This & That



Our school carnival is this coming weekend. We volunteered to make balloon animals during part of the carnival. The kids are also planning to sell balloon animals at our garage sale the following weekend, so we've been practicing. We can easily make a dog, cat, giraffe, bunny, sword, snail, and swan. We are still working on the cool dinosaur hat Danielle is wearing and a snake, which is more than just an inflated balloon! I can also make a monkey and a parrot, but I'm not very fast at it yet, so we might have to omit those from the choice list!

Ron had to go out of town for work this week and left today. I hate it when he leaves on a weekend day! It's depressing. So we went to visit my Mom for a few hours.

"Yes, Tyler, you can climb the ladder to get the frisbee, but you can't climb on the roof."

"Ok, Mom!" tee hee hee


There were 4 red admiral butterflies that were enjoying the sunshine on the deck with us this afternoon. They seemed to like my mom's yellow shirt. They liked Danielle, too. She was even able to move them from her shirt onto her finger.

Good Things

Danielle had a good day today.

She's been wanting to get her hair cut short(er). We did that tonight after dinner. It looks really cute. That was a good thing.

She earned the citizenship award in her class for the month of April. That's actually kind of funny considering she was only at school 9 days this month and the award nominations probably had to be in two or three days ago! Still, getting citizenship is fun because they get out of class to have a special treat, and they get a little certificate. That was a pretty good thing.

Each year at school, the kids in grades 1-4 have to memorize a poem and then recite it in class as part of their Language Arts grade. They are graded on several different criteria, and the required length of the poem varies by grade. That part is required. IF the student wants to, he can then choose to recite his poem in front of all the kids in his grade. Grade winners are selected and then they present their poem in front of the whole school. Danielle is one of the 2nd grade winners! She will recite her poem in front of the WHOLE school Wednesday morning. She is SO excited about winning! That was a really good thing!

When Danielle was younger, she was really shy. The first year she played tball she was a nervous wreck at each game because everyone watched her when she was up to bat! Getting up in front of people by herself is still really difficult for her. She really wanted to enter this contest, but she was so scared of getting up in front of everyone. After agonizing about it I told her we would be happy with whatever she decided to do. And then we had a little heart to heart about taking chances:

1. There will be lots of things you will want to do throughout your life, but many of those things will require taking chances.
2. Sometimes it's scary to take chances.
3. If you never have the courage to try, you will miss out on some really great life experiences.
4. Sometimes you just have to accept that you're going to be scared and jump in anyway.

A really awesome trait of Danielle's is that when she has a "teachable moment" she honestly tries to listen and apply what she's learned. The next day she decided she was definitely going to enter the contest, and that was the end of it. She practiced it for us every time we would listen and sometimes when we wouldn't. This time the chance paid off. And that is a really, really good thing!

I am so proud of her for being brave enough to actually try!!

The Na Pali Coast

While we were in Kauai we took a "sightseeing & sunset cruise" along the Na Pali coastline with Holo Holo Charters. We were really hoping to see some whales, but we had decided that even if we didn't, the scenery would be worth the trip. It really was.

Unfortunately most of the whales had already headed out of the area on their way back north, so we weren't lucky enough to see any. We did get lucky enough to pass through a pod of spinner dolphin, though, and got to enjoy watching them jump through the waves.

Ah, the waves. They were really rough. Really. Looking back at my pictures they don't look that bad but they really were!! The kids and I have a tendency to get motion sick, but I came prepared. I even had prescription strength anti-nausea medicine for the kids. The first part of our cruise involved heading way up the coast as fast as possible so we could spend the majority of our time sightseeing as we meandered back. The waves were big and we were going fast. We hit those waves so hard that we flew into the air time after time. We were actually a little concerned about losing Danielle over the back, so Ron kept his arm draped around her! The medicine worked and we had a lot of fun...at first. There were several other people who did not fare as well, and they were handed buckets. One lost his lunch before we made it to our turn around (& slow down) point.

Once we got to the start of the Na Pali coastline and turned back south, our captain slowed the boat to a crawl so he could narrate and we could take pictures. The slow bouncing up and down is what did me in. I had planned to take lots of pictures with my nice camera, but I could barely move for fear of joining the bucket brigade. Instead I snapped most of these pictures with my little point & shoot waterproof camera (which was covered with salt by this point!). Although the pictures are beautiful, they really don't do justice to the grandeur of seeing the cliffs in person. This was Ron's favorite part of our vacation.

Here is a little background information about the Na Pali coast from a National Geographic article: The Nā Pali Coast is the scarred shoulder of an ancient shield volcano that once rose more than five miles from seafloor to summit... As tectonic forces moved the island off the hot spot, its volcanic fires cooled and water, Earth's elemental sculptor, took over. Rain—nearly a hundred inches a year in parts of Nā Pali—carved out the deep valleys from above and draped white-plumed waterfalls over the precipices. Giant winter waves exploded against the basalt cliffs as sea level rose and fell, gouging steep, unstable slopes. The result: a series of plunging valleys, fluted walls, and razor-sharp ridges soaring thousands of feet from the Pacific....Nā Pali has come to represent paradise on Earth.

It really was absolutely beautiful, I just couldn't move too much to take in the sights! We went by several spots made famous in movies such as Jurassic Park, South Pacific, 6 Days 7 Nights, Pirates of the Caribbean, King Kong, etc. After awhile we had dinner. Well, those whose stomachs had settled down had dinner. After dinner and a little more sightseeing, we picked up speed to get closer to port before the sunset. That was a rough ride, too. Another adult lost her dinner and the kids and I were feeling rather lousy. By the time the sun set, the 3 of us were holding blue buckets, too. Thankfully none of us actually had to use them! I did manage to turn my camera around long enough to snap a picture of the sunset. By that time, though, I was just thinking about solid ground!

