Ups & downs

Annika has THREE teeth that are just breaking the surface right now and two that are barely poking through. So that is FIVE teeth all at the same time. And she has a cold. We all do. Needless to say, we are all a wreck. She is awake at odd hours every night and clings incessantly during the day.



Saben got into our top choice preschool! Woo hoo! I was feeling so depressed about trying to find one because I knew all the best were filled up. On a whim, I called anyways, and lo & behold, they were deciding that day whether or not to add an extra class. So he got into the extra class. Hurray!



I went to get my passport last week and managed to show up when no one was in line in front of me. We got right in! Definitely a miracle when you have two kids in tow.



I got a stomach flu yet again this weekend, threw up all day on Sunday. While we were in Wenatchee & needed to drive home that day. No one else has it yet, thank goodness.



I am starting to see changes from my boot camp class! Hurray for fitting into my old pants!



Saben has been pooping in his underwear for 2 1/2 weeks straight, going on months now if you ignore the times we took "breaks" and just wore pullups. He just does not even try and goes at random times every day. He often goes 3-4 times a day, just tiny bits, so I give him prune juice....but that makes such a huge mess, it is 10x harder to clean up. Usually he decides to go while I am nursing Annika... How am I supposed to "catch" him when I am frantically nursing, cooking, cleaning & still trying to find time to play with them? Sigh.

Winner!

Congrats to Ailie for winning my little contest, it is so fun to hear from someone new who reads my blog!

One more...

First person to email me their address gets a free subscription to Wondertime. (Apparently I have to buy 3 to get the good deal)


I'll let you know when someone wins....

For the record, when I once fasted for 48 hours with a whole group of college students, I was the only one who was dry heaving & throwing up bile after 28 hours. I get nauseous when I am hungry. The hungrier I get, the pickier I feel about what I want to eat. I've been on hikes where I am starving, but just thinking about a power bar made me want to be sick and I waited till we could get some "real" food to eat. Usually when I am that hungry I only want protein & carbs, but real ones like pasta, steak, pizza, etc. No chips, candy or junk food.

So I guess its possible that Saben inherited his throwing up on an empty stomach from me.... Darn it.

Bravery

The other day, Saben was riding his bike down the big hill by our house, turned the wheel too sharply & crashed. He got up nonchalantly and said "Woah! I crashed!" and kept riding like it ws no big deal at all. I didn't even think he'd gotten hurt until later I saw his arm & palms had scrapes on them.

This, from the boy who is afraid of his frog sippy cup because they have big eyes.

In other news, Saben refused to eat his chicken fingers & sweet potato fries last night, even though he only got a few sips of his smoothie which he loves. (not to mention he LIKES chicken fingers and has eaten sweet potato fries several times - but lately he's only wanted yogurt for dinner. Plain, with granola & a tiny bit of honey)

He was promised more smoothie if he kept eating the rest of his dinner, but he decided to be done instead. This morning, he was so hungry he dry heaved again. Crazy child.

My mom started a blog and has some really funny pictures of trying to get a shot with her & the two kids where they all look decent....

Advice

Here's what gets me. The only experienced people at parenting that I know are our parents, whom I love, respect and think did an awesome job of raising us.

But everything you read anywhere in mainstream child rearing psychology tells us to do it differently than they did it. Don't force kids to do things, just offer them carrot sticks and let them choose what to eat. Don't let your kids cry it out. Don't spank them, just use timeouts.

Its no wonder I worry all the time that we're screwing it up because all I can imagine is my daughter someday asking me "really? you never let me cry it out? everything I read tells me to let the kids cry it out". Because all the instructions will probably be opposite by the time she has kids.

(this has nothing to do with the actual methods we have chosen to use for parenting, I'm just pointing out the dissidence)

What we've been doing

Saben - 3 yrs

• Loves balls, especially golf, pool, baseball & his marble tower race
• Rides his glider bike almost every day and has learned to pick his feet up and coast along.
• Would eat the exact same thing every day if we let him.
• Likes to watch Blues Clues the most
• Is afraid of "Scary Eyes" which is anything from Snufalupagus to certain stuffed animals w/ eyes. (and yes shauna, that alien stuffed toy with the giant eye ball on its head you got him for Christmas? Freaks him out. Sorry!)
• Thinks Annika is ok and likes to boss her around which is sometimes helpful...sometimes not.
• Really enjoys singing and can actually carry a tune now
• Has tremendous energy and loves to run

