To my loyal fans

Haha, you are my "fan" if you are reading this because I haven't posted for so long I don't know why anyone would be checking this blog. BUT, now you're here, and I have a new post.
But that's just about it, life is busy and I've been posting on our mom's group blog www.willamettevalleymommies.blogspot.com, so you could go there for some cute pics of the kids.
We've been fitting in a TON of family time now that we're both home. Sometimes all that time brings out the worst in everyone, but we've had some good times. My friends in Hawaii will remember my obsession with winning free things, and all the free things I got while living there. I'm sure I've posted about it before anyway. ;)
But since moving back to Oregon, there has been a new list of free things that have come my way. I get so proud of these things, so I have to share! :)
I won a free dvd, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and other counting stories, from SavvySource.com It's a little bit above my kid's level, but it's a pretty fun video.
One of our activities for WVM was the Zuke-a-palooza being put on by Shonnard's nursery. We took out neighbor's extra zuccuni and decorated them with paint, googly eyes, pipe cleaner, etc. It was actually quite funny. Well, Willie won the prize for the best decorated zuccuni which was a $10 gift certificate.
The last thing that comes to mind right now, is the $25 gift certificate to Mo's restaurant we won just last Saturday. We went to the Kite Festival in Lincoln City. It was a long but so beautiful, perfect day! We had a great time. I ended up buying two raffle tickets for a drawing. I was doing it more as a donation because this cute old man dressed as a clown was doing balloons for the kids. He called the other day and told us we had won one of the 3 prizes from the raffle. "This is the clown from the festival at the beach..." I thought that was one of the funniest phone call introductions I've heard! So, we're looking forward to some clam chowder next time we're at the coast. We had some great chowder and food from the restaurant near the Kite Festival, it was called Kyllo's I think. It was a great restaurant for lunch if you're in the area.
well, there's some random rambling to catch you up. We're looking forward to a visit from Grandma (Jeremy's mom) in a couple weeks and Willie's big haunted birthday bash!!

Farewell to Maui

I've been so busy getting life going here in Oregon- wow, I haven't been updating in a long time. I had to give one last goodbye post to Maui. I was sad to leave- or maybe really nervous for what was up ahead- definitely both. I have not unpacked my suitcase in about 3 months! Things have been so crazy! Well, although Maui is old news, I'll give a string of pictures and spare all the words which are old news too.









The biggest news I don't think I've shared yet is that we're expecting baby #3. I'm kind of hoping to find out boy/girl this week at our doctor's appointment. So life is full of those little aches and pains of pregnancy- loose hip joints, my seat always seems so tender and sore after sitting long periods. I'm only half way through mind you! Those are just two symptoms that are the worse for me- should count my blessings it's not worse!

Maui Built. part 5: Final Saga

I wish my life was a little more thoughtful and introspective than just a string of pictures. But it's not worth sharing all the drama taking place outside of the pictures right now anyhow. There is one really really really AWESOME piece of good news-- Lucy is half-way potty trained! She wears panties during the whole day, but not at night yet. I think the timing of my determination and patience finally colided with her being ready to do it. It took a little chocolate and a special Sleeping Beauty "potty present" to aid the trick. I'm so proud of her- even if it is only half mastered. I'm sure there'll be accidents, but she's done well so far. With that good news, here's the string of pictures:

Birthday Excursion to Iao Valley: I happened to take Jeremy to work and realized on the way it was my birthday. I should do something special, I thought. I took the kids (and myself) to Iao Valley, a very histroic Maui heritage park. And it did turn out to be a special birthday outing. It was fun just to play there all morning with the kids; beautiful, shaded. Iao Valley is where 4 streams converge together and it serves as an important water source for the whole west side of the island. They've made cool paths exploring the history of this spot to ancient Mauians. A signature area is the Iao Needle (shown in the first picture) that's on a lot of postcards. It was so early in the morning, there were still some morning clouds trapped in the valley, so beautiful.



These kids turn just about everything into a horse, by sticking it between there legs and galloping around. Horses are kinda big with the kids right now. I was impressed to see them find something to ride tandem.
The first birthday surprise I got was when we wandered into this "Interactive Nature Center." I thought just to walk around the gift shop thinking I'd come back with Jeremy and actually go through the nature center. But the cashier nicely gestured to me, "Are you local? Why don't you take the kids in, I won't charge you." Awesome! The center had just opened for the day too, so there was only one other small family of adults inside, we played around a lot.


