, all within walking distance of the Hyatt and Poipu Beach.  The house was perfect for kids as they had lots of baby gear, books, a little baby doll Sasha fell in love with, and Cinderella dishes that Morgan refused to share with her little sister.

* Poipu Beach Park was another perfect place for us.  I loved watching the sun set there as the girls played on the play structure or in the water.  It was so sheltered and perfect for little ones.  And all the roosters and chickens running around made it even more entertaining.  I could have stayed there all day.

* This was the first time I swam in the ocean with my two girls.  I love the ocean and adored sharing it with them.  They loved every minute and are natural water babies.

* Another highlight was playing and swimming at Baby Beach, yet another ideal beach for the girls.  Sasha was fearless and would charge into the water regardless that it was getting deeper and deeper.  We had to hold her back to keep her from walking submerged along the bottom of the ocean!  Later, she took to crawling through the shallower water.  She loved the beach and could spend hours filling and dumping buckets full of sand and water!  Baby beach was special for another reason.  Some of Grandma Daggett's ashes were spread there in honor of her many trips to Kauai with her husband and friends.  And, as Dinda put it, Grandma loved babies so this was a perfect place.

 * A first was painting Morgan's toes to match mine.  She was so excited I finally let her do it.  Later in the week, Aunt Kimmy painted her toes sparkly blue - even cooler!

*  It took a while to find the pool that belonged to our rental home, but it was pretty nice, although really cold!  I am thankful for Sam, Kim, and Ron for braving the chilly water so that Morgan could swim to heart's content (or until she started shivering too much) and Sasha could perfect her "cannonball" with Papa Ron.  Now that we are home, she will yell "cannonball!" at really inappropriate moments, like when she is walking down the stairs or standing on the back of the couch.  That kid....

*  Discovering Kalapaki Joe's sports bar was another highlight, particularly for my father-in-law.  It was right next to the pool and gave us a place to get a post-swimming  lunch and mai tai (or two) on a warm afternoon (or two - we went there a lot!)  And they also had some pretty amazing ahi tacos.  Yum!

* Poipu, where we stayed, is on the sunnier side of the island, but we also wanted to go to the north side where the Na Pali coast begins.  The weather was a bit cool and rainy the first couple days we were there, but then we had some gorgeous sunshine the rest of the week.  The sunniest day we went to Hanalei and then to Ke'e Beach.  The weather was perfect, but being winter, the surf was pretty big - much different than when we were there before.  I was a mama bear watching my cubs since they don't understand the dangers of the waves, but both girls got to go out and float around with Daddy and Papa Ron.  I took a stroll down the beach where there was hardly anyone, except a hen and her chicks running around and a protected monk seal sunning itself on the beach, When I turned around to go back, this view of the Na Pali coast took my breath away.  Amazing!

* For Thanksgiving dinner, we planned on going to a very nice restaurant called the Beach House. We were lucky to even make our dinner reservation, though, as Sam and I had to take Morgan to urgent care that afternoon (which turned out to be the hospital ER when it's a holiday!  Parenthood doesn't stop just because you're on vacation.)  Morgan had had her typical  winter cough the whole time we were in Kauai, but she had been up all night with it and we were getting worried it could be pneumonia (not that it slowed her down in the water at all).  She turned out to be ok and with the help of an inhaler and prednisone, we were back in action.

 * We raced back and the girls got dressed up in their matching strawberry dresses from Grandma Dinda.  We even miraculously managed to take some nice family photos before we left.  We arrived at the Beach House on time and were there for there for sunset.  Our table was amazing, right on the lawn next to the ocean.  And being a family holiday, we were missing the company of Grandma Daggett, so Kim, Ron and Dinda tossed a lei out into the ocean in her memory.  Our meal was delicious and unlike any Thanksgiving I have ever had.  I was certain I'd order the turkey, but having ahi on Thanksgiving in Hawaii seemed more appropriate.  The girls did pretty well throughout and Morgan loved the fancy drink that came with an umbrella!

 * But still, there is more of this amazing vacation.  We ended the trip by enjoying the beautiful Hyatt resort, where Kim was going to stay a few extra days after we left.  So, in a way, we did get to come back for a 'second honeymoon,' which just happened to include my in-laws and kids!  But the Hyatt is still as amazing as it was when we were there, and better in fact, since back then we didn't know how good we had it!

*  Morgan LOVED the water slide and was barely tall enough to be able to ride it.  The first time, we planned to have her ride down with Sam, but that was against the rules.  I was watching from the bottom, sure that she would probably change her mind after Sam went down ahead of her, but she was determined.  She rode it once and pretty much wanted to do that over and over for the next two days. Below is a video of her popping out at the bottom of the slide, and even with her cough, she must have climbed all those stairs and rode the slide down about 50 times in the course of two days.  She learned quickly that if she laid down flat on her back, she would go even faster.  So thanks to Morgan, we all got to take turns on the slide with her - it was fun!

