This May Be...

The longest duration in one time my children have gone without being photo-documented.

I'll have to fix that.











I know... I'm dead boring...


What can I say?

My Babies

Abby and Jack.

I've been looking through the pictures of Hawaii (yes even the ones I thought I'd lost - there are SOME disadvantages to using an 8gb memory card - like for instance when you set it up to download to your computer and the computer times out or is too low on memory to complete the process but doesn't bother to mention it to you and you are just so incredibly lucky and grateful that you didn't delete originals or clear the card like you intended to five times in the last week) and I've been thinking of my kids. So fewer pictures of Jack... not sure why - well, he won't stay still for one and when he's at not staying still he's probably also precariously up to something I need both hands to help intercept. They are so different and properly in love with each other as brother and sister should be ;).

But they're approach to life, their characters are so clear when I see the pictures on the beach.

Abby is uninhibited, flirting along the shore, unafraid of the water, but perfectly content to dance around the edges of the waves or to sit, letting the water come to her, even if it engulfs her a little, she's amused at it's changing mood.



Jack is just as uninhibited as his sister, but there's no dancing or messing around with the edges of the surf, and he's certainly not waiting for anything to come to him. He takes a good look at that ocean thing, laughs a little, then... He plunges straight in. Ominous clouds above, what does he care for that? Sand shelf that drops off - he doesn't care, can't you just get off him for one minute so he can really get in there and see what it's all about? Uncle Aaron... I'm thinking stitches aren't too far from his future. Just, you know, he's gonna want to be involved...



Neither of them could care less if I'm there, though if there is another less "mom" person present, Abby will immediately break out of her solitary world of dance and song and socialize, play, anything! Where as Jack really doesn't care who is there, he just wants to go where he wants to go.

Missing Pictures

oooOOOoo I'm annoyed. I'm missing pictures from my trip. I have an idea where the bulk of them are - I went around shooting with Sarah's camera by accident instead of mine.

But now I'm missing my rainbow shots... very frustrating...

Hawaii 2009 - Where to begin?

I can't decide if I love or hate this picture as my smile is weird. That was our date night. We went to Longhi's and ate a LOT. It was very nice. Abby, shockingly enough, didn't miss us at all, Jack was not pleased because prego Sarah dared to NOT hold his hefty self the ENTIRE time he slept. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I think this was Friday night, our usual date night!


DAY ONE:


On the plane ride there, at first Abby was ok, she was having a nice time reading the magazines provided, listening to the movie. Then we got her a Coke. She was super giddy -not hyper, just psychotically giddy. She kept putting just a smidge of Coke in her glass at a time "so it will last longer." Then she switched seats to be next to Samantha and they sat together lip syncing to the movie Dreamgirls...
Jack fell asleep as soon as the motors turned on. He didn't sleep a ton - 2 out of the 5 hours, but was mostly perfectly happy and content, if a little restless.

It was just such a relief that the plane ride was over, Marysue and David met us at baggage claim and all the tons of carryon stuff everyone had was conveniently taken away to the cars while we waited for the big bags. Nothing was lost and we all headed to McDonald's for a quick snack before buying two tons worth of food for the week at Costco and off into the traffic to our condos.

We saw Whales just swimming along in the ocean along the side of the road on our way there. I felt jet lagged already and the power was out at the condo (the non-Costco group had gone on ahead).

There was something disconcerting about not having power when we got there simply becuase we wanted to settle and there wasn't quite enough light to do that...or there was plenty but - I think I have this weird sight thing since without my contacts I'm blind, I get very uncomfortable when I can't see clearly. It's like I want to go wash my contacts out and try again, it irritates me.

BUT we had a lovely dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise (I had a guac cheeseburger) and I had some time with Jack when he was done. He ate some of a pickle, some of a lemon, some fries, and the cherry from my drink.

And by the time we were back to the condo the lights were blessedly back on, the kids were basically asleep already and all that needed to be done from there was open the doors so we could hear the surf while we slept. We got the cool room - I had wanted the room across from the kids anyway since Abby still has some nighttime issues, but didn't know that would be the cool room. We were going to switch with Sarah & Tim midway but it just never happened - it would have been difficult at that point anyway to make sure the kids understood etc anyway. SO apologies for that Sarah & Tim, we appreciated the room very much.

2 Photos

My other favorite thing was that Jack loved the beach... but specifically he would plunge straight into the water - and deeper into the surf because (as near as I can tell) as soon as he'd set his balance and reach down he'd only get a couple splashes in before the waves would carry the water back from him. So he would walk in two steps, splash, say "ARRRH!" in frustration, walk in further, try to splash, say "ArrH!" reach for the water as it retreated... repeat... repeat... repeat.

I do not have 200 hundred pictures of this however because it is quite a job to wrestle Jack back from the waves while also protecting my camera.... well it's a job even without the camera - seriously - he wanted to go straight out and did NOT appreciate being deterred by an obviously un-understanding WOMAN with no splash-vision.

200 Photos...

I currently have at the very least 200 photos of Abby on the beach outside our condo.  Why? No, not just because I am a sucker for pictures, my daughter, and the beach.  Because when I have taken her (everyday we've been here) she retreats (hardly the right word... blossoms into?) her own world as soon as we get there and she sings Momma Mia songs NON-STOP, singing, posing, splashing, loving life.

It's been one of my absolute favorite things so far.

By the way, she told me yesterday that if she was me, she would have married someone who lived in Hawaii so that we could live in Hawaii.

One...

So I've Already Run into A Problem

I've taken a hundred or so pictures (nice ones, not snapshots) all of the same scenario (Abby's first romp in the water at our condo (which is beach front in case you were wondering). And I can't bear to delete any of the good ones.

In other news... Thank you God for the absolutely fabulous plane ride. I had a HUGE headache, but the kids were practically perfect in every way.