Easter

Easter seemed to creep up on me this year. I didn't decorate our house one bit and didn't plan too far ahead on much. Thankfully Nathan and Natalie have a wonderful great grandma and grandpa that bought their Easter clothes in advance and gave them to us the week before.  I think part of not being prepared is due to having a small child. I'm talking about Nathan not Natalie. But let's take for example the Easter egg hunt at the park. We didn't even tell him we were going until five minutes before we left. I mean can you imagine the disappointment if it had been canceled due to rain or we didn't make it for some other reason. And although he asked about Easter for several weeks leading up to it, it seemed easier to convey the length of time by not making too big a deal (ie decorations). Which is very selfish of me.  This year I really tried to get Nathan to understand why we celebrate Easter. After all it is so much more than easter egg hunts and candy.  I would actually like to know how a bunny came to represent easter and if a bunny then why eggs?  All of it is a bit of a mystery to me. So explaining the connection to Nathan was not my strong point. But I do think he could tell you a little more about the meaning of Easter, so for that I am grateful.  I am posting some pictures of the things we actually ended up doing to celebrate.


The pictures above are from the Easter egg hunt at the park (in the rain)
Coloring Eggs

Easter morning.

Easter dinner at Grandma's

This is the house Ryan bought to turn into a salon this past winter. He has done an amazing job. The girls started at the beginning of this month and I think it is going well. He still has some work to do on the outside and now that spring is here hopefully he will be able to.  I am including some pictures of the inside now that that is finished. I seriously am amazed that he is able to do so many things.







Nathan and Natalie's handprints in the cement outside the salon.

6 Months Old

We started Natalie on rice cereal this week. She did pretty well for her first time. You can see from the pictures she enjoyed it more sometimes than others. I can't believe she is already six months old. Those six months went fast.

Baseball and Soccer

I'm not sure what we were thinking but we signed Nathan up for both baseball and soccer this spring. Last Saturday would have been the first day for games in both baseball and soccer but due to the snow both were canceled. So Nathan had his first baseball game on Monday night and first soccer game Thursday night.  Ryan is Nathan's baseball coach and this year they are playing coach pitch. It's been fun going to practices and games so far. I'm sure we will get our fair share of both but Nathan loves playing both so I guess it's okay. Lucky he is the only one we have to worry about as far as sports and extracurricular activities go. Thursday before his soccer game he was kicking a flat kick ball on the asphalt and slipped. I think it was banana peel style. He cracked his head on the asphalt and it started to bleed and gave him a pretty good goose egg.  The thing that made him the most sad was hearing he might not be able to play in his soccer game. We help him out the first half and then let him play in the second half. The bleeding stopped and he was just left with a sore head. Poor guy. Natalie gets bundled up pretty good for the games and practices. Here she is in her warm pink fuzzy outfit. She stays nice and warm with this.

The Aquarium

Natalie is sitting pretty well as long as there is something behind her.
She continues to be a very happy content baby.
We went to the aquarium recently with Grandma Wagstaff during a rainy day. They have a whole new exhibit with some fun animals. There are these bright colored poisonous frogs.  There are also large spiders, a large snake, crocodiles, turtles, piranas, eels, and soon to be penguins.

The fish in this tank were huge!

Nathan always enjoys putting the puzzle numbers together. He is getting quite good with puzzles. We are glad to have annual passes to the aquarium and enjoy going often to see what's new and also to see our favorite marine life.

Back to Reality

So we got back a week ago. On the way home, going through security I lost my wedding ring. I still have a knot in my stomach. Don't ask me why but in going through security I took off my ring and watch and put them in one of my carry ons.  When we got through security and went up the stairs I reached in to get my ring and watch. I got my watch out and pulled it on and then tried to find my ring to put it on but it wasn't in the bag. I had to get permission to go back down to security. I told them what had happened and they searched the tubber ware buckets but no luck. They looked around the best they could but no luck. It has been a week and still not found I don't think I'll be getting it back. Hence the knot in my stomach. 

Monday I found out my grandmother had pasted away.  Yesterday we drove up to Big Piney for her funeral. The roads were terrible. But we made it safely and on time, thanks to Ryan's excellent driving skills. The service was excellent. My dad spoke, among others, and I learned lots. Both about my dad and my grandma. The grandkids all sang and it was really nice to be around family. My parents and older brother and his two youngest daughters as well as my three youngest siblings came and stayed the night. I am going to miss my grandma. 

My grandpa Scherbel is a land surveyor and this is a picture of a Surveyor Scherbel marker close to where my grandma was buried.