* Dinda preferred a more tranquil way of enjoying the pool and looked so cute floating in her pink chair.  And Sasha, being the beach girl, wanted to spend her time at the man-made saltwater lagoon playing in the sand.  (The beach next to the hotel is too rough for swimming - it's named Shipwreck beach, after all)

Happy old married couple in 2012.

* So here we are 12 years in to a marriage that we have somehow made wonderful despite not knowing what we are doing.  Those big smiles are due to the fact that we got away to the Hyatt, where we spent our honeymoon, for an overnight without the kids!  We ate dinner at a favorite restaurant there, wandered around the grounds with yummy drinks, had a hotel room to ourselves, and watched the sunrise (because we can't sleep in anymore thanks to our kids!) from our balcony and enjoying room service.  We are so lucky!



* There were a few 'lowlights' of the trip: One, of course, was the trip to the ER with Morgan.  Second, was flying with a toddler.  While overall it went pretty well, we did not anticipate (or had forgotten) that Sasha would pummel the airplane seat in front of her with her feet.  And of course the more we told her no, the more she would smile and kick harder.  On the way home, we switched seats so that Morgan sat in front of her with me so she could receive a back massage instead of some stranger.  Third, we tried to prepare for dealing with the girls and the time change, but waking at 4:30 or 5 every morning made us a bit crazy.  But being tired in paradise is nothing to complain about.  And the other bummer, both funny and gross, was coming home to find that a rodent (probably one of our rats of Nihm that live behind our garage) had taken residence in our car while we were gone!  I'm sure all the crumbs and snack wrappers the girls left behind were enticing.  But most frustrating, beyond the creepiness of having a rat in there, was that it went berserk chewing up our Britax car seat that wasn't even a year old (we took the old one on the plane with us, of course).  Obviously he/she doesn't know how much those cost!  Oh well, we will fix it and, thankfully, got the car completely detailed!

Blogging and Life

Thursdays are now my self-declared blogging days.  In a feeble attempt to post something interesting weekly (don't hold your breath), I have tried to give myself time each Thursday while Morgan is at school and Sasha naps (long ones, bless her heart) to sit down and write.  Since one blog post can take me a couple hours to put together from start to finish, my real goal is to blog twice a month, with the hope that blogging will beget more blogging.  In the past six months or so, it has really fallen by the wayside for me.  I keep trying to figure out why and how I can be better at keeping up with things and not getting so behind on our life events.  There are a lot of reasons why it seems to get harder and harder to blog on a regular basis, but I have come to the conclusion that the main reason is because our life is too beautiful.

I know that sounds weird or extremely conceited, but bear with me.  It's usually on a dreary day when I'm feeling moody or unmotivated that I find myself getting sucked into reading over my old blog posts (and I know Sam does it too).  But when I do read these posts that I have taken the time to write - the photos, words, memories that I see before me - my heart feels so full from all the beautiful moments that have already occurred in my life.  And I think they appear all the more beautiful because they are simply over.  The birth of my daughters, the funny things they said, the exasperating phases they went through, the holiday memories we made as a family.  Jeez!  From that last sentence, you would think I was 60 years old and my kids were long gone!  I guess I am being a bit dramatic, but life really does move so quickly and the precious moments that we get with our kids (and our spouses and friends and families) are so fleeting.

So when I say that my life is too beautiful, I am mainly accentuating the beautiFULL.  A full, busy, hectic, beautiful life is all we really hope for, but the busy part is what we have to learn to manage and keep in perspective.  And while it would probably be easier for me to just stop blogging like a lot of people do, I know that one of the things I'm doing right in my life is taking the time to pause and capture a snapshot of it in a blog post.  It's easy to take a million photos - we all do now with our digital devices - but to stop and process and edit and ponder and reflect, that is that hard part.  But that is the part that is worth a million bucks.  That is the part that makes my heart so full it wants to burst because my life is indeed beautiful, and hopefully will keep staying that way.

Listen to the Universe (a.k.a. Pandora)

Wow.  2013.  A new year.  I haven't posted anything in over two months.  I don't even think I went that long when I had a baby.  But the end of 2012 was an eventful one.  There were both many good and sad reasons for not having the time or mental space to write.  I hope to have time to reflect on the last few significant months in later posts, but for now, I am looking ahead to a fresh start in the new year.

