Big Island Day 1

Alex, Cole, Audrey, Christina and I flew to Kona International on Monday, April 24, a 6 hour 15 minute flight. It went amazingly well with only a bit of grumpiness from the people directly in front of us because Cole was pushing on the seat. As much as we tried to remind him, he is 3 years old and has selective memory.

We drove to my dad and his wife's place south of Honaunau right away (they live mauka, or toward the mountains) where we were greeted by a tasty spaghetti dinner and all the ripe avocado we could eat. Christina stayed at Richard and Sarah's but we went up to the top of the hill to stay at Russ and Mary's place. Thank you Russ and Mary! Sarah generously set it up with provisions, clean linens, and fresh flowers. Thank you Sarah!

A picture of the house looking up the slope of Mauna Loa. The upstairs rooms don't have walls or railings so it's not a preschooler friendly place to sleep.



A picture of the house looking down the slope. This side of the house has a wall since all the weather comes down the mountain and into the house.



A picture of the rustic facilities at Richard and Sarah's place.



The view of the house from the facilities, convenience at the expense of privacy.



Audrey and I turned in early because she had had about ENOUGH travel business and disruptions to her schedule. How did I know? She fussed and cried regardless of the soothing method I used.

Audrey turns 11 months

We've been taking pictures of Audrey on the 23rd of each month since she was born. We now have 12 pictures and are just waiting for that birthday cake all over the face shot. Here is the year of Audrey so far.

Audrey Elizabeth Zecha
Born April 23, 2008
8 pounds 7 ounces



1 month old


2 months old


3 months old


4 months old


5 months old


6 months old


7 months old


8 months old


9 months old


10 months old


11 months old

Easter Traditions

The kids and I drove Tess, our dog, up to my mom's house in Bellingham today. She's going to visit with Willow, my mom's dog, while we are in Hawaii. The Easter Bunny paid an early visit in Bellingham so everyone got a little treat. My mom has continued a tradition that my Grandma started when I was little (maybe it started sooner than that, mom?). We always got a See's Mayfair Egg for Easter. See's describes it as, "a filling of premium butter, cream, pecans and glacé cherries covered with our famous rich, dark chocolate." Either everyone loves these things or they don't make enough of them because they seem to run short every year. I got the Mayfair egg and everyone else got a Bordeaux egg.

My Grandma made me a frilly new dress every Easter as well. What I wouldn't do to still have one of those dresses. Sigh.

Audrey was excited about her egg!



Cole and Audrey with their Easter baskets.



Me and Audrey on mom's deck. I tickled her to make her laugh.



Sweet Audrey.





I bought a Radio Flyer Walker Wagon for Cole's first birthday. He started walking right around 12 months and the toy was a hit with him and his little friends. Here is Audrey just starting to use the wagon (it's a bit beat up from being left out in the rain).



The backyard is starting to be inviting again after rainy Winter. The cherry tree will be blooming very soon. Then the apple, the Asian pears, then hopefully strawberries, cherries, raspberries, boysenberries, and grapes. I love our backyard.

FLASHBACK to this time last year - one very pregnant Heather hunting eggs with Cole at Paul and Kathy's Easter party.

Teeth! and College!

We've been waiting on Audrey to cut more teeth for a long time. She has the two bottom ones and we've taken to calling her "two tooth". Every so often I check and this morning I actually found two new teeth breaking the surface in the front on the top. There wasn't any obvious teething behavior except she seemed to be 'drooling' a touch more than usual. To celebrate I gave her a corn tortilla for a pre-dinner snack.

Christina got two more acceptance letters today, one from UW and one from Macalester College. She was ecstatic about the Macalester letter and looked at it as if it were a winning lotto ticket! Yeah Christina!! In her words, "It's nice to know that all the hard work paid off."

Cole set train track this morning on his own. This is a first. Sometimes I worry about his ability to focus but on days like today I have to remind myself that he is perfectly normal. He can concentrate and focus when he wants to.



I've been singing a couple verses from the Paul Simon tune, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, every so often. I don't have the CD but I found the song on You Tube tonight so Cole and I grooved on this classic for awhile before his bath. Cole loves music and he loves to dance.

