Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love Shutterfly's award-winning photo books. Try it today.

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge / Yellow

I got my courage up and decided to enter this month's "Yellow" challenge on the I Heart Faces website. See the entries here: Yellow Photo Challenge

Here is the picture I am submitting:

Joy

“This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge – http://iheartfaces.com/”

Little Swimmer & Daredevil

Here is the videos I promised:

Starting our last week here in Hawaii...

...and making the second trip to drop some people off at the airport for their flights home. Weather wise this past week has been an adventure in itself. Rain showers, Thunderstorms, Flash Floods, all have been making things interesting and a bit soggy...

At the beginning of this week we picked up Adam's friend Brandon. We took Brandon for a late breakfast at Eggberts Restaurant. Gracie had the famous banana pancakes, which were phenomenal. Adam & Auntie Michelle arrived the next day. The boys were off to have fun together and us girls decided to go get pedicures together.

Martin & I had our first couple's night out together at the famed "Beach House" which supposedly has the best sunset view on the island. The food was pretty good too, and funnily the waiter we had was from Seattle originally.

We explored many new beaches, the boys hoping to find some amazing boogie boarding and the girls looking for beautiful sand and easy swimming.

The boys wanted to go hiking and since I really wanted to see a waterfall I decided to tag along. Grace also wanted to come. We headed out fairly early to hit the famed "Kalalau Trail". The day seemed perfect for a hike and we set out on the 8 mile round trip. About 3/4 mile into it the heavens opened up and it started down pouring. The trail turned to mud and we plodded on. Numerous people passed us on their way downhill with advice to turn back. We kept going to the 2 mile mark and then decided the trail got too steep to continue to the waterfall part of the trail. Both Adam & Brandon ran up ahead and made it all the way to the 4 mile mark at the waterfall. We stopped at the beach and by the time we were 3/4 of the way back the two boys overtook us and beat us back to the beach where Michelle was waiting for us.

One of our last days was spent going back to probably our favorite, Secret Beach. Gracie had so much fun there this time. Our first trip there the surf was very rough and the waves were high. When we tried to find the famed lava pools described in our handy dandy guide book "The Ultimate Guide to Kauai" we struck out. This time surf was way down and lo and behold there was the most awesome pools just around the corner. This is where our little daredevil spent the day frolicking in the water...(video to follow!)

Checking in from Kauai, Hawaii!

Since we are on vacation right now I would love to post some awesome photos of our trip. Unfortunately we just discovered that my dear husband omitted to pack the cord to download the photos from my camera. So for now I will post a few from my point & shoot...you may already have seen these on Facebook.

We've done trips to numerous beaches, including Secret Beach, Tunnels Beach, Poipu & Lydgate Park, Shipwreck Beach and some I am sure I don't remember the names to. A few days of rain didn't keep us from exploring the island from North to South end. We saw a water spewing blowhole, affectionately known as "Spouting Horn". We've driven up to the famous Waimea Canyon, only to see not much of anything....It was waaaay too foggy and rainy but still worth it. In between we managed to squeeze in the local farmer's market to buy some exotic and tasty local fruits, a competitive round of mini-golf at the fantastic Kauai Mini Golf course, three shopping trips to Costco, two to Wal-Mart and numerous trips to Safeway, (which is luckily just across the street!)

Wednesday we swap people in our condo. My sister Lyne & her boyfriend Brian will be heading home and Adam with his friend Brandon will be taking their spots. My sister-in-law Michelle is also joining us for a week. Nothing like a full condo/car every day....

Heading out to Hawaii

Sunday we are going to leave for Kauai for a much deserved family vacation. So I thought I would get a head start on my blog post for this week. I've been stressing about packing, getting everything done last minute and not forgetting a thing...I think I've hit the point where I realized something's gotta give...not sure what it'll be yet...

Sunday Morning last week we met Verena & Chris at the Rusty Wagon for breakfast. This is Gracie's favorite food there, the kids pancake face...

On Tuesday I headed into Lynden to shop at the Second Chance Thrift store. I ran into Julie & Alissa, who are usually there on Tuesday mornings as well...I even found some smoking deals. It just happened to be Hawaiian theme and very appropriate for us. I snatched up a rash guard for Grace that I had been putting off buying since they run over $25 on the Internet.

Thursday Grace had her final swim lesson for the Eel program at the Bellingham YMCA. At first I wasn't sure if she would complete the program but about 3 to 4 lessons into it she got the hang of things. She is now way more confident in the water and I feel better about her swimming in Hawaii. For their last lesson they played a lot of games and even got to sit in the kayak and ride around the big pool.

Gracie & I spent some time on Friday making valentine's for her classmates & teacher since we won't be there for the party they will be having in Kindergarten. So we punched, glued, wrote, and taped them together. I think they turned out pretty cute. Hope they will like them as well...

Now it's time to start packing for Hawaii...no time to get excited yet. My to do list is waaaaay too long...

One More Week To Go...

till we leave for beautiful, sunny, sandy beaches in Hawaii. Yeah! I hope to keep blogging from there, but don't hate me if I slack off a bit...

Well, since the accident last week I've been driving our truck. Hate that thing, it's a pain to park, a pain to get into, guzzles gas like camel in the desert and I hate loading groceries and Grace in it.

On Tuesday we had appointments at the Dentist for our whole family. We are happy to report that there were no cavities for any of us....Wow! Grace had a blast, I think she especially loved wearing the cool sunglasses.

I have been trying to eat more of these...on the advice of my *due any day now* hairdresser Glenda. She ate them to stop these pesky leg cramps that most pregnant women suffer from during the second half of their pregnancy. I love the way they look, smell and I am a humongous fan of banana bread, especially with chocolate chips in it. However, I despise bananas. The texture makes me want to gag, they coat your teeth with this yucky stuff and it just feels gross. Does anyone have any other suggestions for leg cramps, anything but eating raw bananas??? Please???

The other morning I woke up and sitting at the breakfast table looked up and saw this out of our window. I quickly grabbed my camera and shot off a few pic's. What a gorgeous view...

On Friday I had a helper during my quick stop at the local grocery store. She offered to write out my shopping list all by herself and then even read it back to my in the store. She is getting so good at all this. It's scary how fast she is absorbing how to read and put letter sounds together to form new words. Tonight when I put her to bed she read almost a whole chapter of one of her Backyardigan story books all by herself.

On Saturday Martin took Gracie with him on some jobs and to pick up some gifts for a birthday party she was invited to. That left me most of the day to putz around my scrapbook studio cleaning up and toward late afternoon even putting together some pages. It felt so good to be creating something for me again. Over the last few months I've just been working on Christmas gifts and cards and I felt very drained, creatively. I cleaned off my desk and got to work. Hopefully this will allow me to work on my Project 365 while I am in Hawaii...