Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

When you're a kid, life is all about the simple things. As we grow up those simple things go unnoticed as we rush about our busy lives. It's nice to get to view the world through your kids eyes sometimes to remember how great those simple things are. We are very lucky to have such happy kids who are active and enjoy life to its fullest no matter how tired it makes us.

When is the last time that you were this happy? Probably not the last time you saw some balloons. Whoever invented balloons should be credited with making the world a better place.



Jumping for joy is part of who McKenzie is. Cousin Nathan had a jump house at his seventh birthday party and McKenzie just loved it. You can't fake a smile like that!



Ben may be little but that guy can sure hold his own.  He is also lucky to have very nice cousins who try to be careful. He was in the bounce house with Nathan, Kayla and Kenzie and even when he got pig piled he just got right up and kept jumping. Nobody keeps the Benny down.



Remember as a kid the pure joy you felt from riding your bike after school? Cousin Kayla outgrew her little bike and was nice enough to give it to McKenzie who just jumped on and took off!


Having a sibling who's close to you in age - while at times can be trying - there are those other times when things just click then it's the two of you in your own little world. I love the way this picture shows you a little glimpse of that world.


Nothing is more exciting or wonderful to a two year old than a birthday party - especially one with cake. McKenzie went to her first friend birthday party and had a great time. Her best friend Riley from her school was there. All they wanted was to sing Happy Birthday so they could eat the cake. McKenzie was so overcome with love for the cake she couldn't use a fork.



Remember to pause and enjoy the simple things even it's just getting outside on a sunny Northwest day.

A Few of My Favorite Things.

We've been busy since getting back from Hawaii, I even took a trip for work last week and still somehow I've managed to read two whole books this month which is a record for me since having kids. Before having kids when I traveled a lot I actually had several times when I couldn't find a book to buy at the airport shop because I'd read all the ones I was interested in. I love to read and hope both the kids can find a love of books as they grow up. I've also found time to do some scrapbooking which is another of my favorite things - especially when I'm making pages of my two favorite kiddos!

Here are my latest pages.

The kids in one of my favorite pictures from last year. McKenzie is so sweet and loving towards Ben. I've tried many times to get a good together shot since then and have been unable to capture more than 'too much love' before I've had to pull them apart.


Ben's one month photo shoot - time sure flies. I can't believe it has been over a year since these pictures were taken.


Miss McKenzie being 'too cute' as usual. This is actually an amazing 'still' photo of her as she is usually a ball of energy, hard to really capture on film.


This is from our trip to Bob's Corn Maze two years ago.  What a fun day and a fun page to make! Can't wait to do last years pumpkin page next.

Hawaii One-0

As the title implies this was our first ever real vacation with the kids and also their first trip to Hawaii. It also helps that the year is 2010 and that we hope to take the kids back to Hawaii for more vacations as they grow up. Both Matt and I went to Hawaii with our families when we were young and have many great memories from those trips. We had an action packed trip so I'll just try to cover the main highlights as well as share some of our 250+ pictures from the trip.



The first morning we were in Hawaii the kids woke even before the local birds, which included a large flock of turkeys. Kids have no concept of timezones or of sleeping in... so right on schedule at 4:30 AM Hawaiian time / 6:30 AM Pacific we were up for the day. We stalled as long as possible but at 5:30 we headed out in search of food, it was still dark and McKenzie kept shouting "Sunshine wake up!"  After driving around to kill some time we were the first patrons in the local grocery store at 6:00 sharp.

Here's the kids entertaining themselves indoors before the sunshine woke up!



We went to the pool at our condos three times over the trip, it has a great pool for little kids and then a larger deeper pool and a hot tub so it was great for the kids. They did love playing in that water but what they really loved was the big water as Kenzie called it. When you have a mix of sun, sand and water what's not to love?  Here's Benny heading into the water and he kept right on heading despite the waves and depth of water. It's going to be a busy summer with him.