Annika - 9 mos

• Loves to crawl around exploring & pull up to standing on everything.
• Bops up and down to music, especially the one her lion riding toy plays
• Would eat everything in the house if we let her.
• Gets to watch Baby Einstein each day so that mommy is able to take a shower. She hates being stationary otherwise and does not enjoy the exersaucer at all.
• Is not afraid of anything. She went through a phase of fearing men, but I think its gone now.
• Adores her brother and is learning to play little games with him. She is also just starting to show signs of getting pretty annoyed at him when he takes things away.
• Has zeroed in on her ring of destruction: First, eat video cassette covers. Come to computer & try to touch the blinking light which happens to be the power button. Next up is pulling moss & dirt out of mommy's potted plants. Then head on over the electrical outlets and gnaw on the cords for a while. (that mommy has already unplugged)
• Has learned to shriek/scream at the top of her lungs. Just for fun, or if she's impatient. (like in the restaurant when mommy isn't feeding her quite fast enough.)
• Has suddenly had trouble going to bed, 4 days in a row now & wants to nurse for an hour every evening.

Kyle

• Finishing up the new building where their business will be.
• Ripped out the heating ducts downstairs after the furnace broke just a couple months before we planned to replace it during our basement remodel.
• Going on "business" bike riding trips in Colorado.

Mommy

• Joined a boot camp class that meats at 6:30 am every morning.
• Decided to try their crazy meal plan that eliminates fat & sugar except for one "fun day" a week. (if I'm getting up at 6am, might as well go whole hog huh?)
• Is designing & purchasing the landscaping for the company's new building
• Organizing the basement remodel estimate process half heartedly and dreading the day it begins. Except she will be happy to have a new furnace.
• Is laying low and struggling to finish potty training Saben & get Annika the naps she needs.
• Really really needs to figure out preschool for Saben in the fall but feels completely overwhelmed by the prospect.

The winner...

Thanks for all the fun stories! I laughed at all of them and they really made my days last week. Here is the one that made me laugh the hardest:

My son Jenson, was about three, and tucked into bed. I came up because I could hear him still playing around and obviously not sleeping. I came in his room and found him with tampon wrappers on his bed. Weird. Turns out he was thirsty... he'd gotten himself a cup of water. And a straw. Made out of a tampon applicator he found in the cabinet. Sipping away, and very proud. You can't make that stuff up.

Even though its not publicly embarassing, Shawn still wins, because her other stories were really funny too! Shawn, email me your address if you want the Wondertime subscription and I'll send it your way.

For second place, I drew names and came up with FiveDays as the winner! If you want the subscription, just email me.

Thanks everyone!

Of all the tasks I do as a mom, the hardest one of all is....vacuuming.

First, there's getting all the toys put away so I can even get to the floors. Then the second I get the vacuum out of the closet, Saben starts whining & crying. He's afraid of it. He goes in his room with the door shut, but everytime I turn it off for a second he is out whining again, trying to get me to stop.

Annika meanwhile wants me to carry her while I vacuum. Which gets extremely tiring. Everytime I put her down, she is bawling something awful. I wish I could do it while they slept, but that doesn't work for obvious reasons.

Lastly, the mechanism that keeps the vacuum handle upright is broken so everytime I set it somewhere I have to lean the handle against something or it falls to the floor with a loud crash and probably leaves dents in its wake.

So I only vacuum every 2-3 weeks. I sweep the wood floors, but getting the area rugs clean doesn't happen super often. Luckily the dog cleans up any food messes and we all take our shoes off at the door, (well, everyone except the dog) so it doesn't get too disgusting.

Please?

Ok, I know that 20 of you checked my blog yesterday and only 2 people told me embarassing stories. Thank you FiveDays & Vale!! Please please please tell me a funny story. It can be about anything. Anything at all. Doesn't anyone want a magazine subscription?

To give you ideas, here is my most embarassing parenting moment.

As if it wasn't painful enough that I was up at 6am this morning, getting dressed to go to my workout class, as I put on my sweatshirt a big, black spider the size of a quarter crawled out & up my chest. I squealed quietly - loud enough to wake kyle but luckily not enough to wake the kids. Thank goodness it wasn't a cockroach, no one would have slept through that.

Kari's Blog Giveaway Extravaganza!!!!

