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...

Crazy Week

Tried a couple of times yesterday to post this so it would be "on time" for Sunday, but my phone wasn't cooperating. I go the title to save but nothing else....wouldn't let me type.


It was kind of a crazy week, starting with a major fender bender for me. This is what my Honda looked like after the crash and this is what their Volvo looked like. Both are 2001 vehicles...

Wednesday my aunt Verena dropped into town unexpectedly. She called me and we decided to meet for lunch. Then we shopped for a bit and spent most of Thursday together also. It was nice to hang out and have girl time...I even introduced her to Magdalena's Creperie in Fairhaven. Yummy!

Friday was my hubby's birthday and the plan was to spend it with some friends at the Silver Reef Casino, having a nice dinner. If you've never eaten at the Steakhouse there it is worth the trip. Yummy!

So in preparation Grace & I headed into town to get our hair done. A trim & some cute curls for Grace and a color, cut & style for Mom. Felt so much better afterward. Then we stopped in at a cute Cupcake place downtown to check it out. Grace had a Red Velvet and I tried a Vanilla Coconut cupcake. Very nice. Next up was the YMCA for some volleyball and then off to home to get packed up for our night out. We had a great fancy dinner, steaks, prawns, lobster all around and lots of good wine & desserts to go along with that. Then some of us headed to bed while others decided to give Lady Luck a spin. I had tried my hand at Craps once before, with the help of a friend. This time my buddies Beka & her hubby Simon helped out. After about an hour I had tripled my money and decided to call it a night. What a fun way to finance our new stroller. LOL

Saturday was spent recuperating after a late night. We had a nice breakfast at Diamond Jim's and even ran into a friend from volleyball who has recently moved out of town. Naps were in order all around. Sunday we watched Football and lazed around a bit more...all in all a successful week.

Today I am...

Today I’m going to finish watching the “FRINGE” disk I have at home, so I can return it to Blockbuster.

Today I am going to enjoy the freshly purged and cleaned bedroom I spent several hours on last night.

Today I am going to do at least 2 loads of laundry. I’m really behind, and I hate folding it.

Today I am going to head to Lynden for a visit to the Second Chance Thrift Store.

Today I am excited that my back does not hurt at night, because I spent part of the day off my feet.

Today I am going to look forward to date night with my husband.

Today I’m going to eat Thai leftovers for lunch, yum.

Today I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a photographer, a scrapbooker, and a completer of things on my list.

How will you complete the phrase “Today I am…”?

No Witty Title - 2011 Blog Post Week #2

Looks like Sunday snuck up on us again...wow. After a dismal football game, (The Seahawks lost!), I finally got some time in my office. Again, editing photos, sorting through online orders, catching up with Grey's Anatomy episodes...and so on, and so on...

So here I am am. This is what happened this week:

More swimming lessons for Grace. She finally put her head under water as the instructor has been telling her for several weeks.

I finally used my YUDU screenprinting machine for the first time. I don't quite know how I feel about it yet. It seems pretty cool, but my mind has major issues wrapping itself around the whole 5 step (or more) process. The shirts did turn our kind 'a cool for my first attempt.

I had a check-up with my midwife and and ultrasound to determine if we are on schedule. So far everything looks great and I feel fine. This is baby LaVergne at approx. 20 weeks.

New Year - New Blogging Habits!

Maybe....

I have thought long and hard about abandoning this blog, but have decided to give it one of last ditch effort. Since there is no way on earth I will ever achieve blogger fame-dom like some of my friends (we won't mention any names here - Mrs. Jacob) who update theirs on a daily basis, I have come to the conclusion that I will only attempt to update once a week. That means 52 posts a year. I should be able to do that...right?

Well here is post number one and it is already a day late (I cheated and back dated the post!) ;P. what a way to start. But I thought better late than to scrap the whole concept right from the get go. I did manage to spend a bit of time tonight to download some pictures from back in November to now...that kind of got me inspired and fired up to write this post.

Here are some highlights of the past week and of course some photos to go along with those, (BTW - when I post photos on this blog I usually don't edit them at all! Just in case you were wondering why the quality is so crummy.):

In order from top to bottom:

1) Seattle City Skyline view from our hotel room for New Years

2) Grace, Adam, Brandon & Lucas waiting on hot, fresh donuts at Pike Place Market

3) Swim Lesson #2

4) The turquoise egg tray that I had fallen in lvoe with at Anthropology in Las Vegas and kicked myself for not buying, which I then found in Seattle. Yeah!

5) "Beast Mode" Marchand Lynch running for an incredible touchdown in the wildcard playoff match that Seattle won today. What a game, it was incredible to watch...