Trail Hike #1

On our second day in Kauai, we hiked the Kalalau Trail-- which runs along the beautiful Na Pali Coast. We did a lot of trail running too, but slowed down in some areas for the rocks & mud, and to take some photos.

Here's a glimpse of our adventure:

4 miles later, we reached the 300-foot tall Hanakapi’ai Falls, where Jef, Jenny, Alexia & Tim went for a cool swim.

The trail is known for its red dirt & mud -- so we looked like this by the end.

Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian!)

We had a wonderful week in Kauai-- at Great Grandma Betty's timeshare. The weather and the island were beautiful! We enjoyed all the family time together; not to mention going to the pool and the beach every day. Here are a few pictures from Christmas Day...

John & Brielle walking to the pool with Grandma Carol:

Brielle getting ready for the pool:

Brielle in another pool:

Alexia & John looking at the roosters that roam free. Looking for (and chasing) the roosters & chickens became one of Brielle & John's favorite things to do while we were there!

I borrowed this from Wikipedia to explain the roosters:

"1992's Hurricane Iniki may have caused an indirect change in Kauaʻi's ecosystem. The origin of Kauai's chickens come from the original Polynesian settlers, who brought them as a food source. Kauai is now home to thousands of wild chickens, who have few natural predators. Wild roosters have been known to disturb evening quiet time at very early hours with their crowing, a normal function of all roosters stemming from their need to define territory."

That last part is true-- some of them crow almost all day long! John got pretty good at saying "cock-a-doodle-doo!"

Alexia & John on the beach:

A giant sea turtle was resting on the beach for a few hours Christmas morning...

John :)

more to come...

He's.... almost... got... it

On Friday, the kids & I spent 2 hours at the mall-- playing in the kids area (which we had all to ourselves most of the time), riding the "alligator" (escalator), climbing into the cars & trucks that move when you put 75 cents (but my kids don't know that part yet), and visiting the pets at the Humane Society. It was a fun morning for all of us.

We picked up Happy Meals on the way home (another thing they don't know yet is that toys come in the Happy Meals-- we'll save those for another day). Brielle ate her cheeseburger and half of John's. John slowly worked on his burger & fries, and also ate a bowl of purple grapes. Later, I noticed John was putting his french fries into his milk. This is the point of the meal when we know he's full and that he's just playing. I left the kitchen for a few minutes and when I came back I saw his milk--and the fries he put in-- all over the counter. John was SOO excited to grab the milk-soaked fries and gobble them up. "YUM!" was written all over his face. Here he is reaching for the very last one:

"Hi Fish!"

"Fishy" got new water in his tank today. Last night, one of Brielle & John's cousins dumped a lot of fish food in the tank! The water was due for a change anyways, and John & Brielle have fun watching the process. Brielle likes to tell us "My fish is in a cup!" while the tank is being cleaned.

Conversation with Brielle

We received about 12 inches of new snow today. Tim and Brielle were sledding down our hill and playing in the backyard.

B: "Daddy, can you make a snowball?"

T: "Okay..." and so he made a snowball and showed it to Brielle.

B: "Throw it."

Tim tossed it about 5 feet, and it sunk into the fresh snow.

B: "Daddy, I'll go find it."

What we did on our snow day :)

"Little People, line up"

A few days ago, Brielle kept herself busy with this:

The Nativity Scene Little People have also made friends with Noah's Ark Little People and some animals from the Little People Farm. Brielle doesn't know Noah & Noah's wife's actual names, so Tim told her they are Jesus' grandma & grandpa. "Grandpa" is on the far left and "Grandma" is on the far right.

And, receiving most of her attention lately, Baby Jesus:

:)

John stopped to give me a cute smile while snacking on grapes. We are so glad that Brielle & John are great fruit-eaters! We go through a lot of bananas, grapes, apples, clementines, blueberries, & oranges.

Another one of John's birthday cakes

He is saying "birthday cake" over & over :)

(Kind of like this time )

Good thing she left some room for herself

When it's naptime, we tell Brielle "It's time to go play in your room." We say this instead of saying "It's time to take a nap" because a 2 1/2 year old like Brielle quickly responds, "I don't want to take a nap!" So, she plays.

