Maui Mall Fountain

We got a new fountain at the Maui Mall for kids to play in a few months ago and Dean LOVES it! I know there are much larger versions of these play fountains and splash parks on the mainland, but for Maui - this is pretty cool! Dean's happy with it anyway and it's a good way to wear him out! There's not much more to say about it that a few pics won't say better...

Dean's 4th Birthday / Jen & Joel's 5th Anniversary

December 3-5, 2010

Dean turned 4 on December 6 and Joel and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary on December 9. Because things were so crazy this fall with our vacation and then my Dad's death, we didn't feel much like planning a big kid's birthday party - and come on - we all know that I can't let my kid have a birthday party without him having the BEST invitations, handcrafted party favors, decorations, thank you cards, etc you've ever seen (I mean, I kind of have a reputation to uphold here) so yeah, I wasn't really feeling it this year. So instead of doing a full-on birthday party, we decided to stay at a resort over on the West Side for the weekend and celebrate both Dean's birthday and our Anniversary all at once. We called around and found some killer Kama'aina rates (those are the discounted rates you get if you're a Hawaii resident) at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas. I mean, they were REALLY good - like we got a 1-bedroom villa for $168/night! And it was SUPER nice - it had a full kitchen, a big lanai, a HUGE luxurious bathroom, and the resort grounds are amazing with all the fun pools you can stand! So Dean got to stay home from school on Friday and we drove over to the west side around 1:00 to get checked in with plans for Joel to meet us there when he finished up with work (he scheduled a few clients in Lahaina that afternoon). Traffic SUCKED due to road construction, but we finally made it to the resort around 2:00. After we checked out our room (and then calling the front desk to make sure we were in the right room and it really was only $168/night - because it really didn't seem possible that this nice of a place could only cost $168!) Dean and I headed down to the Keiki pool where he had an absolutely blast playing for about 2 hours!! Here's a look at our room:

The Keiki pool area is a big pirate ship with a couple of slides, water spraying everywhere, tunnels to climb through and just about everything a 4-yr-old could possibly want! Dean was in 4-yr-old bliss!!

After Joel arrived we went back to our room and got cleaned up so we could go get some food and snacks for the rest of the weekend. We headed down to the beach to watch sunset, then to Lahaina Farms (like a local version of Whole Foods) and had some sandwiches and bought cupcakes for Dean's little mini party the next day. When we got back to our room, Dean had yet more fun taking a bath in the giant jacuzzi tub in the big bathroom! He loved that there was a window in the bathroom looking into the bedroom - he thought that was pretty cool!!

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast on our lanai before heading back down to the keiki pool for more fun in the sun! TuTu and two of Dean's best buds from preschool, Maddox and Cole, drove over with their Mommies to celebrate Dean's birthday on Saturday. They had about 15 minutes of fun in the keiki pool before some kid's paranoid Mom called the pool attendant and a security guard over to point out something on the bottom of the pool, which turned out to be the tiniest piece of poop you've ever seen in your life. They fished it out with a net and promptly closed down the keiki pool for the rest of the day! (Never mind the fact that there's enough chemical in that pool to kill the good bacteria, not just the bad stuff - but whatever! If I would have been the Mom to find that turd, I would have quietly ignored it and hoped nobody saw it and just kept my kid away from it. People are way too paranoid for their kids' own goods if you ask me. Dean's played in WAY worse than a giant pool full of chlorine with a tiny turd in it). And for the record, I questioned Dean thoroughly after the "Code Brown" and I'm 95% certain the crap didn't belong to him. But one can never be completely sure I guess. Anyway, we headed on over to the big pool with the Big Waterslide and the kids didn't seem to mind one bit with this change in plans - they still had a blast swimming and playing in the hot tub and eating cupcakes!


And Dean even went down the giant waterslide all by himself (I still waited at the bottom to catch him, but he went down the super fast big slide by himself - my boy is growing up!).


So after a full day of swimming and playing and green cupcake fun with Maddox and Cole, Dean headed back to Kihei with my Mom while Joel and I enjoyed another 24 hours at the resort all by ourselves! It was a very nice and relaxing way to celebrate our 5th Anniversary. We had dinner Saturday night at the Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) after Joel watched the Big 12 Championship Game (I enjoyed a couple of hours spending quality time poolside with my Kindle before catching the 2nd half in the room), then we spent most of the day Sunday lounging by the pool before driving back to town to pick up Dean and get back to our normal routine.


