Ten on Tuesday

1. I'm thinking it's probably odd that my 10 and 13 year old are a wee bit obsessed with checking mannequins at stores to make sure that they have belly buttons. Right? (We took them clothes shopping for a few items over the weekend. Apparently, it's been awhile since we've tried all five of us shopping for clothes together, as I had to constantly reign in the younger two...as they kept messing with mannequins and hiding in window displays. Lovely.)

2. In one week (ONE WEEK, folks!), Noah will start his sophomore year at Colorado Early Colleges (CEC). 

3. The younger two won't start Options until the 24th, at which point I'll also start our homeschool year. I suppose I'd better get my act together and start figuring that all out, lol.

4. But I mailed in my annual homeschooling letter of intent to the school district, so that's something. ;)

5. Nathan started boot camp with me yesterday. ;) If you see him, don't touch him. He's sore. (This makes me happy for a couple of reasons...1) it's rather entertaining, lol, and 2) watching him reminds me of how much progress I've made.)

6. Speaking of progress, I'm still loving my FitBit. I fell off the wagon a bit after getting home from Hawaii (though I actually managed a decent step count while in Hawaii) but am back on track now. Yesterday, Nathan and I stopped to admire these snapdragons during one of our walks: 

I love snapdragons. They always seem so happy and remind me of my grandma, who always had some growing at her house. (My grandma recently turned 94, btw. On the off chance that she sees this, happy birthday, Gram!)

7. The boys and I had eye appointments yesterday. Micah still doesn't need glasses, which makes him sad, lol. The other two needed slight adjustments to their prescriptions and I'm staying the same. All good. 

8. The younger two had their annual well checks last week, too. (Tis the season for annual appointments, lol.) If Micah's reaction to the small finger prick they did for his cholesterol level is any indicator, next year's immunizations will be fun. ;) (I'm already planning to have Nathan take Micah to that appointment.)

9. This is what boys are doing right now:

Love these boxes!

10. I really need to get stuff done instead of sitting here staring at the computer. Bleh. ;)  

Hawaii Wrap Up

I didn't quite manage to finish with my thoughts on our Hawaii trip before I got distracted by birthdays and cousins, lol. So. Here are my random thoughts beyond what we did and where we went...

I don't like humidity. Nope. Gimme my nice dry, sunny Colorado most any day. :)

Why the heck don't more women's skirts/skorts/dresses have pockets?! Seriously. 

Related to the humidity thing, thank goodness for Bumble & Bumble's Don't Blow It. As fate would have it, I received a free sample of this the week before I left. On a whim, I bought some to take with me. It was a life saver! (Trying to blow dry my hair with all that humidity was ridiculous, and this allowed me to let it air dry without my hair going all limp and blechy.)

Kauai has multitudes of wild roosters and chickens. They roam freely and appear to be protected. The locals don't even seem to notice them. I wouldn't mind except that I'm a light sleeper and roosters are loud. ;) Grr.

I was quite frustrated by the lack of anyplace selling Hawaiian name items. I found a few places that had a small offering, but both the items and the names were limited. (I found necklaces geared toward young/little girls, keychains, and pocket knives. That was it.) I really think someone could/should open a store just for personalized Hawaiian name items! (When my parents went to Hawaii years ago, I remember that my mom came home and started calling me Amanaka, my name in Hawaiian. As luck would have it, Noah and Micah's names in Hawaiian are Noa and Mika, not very different. Asher would be Akeli and Nathan is Nakana, in case you care.)

Also, is it just me or is it very much more difficult to find souvenirs for boys in Hawaii?! There are so many things for girls...hair things, jewelry, purses, and so on. Other than tee shirts, though, I had a really hard time finding things that my boys would appreciate. (In the end, I settled on a stuffie for Micah, a toy volcano for Asher and food for Noah, lol.)

Anyhow.

Those were just some of the random thoughts left swirling around in my head. It was really such a fabulous vacation!

Also, I read this article not long after getting home and thought it was rather spot on, lol. Of course, we're silly like that and are already thinking about our next "trip"...as we'd dearly like to take a couple months and take boys to Europe in the fall of 2016 or 17...while they're still all living with us (and now that they're all old enough to carry all their own stuff and actually remember this years from now, lol). We have no idea how to fund this yet or whether it will become a reality, but we're actively and seriously pondering...