The second birthday surprise came when I took the kids to buy a smoothie at the little cafe outside. We were just trying to waste time til we were picking Dad up for lunch. But I forgot my wallet, so we just started to walk away. Then these super cool tourists behind me just ordered it for us. I told them it was my birthday and thank you for the present. They laughed and thought the kids were cute and talked for a bit. Aah, got to love gifts from the heart.
Back at home with my birthday candles in some watermelon cookies.
Just a scene of Maui. This was a shot on the way to Lahaina. If you can look in the distance over the ocean you can see two islands- one is Molokini and Molokeawe (I'm not sure those are spelled right.) You can also see other islands from Maui- Lana'i and Molokai'i. It seems so timeless to me to think that I live on this tiny speck of land, where you can see other tiny specks of land, all of which is oblivious from the shores of very distant and much larger continental shores.
Sugar Plantation from the Hwy. There are a lot of sugar cane fields here.
Maui has a great network of youngs moms! If you ever move here, you won't be lonely. There is always something going on with these moms. I've been so impressed! And I'll miss getting to know all these great moms. The first activity I went to was a group trip to the Lavendar Farm. It was cloudy overcast day, but the garden was still very nice. We did a "treasure hunt" and got lavendar cookies for the prize. I'm not sure I liked those kind of cookies, but it was interesting to taste.

Another activity the Maui Mommies group did was an animal education class at a Vet Clinic. Lucy and Willie really enjoyed being with the animals. Course, there was a chicken that scared Willie half to death when the trainer let the kids feed her from their hands.



Guess one last update is July 4th, one of my favorite holidays. We decided we couldn't pass up the Makawao Parade. Makawao has the biggest rodeo in the state that weekend as well bringing in rodeo participants from all over the world. It's pretty big. And we definetly got our fill of horses- kids loved it. It was fun to see them all decorated. You be the judge- you pick the winner and you pick the category. The most patriotic? Best Decorated? Best Lei? Take a vote. Here's the entries:
Star-butted Horse

Flag Brigade
Mystical Bluuties
Rodeo Queen
"My Other Pet's a Minature Pug"
Mini Paints
Born to be Free
Peace Riders
Junior Polo Team
Arrreba RidersSaloon Scandalous
HorsePower...? Just look at that tongue...
After the parade we went to Stopwatch in Makawao, not our top pick (which was closed) but we did get our Maui Cattle Beef steaks. :) Afterwards we stopped for some red, white, and blue shave ice at Aloha Ice in Paia. The shave ice was HUGE, awww, so good. Then we did a little home firework show. Our neighbors out did us all around, but we just wanted to see if Dad could use a lighter (turns out he can't, lol.) Willie wasn't too sure about the fireworks. And here's Jeremy doing a little dance in the flashes of light.






PS- I just finished New Moon too.

Pop Quiz

Who's baby picture is this?
Might as well tell you now... I was thinking people were going to be guessing my little brothers because, to me, it looked SO much like those little "non-twin" boys, but I remembered the only ones who would probably guess that would be my own family, which I'm not sure how often they read this blog... ;)
The question was a bit of a trick because it's not really someone's baby picture because the boy is still a baby...it's Willie. After I had just given him his first full-head hair cut. Yes, first full-head haircut at 21 months. Sigh, it's always so hard to do the first one.
It's an awful haircut, if I'd known that my clippers were so rusted I wouldn't have tried. But I really was in the zone to cut it off, and I had to go with what I had. He wasn't the most cooperative as well. He's so different now!! He looks more babyish, yet more like a bully, more serious and more grown up all at the same time. I'm still getting used to it, and I'm still trying to figure out when I can trim up all the mistakes...

Maui Built. part 4: Arrival

We arrived to Maui little over 2 weeks ago. I'm going to cut to the chase and just tell you now, we're actually looking to leave Maui effective as soon as possible. This means nothing to reflect on Maui itself- we just hit a rock and a hard place and need to move out of this tough situation. The short story is all government workers have taken pay cuts (thanks Governor!) and ours is just putting us way out there. With that said, I'll tell you about the week before the week we found out that we really should leave Maui. (sigh, life is hard sometimes.)

We stayed in a hotel while we looked for a place to stay, but because that can rack up funds we we hurrying as much as possible. We checked out of our hotel on Wednesday morning and we're determined to be in a place by that night. We actually had 4 places that were all possibilities so we were confident. We even spent some time shopping- got a toddler bed for Lucy and an air mattress for because we had no beds for that night. Well around noon we had decided on one of the four, and had verbal agreed to get into this place but the landlord, at work, would have to do the contract that evening. The landlord's daughter and an uncle had showed us the place that morning. Well, we finally got to meet with her around 6pm. The main reason we had picked this place was because it was furnished. When we got to the place and were starting to do paperwork, the landlord kept making all these worried comments about the kid's safety- it was the second floor, they could fall down the stairs, there's a parking lot at the bottom, the kids will break through the windows and fall... (what?!) I slowly got the hint that this lady was trying to think of every possible reason not to have us move in not necessarily because of safety, but because she didn't want kids there. Ok, who didn't tell this lady we had kids?! That could have been so easy for them to screen us out, now we had waited all day and didn't have a place like we thought. The landlord knew our situation, and in a friendly yet sabotage way, suggested we come look at this 3 bedroom they also had for rent in a different little town. Ok (have no where else to go) so we went up to this house. It was hard to be optimistic when the place was caked in a year's worth of dirt, but we kind of thought it might work out. So we started to work out details. She kept trying to raise the rent higher than we had agreed. We stuck to our guns, not wanting to go over budget. They finally gave in and said they wanted to do month-to-month rent. Which really was just a trap for her to be able to raise rent the following month. We were not getting good feelings from being these people's renters. We did give them money (we had already taken it out of the bank for the first place we thought we were going to get). But we were going to do the contract the next day because it was getting late, the kids were hungry, not to mentioned covered in dirt from playing in the place and needed a bath (which needed to be cleaned before anyone stepped in it or they'd be making a mudslide). Well, that night was frustrated to say the least. As far as the place was concerned, I thought it could be fun- older but very big and closer to Jeremy's work. But it just wasn't ready for renters and we would have a hard time getting in ready to be live able, that was hard, and I wasn't feeling good about the whole month-to-month thing not knowing what was going to happen. That night was pretty terrible. The kids seemed to sleep okay. We were sleeping on the floor by morning as the air had all leaked out (it was a garage sale buy). We were still covered in dirt, and Jeremy was convinced because of the smell around the place, there was a dead animal somewhere. The little house was nestled between two other houses (all owned by the same person I think), it was actually connected to one of the houses by a door that was bolted. Here's Jeremy faking a smile because he really despised that place.We knew right away we just had to leave. We talked to the landlord and told our desires. She was actually really cool about it and said she'd give us all the money back and don't worry about that night. That was very generous of her really, she was looking out for us in a way. We quickly called the next place on our list to see if we could get in. And so that's where we are. A little two bedroom house behind the landlords new house in front, it has a yard and place for a garden, private driveway. It has raised ceilings which makes it seem bigger and open, lots of storage space. The kitchen is nice and spacious. We have a washer and dryer, our own covered parking space (thank goodness on both accounts!!! we were especially looking forward to that!)

I don't have any pictures of the house much yet. One thing we found out about this dry and hot place is there are a ton of mosquitoes. Apparently Lucy has the sweetest blood, she is covered in bites! She had 38 last I counted. She scratches them until they bleed and so I put band aids on them or she'll pick off the scab. This is a beginning picture, because right now I think she has like 15 band aids up her arm and legs. She thinks they're totally cool, but she looks a little ridiculous.

Now that we were settled into a place, it was time to go exploring! Our first journey was to Hana on the famous "Road to Hana" to see Jeremy's running buddy from BYUH and his daughter. They've visited us a handful of times, but we were excited to finally visit them. The drive to Hana is about 52 miles of 617 turns and 46 one lane bridges. It's crazy, a little scary, and absolutely beautiful! I think it's one of the pretties scenic drives I've done.


When we got to Hana we searched out our friend who was surfing at this beach that I can't remember the name of for the life of me... but it's known for it's red, black and white sand. It was really cool, nice sand to play in. The break was a little rough to take the kids in very far, but they had tons of fun playing in the sand and chasing dogs around the beach. It was starting to get overcast and rainy before I got out the camera, so I don't have a bunch of pictures.