As we approach this blogs 2 year anniversary (ok, its still 1 1/2 months away) I have decided to do a little contest!

In the comments section, please tell me a funny story about your most embarassing moment with a child under your care.

(you know, like the time your child crawled under the door in the dressing room while you were undressed and nearly escaped, but instead stopped to crawl under someone elses door? This hasn't happened to me, but it'd be pretty funny and embarassing if it did. hmm.... maybe we should just make up embarassing scenarios. Do you think that would be funnier?)

Lucky for me the prize does not involve a trip to the post office since I despise going there. The prize will be a subscription to my favorite parenting magazine, Wondertime. I might even give away two subscriptions if lots of people tell me funny stories. I just started a new "meal plan" that forbids the eating of butter so I could really use some cheering up. Please, please, make me laugh.

If you are not a parent and don't want a subscription, then I will just send you my best wishes for winning and instead send it to the runner up. Or maybe I'll think of something to send you in the mail, but no promises.

Judging criteria: Whichever story makes me laugh the hardest. I will rate my laughs on a scale of 1-10 and then pick a winner.

10 on 10 theme

Give up? My theme for the 10 on 10 was things that were ugly, but then slowly grew over the day to include things that annoy me. And then I tried to create something nice in a picture with all these ugly annoying things. Like seeing the good in the bad. See? Aren't I a deep wise person? Do you want me to be your guru? I have tons more where this came from.

10 on 10

(10 points if you can figure out what my theme for the day was....)

I've had people ask me how I get the fuzzy glow in the center of my photographs. (see the picture of purple flowers above for example.) It's pretty simple actually. Get your camera out & try to take pictures of your 8 month old, while feeding her rice goop. With any luck, some of the cereal will get on your fingers and somehow make its way onto your camera lense. Ta dah! Fuzzy romantic blurs in the center of your photos!

In the event that I suddenly come down with rabies

Yesterday, I got bit by a mouse. A wee white one running in the grass that the neighbor convinced me was somebody's pet. Always up for an animal related challenge, I grabbed it and it leaped 3 feet up in the air & out of my hands. Unfazed, I caught it again and just as the realization hit that I had no idea what I was going to do with a pet mouse, it bit my finger. Down went the mouse. Nonchalantly, it wandered through the grass and was last seen nose to nose with a cat who did not know what to do with a wee white mouse that refused to run away.

A bouquet for you

Birthday

The newest pool hall in town for tots? Oh no, that is now my sons room. Kyle's parents actually found him a kids pool table. I didn't even know they existed and he loves it. (he's loved playing with their pool table from the day they got it) Apparently everything is real, you could even just use it as a table top pool table if you live in a tiny apartment or something.

Saben had the loooooooooooongest birthday on record, we celebrated for about 3 weeks between seeing both families, having a small celebration on the actual day and then a party on Friday. It was a lot of fun though and I really enjoyed planning all the special things for him.

On his birthday we had a fun day playing with toys & riding his bike. We got him one of those kits with wooden nuts & bolts to build a train. Then in the evening we all went out to Chichettis Pizza and Mallard Ice Cream. Mmmm......

We had his kids party at the Children's Museum. Nine kids showed up to play for an hour in the museum and then we all went into the back room for Bagelry bagels & cake. It was really fun to see him have such a great time.

One of the best parts of planning Saben's party was taking him to Target to pick out the cake mix, plates, napkins, etc that he wanted. Being the non-commercial stooge that I am, I took him to the area with colorful plates rather than cartoon ones. He picked square yellow ones and square pink ones. I suggested perhaps red instead of pink, but promised myself that if he was adamant we'd get the pink ones. He didn't really care, so we ended up with a mix of red, yellow & blue decorations and "Funfetti" cake with chocolate frosting.


Annika's favorite part was the boat & posing for the camera. And sucking on everything in sight so that now she has a cold. But last time we went she brought home the flu, so I'm not complaining.

Garden

I was holding Annika on Sunday while weeding for a while. When I got tired, I sat her down on the sidewalk and she started pawing at the weeds & trying to get them out too.

Annika loves having plants in her mouth. She just sucks on the them and I only give her herbs.

She is particularly taken with my Fred Boutin lavender. I can't blame her, it is my favorite one too.

Dirty little baby hands. ahhhh.... I love watching my kids dig in the dirt, especially for the first few times when they are just discovering it. And maybe not so much when they are intent on moving my garden bed into their play area, one toy dumptruck at a time, like Saben last summer.