I don't have real new year's resolutions, but I do have intentions that I hope to try and incorporate into my life.  Like being more generous in big and small ways, speaking the truth about how I feel, telling others how much they mean to me - often, and figuring out some personal things that I haven't yet found the answers to.

So today was one of those days that seemed to really help me with that last one.  I just HAD to get out of the house.  I needed some time away from my closest loved ones (I think we all do after the holidays ;).  It was one of those very indecisive days for me - I didn't know what I wanted.  I was supposed to go walking with a friend, but plans fell through so I drove to Mount Tabor to take in the chilly winter sunshine and clear my head.  I thought I was going to walk, but ended up being so cold I started running.  I haven't run outdoors in about three months and it was both awkward and exhilarating, especially with the temperature around 40.  Of course I was out of practice, started running too fast, and the hill got the best of me quickly.  I was out of breath and overheating now, so I walked to the top of Mount Tabor.  There are views of Mount Hood (which was particularly snowy and radiant today) through the trees, and views of downtown into that bright sunshine that we aren't used to here in Portland these days.   I walked around the top a bit and then found myself running and running.  It felt so good and I realized that I had a lot of something built up and needed to get it out.  I think I even felt like I was going to cry for a second (running sometimes does that to me).

But the part that made me laugh, actually, was the music playing in my headphones.  I had Pandora on, with a Michael Franti station.  At first, his song 'I Love You' came on and got me going.  Then it switched to Bob Marley's 'No Woman No Cry.'  That isn't a real peppy song to run to, but once I finally stopped to listen, Bob was literally shouting "every thing's gonna be all right" in my ears.  Suddenly, my head cleared and I realized that not only was he right (like always), but maybe the answers I'm looking for are closer than I think.  I just have to pay attention.

The next song that came on was a cover of 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by Rusted Root.  OK.  Definitely paying closer attention now.  It was a really nice cover of it, and it was as if they were talking directly to me.  It was a good reminder that I simply can't get everything I want in life, but I will get what I need.  Whether I realize it is exactly what I need or not, though, is what I have to work though.  Isn't life about realizing you probably have everything you need and want right in front of you?

Sunrise moment of pause in Kauai. (Thank you, Kim!)

So by now, I was really believing that the universe was talking to me via Pandora.  And would you believe the next song that came on was 'Don't Worry Be Happy'?  An oldie but a goodie.  So I kept running laps around the top of Mont Tabor trying to listen to these messages that the Pandora gods were sending me for the new year.  I think 2013 will be a good year.

Everything is going to be all right.  You can't always get what you want.  And don't worry, just be happy.  

Trick or Treat Cuties

This year, when I asked Morgan what she wanted to dress up as, I was quite happy to hear she wanted to be a cat.  I can handle that!  So, with a tail and ears set from Target and using the cool face painting kit she got for her birthday, her costume was very easy and also very cute.  Morgan wanted Sasha to be a little kitten as well, but I never got around to getting organized, and despite Sasha wearing pieces of Morgan's costume around the house for weeks, figured she probably wouldn't be that into dressing up this year.

But Sasha did great when it came to face paint.  I painted a mouse nose and whiskers on her, and she held so still.  A friend who has a daughter Sasha's age wondered at how I was able to put face paint on her and have her keep it on.  Oh, the power of the big sister!  So with her face paint and Minnie Mouse ears, Sasha became a mouse to go with Morgan's cat.

Over the weekend, Morgan enjoyed her preschool fall party, where her best school friend also came dressed as a cat.  Two peas in a pod!  And then last night on Halloween, Sasha and Morgan both dressed up again to trick-or-treat with Morgan's neighbor friend, who was dressed as a witch.  Daddy, Papa Ron, and Aunt Kimmy took the girls out for trick-or-treating - Sasha's first time!  They both came back 45 minutes later with their buckets full of candy and filled with excitement.  And amazingly, the rain stopped and the weather was just right.

It was a great Halloween!

Ya Ya is Growing Up!

Over the summer, Sasha started calling herself "Ya Ya," because she couldn't quite say her name.  She also called Morgan "Mo Mo," so the two names kind of stuck and that's what we have been calling the girls for the past few months.  I remember planning on writing a blog post about "Mo Mo & "Ya Ya" at the end of the summer, describing all the ways they had both grown up and what they were up to at the particular moment in their lives.  Well, despite trying to catch up on the blog, here it is October and so much has already changed.

"Ya Ya" is already gone.  She has been replaced by our new-grown-up-almost-two-year-old, who can pretty clearly say "Sasha," said in the sweetest way imaginable.  That adorable little phase flew by in an instant.  And now, Sasha is talking at warp speed, labeling everything she sees and repeating words over and over until someone repeats the correct word back to her.  She is relentless in her passion for speaking, and I love it.  Yet, I do miss my little Ya Ya.