This is a picture of Nathan and his cousin Lauren. (Lauren is just ten weeks older than Nathan and lives in VA.) They played outside all day today, and although the sun was out, it was so cold I think the high was 45, tops. Anyway I heard yelling and went to check on them. They had gotten in the window well but were unable to get out. They were yelling "Get a ladder! We can't get out!" They are so cute.

Then they asked for sidewalk chalk. I told them just to write on the cement. Awhile later they knocked on the back door and asked for tape and lots of it. This is what they wanted the tape for. I did give in and gave them three pieces of tape. They played so cute together. No fighting or arguing. I don't know if that is because Lauren was just letting Nathan get his way or if they really just got along that well. At any rate I wish she lived closer.

Hawaii

These were my traveling companions on the plane ride over. We left for Maui a couple days before Ryan. We wanted to get in as much sun and fun as possible. Both Nathan and Natalie did amazing on the flight over. Emily was a huge blessing and lots of help. It was nice that we each got our own row to stretch out and had free movies to watch.
This was our first day in Maui. It was a bit over cast and the waves were so big there were orange flags which Nathan can now tell you means you can't go in the water. But he started right in on digging in the sand. The first of many sand castles started.
Of course we had to go to Cheeseburger in Paradise. Nathan had gotten hungry earlier so he had already eaten and got to enjoy this delicious fresh pineapple smoothie. That ended up being the beginning on a tasty trend.
Ryan joined us a couple days later. He jumped right in teaching Nathan to boogie board.
Building countless sand castles.
Even covering him in sand. Nathan was so glad to have his dad here.
Ryan took Nathan snorkeling. He got to see a turtle. He was pretty excited to go.
They dug many large holes in the sand. Nathan wanted to dig until they reached water.
Natalie with grandma Wagstaff on the beach by black rock. I love this dress she is wearing.
This was one of the beaches we went to. (Napili)
Here we are in Lahaina as the sun us setting.
We had a monk seal visit on the beach in front of our condo a couple times to sun bath.
Many nights we were out past Nathan's bedtime. Natalie here is not in her car seat. She seriously spent 90% of her time on Maui in her car seat.
This is Natalie getting ready to go for a swim in the pool. She loves swimming. She kicks her legs so much like she knows what she's doing.
Here is our little family all in the pool.
One of many typical pictures of Natalie asleep in her car seat. I can't tell you how many people comment what a great/happy baby she is. She really was a dream child on this trip.
I got this stroller right before we left and it turned out to be a great investment. Natalie could ride in her carseat and Nathan could stand or sit on the back. It folds up small enough to fit in my trunk and is so easy to steer and fold up and down.
We pulled Natalie out of her car seat so Alli could get a picture with her. It is a beautiful sun set in Lahaina.
Natalie in her cute Hawaiian dress. She is a doll isn't she.
We discovered this shaved ice place the last week we were here. We still managed to get six or so from here. The ice is shaved so fine and the juice is just the right sweetness. We all loved it.
One night we finally decided to let Nathan choose what to do for dinner. He has wanted to BBQ since December maybe earlier. The pool has a couple really nice BBQs and so we gathered at the pavilion and had ourselves a BBQ. We played a little ping pong. Jason even brought some tunes. Nathan was in heaven.
Yesterday was by far the worst day for weather so we decided to check out the aquarium. This is one of the cool pictures I got. The sea life was incredible. Our favorite was the shark exhibit and the chance to hear about sharks and watch them be fed.
Grandma bought Nathan this football. He enjoyed playing with it in the pool. He has become quite the swimmer. He has honestly spent hours and hours in the pool just about every day. After we go to the beach we always end at the pool. Even days we didn't go to the beach because of wind we were able to go to the pool and the walls around pretty much blocked the wind. It was so nice. The pool was heated and the hot tub was well, hot. The pool next door is so much nicer to look at but cold and often too windy so this trip we spent most of our time in the pool at our condo. We got to know several families and Nathan enjoyed playing with several kids his age.
Here's Natalie and I in the pool. Nathan is in the background with Natalie's floaty thing.
This is our last night in Hawaii. We thought we'd get a photo with the sunset. Ryan had to leave on Sunday so he's not in it. I have literally taken hundreds of pictures and quite a bit of video. Hopefully I'll put together something wonderful to save. This has been an amazing trip. No matter how long I am here it is never long enough. But I am so glad we could come and be in one of my favorite places on earth. We leave tomorrow and will have to get back to "real life".