Happy Birthday Saben!!

Saben's Birth Story

Three years ago today....
I'm finally recording this somewhere permanent, I wrote an email to some friends about it and just now edited/added a few details. If you don't enjoy the details of childbirth, read no further.

On Thursday, March 24th, about a week before Saben was due (due date: April 1st) I stepped out of my car at World Vision where I worked and felt a little fluid leak. I went inside to clean up and then called the hospital. They said to wait a few hours to see what happened, so I just went to work like normal, but warned my boss who was then a nervous wreck. At noon I went out to lunch (olive garden) with my cousin who just happened to be in town from Wenatchee. She had been joking all along about me having the baby and when I told her what was going on, she insisted I go to the hospital. The hospital agreed when I called them, so off we went.

When I arrived, they had no idea why the fluid leaked, but my blood pressure was super high (about 140/90) and they said I had pre-eclampsia. (I had been retaining water like mad & had other signs as well) Did I mention at this point that my slacker husband was in complete denial and was still working? I didn't make him come in because my cousin was there with me, but he didn't even arrive until I had already been checked in & they'd started the pitocin to induce me! (6pm)

Kyle arrived and we sent my cousin (Amy) off to our house to get our stuff. The lame part was that I was so certain I would be late, I hadn't even packed my hospital bag. So she was running all over the house while Kyle & I described what to grab & where it was.

The hospital put me on magnesium to keep me from going into seizures from the pre-eclampsia and Kyle's family arrived to check on us right as I was feeling completely nauseous from it. The night passed uneventfully as far as I remember.

The next morning I talked to my friend Katie and found out she was in the hospital too! We had both gotten pregnant about a week apart and had been joking about talking on the phone while in labor. Sure enough.... We checked in late afternoon once we both had epidurals, but Katie beat me and actually got a different birthday for Leah since Saben was born just after midnight.

I didn't start feeling contractions till noon on Friday, the 25th. Through the night, they were there & frequent, but weren't powerful enough to do anything or to even hurt really. By 3pm I was hurting a lot and I think it was around 5pm that I was dilated to 4cm and begging for an epidural. But I was having these odd 2-3 minute contractions that would peak, go down, go up a little, then back down a bit, peak again... and after the long contraction I was only getting 30 second breaks before it would start again. The monitor looked more like large plateaus, rather than the peaks & valleys of a normal contraction.

I tried a few drugs first to see if that helped. It did, and I remember my water breaking as being one of the most phenomenal sensations I've ever experienced, but I'm pretty sure it was the drugs that made it so wonderful.

So off to epidural land. I really truly thought I was in love with the anesthegiologist lady, she was my favorite person in the entire world. At 7pm they told me I was already 8cm & would be pushing shortly...but turns out the resident who checked me didn't do such a great job (to put it mildly) and I was only 6cm when they checked again at 9pm.

At this point, Saben's heartrate was going down during the 5 minute long contractions I was having. My uterus was basically having super long contractions but never getting strong enough ones to actually get my cervix open. So they waited 2 hours and when I was still 6cm at 11pm they decided to do the cesarian. Oh, and I was running a fever, which they didn't like either.

So out he came!! I was half relieved & half completely freaked out. I think I shut down a lot mentally/emotionally at that point because it was just too overwhelming for my brain to comprehend what was going to happen. Being cut open while awake is pretty much my worst nightmare mentally. I actually tried to talk them into putting me under so I wouldn't be aware of the surgery.

Actually it wasn't that bad. I didn't even realize they had started and spent the whole time trying to figure out exactly what we had been doing one year prior. (lying on a beach in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt) Saben Luke Young was born at 12:30am, March 26th. I teared up when I heard his cries & then got to gaze at him while they sewed me back up. Part of me was still pretty freaked out that they were still tugging & playing with my guts though.

Saben got to ride in my bed with me back to our room and we tried to nurse for the first time. I'm still not quite sure what was going on, but I have never been so completely exhausted in my entire life. I actually was falling asleep while trying to nurse. Granted it 1:30am, but still....I blamed it on some drugs that perhaps the anesthegiologist gave me.

The first day was odd too, I think I was still in shock, it kept seeming like Saben was just some baby they had dropped off for me. It was only later that I learned that the Magnesium they give you can make you feel really strange like I felt. Luckily by the next day I suddenly was completely happy & excited - my emotions turned back on and I was in heaven.