Lost my keys twice today

My head just isn't screwed on tight lately. I couldn't find my keys this morning after dropping Cole off at school. I was running around frantically and finally found them between the windshield and the hood of the van. I'll often set things down there so I can't drive off with my wallet on top of the car. Later after lunch I lost them again on Capital Hill and imagine I looked a little loopy talking myself through all the places they could be. They were inside the van but had slipped under one of the rear seats. Jeez!

Cole had fun on the field trip. He said he got to play a harp. We went to lunch at Vios with friends. Alex took me there for my 36th birthday. It has a little play area for children. The food is yummy though expensive and the portions are small. We all had gelato after the meal. Cole's friends had finished theirs before we left the building (potty break for us) but Cole was thrilled to share his with them.

Cole beaming while sharing strawberry gelato with friends A & A.



Cole and friend posing on the stoop.



Cole should have taken a nap in the car on the way home since he was clearly exhausted but he didn't. That made for a challenging afternoon filled with inordinate amounts of obnoxious behavior on both our parts. I did accomplish something, however, a primrose path.



Here is a picture of what I did with my kid free day on Saturday. The whole row is Seal Lavender. It gets big so I gave it a lot of room to grow.



Audrey has been covering her ears today. I'm not sure if she is imitating Cole or what but it's very cute and I caught it on camera at dinner.



Cole wanted to take some pictures of Audrey. He loves making babies laugh.



Cole and Audrey took a bath together tonight and you can see how much fun Audrey had. She was screeching with delight.

Getting Stuff Done

We spent a lot of time working on the house this "off week" (that is Alex's week off work for clarification). The laundry room is almost totally done and it looks great! Alex got the window cased out, put in the baseboards and replaced the water heater. We also got a new range because the old one had taken to shutting itself off randomly. This was especially disturbing when I'd spent more than an hour making a pie and peeked in to find it languishing in a 200 degree oven. I ripped out all the lavender above the retaining wall and replaced it with new plants. We did all these things only with the help of unpaid childcare - thank you Christina and Mom!!

Christina and Cole bonded while attending a Biodiesel in Your Neighborhood Community Forum presented by NW Biodiesel Network. Christina got extra credit for her physics class and I heard Cole was a pretty good guy through most of the event. They then attended the Irish Week Festival at the Seattle Center where Cole did some artwork and they listened to music.



Speaking of Big Sister, Christina got an acceptance letter from Seattle U yesterday. She has also been accepted at Western, my alma mater. She's still waiting on letters from Scripps College, Macalester College, and UW.

Cole's preschool teacher sets up elaborate art projects related to the theme they are studying. This past week they studied birds. On Monday, Cole made a bird's nest and filled it with a "mama and papa chick and baby chicks". The mama and papa are cotton balls dyed yellow inside egg carton shells while the baby chicks are really eggs made of clay.



Cole with baby chick egg



Tomorrow Cole's class is going to Benaroya Hall for a program called Musical Storytelling "Bach's Goldberg Variations". I'm sad that I can't attend, alas, no babies allowed!

Alex is off to his new boat tomorrow, the M/V Hiyu, in ..... Friday Harbor.



He says he's leaving the house at 4:20 A.M. and should be home by 11 P.M., just in case you thought your work schedule was tough. He got Cole to bed tonight with books and snuggles.

We are off to Hawaii next week to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Richard and Sarah, lounging on the beach, eating fried calamari at Jameson's and snorkeling. I'm not looking forward to the flight with rambunctious, loud Cole and squirmy, tired Audrey.

Gymnastics

We are fortunate to live close to a children's gymnastics studio that has open gym hours every day. We did lessons with a group from Cole's preschool last year. He enjoyed aspects of the class but he did a lot of running around when almost everyone else was "on task". Since then we go to the open gym a couple times/month to wear little Cole out. Audrey really likes it there too and it is moderately safe for her as long as it's not too crowded. Cole is excited about doing somersaults. Ask him to show you next time you see him.

Cole doing "strong arms". Coach Terra taught him this move.



Cole on the rings.



Audrey's standing prowess.