He also was quite interested in drinking the salt water and kept trying to lap at it like a dog.


Here are the cousins playing in the sand.  I can't wait to see what kinds of fun these three dream up in the next few years.


We went to Stanley Park for our first beach trip and tried to go back for our second trip but the trade winds had really picked up and the sand was "pecking me" according to Kenzie.  We headed to the Hilton that day to use their pool. Matt and I stayed at the Hilton last year when we went on trip for work. We knew it would be a great place for the kids. We managed to find an area sheltered from the wind and while their pool was way too cold for the kids their hot tubs were just warm so we played in those. On our next beach trip we went to a secret beach that Matt had read about in a book where you had to get a pass for one of the 27 reserved parking spots to go to the beach. It was beautiful and great for the kids.  It has a lagoon and a nice sandy beach. Here are McKenzie and Ben working on their sand castle.


Matt and I have been to the Big Island twice before and had great trips but really didn't love the island. After this trip where we were able to explore more on our own and weren't just dropped off by a tour bus or at a resort for a week our opinion has definitely changed a bit. We did some driving around to different areas than we had explored before. We drove through Kona which reminded us a lot of the Wailea area on Maui and we went up to Waimea and saw the most amazing rainbow which made McKenzie's day. We also did a half day trip over to visit a farmers market in Hilo. It is amazing how different that side of the island was and how you could watch the climate change as you drove along.

As we drove along McKenzie was full of questions about the scenery, specifically about the lava.  She kept asking "why dirt? why dirt?" So I tried to explain it was lava and that led to talk about volcanoes and then on to tectonic plates and magma only to end up back at "why dirt?" again. This is another area where Matt and I differ in opinion - I like to explain things to McKenzie when she ask lots of questions. Matt likes to answer a few but then move on once it's over her head. On this trip I too had to give up after the second round of tectonic plates and magma when she became fixated on "why taltano?"  This lead to trying to get her to say things that started with 'v' - lots of quality family time in the car.

Here's Grandma Z not far from our condos posing by a coral sign in the lava that say 'G-MA Z' how appropriate and we didn't even write it!


We did a couple of fun tourist activities with the kids. We visited a Seahorse farm and saw the 'sea-saws' in McKenzie's lingo. It was actually amazing how many seahorses they were raising there and how simply they lived. Ben and I had to go take a snooze in the car for most of that visit but McKenzie had a great time seeing everything and especially enjoyed the touch tanks at the end.


For Matt's birthday, which we were so excited to celebrate in Hawaii, he got a massage with Aunt Jennifer since we also celebrated her birthday there and then went on a dolphin adventure with McKenzie. McKenzie was a little hesitant as first but then warmed right up to the dolphin and told Matt "I want to take dolphin" when it was time to get out.


The other great thing we discovered was an amazing local park in Waikoloa. The community built this huge park which was surrounded by a fence and had all kinds of neat toys to play on. Once we discovered this we were frequent visitors. Here's a view from up on the slide platform. It was pretty close to paradise when traveling with kids.


Ben and me going down the big purple slide.  He wanted to go again and again and....



McKenzie also discovered tire swings on this trip. I think she must have spent over 3 hours of the trip swinging on this one and another one at the condo playground. She loved to watch her shadow follow her round and round. Here's the cousins testing out the swing together.


The playground had something for everyone.  Here are Grandma and Grandpa Z playing a little tether ball. It is a good thing Grandpa Z had the shoulder surgery!


Traveling with family definitely had its perks.  One of those perks was on site baby sitters.  We escaped one night with Jennifer and Chris and went to the Four Seasons for an amazing birthday dinner celebration for Matt and Jennifer. Actually the amazing part is for how much we ate on this trip I only have this one picture of us during a meal.


After dinner we took a little rest in a large clam shell we came across.


And finally heading home... McKenzie decided she wanted to go home in the 'big lunchbox'... such a funny girl.