Kyle was absolutely great through the whole thing, he blew me away with how fantastic he handled the whole thing.

We were in the hospital five days, four for me to heal & recover from the pre-eclampsia and then an extra day for Saben because he had lost too much weight. By the following Wednesday we were all home, safe & sound.

Wedding...

Movement

Annika has been going backwards for a few weeks. Last week she was sort of inch worming/lunging her way forward, sometimes on her hands & knees for a few inches. Then on Monday she finally really truly started crawling forward. She will go 3 feet now. Hurray!

On Tuesday a doctor finally cut my toe up. Yuck yuck yuck. I decided to just take some leftover oxycodene from my cesarian instead of going to Freddies to get Vicodin. I don't remember any side effects with it after my surgery, but man was I feeling it this morning. Dizzy, naseous waves mixed with high energy and little bursts of euphoria. It also made my toe virtually painless. But I think I'm done taking those for a while.

Hawaii

Day 1: Five hour plane ride with the kids & grandparents.

The plane ride was complete easy & uneventful! Getting our rental car in Hawaii was another story altogether, it took at least an hour (although my Dad might claim it was only 20 minutes) and the kids were getting pretty cranky by the time we left. (or was that me?)

We had gotten this book at the library about a bunch of kids who work together to build a sand castle and then smash it at the end of the book. Our first night on the beach, Saben estatically stomped every single lump of sand he could find.

After watching our first Honolulu sunset, we wandered back to our hotel and managed to find a giant shave ice along the way.

After the kids were in bed, Kyle & I went out for a night on the town...still trying to find me a swimsuit. I finally gave up my dreams of a tank-ini because apparently they only make those for women in their 50's. (nothing wrong with that, but I'm not 50) After much hesitation and some encouragement from Kyle, I bit the "who cares about my post baby flabby tummy" bullet and got a really cute bikini that I ended up loving.

Day Two: Annika joins the shriners.... (photo above)

Ha ha. We went to the beach in the morning, moved all our stuff to our new permanent hotel room and then had to leave for another couple hours so they could clean it. So we took a drive around the island. My main memories from the day are of the kids being really cranky & fussy. Fussy at the beach, then not taking the naps I'd hoped for in the car, then screaming by 7pm because it was 9pm at home and they were exhausted. But we also got to see some body boarders, a gorgeous beach (Lani Kai) and had some fun at the playground just trying to recoup & relax a little bit.
We finally got back to our nice new 3 bedroom condo and got to see this gorgeous view of the ocean:

Kyle & I went out again once the kids were in bed, but this time all we did was get groceries because we were exhausted. We bought $7 boxes of cereal for breakfast and a $7 gallon of milk, plus stuff for Saben's lunches.

Day 3: Aquarium, alone at last & Woodhouses

In the morning we walked to the aquarium with the kids while my parents went to see Pearl Harbor. We had a fun time & a nice walk back and finally started to feel more relaxed.

In the afternoon, my wonderful parents stayed with the napping kids while Kyle & I explored Chinatown and took in Foster Botanical Gardens. We bought a yummy smelling plumeria lei & exotic fruit in china town but passed on the frogs we saw being butchered. The garden was fun, but a letdown - I was hoping for lush tropical flowers everywhere and nothing was blooming. Plus it was mostly trees, which don't excite me much. But we had fun scampering around & reading about everything.
Once home, we headed to the beach and took a refreshing sunset swim with the kids. Wednesday night, the Woodhouses arrived! Funny coincidence, but a dear friend I studied with in Egypt just happened to be vacationing in Honolulu with her husband the exact same time as us. We met up, walked to the Moana Surfrider and caught up over cocktails & the waves crashing just a few feet away. Pure bliss.

Day 4: Hiking & Snorkeling

We drove a lot this day. First up to Hanauma Bay to drop off my parents for snorkeling, then back to Honolulu for a hike up to Moana Falls. I loved being out in the "jungle" and had more fun looking at the plants there than I had in the botanical garden. So many fun things growing everywhere. Then we reached the waterfall which was LAME. It was barely a trickle down a rock face and the government idiots had put this big cable barrier about 10 feet away from the pool with big signs all over the place saying not to cross it. Apparently there had been a rockslide seven years ago. But it made it so ugly, I wish I had known.

