Hawaii!!

What an incredible gift Hawaii was! Thanks soooooooo much Mom and Dad! We will remember it forever!

We all went to the Big Island and stayed on the Kona side in a nice little neighborhood-y 3-bedroom house, which was just perfect. It was the kids' first plane flights, and they did great, especially on our 24-hour door-to-door trip home. 

Highlights included:

• A beach day with great fish--electric yellow, iridescent green, striped--you could just wade out into the warm water to see, and the kids having a great time playing in the sand, including Sis making me into a "sand palm"
• A drive to and picnic at a coffee farm with incredible high views of the ocean.
• An evening boat ride with my dad to do a night manta ray snorkel...the manta rays weren't out but we still had fun
• A trip to the black sand beach where we saw a turtle and then the volcano...I would have liked to have spent a lot more time there...we went in the rainforest and lava tubes (high on the kids' TO DO list) and saw the steaming vents and the crater itself and the (cooled) lava all over the island was incredible, otherworldly, like nothing I'd ever seen
• The evening of the volcano we went to a luau, I'd never been to one and I thought the food and the entertainment and the setting were all fantastic. Loved the hula dancing, so lovely...
• Another beach day on a sandy beach shaded by palm trees...beach time is so great.
• Jeff and I had a date night and sat by the ocean and drank Mai Tais and listened to music and then had a yummy sushi dinner and talked about all sorts of stuff...it was divine
• Hilo one day, wow that drive was beautiful (all the drives we did were but this one especially), and saw Rainbow Falls and banyan trees you can go into and we saw some bandits in the back of a pickup truck trying to get away from the police (the kids thought that was pretty cool) and we had a picnic in a pretty little park and walked around town and had ice cream in a little local spot, and then on the way home did a delightful hike, green hill in the midst of a lava field and saw rainbows everywhere
• The Hilton where we held this great pink bird and swam with the dolphins, the kids and I, it was such a thrill for all of us, truly one of the coolest things I've ever done...

And also meals at home and Kino Bay Rummy and Moana and Free Willy (Sis sobbed at the end when she wasn't sure the whale would make it) and a bird that chirped every night and sitting out back on the lanai and the kids rolling down the hill in front of the house in little cars and geckos in the yard and heavy rains every night and amazing fresh fish, and warm and breezy sun and the sea turtle and rays and crabs at the marina and the Asian grocery store and the animals on the loose (roosters, goats, etc.) and Yahtzee and the question game in the car and running around the Honolulu airport...just generally the best time imaginable. Love everyone I went with so much and loved, loved, loved Hawaii...

XOXO

Luke is waaaaay too logical, tough questions + jet lag??

1. Luke is killing me with his logic. For example, he said last night, "What does it mean in Moana when her grandmother says, 'Listen to your heart?'" Me: "It means you know what's best for you, and you should do that, not what other people think you should do." Luke: "So why do I get put into time out if I'm just doing what my heart tells me to do?" And also, at the hot springs he was throwing rings and one came close to hitting a woman. Me: "Luke, go tell that woman you're sorry." Luke: "No. You told me never to talk to strangers."
2. Zo yesterday: "What are sunsets for?" And if that's not deep enough, today she followed up with, "What is family for?" and "What is love for?"
3. And speaking of tough questions, Luke yesterday: "I don't get it. Why does 2 + 2 = 4?"
4. Loving spending time with our new neighbors...and a long talk yesterday with a dear out-of-town friend...so lovely...miss her...
5. Kids and I have a project for Daddy's birthday...their idea, and man, it is complex. I was telling Jeff last night on the porch a good analogy would be if we wanted to give him a tie, if we sheared the sheep and dyed the wool and made it into cloth and sewed a tie. It's just a little thing but lots of effort. But...we are having a blast...
6. The tuck-in song of choice these days is John Denver's "Grandma's Featherbed." In the song, the bed holds 8 kids and 4 hound dogs and a piggy (the kids stole from the shed)...but Luke especially likes to switch it up...the other night it was 8 lions and 4 lambs and a duckie (stolen from the shed) lol...
7. New super-soft electric blanket for the porch for imminent cold nights...it is divine...sat outside with my husband last night for the first time since we're back...love love love porch time... 
8. My sleep's all off with some weird jet-lag-y thing but thankfully the kids are sleeping just fine. We did a 24-hour door-to-door travel day with a red-eye I didn't sleep on...my body's doing weird things like waking up at 4 AM...which is 1 AM Hawaii time so it makes no sense...it is what it is...Hawaii was absolutely amazing, by the way...will post some pictures shortly, probably over the weekend...

Happy Thursday!