Sorry for the really long post if you have even made this far - this is the full Hawaii summary so moving on to more fun here at home.

The Kindness of Strangers

In this day and age when people are never alone if they have their cell phones handy, I find that people don't often engage with strangers when they are out and about. I notice this effect the most when I'm traveling which I used to do all the time for work. I am one of those streamlined airport people who knows where the shorter lines are, how to have all my items ready for the security check, when to board the plane to get overhead space. I have all my techniques down to a science.

Matt on the other hand is a much different traveler than I am. I remember distinctly when we went to the airport for our first trip together and I got into the preferred line and he said "Oh, you're one of those people..." Though he did warm to the idea once he realized he too became one of those people by accompanying me. Still he tends to linger through the airport while I prefer to get right to the gate, he heads through the metal detector sun glasses on his head, he waits until they are calling his name to board the plane while I sit on the airplane reading my book trying not to cringe while they are asking me if he's coming.

Despite all our difference we still enjoy traveling together. Add in two kids to the equation and you have a whole new kind of travel. We just returned from a week on the Big Island of Hawaii with the kids, Grandma and Grandpa Z, Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris and cousin Claire. We had a wonderful trip and got to spend a lot of quality time with everyone but I for one can't wait for someone to invent some sort of teleportation device so we can skip the travel part.

We left on Saturday morning bright and early for our 8:50 am flight. All went well with the wake up and getting into the car, we cruised down 405 to the airport, found a great parking spot and that's when we hit our first snag. We had two adults, Kenzie on foot, Ben in the bjorn, three suitcases, two carry on bags and two car seats.

It was not a pretty picture getting to the check in. Undaunted we checked in at the first electronic ticketing station we saw, it was out of paper so on to the next location only to have it only give us receipts since had already checked in, so on to the bag check to talk to a real person who was able to help us get our tickets. We were then told that our flight was delayed until 11:30 due to the tsunami that might be heading towards Hawaii because of the earthquake in Chili. Then we checked our three suitcases - one of which contained McKenzie's blanket - meltdown number one. That meltdown continued while we were in line to go through security to the point where a very nice TSA agent pulled us out of line and took us down to the next security line and got us in the fast lane and told us about a kid area inside the terminals. This was our first sign of the kindness of strangers we would experience that day. We made it through security without too many more issues and then had some breakfast while trying to get more info about the tsunami. We learned that if it was going to hit Hawaii it would happen around 11:00 so we continued to wait. We found our way to the kiddie play area and let the kids loose. I then hiked up to our gate to ask about getting a fourth seat since Ben qualified as a lap child and when we booked the tickets he was pretty mellow we only booked three seats. Luck was still on our side and I was able to get a fourth seat on the aisle right in front of our assigned seats.

Fast forward to boarding the plane, of course we missed the call for those traveling with small children so we were in the middle of the pack boarding and right when we got onto the jet way we hit meltdown number two. McKenzie decided she was not getting on the plane. It wasn't a pretty site. We were juggling our carry ons, Ben in the bjorn, the car seats and trying to get her moving. That's when a very nice grandma came up and offered McKenzie some banana chips, a nice man offered to carry our car seats on for us and then a little five year old girl and her mom got out of line and came back to get us. The little girl came right up to Kenzie and said "I used to be scared to fly on planes but I'm not scared anymore, do you want to hold my hand?"  Kenzie stood up and grabbed her hand and boarded the plane. We were in awe at how many people reached out and helped us when they could have just walked on by in their own little bubble probably annoyed at a little two year old crying on the jet way. Those small actions by strangers made our travels so much easier. I will be remembering this as I travel in the future... this one is definitely worth paying backwards and forward.

Stay tuned for more posts this week on Hawaii - we took so many pictures. Here's one for now of the kids on the airplane - we're still on the ground and Ben's already asleep! McKenzie is reading the seat back safety card. She may be the only person actually following the directions to read that.