ahhhh, do you hear that? That's the sweet sound of silence...

So Dean is having his first sleepover at Grandma Sue & Grandpa Eddie's tonight. She decided that since she keeps him Monday and Tuesday and with gas prices at around $4.25/gallon, it would save us each a trip from town to Kihei if he just spent the night. On one hand Joel and I are pretty excited to have our first totally kid-less evening in almost 17 months, but on the other hand I already miss him!!! (probably because I know I won't see him until tomorrow evening). We haven't decided if we want to take advantage and go out for a nice dinner and to see a movie (which is what we probably SHOULD do) or just sit at home and watch TV that doesn't include Elmo or Barney and doesn't involve prying the remote out of Dean's sticky hands every 5 minutes. Whatever we do, we should enjoy it, because I have a feeling that after once, Sleepovers at Grandma's won't happen again until Dean's about 5!!! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

North Shore Morning

We had a nice morning over at Baldwin Beach in Paia today. We haven't had great weather what with all the VOG (that's like fog, but caused by volcanic gas in the air) from the Big Island blowing this way on the Kona winds. We're all anxiously waiting for the nice trade winds to come back, which we're told should happen in the next few days. But we still got out this morning and enjoyed a little beach time, even though it was a little hazy and the water was too rough for Dean to do much swimming. Hope you like the pics!!

An Evening in South Maui

My family's close friends (really they're like a second family to me...we go way back!), the Corwins are here visiting. Judi and their daughter Jayci arrived almost 2 weeks ago and Jim arrived Monday. It's been so much fun hanging out with them. So many of my favorite childhood memories include the Corwins (think LOTS of trips to the lake, summer road trips, snow-skiing...in fact their son Andy, who is my age, and I learned to snow ski together when we were about 4 years old). ANYWAY. Judi and I hung out most of the day today - we went to the local scrapbook store (it's so fun to have someone to do that with since my Mom just isn't interested) then spent the afternoon being "crafty". Joel wanted to watch the UFC fights tonight and prefers to watch them at my parents' house since they have a nice big high definition plasma screen TV (Joel and I have NEVER bought a TV - we keep acquiring free hand-me-downs and none of them have been high-def plasma screens as you can imagine. To be honest I can't tell a difference, but apparently there is one). So we went to my parents' for dinner and the fights. Other good friends, Jim and Linda (Dean's had a crush on Linda since he was TINY) were there too as Jim (not Corwin) is also a big UFC fan. We had a very nice dinner (at least the girls did - the men were busy with the fights), then Judi and Linda went to some Hawaiian music and hula performance at Linda's church with my Grandma. Jayci had a date - with a very VERY cute boy I might add - I definitely approve!! She met him on their Molokini snorkel trip on "Maui Magic" yesterday - he is one of the crew / eye-candy-for-the-lady-tourists. So after dinner Mom, Jim (Corwin - who's not a huge UFC fan), Dean and I walked down to the beach for sunset. That was EXHAUSTING but fun. Dean had most of the fun. I was the one who was exhausted. He's so cute though!! And really does love the beach and the ocean. Which is weird because he HATES swimming lessons. We had our 2nd to last class this session this morning and he was soooooo naughty!!! I mean REALLY bad. Screamed at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms and legs the whole time kind of naughty. Not fun. Anyway, here are a few pics from our fun evening.

Taking time to smell the flowers.
You can't tell it in this next picture, but Dean is "smelling" some red ginger - which for Dean means snorting loudly.
Huh?
Yay! Sand!

And the parting shot....

(his shorts are soaking wet and the diaper had to go. We found out that the bulk of having a diaper helps hold his britches up)

A Little Yard Work...

Joel completed some long overdue yardwork today and Dean decided he needed to help. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...it was super cute!!

Sweeping the grass:

Playing with Cosmo, the neighbor's adorable pug:

Helping rake up the grass...

And then spreading it back out again:

Yessss!! Yardwork is done!

Haleakala Backpacking Trip

Well, we survived our hike! I'm way too exhausted and sore to go into detail now (I'll do that tomorrow). But here's a slideshow of the pics. It was amazing!! The pictures really don't do it justice - hiking inside a volcano is unreal. You don't realize how vast the crater really is until you're down there in the middle of it. The hike was an ass-kicker!!! 12 miles total over 2 days. The first day was all downhill on Sliding Sands Trail - and it really was a trail of black and red sand and very steep. We started at 8:30 Saturday morning and arrived at Holua Cabin (about 7 miles later) around 3:00. After a long, mostly sleepless night thanks to both the cold and my husband's snoring (as well as my Mom's), we set out around 7:45 this morning on Halemau'u Trail (Switchbacks as the locals call it). This time it was all UPHILL!! We made it to our car around 10:00 this morning and couldn't wait to get home and take a shower!! My calves and butt are killing me - I can barely walk!!! Also, I missed Dean - who did GREAT his first night away from Mom. My Grandma and Dad stayed at our house with him and they said he did just fine. So that was more detail than I intended. Here are the pics...

This one's for Opapi...

Dean rockin' out on his new accordian...
I couldn't resist buying this adorable little accordian for Dean today. His Great Grandfather ("Opapi") Tapler is the only person I know who can actually play one. (Joel likes to THINK he can play the accordian, but trust me, he can't). One of these days Opapi will have to teach Dean some tunes!!

Dean and his Nani

So we have the best cat ever!! Nani (her full name is Nani Hanai Popoki which translates from Hawaiian into English roughly as "Beautiful adopted cat" - she was a shelter kitten. Her adoption has a story, but I'll save that for another time)...anyway, Nani and Dean are best friends! When I was pregnant with Dean, Nani would lay on my belly anytime I would sit still long enough for her to crawl up there. It was her favorite napping spot. So I think their bond began in utero! I often wondered if Dean could hear her purring through my layers of skin and fat? hmmmm. She has been so good with him since he first began pulling her tail at 4 months old. She does still have claws and let me tell you, she has scratched the crap out of me before, but she is so gentle with him. And he can be pretty rough with her!! Thought I'd share some cute pics of them today...

Not sure what he's doing in that last pic, but he looked really cute!!

When Daddy is left in charge...

So Joel claims the bottle was actually nearly empty when Dean got ahold of it and that he only had one swig, with most of that ending up on his shirt. If that's true, I want to know why Dean was literally running after the cat from one end of the living room to the other, laughing deliriously, for about 20 minutes when I was TRYING to get him to go to bed tonight 30 minutes past his regular bedtime!?!?

A Little Maui Rain...

So we woke up this morning to steady rainful for about an hour, which was really nice as we live in a very dry part of Maui. It was so nice in fact, that we let Dean run outside and play for a few minutes. He wasn't too sure at first, and seemed a little confused (note the bottle of sunscreen he absolutely insisted he MUST take with him outside). But it was a beautiful rain. Yes, that's the sun shining through a torrential downpour...that's Maui for ya!

As you might imagine given the sun shining through, there was an AMAZING rainbow directly behind our house. However you'll just have to take my word for it - I didn't want to risk soaking the camera to get a picture!

Like Father, Like Son

Ok, make sure your volume is turned up for this video...And warning: there's a little more than a full minute of this, which is probably about as interesting as watching somebody snoring....oh wait....

Flying high

Today started out really gross with cloudy skies and drizzle all morning. And it was COLD (well, for us it was cold - about 61 degrees). But it turned into a beautiful day. After Joel got home from work, we went to KCC (Kahului Community Center) park and flew a kite! Dean was really interested in that for about 10 seconds. Then he just wanted to run (that's his newest favorite thing to do) down the hill over and over again. Anyway, it was fun! Check out the pics...

When Dean decides to boycott his nap...

...this is what happens. "He can't stay awake forever" I tell myself. And he doesn't. He was soooo tired all morning, but REFUSED to get in his bed. Then, as I was feeding him lunch...he was happily munching on some goldfish crackers as I was loading the dishwasher. I noticed he was being awful quiet...when I turned around, this is what I saw. And he was snoring!!! It was so cute. He didn't even flinch when I untangled him from his highchair and took him to his crib...where he's been sleeping (to my relief) for 2 hours.