XO

"Leaf-nado," an actual love light + up early for the mail man

1. The last of the fall leaves for the year...it's been a beautiful fall...
2. Zo, seeing leaves on the ground swirling in the wind: "It's a leaf-nado!"
3. Zo of the clouds wrapping around the full moon: "The clouds are tucking the moon in."
4. Zo coming home from school with a bright yellow felt circle on a yellow length of yarn around her neck: "It's my love light! It's shining really bright today because I get a lot of love."
5. Zo up early yesterday at 6 AM...she had ordered My Little Pony Equestria Girls figurines with her allowance off of Amazon and I had told her they would come that day...she wanted to make sure she didn't miss the mail man...
6. Zo, after the fall festival party at school, where they had had stations they rotated through every 10 minutes, she set up her own party upstairs on her pink blanket with a dress-up station and a relaxing station and a snack station (where you could have pretend tuna fish and tea) and a karate station and a petting zoo with some of her favorite stuffies put into her wooden corral...it was the cutest...oh and a total mom fail on my part when it was past their bedtime and I was nagging, nagging, nagging for them to pause the party and get in bed. Once Zo was in bed and I was snuggling with her for tuck-in I said, "That was such a great party you set up!" And she said, "Yes. It was great. Except for the guest who kept yelling." Ouch...

Happy Friday!

XOXO

Happy Birthday, Uncle Luke XOXO

This is the third year my kids and I have sent balloons up to Uncle Luke in Heaven. It just feels right to me to do something to mark the day. I still miss him so much, it's crazy. It's so strange to have a world without him in it, still. But I love, love, love the little sunburst in a number of these images...whenever I see that in pictures I feel like he's there with us...silly I know but it brings me comfort.

Going to see my brother Ben and Auntie Jaimie tomorrow...so grateful that they are in my kids'—and my—lives. Wish Luke could be too but...ah...such is life...

XOXO

Montessori fall festival

I volunteered at the fall festival party at Montessori this past week and what fun! Love where the kids are going to school...

XO

Halloween cuteness

Huge thanks to my mother-in-law, yet again, for the cutest Halloween costumes ever. Princess Elsa and a porcupine...so cute. Luke got honorable mention in the local costume contest...he really should have won, don't you think??

Such fun...

XO

Pumpkin carving!

Such fun pumpkin carving this year! Kids are getting so big...they were total helpers, scooping out all the guts all by themselves. Zo really wanted me to carve out the pony "Pinkie Pie," and was really disappointed that that was beyond my abilities. But she cheered up once she realized we could do a scary "Wicked Jack." Daddy helped a lot with the carving. Love the pumpkin tradition.

XOXO

Paper crowns, breakfast tacos + a monster on the core trail

1. Love this little paper crown Zo made totally on her own...
2. Gorgeous warm day out on the core trail with the kids...we threw rocks into and gathered slime from the river, and then ran around the botanic gardens looking for secret paths...and then as they biked on the way back they would stop and wait for me to come up behind them playing "Monster," looking over their shoulders, letting me get as close as possible without catching them, hands up in claws, tiptoeing...love the laughter...
3. Lil' House makes the best breakfast tacos...always a treat when we go...
4. My dad's birthday today and lovely to talk with him...
5. No work this weekend for the first time in a while...feels so good to just relax...
6. Kids helped me make a grocery list with their preferred foods for lunch...going to try letting them pack their own lunches and see if that gets them eating any better...
7. Kids are loving this book of folk tales from around the world...some of them are pretty dark...Zo was scared last night at tuck-in but not from the book which is what I would have expected but rather from something she saw on My Little Pony...
8. Squash soup and ham-and-cheese sandwiches and then Wonder Woman together as a family after dinner...nice mellow Sunday evening, looking forward to it...

XO

Spring creek trail

Went for a nice long hike yesterday while Daddy watched the kids...felt so good...I saw this beautiful hawk and the moonrise, and ice starting to form on the little ponds...into dusk and it started nice but got cold, cold, cold...trying to get out as much as I can before the snow flies...

XOXO

Emerald mountain glows, snowmaking commences + another stab at the back-in-time machine

1. The crescent moon last night sinking down behind the middle of Emerald Mountain, and then the whole outline of the mountain glowing for 15 minutes...beautiful...
2. First day of snowmaking this morning!! It's so cool how big white fluffy clouds form around where they're doing it...need to get a picture...
3. Kids home again today...hopefully they'll be back at school Monday...we had fun though reading and the kids putting on a ballet for me and us looking at Grammy and Papa's England pictures and we had a little brunch tea party and they were building things with tinker toys and Zo was using her toys taking another stab at building a back-in-time machine with the dial on her play vacuum the controls and one of her big canvas toy baskets where the person sits...she gets so frustrated when it doesn't actually work...
4. Luke is really starting to get reading and Zo writing...it's pretty incredible to watch...
5. Montessori fundraiser date night tonight...kids are in the bath right now and after that I'm going to go put on a dress and heels...can't wait!

Happy weekend!

XOXO