The other day, Sasha started calling her sister "Muggin," and I was both so excited and so sad that she was moving on from calling her "Mo Mo."  Although, I still do hear her say "Mo Mo" when she is trying to get Morgan's attention, and if she doesn't succeed, she raises the volume and yells "MUGGIN!!!"  And Sasha is very much about making sure we all see what she is doing.  She will call out for Sam or I, and when she knows we are watching, she will do some special stunt.  It could be climbing into her high chair (which she can do all by herself!), dancing around  dress up clothes in the basement, or running really fast at the park.  She just loves having an audience!

Painting at the Children's Museum exhibit.

Helping Morgan walk to preschool

Big girl on the slide! 

Sasha has always been passionate (or borderline obsessed) with reading.  She never tires of sitting in our laps reading a book - I think she could honestly do this all day.  Book after book.  Now she knows many of the titles and has a particular order in which we should read books.  If we grab one she is not ready for or interested in, she will swat it away and call out her own version of the title.  As is the case with most toddlers, they like their routines, so she likes to read the same books over and over and over. 

Loves to dress up! 

These leaves feel funny!

 To say that Sasha likes babies would be a huge understatement.  Again, she is pretty much obsessed with all things babies.  She knows that when she sees a stroller with a baby carrier in it (even if the baby is totally covered with a blanket), she says "shhh, baby nigh night."  She loves to "read" my parenting magazines and find all the articles and ads with photos of babies in them.  She love pushing her babies around in their stroller, and always makes a b-line to the babies when she visits her grandmas' houses.   So, with her babies + book obsession, she therefore became obsessed with Morgan's baby photobook, that chronicled her first year.  For a long time, Sasha thought the baby in all the photos was her, but later she learned that it was baby Morgan.  And inside, I was feeling guilty and thinking that I really needed to make a photobook for Sasha's first year, especially before she turned two!  (I suppose this is the way second children make sure they don't get the short end of the stick!)  So, I did manage to finish Sasha's baby photobook, and seeing her expression when it came in the mail was so priceless!  She immediately settled into the couch and flipped page after page and kept saying "Baby Sasha" and hugging it to her chest and saying "mine."  I love this girl so much, and though I find she is growing up way to fast, I love seeing it all happen right before my eyes.

Sasha reading her baby book for the 100th time. 

Go Ducks!

Happy 5th Birthday, Morgan!

My baby is five years old!  Five years of motherhood.  The first born is always the big experiment into parenthood.  And now that we have kept her alive for five years, we get the pleasure of watching her grow and change and teach us so many things for the next five, and ten, and many years into the future.  I hope we aren't screwing her up too much and that we are getting better at this every year.  We are so lucky to be the parents of this hilarious, spirited, beautiful, and intelligent little person named Morgan.

This year Morgan got to have two parties, one with friends and one with family.  She requested a ladybug piñata, so we went with a bug theme.  Morgan wanted a party at home, as opposed to going to some cool party place, so we did a simple, old school birthday party!   I seem to have gotten over my birthday party anxiety (what do I do with a bunch of preschoolers as their parents stand around watching??), and actually had a lot of fun planning the party this year.  Morgan was a big help and we made decorations together and tested out the games ahead of time.

We are so lucky to have lots of kids in our neighborhood whom Morgan adores.  Most of the guests were neighbors but a few were preschool or other friends.  Morgan adores people, so having all these friends at her house for a very special playdate filled her with joy.  The kids made bug antennae, played games like "pin the antennae on the ladybug" and freeze dance, destroyed a very stubborn ladybug piñata, decorated "dirt" cupcakes with worms and bugs, and ended by playing in the back yard.

Getting crafty with bug antennae  

The boys wait their turn at the piñata

Sasha fits right in with all the big girls

Morgan swinging at the piñata

Cupcake time!

The next day, we had a family party here with all the grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  I have to say the weather this year was the best I can remember in Morgan's life!  We were able to hang out in the back yard enjoying a beautiful summer-like day.  Morgan got very nice gifts and loved having chocolate cake, apple crisp, and ice cream for dessert! QUeen for the day!  Despite having a very busy and exciting weekend, I was so proud of Morgan for being a good host and spending time with all her relatives.  Morgan is so lucky to have such a loving family who adore her!

Blowing out the candles with Nana cheering on

Opening presents with Aunt Kimmy

Fun in the sandbox with Aunt Nat!

Sasha loves her "Papa Dinda"

Sasha knows who to go to for ice cream!

Aunt Kimmy and her neices!

Gramma Gail's pickles - yum!!

All Morgan wanted this year was an umbrella!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MORGAN!