Then back out to get my parents, back to the hotel room, then we grabbed Kate & Jon and headed back out to Hanauma Bay, kid free. Aaaaaahhhhh.... Definitely one of the best parts of the trip, I love snorkeling. We stayed out for 1.5 hours and saw plenty of fish and two sea turtles. Kate found a nice beach mat someone had thoughtlessly thrown away.

My parents went out to dinner so Kyle & Jon went to find Thai food while I put the kids to bed. Very nice day. (no pictures from today because my parents took all these pictures. We brought our camera and then got lazy and did not take a single one the entire trip. Thanks Mom & Dad!)

Day 5: North Shore & STEAKS

Headed up north in the morning. Stopped in Haiema & tried our first bite from the famed Shrimp Trucks. Apparently the area is littered with shrimp farms and we got this delicious plate of 12 shrimp fried in tons of garlic for um...$8 I think? It was so delicious and I highly recommend sticking with Giovannis if you ever get up there. We had lunch some place else and it wasn't as good.... although I did get 4 gigantic prawns (4 prawns = 1 lb) that were very yummy even though I had to rip them apart myself.



Anyways, after our shrimp snack, we headed to a beach to watch surfers. We thought it was one of THE famous beaches, but we were wrong. The maps were confusing. But the surfing was still cool.


Saben built a shovel farm while the rest of us gawked at surfers. After lunch we finally found the Pipeline & Bonzai beach and watched even more amazing surfers.



We stopped to see some sea turtles that had crawled out on the beach & then headed to Matsumotos for shave ice. We shared one amongst the 3 of us and I loved it so much I made Kyle go get me another one while I nursed Annika.

(turtle just under my tricep)

The day went amazingly smoothly considering we had two kids getting in & out of the car & driving all day. Then just as we hit Honolulu - disaster. Traffic. Really really bad traffic. We were stuck 10 miles from our condo for an hour.

Finally home, Kyle and I at last got to go out to dinner on our own. We chose the d.k. steakhouse because I had read lots of good things about it. We ordered a prime 30 day dry aged 42 oz. porterhouse to share because Kyle doesn't like the marbling in my favorite cut - a rib eye. It was fantastic and actually wasn't super expensive if judged by Waikiki prices. A very good deal.

Day 6: Beach

We could not believe how fast our vacation went. Only 2 days left!! Off to the beach again with kids and again - much better/smoother than our first day.

Annika actually fell asleep this time, while I DRAGGED Saben out into the water. He had avoided it ever since the first day and it really seemed like he should at least get in a little bit. Luckily he loved playing in the sand, but he's definitely not a water guy.



This time we finally stayed at the condo while the kids napped. We met my parents for a sunset fire show at the Sheraton and then went to put the kids to sleep for the night. Then we went out to another fabulous dinner with the Woodhouses as the Hula Grill. Fun, fun, fun.



Day 7: Last day



We woke up late and decided to go get Malasadas at Leonards. These things are to die for, seriously one of my favorite "fried sweet doughy" things of all time. They are just barely like filled donuts, except warmer, yummier & with better fillings. Then it was off to climb Diamond Head.



It was hot, hot, hot, but amazingly, Saben climbed 95% of the thing, all by himself. We were shocked to say the least. It's .7 miles to the top, which isn't a ton, but its steady uphill all the way with more than 100 stairs at the end.



So the whole time we were in Oahu, this kept happening to us:



Japanese girls were in love with our kids. They would gather, giggle, shriek, point and go "oooooooh!". Then they would want pictures with the kids. It was really really funny. but the strange part is about 50% of the them ignored us completely. 40% noticed and smiled, but the 10% groups of really hip Japanese girls just went wild for our funky son.



In the afternoon we met Jon & Kate at the beach and jumped around in the waves for another 1.5 hour swim without the kids. It was really fun even though I bashed my knee on some coral. The BEST part was this couple who were surfing and doing what sort of looked like ice-skating moves on the surf board. He would have her way up in the air balanced on his hand with her legs pointed at the sky. It was incredible and also made us giggle.


We had a picnic at the beach to watch our last sunset that evening.

And finally, on our last night, right before we said goodbye, we finally got a picture of the elusive woodhouses. Who apparently are midgets. I forgot to mention that.


Day 8: Did some quick shopping, then rushed to the airport only to find out our flight was 3 hours late. Lame. Got home at 4am.

Books on CD

If you saw this at the library would you be able to resist it? Me neither.