Cousins

Spent some time with some of the boys' cousins recently...which was awesome and just too short. Last Saturday, Nathan and I went down to Longmont and took some senior pictures of our oldest niece, Haylee. It went pretty well, and we got some beautiful shots. (It helps that we had such a beautiful subject to work with!) One of my favorites, though, was this one:

For some of the pictures, we made a wildflower crown for Haylee to wear (with flowers from my friend's awesome new venture...thanks again, Sue!). Due to time constraints, Zach ended up finishing up the crown and did a decent job. Isn't he cute? ;)

Okay, though, here's a preview of one of the shots of Haylee:

It'll take me a bit to finish going through all the shots, but I'm hoping she's happy with some of them. :)

The next day, Zach brought all three of his kiddos up to Fort Collins. We ate and visited and boys did this:

And I made most of them let me take this picture:

And then later in the week, the boys and I drove down to Longmont and took kids out to eat...

...and then bowling...

(We were all fairly evenly matched and equally unfashionable, lol.)

Then we went back to Zach's where this quickly ensued:

...and I left those five doing that while Haylee, Marcy and I headed out to take a few more photos. 

And, sadly, Haylee and Quinn will be headed back home to Washington tomorrow. :( So glad we were able to see them while they were here...they'll be missed!

Double digits

It's official. My babies are growing up. Sniff. No more single digits here. 

Yup, my Micah turned TEN today. His party is tomorrow so today is just hanging out with us. He requested a picture with his brothers...

...then he got to open the gifts from them and is now upstairs playing. :) We took his birthday pictures also:

And now for a list of ten things about my Micah:

1. He doesn't eat the ends of hot dogs/brats.

2. He's not quite mastered impulse control yet, lol. 

3. He's got incredibly high expectations for himself.

4. He's a big Broncos fan. (Except. Really he's not a huge fan...he just likes *being* a fan, if that makes sense.)

5. He likes stuffies and Captain America and HeroClix and Minecraft and Hero Factory legos and Alton Brown's Good Eats and Mythbusters and old episodes of Psych.

6. When the pediatrician asked him what his favorite subject is yesterday, he said cooking.

7. He's talking about writing another book. This one will be a chapter book with illustrations. (So far he's written the first three chapters, I think.)

8. He's been known to growl at people and has a tendency to take things too personally. ;)

9. He's still a karate and archery kid.

10. For all that he acts like an older kid and prefers to hang out with older kids, he's still a little kid at heart (which makes me happy).

Sigh. Happy, happy birthday to my sweet littlest. :)

Big Island

Last island. ;) On Friday (7/17), we flew from Kauai (to Maui) to the Big Island. We picked up our rental car and drove the 40 minutes or so to our vacation rental in Volcano...just outside (east) of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. After settling in a bit, we headed back out for a snack in Volcano then into the park. We visited the Visitor Center then drove into the park a bit to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube and hike a lava crater/lake floor (which was a bit surreal and rather drizzly, so we got soaked during that 4 miles of hiking).

And then we got in the car and made our way to the only public viewing site for current lava in the park. At the Jaggar Museum overlook, we were able to both walk through the museum (which had some fabulous displays and artwork) and see the lava glow as darkness arrived...

It was more impressive in person. ;) And very difficult to photograph, particularly since we'd not brought an actual camera, lol. In any case, after that we discovered that our rental car had heated seats (woohoo! as I was still damp from our earlier hike) and made our way to the Lava Rock Cafe in Volcano for a late dinner. Then we went home to enjoy the gas fireplace! (Amazing...considering that we'd been melting in Kauai just the day before, lol.)

The next morning, we headed out toward Hilo, stopping at a couple Farmers Markets along the way for breakfast and coffee and shopping. (The Saturday Hilo Farmers Market is awesome and well worth the time, folks!) Then we continued on around the island counter-clockwise...stopping at Akaka Falls to enjoy the short hike there:

We ate lunch at a nearby town and continued our drive, marveling at the difference in scenery from one side of the island to the other...from rain forests to desert and sagebrush. By early evening, we'd made it to the west side of the island (the resort-y area) for our luau and enjoyed a beautiful evening of food, drinks and entertainment. Happy sigh. :)

On Sunday, we woke early (despite getting in late after a long drive back across the island in the dark and fog) and headed for the Volcano Community Farmers Market that a potter had told us about at the Hilo Farmers Market the day before. We had a yummy breakfast and enjoyed the sense of community there before heading back to pack our bags and check out. With a wee bit of time to spare before we needed to get to the airport, we went back into the national park. First we checked out the artist gallery next door to the Visitor Center. (It had so much gorgeous work!) Then we drove the Chain of Craters road to the end to see the Holei Sea Arch:

Along the drive, we marveled at the lava meeting the ocean and how the crust of the flow made us think of brownies, lol.

Finally, though, we headed for the airport and started the traveling process that got us home to Denver Monday morning. Whew. :)