Yesterday was the first time I took all FOUR kids to the beach by myself. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was about 4:45pm... Chris was working and I knew he wouldn't be home until 7-8pm... I didn't want to sit around the house and wait for him to get home. The kids were watching cartoons and I was BORED. The weather was BEAUTIFUL!!!  Sunny sky and the heat and came down a little bit so it was perfect to sit on the beach and not die of heat stroke.

The hardest part is all the gear that we need to take.... mini-playpen and snacks for Lucy. (If I don't put Lucy in the Playpen she will speed crawl/walk into the water if I don't keep her contained... PLUS I need to have my eyes on the OTHER three kids in the water, so the playpen works the best!)
The older kids brought boogie boards, a few sand toys, towels, tubes... plus my chair and snacks for everyone. Whew. I brought my BIKE CART and used that to haul everything onto the off of the beach... It worked perfectly.


The kids on their Boogie Boards.
(Vangie Floating)

  I realized this morning that yet another week has gone by with me not updating the website. I know if I let it go any longer I will begin to receive hate emails from all of you wanting to see pics of the kids! Well, first Here is Chris and I , working out together in the Garage. I think my hubby is super-extra-hot!  Aren't I the luckiest woman in the world to be married to not only the HOTTEST man I know, but the smartest too?


Here is Me on the computer... Lucy LOVES to pound on the computer keys. This was driving me cray until I thought to give her her OWN computer!  (actually this is Sophia's computer, but she was sharing.)


Above is Vangie holding her baby sister. I love comparing thier eye colors.... Vangie's are SOOO blue and Lucy's are SOOOO dark!
Sophia and I out running errands one day. I lov e spending time with her, she is my little side-kick.

I find this picture with Lucy wearing her "cat ears" SOOOOO cute. She is such a smiley baby!  The pic below was from this morning- Lucy enjoying her waffles.


Above: Joey's self portrait. He likes to take his own pic. I think he gets this from me! Ha ha ha.

Chris was gone all week for his "Engineer Interview" in Washington D.C. He let on Monday and flew back on Friday afternoon.  He passed his interview (yeah!) I KNEW that we would, but it can be a stressful situation for the guys who actually have to DO the interviews, so I am glad that he is done and has that behind him.

The kids and I stayed busy when him gone! We filled our time doing things that Chris would NOT be happy about. First Joey helped me rearrange all the furniture! We moved a large leather recliner UPSTAIRS (thank goodness for my trusty Dolly and my 8 year old who helped me push the thing up the stairs!) We moved bookcases, file cabinets and basically made out front room into the "School Room". This is where the kids will put all their school stuff and do their homework once school starts.  Every once in a while I feel like I MUST rearrange furniture... and Chris hates this for some reason.

Another thing we did was PAINT!!!! I LOVE to piant. I love picking out the color and the dramatic effect it has on the look of the house.  Since this is military housing, everything must be painted back when we move so I only painted a few walls.... but enough for it to look really good. I painted two walls in the front room a nice shade of yellow. - The kitchen also got painted yellow.... and the new yellow shade really make my red accents POP! (My coffee pot is red, the toaster is red.. ) 

I also painted a wall in the living room a nice shade of green. The wall was REALLY high! I had to get ou Chris's "little giant" ladder and have Joey hold the bottom of it so I could reach to the top.
I am super high up in this picture... my feet are actually level with the top of the door!)


Chris was coming home Friday. I painted a little bit Wednesday and then most of the day Thursday. Friday it was time to clean the house! So I put the kids to work...


Here they are mopping the floor. I think it is soooo important for kids to learn how to clean properly! My kids know how to do A LOT around the house. The floor was something new and they were excited to do it.  

I also let Lucy eat as mseey as she wanted to - here she is exploring rice and how much fun it is to squish it around in her fingers, face and hair. (this was of course BEFORE we mopped the floor!)


Chris got back Friday and was surprized by the yellow walls! I could tell that he thought that the color wasn't something that HE would have picked out... but that is why I did it when he was gone. I knew that we would NEVER agree on a color.

A few months ago Chris took Sophia and Evangeline to a "daddy-daughter" dance. I forgot all about the asking to see the picture that they took while they were there. I JUST found it on the computer and it is SOOOOO stinking cute!

Yesterday Lucy turned 10 months! She celebrated by taking 12 steps in a row - She is walking more and more and stands up on her own in the middle of the floor all the time... but crawling is still her preferred method of transportation because she is the Fastest. Crawler. Ever.    To celebrate her 10 month birthday I slapped a bow on her head and did a mini- photo shoot.

The other day Lucy was digging wayyyy down deep into her toybox. And she got stuck! Too far in to get out ... perched precariously on her budda belly, big ole' baby but in the air. Before I rescued her from certain doom I ran to get my camera....

This past weekend was the 4th of July! This is the first summer our kids have not spent the 4th at Perkins Pond. It would be just too hard to fly back right now. We were sad to not be camping, but we made the best of spending our 4th together as a family here in Hawaii.

I have wanted for us to do a "Shark Cage" tour for a while... so I booked it and we did it on Monday morning! What is a "Shark Cage" tour?? Well, you ride a boat a couple miles out to sea, and then you get into a cage in the water while about 7-10 sharks swim around you. It was awesome!!


Our shark tour guide explained to us how for the last 40 years fisherman fished for crabs in the waters where we were.  They would often throw fish guts and crabs overboard... so the sharks soon came to associate the sound of a diesel engine (which our shark tour boat had) with food!! So when they here the engine they come swimming around.

There were a couple different kids of sharks that we saw.... I can't remember their technical name, but one type was big-- about 5-6 feet in length and a fast swimmer. And the other type was BIGGER (10-12 ft in length) and  a slower swimmer!

We left out house for the Haliewa town on the North Shore at 6:30am- bright and early! I made sure everyone took Dramamine for motion sickness. The tour guide told me on the phone the boat would be swaying back and forth and motion sickness is common.... uugghh. I totally get motion sickness so I made SURE to take my Dramamine- and it DID help, I only got kind of queasy.

Sophia was terrified the whole time- she thought that the boat was going to tip over! There were about 12 sharks swimming VERY, VERY close to the boat.... so a tipping over or sinking would have been pretty disastrous!  Sophia pretty much sat in the middle of the boat the whole time- she didn't walk around or venture to look over the side. At first I thought she was sea-sick... but she was just scared.


Here are Joey and Vangie looking overboard- at all the sharks swimming around, it was pretty amazing!


This was our view from the boat:


Soon it was time to get into the SHARK CAGE... first we put our Snorkels on. I went with Joey into the cage while Chris held Lucy.  Joey and I got ready...
Then we got into the CAGE!!!!




Joey said this was the "COOLEST thing EVER!" It was so much fun to see how excited and happy he was.... he was not scared AT ALL. He probably would have stayed in the cage all day if he could have.

Next Chris and Sophia were up:



Sophia was soooo nervous. We told her that she could get out of the cage whenever she wanted too.


She lasted about 5 min in the water and then she wanted out. I was so proud of her for trying!

I wonder if baby Lucy knew what was going on? I think she enjoyed the boat ride and the fresh air!



Our Shark tour lasted about 2 hours- we got to spend about 15 min in the shark tank. It was an experience we will never forget- and I highly recommend it to anyone who is on Oahu!  Once we got home the kids and Chris fell into a Dramamine induced coma! Joey woke up 4 hours later and slept so hard he thought it was the next morning! He even poured cereal like it was breakfast time. Then he asked me why I woke him up so early... I told him it wasn't 5  AM.... It was 5 PM!!!  Silly Joey!

Later that evening we drove to Hickam Airforce base and watched a beautiful fireworks display. The perfect ending to the perfect day!

Yesterday was a huge day. My sister Diana and her husband Trent welcomed their first baby into the world at 9:01 pm (Michigan time). Trent Charles Jr. weighed 8lbs 12oz and is beautiful!


I am so excited for Trent and Diana to begin their Parenting Journey!

While I was waiting all day for updates from my Sister Krysti, who was at the hospital with Diana- Lucy decided to make the day even MORE memorable by taking her very first steps!!!


To see a video of Lucy in Action- so to the VIDEOS page.

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