I did take Monday off of work as it was Dean's actual birthday - December 6 - and we provided a little lunchtime Pizza Party for his class at Preschool, which was pretty much a disaster. I should have known better. They're constantly telling us that kids this age do thrive on their routines. Well, I didn't pack Dean's normal lunch (he has an Almond Butter and jelly sandwich, an apple and a juice box every. single. day.) since I was bringing pizza. Well, when all the other kids still had their normal lunches AND pizza, Dean FLIPPED OUT - complete with crying and refusing to eat pizza (his favorite on any other day) and continuously asking me where his sandwich was. {sigh}. And here I was - using vacation time to take off work and all excited to get to eat lunch with my boy on his birthday at preschool! ha! But seriously, other than that little incident, it was a pretty successful (and EASY) birthday this year - one we very well might repeat from now on!!

Decorating for Christmas

So I didn't fulfill my goal to catch up the blog before the New Year. Oh Well. I am going to *try* to do better this year.

November 25, 2010:
Anyway, way back in November, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact, we decorated for the Holidays. Last year you may recall I was excited to have my first REAL Christmas tree - well, that was enough for me! Those needles were a pain and I don't think our Hawaii climate is suited for keeping a tree alive and looking fresh from Thanksgiving to Christmas (it was looking pretty sad and brown by the time Christmas rolled around!). So, a few days after Christmas last year I hit the sales and picked up a super nice tree for an awesome deal!! (it was one of Macy's display trees and it's regular price was $750!! But I got it for 80% off, so only paid $150!! And it's a BEAUTIFUL pre-lit tree that is really easy to put up!). I was pretty excited to put it up for the first time this year. Anyway, Dean was way into decorating this year and went with me to Home Depot to pick out all new ornaments for the tree - he was very particular, but I was pleased with his final decision and think we'll stick with these for at least a few years. Dean wanted to help put the ornaments on the tree this year and did A LOT of thinking and studying of the tree before placing each ornament in just the right spot (which was sometimes on the exact same branch as the last 4 ornaments he had put on the tree - PAINFUL for me to let go and just let him decorate. I waited until he was asleep and then moved several of them around!!). Anyway, here are some pics of our tree decorating process from 2010...

Camping with Uncle Jeremy

Earlier this week (Wednesday, 12/15 to be exact - I had to keep Dean home from school that day because just as we pulled up in the preschool parking lot to drop him off at school, as I was about to unbuckle him from his carseat, he said he didn't feel so good and then puked all over. Interestingly the barf had a distinctly chocolate smell to it and I later discovered that Dean had consumed SEVERAL Hershey's Miniatures chocolate bars right after waking up that morning after having found my stash that I used to fill the pockets of his Advent Calendar. So yeah, he couldn't go to school because he vomited in the parking lot but it turns out he wasn't really sick AND he had a major sugar high and felt completely fine by the time we got back to the house. NICE) So anyway, I was busy trying to get some Christmas Presents wrapped so I could get them in the mail in hopes they'd arrive at their destinations on the mainland in time for Christmas. Dean wasn't exactly being very helpful and was SERIOUSLY slowing down the process. Specifically, he was wanting to use the tape to hang up some drawings of planets he had been working on. And every time I needed the tape it seemed to have disappeared and I'd have to go hunt it down. I was quickly running out of time (and patience) before the Post Office closed and was on my last few gifts - a couple of things for my brother - and Dean was really upset that I had hidden the tape from him. So I started up this conversation with him (in a very excited voice, hoping he'd feed off that false excitement, which somehow magically worked!)
Me: "Dean! Hurry! go draw a picture for Uncle Jeremy and we'll send it to him with his Christmas Presents. He'll be SO excited"
Dean: "Ok! But what should I draw?"
Me: "I don't know. But NOT a solar system or planets. Draw something else. Draw a picture of you and Uncle Jeremy at the beach or something. Anything except space stuff."
Dean: " Oh! Ok" as he runs as fast as he can to his room where he (thankfully) stays put for the next 10 minutes while I finish wrapping Jeremy's gifts

Now, I have to tell you that I'm pretty sure I've never seen Dean draw ANYTHING other than planets and stars and space-related objects like nebulae and light echoes and dark matter and such (which I mean really just looks like a bunch of circles and splattery looking scribbles if we're being honest about it - but he does try really hard to make them look like the actual phenomena that he is drawing). But my point is, I really didn't realize that Dean COULD draw people and definitely didn't think he could draw a picture of him and Uncle Jeremy at the beach!! So I was VERY surprised when he came back in and handed me this:


He then spent the next 5 minutes explaining to me what that was a picture of. See, it's a picture of Dean and Jeremy camping on the beach and they're roasting marshmallows over a campfire. That's the campfire that's pink and it's really smoky. And the green on the other side of the fire is a plant. And he wrote I love you "because the heart means love" (so cute!). A few of my favorite things about this drawing that I'd like to point out:
- His concept of scale is pretty advanced I'd say - notice that Jeremy is not only taller than Dean, but Jeremy's arm is much longer than Dean's.
- Both of the hands have 5 fingers
- I love that the entire picture is drawn with markers EXCEPT for the marshmallows, for those he decided to switch things up and go with a black pen
- He made squiggles above the fire to represent the smoke, and there's even a smoke squiggle all the way at the top of the page!
- I love the shining sun and that they both look so happy!!

I'm pretty sure Jeremy doesn't read my blog so I doubt the surprise is ruined, but that drawing is probably way better than the lame gifts I bought him!!

Candy Cane Fun

Just some pics of Dean enjoying a Cherry Candy Cane from Whole Foods in front of our Christmas Tree...(and yes, he's in his underwear...again...this child has a serious aversion to clothes...)

and a video of him talking about what he asked Santa for this year (some very specific toys from Discovery Toys that I had to hunt down after our trip to the Mainland when he played with a Marble Works game belonging to Aunty Leslie that he hasn't stopped talking about since!!!). My Mom let me open one of my Christmas presents early last night so I could use it at Dean's preschool Christmas Program - it's a new Flip digital Video Camera and the quality is SO much better than the videos we've posted in the past! I'm having fun playing with it and you can probably expect a lot more videos here on the blog in the future! Just remember, if you get these posts in an e-mail update, you have to go to the blog to actually view the video. Just click THIS LINK, then scroll to the post for today, 12/18/10, and click the play button on the video!

Thanksgiving

OK, well, yeah - so I've been a REALLY bad blogger. Oh well. Life goes on. I just haven't felt motivated to sit down and deal with it. I'm sure part of it has to do with my Dad's death. But it's also actually A LOT of work to keep up this blog - I have to resize every photo I post here - because I take my photos in the highest quality settings on my cameras, so they are very large files, which means if I upload them like that, it takes FOREVER to load on blogger and often they just won't load at all - so I resize them and save the resized photos in a separate folder on my computer (Because I want to keep the large files for scrapbooking). Then there's the actual storytelling. And I'm kind of weird in case you hadn't noticed - like super anal about things. I don't like things to be out of order and it is going to SERIOUSLY bother me to do this Thanksgiving post when I haven't posted the photos and stories from our October trip to the mainland (but that is going to be a SUPER time consuming undertaking) and other goings-on from the last few months. So, I just put it off rather than give myself a stroke because my posts are out of order! ha!

But, I really like this blog. I don't want to give it up. This is more than just a way to keep our faraway family and friends up to date, it's a sort of in-depth journal on Dean's development and the everyday ups and downs of our lives. I think I'm pretty honest here - I don't think I hold things back and only share the good things or try to paint an overly idyllic picture of our family. Because let's be honest - raising a headstrong 4-yr-old isn't always easy!! But I don't want to forget a single moment of these days. And this blog will help ensure that I don't!

So, here I am - about to share the story of Dean's Thanksgiving Program at school because tonight is his Christmas Program and I just can NOT share the Christmas Program before sharing the Thanksgiving Program. And it's my goal to get completely caught up with sharing pictures and stories from the last few months before the end of the year, even if they are a bit out of order. So be prepared for several posts in the next few weeks!

So Children's Garden Preschool had their annual Thanksgiving Feast the day before Thanksgiving. All parents and families were invited to attend a large potluck feast for lunch and eat with the children after they performed a Thanksgiving Program. Dean's class, the Turtle Class, dressed as Pilgrims (I was so proud of Dean for keeping his Pilgrim hat on the ENTIRE time!! Dean does NOT like to wear ANYTHING on his head, so this was HUGE!!) and sang their Thanksgiving song (video at the end of this post). Here are some pictures...



I love this one with all the bare feet and a few rubber slippers thrown in...

Brother Alika gave a Hawaiian Blessing. Those are Green Ti leaves dipped in salt water from the Pacific Ocean just a few blocks away that he then sort of "flicked" on everyone as he chanted something in Hawaiian. It was interesting and cool at the same time.

Dean did a great job singing the Turtle Class' song. He sang the whole thing, nice and loud! Here are the words to the song (tune goes to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star):
Let's be thankful for this day
For our friends and for our play
Let's be thankful let's be glad
For the food and things we have
Let's give thanks for you and me
And our home and family.

The Roly Poly class and the Dolphin Class each performed a song and then the whole school sang a song in Japanese and then another song in Hawaiian. It was super cute!

And here's a video of Dean and his class singing their Thanksgiving Song. (If you get these posts in an e-mail update, you'll need to go to the actual blog to view the video. Just click on THIS LINK and then go to today's post, 12/17/10, and at the end of the post, click on the play button in the video):

Avoidance

Well, I've been procrastinating. Not wanting to write up this post. Most of you know that we've had quite a bit going on around here, but to be honest I've just been avoiding writing about this one. It's just hard to put into words everything I'm feeling about the loss of my Dad. I think most people who actually read my blog probably already know that my father passed away on November 2 after a heartbreaking battle with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. I'm not gonna lie - the end was terrible.

I've been avoiding this post because I felt like I needed to write something really profound and heartfelt about my Dad. But I just can't. Right now I'm doing pretty good. Most days at this point I'm doing pretty good with this. I'm relieved that I don't have to see him like that anymore and I'm so glad that I'm finding it easier and easier to remember the good times. For the past year it's been really hard to remember those good times. So that's been nice - to spend a little time with those memories. Because other than the last few years, almost all of my memories of my Dad are really awesome memories. And I'm kind of a Memory Keeping person. So that's been good. I also don't think I realized how stressed out I was about my Dad, so it's nice to not constantly be worried about his care and if my Mom is doing OK, etc. I've also felt like I've been waiting for something bad to happen for a long time now, so that's over. Basically, despite the sadness of losing my Dad much too early, I mostly feel relieved that this terrible chapter is over. I know with all of my being that my Dad would never want me to feel the sadness, anger, hurt and worry I've felt so often in the last few years and I know that he would want that to be over for me. My Dad wanted nothing more than for his family to be happy. And at this point in my life I feel pretty happy with things. Yes, I wish my Dad was here to share the day to day with me. I wish that every single day. But he's not. And I'm going to be OK. I'm my Father's daughter and he taught me that I can do anything and I am strong and intelligent and brave and a good person. I am all of these things because of my Dad. And I will survive this because my parents taught me I could do anything and I believe them.

I love you Dad.

Fire Station Fun

We are headed out the door in just a few minutes to go to the airport to catch our flight to the mainland, so I don't have much time for details, but Dean went on his preschool's annual fieldtrip to the Wailea Fire Station this morning. I didn't get to go because I was busy with last minute preparations for our 2+ week trip, but my Mom went. She said he did really well! I was sorry I missed it. Anyway, here are some pics....

I'll see if I can post a few updates while on our trip. We arrive in Wichita tomorrow afternoon (after 14+ hours of travel time - ugh!) and will be there until the end of the week next week when we drive to Norman, OK for a long weekend. We'll go to an OU football game while in Norman, visit friends and family (we're staying with "Uncle Marker"), and enjoy some El Reno Onion Burgers. Then we'll drive back to Wichita just in time to get on a plane to fly to New Jersey to see Joel's grandparents, Aunt and Uncle and cousins. After that we'll have a day and a half back in Wichita before heading home to Maui. We have lots of fun stuff planned, so hopefully I'll find some time to post a few pics and updates!