Anyhow, she does a GREAT job of playing by herself and looking through her books. Such a good job, in fact, that her bed ends of full of toys and books on some days. Today, however, was the most full I've ever seen it! Good thing she left some room for herself, because it was a much needed nap today :) .

The Little People Nativity set seen in the bottom right corner, was a gift from St. Nick this morning. Looks like Brielle decided Baby Jesus got to take the angel's place on top of the manger.

Breakfast with her buddy

Just like she has been sharing her bed with her new puppy, Brielle likes to share her breakfast time too. It's a good thing that when the puppy is on the breakfast table, he doesn't eat her food, or we'd have to make some new arrangements :).

Who would have thought...

that the day after Thanksgiving we'd be playing on the beach?

Not typical weather where we live, but we made sure to enjoy it!

Christmas tree hunt 2009

We hunted for our Christmas tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

John had fun touching all the trees-- swiping at them with his mittens. All of the cousins were there, searching for their own perfect tree. Some families prefer the longer needle, and some like the shorter needle trees.

John's thinking, "Hmmm... that's a little tree."

The older kids call these "Charlie Brown's tree"

A quick photo taken in the midst of our search.

After we decided on our tree and cut it down, we took a ride in this John Deere Gator to haul our tree back to our car.

The tree was tied up, all ready to go.

One of the perks of this Christmas Tree Farm is the free hot chocolate and candy canes afterwards. Brielle enjoyed her first candy cane. For a little while, at least. She was finished with it about half way through, it was "too minty."

A "first" for Brielle, John, & Tim

We rode the 4th Street Elevator in early November.

It's one of the shortest & steepest railroads in the world.

You pull this cord when you're ready to go...

We had this car all to ourselves.

Here is the view from the top:

You can see the Julien Dubuque bridge off to the right side.

Brielle enjoyed the ride back down, and was proud that she sat all by herself :).

"Birthday"

There have been several October & November family birthdays to inspire John... and playtime at Becky's where they pretend to blow out candles. He likes to stack 2 things on top of each other and say "birthday" or "birthday cake"

when Brielle first met her puppy

This shows when she saw her puppy for the very first time :)

Then after a few minutes, I asked her this...

Look how proud & excited she is :)

She has been giving her puppy lots of TLC over the past week: making sure he has a soft place to sleep, covering him with blankets, petting him, telling us all "shhhhh, don't wake him up..."

...and by turning off the lights so he can keep sleeping!

Everyone's been saying we should get one...

one more photo from Halloween

In case you are wondering if John is really strong enough to carry a pumpkin like that... it's an artificial pumpkin :)

When you leave them alone for awhile :)

A couple of weeks ago, Tim brought some seed corn home and filled this plastic pool. When Brielle & John got home, it didn't take them long to discover it! I was getting dinner ready and hearing a LOT of laughter from both of them, so I went into the garage and was surprised to see how much of the garage was covered :). So fun for them!

Happy Halloween

We had our annual family Halloween party this year on Halloween night. There were a lot of creative costumes! After trick-or-treating, everyone came over to our house for food & games. As always, Tim did a great job with the execution of the games. The games included "land-air-water", "ghost catcher" and "the assembly of marshmallow shooters." For that last game, the kids had to first go outside with headlamps to gather their color-coded PVC pipes. Then they raced back in to bring them to the 2 adults that were on their team. One adult on each team (Bob, Donny, & Jolene) had the directions on how to assemble the marshmallow shooter. They had to explain to their blindfolded spouses (Becky, Stacy, & Terry)--without touching them or the pieces-- how to correctly assemble the shooter. It was fun to watch the teamwork and the competitiveness! Then they tried out their marshmallow shooting skills on each other.

Here are a few photos of Brielle & John:

Our family costume theme was the 4 seasons: spring, winter, summer, autumn.

Grandma & Grandpa B and the 16 grandkids: