Tuesday, June 20, 2017

First Father's Day

Doug counts his first Father's day as last year when baby August was still in the belly, but this one was "extra real" :)
We celebrated by taking August to the zoo for the first time.
butterflies in the butterfly house
peacock on the loose!
water fountain outside the penguinarium.
August probably won't remember, but Doug and I had fun. They have a new penguinarium which was great, the polar bears were play fighting in the tunnel right above our heads, there was a younger chimp that was running around slapping the other chimps butts and running away and doing cartwheels, it was really fun to see, normally they're just sitting on logs!
I also remember the last time being at the zoo with Doug, and I was in the midst of trying to get pregnant and it not happening and just seeing all the pregnant women and children everywhere. I remember tearing up and Doug holding me and saying it would happen for us. And it did. So it was neat to be back in the same spot, and a totally different spot in life. I'm so thankful for the privilege of being a mother.
We went out for mediterranean dinner and got a redbox (The Space Between Us- meh).
August went all out and used mommy's credit cash back to buy daddy a new grill :)
The next day was Sunday and we went to church, then met Doug's parents for lunch. And went over to their house for a bit. At one point someone was talking and Doug tells me "Anne, get up and go outside now." I was confused, and he said there was a bat up on the ceiling! So August and I went to another room while he and his parents corralled the bat and ended up removing it. Our hero!
In the evening my parents came over, we went out for dinner, and they came back to look at our Hawaii pics.
Doug and I are so lucky to both have such wonderful fathers, and my August and I are so lucky and blessed to have Doug in our lives! I love seeing Doug grow in his role as August's daddy and am so proud of him.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

sewn gifts

A couple things I've made lately.
Inspired by this on pinterest:
I made a quilt for our friend Fran who is expecting a little boy. I thought I was going to have to miss her shower, so I wanted to make her something really special. It turns out I get to go anyway. So bonus for Fran!
One nice thing was I had a lot of blue fabrics from another quilt project I did a couple years ago, so I didn't buy more than $16 of supplies.
I didn't have a pattern, I just kinda cut up triangles, sewed them together, then laid out my pattern so it wouldn't be too much of the same color in one spot, and kept sewing
Many hours later it was all sewn and ready for the edging
little mistakes like this always seem to happen :(, but a cute neutral gray soft backing.
all done!
Somehow I didn't notice until the end that her color gradating was from top to bottom and mine is from side to side. So I actually like hers better. And hers is a little bigger. But oh well, lesson learned, and just a cute little blanket to throw down and let baby play. August was proud of me.
One more thing I made was a sweet little baby bonnet from a pattern I found online for our friends from our Apologetics class having their first baby.
Once again using mostly scrap fabric from old pillowcases I used back in massage school. I worked on it over a couple bedtimes so I don't know how long it took exactly, not too long. It was the 0-3 month size so August's head is way too big to test it out. Hopefully they will have a cat-sized headed baby girl :) September approved!

Monday, June 12, 2017

Hawaii - part 4

The next day we went to Hanauma bay which is a nature preserve. The water is super clear and it's one of the best places on the island for snorkeling. I mainly stayed in the shade with August while Doug snorkeled and swam with turtles. I did take a turn later, I'm not a huge fan of the ocean, or fish touching me, or being underwater so it worked out well.
After that we went to hike Diamond Head Crater. It was a 45 min hike up and part through a tunnel and up a big flight of stairs. The view was so rewarding!
view down to Waikiki and Honolulu
Then we went down to the famous Waikiki beach to watch the sunset. (we saw not 1, not 2, but 3 brides getting pictures taken!)
The next morning we quickly packed up, check out was 10am but the house cleaner showed up at 9:30, rrr, she was super nice and just waited outside but we felt kinda rushed. We didn't fly out till the evening so we had a whole day to spend.
We drove up to the North Shore to watch surfers and get lunch and just see a bit more of Hawaii.
We had this amazing lunch at this vegetarian place, The Beet Box, I had some burrito with curry veggies, SO good
And we went to the Dole Plantation. This place was started by some guy, someone Dole I forget his name in his early 20s who moved here from Boston, bought land, and just started farming pineapples and eventually was the biggest pineapple exporter at the time. Wow, in my 20s I was in and out of school and really not doing a whole lot with my life! Anyway, it was a cool tour and we got to experience August's first train ride and taste delicious Dole whip a kind of pineapple sherbet. Mmmm
colorful bark of a Eucalyptus tree
We spent the rest of the day driving around the other side of Oahu and eventually made our way to the airport
We flew through the night back home, August slept the whole time, Doug and I slept as well as you can on an airplane, and we got home safe and sound. I'm happy we were able to go to Hawaii again, and I'm happy we took August!

Monday, June 5, 2017

Hawaii- part 3

We flew over to Oahu in the evening. We had never been to that island before and really wanted to check out the memorials and just see another island. Oahu definitely had a different feel than the other islands. We felt the other islands had a welcoming, beachy, 'aloha' feel, but this island did not. It felt like a regular big city, and even as we walked the downtown area after dark, we both had a feeling like "are we in a third world country??".
Our condo was not really as advertised on flipkey. In Maui our condo greeted us with a fresh pineapple and loaf of banana bread, this one was in desperate need of updating, but also had signs everywhere telling us not to sit on anything and to be careful with their old garage-sale furniture. It was not very welcoming at all, and put us in a sour mood, but we did have an oceanfront balcony and the view was beautiful.
The next morning we went to the USS Arizona memorial. We had a bit of a mishap as our GPS guided us on the bridge to the area and we were stopped by a soldier guard who said civilians weren't allowed to cross and we had to go to the visitor's center. It wasn't a problem, we just had a laugh, but we were surprised the tickets hadn't mentioned anything about where to go!
We arrived to the visitor's center, there was a really well made video about the events of Pearl Harbor and then you take a boat out to the memorial site.
We spent the rest of the day driving around the area on a twisty road called Tantalus drive which took us up to a lookout point.
Little guy was also hungry and tired.
After that we were pretty hungry and drove back into Honolulu to find some dinner. It was a bad combination of being hangry, lack of public parking, and going to restaurants on the GPS that didn't exist anymore. We parked somewhere and walked several blocks, carrying the heavy carseat (big mistake) to get to a restaurant where no one ever came to take our order and the meter was running out on our car several blocks away so we just left. On the way back to the car Doug spotted a vegetarian restaurant, so we ordered there, we ran back to feed the meter and we actually had a tasty dinner. I felt pretty bad because I was a total grump and could not shake out of it. That's no fun to be around! Then kind hearted Doug wanted to get burgers for a few of the homeless people we had seen on the street and I grumped about that too. But we bought them and it felt good to pass them out, and of course I once again felt so blessed to be married to such a kind man.
The memorial had been our only plan for Oahu, so when we went back to our condo that night we made a list of ideas for the rest of our 2 days. To be continued...