The crew on our trip was wonderful!! They were funny and attentive and overly helpful to the kids. If I thought I could handle the waves, I wouldn't hesitate to take a trip with this outfitter again. Even with the motion sickness, I'm really glad we went. The amazing landscape was worth the discomfort (once). Even the kids agreed.

Here are some pictures from our trip along the Na Pali coast.

Spinner dolphin following the boat.

For perspective, the captain told us that dune in the middle of the picture is 100' tall!

Some Kid Pics

Between the 4 of us, we took 5 cameras on vacation. Tyler had lofty intentions of taking pictures to post in an online journal for his class to follow, but he ended up not having enough time to update it more than twice. Danielle just likes to take pictures. Occasionally Ron and I had dueling cameras, but mostly he just used one as a backup. That came in handy when I was too motion sick to snap more than a couple pictures on the boat trip! The 5th camera was an underwater one.

When I downloaded everyone's pictures at the end of the day, I really enjoyed looking at the ones the kids took. They see things from a different perspective, and sometimes they were inspired by something that I had missed.

Here are some of my favorites from Tyler. The first two are from the airplane. They're snow covered mountains in California. The second two are from our trip to Waimea Canyon.

Here are some of my favorites from Danielle. The first one is of Shipwreck Beach in front of our hotel. There is actually a crab on one of the rocks. (She got a closer picture after this one.) The other 3 pictures are from our trip to Waimea Canyon. I especially like the one of Tyler!

Taking a Break

Vacation Videos

We are back from vacation and trying to get caught up on our sleep and the laundry. I have lots of pictures to go through, but here are a couple videos to hold you over. I'm not sure why the quality of the videos looks so poor.

One More

As I was getting the cameras ready for our trip, I discovered we hadn't downloaded Danielle's pictures from the farm yet. I LOVE this one. Cracks me up, partially because I remember how excited she was about it when she took it!

Hopefully we'll have lots more pictures to share soon. :) Aloha!

More Farm Pictures

Here are the rest of my pictures from the farm.

After our afternoon at the farm we stopped by the wetlands. Parts of the wetland were indeed wet! The kids and Grandpa had fun hunting for frogs. Probably against our better judgement, Grandpa and I let them walk around the bank of a very muddy area in search of frogs. The little frogs squeaked and hopped away as the kids got near. Grandpa and I had just decided that if either of the kids fell in the water, it was shallow enough we would let them find their own way out, when Tyler got his shoe stuck in the mud! Somehow he hopped out of it but couldn't make his way back to get it out of the mud. Danielle came to his rescue but lost her shoe in the process, too! Eventually all the shoes were collected and the kids made it back to solid ground, although quite a bit muddier than when they started.

There were tons of bluegill in one of the ponds at the wetland. I've never seen so many just hanging out at the surface, all staring at us!! This is just a small "sampling" of the bluegill out there.

Spring Break

We went ice skating this morning. Tyler's best friend came with us. We had a nice time. I think Danielle would like to take ice skating lessons at some point. Maybe this fall between softball and basketball?! We have gone enough times that we have a pretty good routine down now. The kids wear one pair of their own socks and two pairs of mine. I wear two pairs, too. It's not so bad carrying all the clean socks in, but it's kind of gross carrying all the dirty ones out. Somehow that's always my job.

We enjoyed lunch out afterward and then went back to Tyler's friend's house. She is breeding rabbits for 4H. Her rabbit just had her first liter 4 days ago and she let us hold them. They were silky soft. The kids have been asking for a rabbit for a few months now. This did not help. I think the baby just peed on Danielle in this picture. I really do make my son shower & wash his hands periodically. I don't know why his nails always look so grimy!

This afternoon we noticed Danielle's hermit crab finally changed shells. We bought these when we got back from vacation in early August. The kids lost interest in them in late August. I stopped feeding them around December and stopped watering them sometime in January. And instead of dying, the stubborn thing molted. These things are almost as stubborn as the carnival goldfish Danielle won one year. Those things would not die no matter how much I purposefully ignored them! Thankfully the crabs don't take up much room and don't require a tank cleaning. (Well, they probably do, but I'm not going to do it.)

Happy Easter!

We went to Easter service last night and colored Easter eggs afterward. I didn't get a picture of Danielle in her Easter dress (a hand-me-down from her cousin), but I got a picture of her Easter nails. (They are supposed to be chicks in eggs.)

The kids enjoyed their baskets, gifts, and egg hunt this morning. In addition to too much candy, they got "practical" items like new snorkel masks and word search books for the 10 hour plane trip. (There's nothing practical about Lego minifigs. They're just cool!)

Before heading to Mamaw & Papaw's house for our annual Easter egg hunt, we stopped by the gas station to put more air in one of my tires which was low. Apparently the leak was in the valve stem, which completely broke off when Ron attempted to fill it. It went flat in a matter of seconds. So the kids and I sat in the gas station parking lot and applauded Ron's successful attempt at changing a flat. Once we got the spare on, we drove home to switch cars and then made it to Dad and Patty's about an hour late.

Once again we had a wonderful afternoon. The kids enjoyed playing together outside in the sunshine. They enjoyed the egg hunt and all the fun prizes, too. The kids all looked so old today. Although things didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have planned, it ended up being a really good day. Happy Easter!