Sissy's Fifth Birthday.

Sissy has been talking about her fifth birthday since, well, her fourth birthday. I had a bit of anxiety that I wouldn't meet up to her expectations for the day. Many times this season she has mentioned that she's going to Hawaii for her birthday. Wow. The bar was set pretty high. After much stress and thought, Colin said that it was ok to NOT have a party for the two December kiddos this year and instead just do a special day of their favorite things. Since I have been under the weather for a few weeks, Colin took the three older kiddos to the movie "Frozen" in the morning and Abe and I napped.  Sissy dreamed of going to a movie, so this was a special treat for her. We all met at her favorite Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. She was uncharacteristically tired there, which should have alerted me that something was going on. It turns out that she was getting croup. Later her cousins (and my brother and sister-in-law) came over and had dinner. Sissy was supposed to spend the night with them as her final birthday treat, but she was barking like a seal at that point.

Here is Boss eagerly eating Sissy's birthday cake.

And Boss playing with Sissy's birthday sketch toy.

Here is my attempt at her cake. She wanted chocolate cake with purple frosting with her name in cursive, but the letters not connected. She's very specific.

Grandma Mary and Samuel at the restaurant.

She wanted blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

She turned bright pink when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

Perhaps Sissy's most awaited gift was her big girl car seat with butterflies on it. My mom sent it to her and she was over the moon.

What birthday would be complete without an entire collection of Jenna Hipp nail polish??

Samuel painted her nails grey and turquoise - she actually chose those colors. The fact that she didn't choose pink should have been a warning sign that she wasn't feeling well!

She ate so much rice noodle soup at the restaurant that she almost foundered on it.

At five, Sissy loves: anything pink or purple, Hello Kitty, all things princess, chewing gum, telling people she can't have cow's milk or anything almond, anything craft or art related, not napping, doing her hair, picking out jewelry to wear, shopping for clothes, working on writing her letters, making and sending people cards, eating raw veggies and not meat, and watching Dora.

December Fun

We headed out on Friday to find a Christmas tree in the balmy 20-something degree weather. I have to admit that my body seizes up a bit in the cold and needless to say, I was not the best contributor to this family outing (insert image of me sitting in the driver seat of the truck, hands held steadily over the heat vents, scarf covering the entirety of  my face). After what seemed like a few eternities, my family picked out a large tree, cut it and loaded it up in back. We spent the remainder of the day thawing out, drinking tea/hot chocolate and decorating the tree. Sissy has taken to this tree like a moth to a flame - rearranging ornaments all day long to make sure "Santa can see them all".  Every day. The older I get, the more I realize Christmas is less about everyone having a relaxed fun December full of presents and good cheer and more about Mom making sure everyone has a relaxed December full of presents and good cheer. We have Juliet's and Samuel's birthdays in December as well, so I am pretty much a basket case most of the month. Someday I will discover the secret to internal peace and harmony during this month....

Here are some pics I snapped:

Boss was really interested in the Frank Sinatra and other similar era Christmas music blasting from the kitchen stereo.

This babe was pretty much frozen at this point - we were about two minutes into our tree hunt.

Colin requested ginger snap cookies and I was all to eager to comply with anything that involved standing my a heat source. They all dipped cookies in milk or tea and enjoyed thoroughly.

Jude worked on light detangling and inspecting.

Snowsuit from the late 70's apparently.

Jude's gleeful to be headed out in the truck.

Sissy adorning the tree top with the angel.

The kiddos played in the snow earlier this week as well - Sissy was of course adorned in all pink snow gear.

She hangs the stockings with care.

Here was the prize winning tree.

Maui 2.0

I still can't believe we pulled the trigger on this trip. We should be buying a paved driveway, firewood, Christmas presents....but we did it anyway.  After much research pricing and thought, Colin finally consented to going back to Maui. He loves it there too, but he was more nervous about the cost. At any rate, our flights were great getting over there. Our plane to LA was the smallest I had ever been on and I sat next to an elderly lady that was going to Kauai with her friends. I love that. As soon as we landed in Maui, we headed straight to get our car and was upgraded to an SUV, which we loved. We then proceeded to spend way too much money at Costco and head back to our condo. I love our condo. It sits right on the beach and there are only 12 units total. We pay $120 a night - which is cheaper than most pay on the Oregon coast.

Friday we woke up, had our coffe while watching the sun rise (rough, I know), and then drove to the Olivine Pools just north of us. They were pretty and I loved seeing a couple of friends sitting on a rock jutting out into the ocean, having a picnic. It's different in Maui - everything is so much slower, so much about just being outside, about just being. It feels like Sunday all the time.

We then headed to a beach by the Ritz Carlton that was pretty much deserted. I read, Colin swam. After that we headed back to the condo where Colin convinced me to snorkel. Mind you, ever since radiation, I really don't like masks, but he only agreed to come to Maui if I snorkeled. I have to say that it was pretty amazing. I saw fish of all sorts. Since I'm not super comfortable with swimming, Colin actually had me hold a boogie board and pulled me around. It was just one step up from floaties . I asked him if he could pull me into town in my best Napoleon Dynamite voice. I wish someone could get a picture of us. That would be one for the scrapbook.

The rest of our trip was comprised of Coin snorkeling a lot, me reading a lot and a just laying on various beaches, watching surfers or looking at the clouds. Yes, looking at the clouds. When was the last time you did that?! It really was a very bonding, relaxing trip for the two of us. I have started to think about the next trip (maybe Europe??), but Colin wasn't ready to entertain the idea yet...

Here are the load of pictures that I took.

A newlywed couple (there are a lot of those in Maui) took this picture for us. We were at the Olivine Pools, I think. See the pools in those rocks in the background?

Colin and the fellow condo tenants blew the conch at sunset. John, the older man that lives there, does this every single night. Last year and this year, he stalked Colin to join him. We decided that this was the purpose of John's existence.

Sorry the photos loaded randomly. This is a picture of the Haleakala Crater. It's 10,000 feet up. We woke at 3 a.m. and drove the two hours up on a switchback road. We stood what felt like right under the stars (in about 38 degree weather), crammed together at the summit with people from all over the globe, speaking all languages, waiting for the sun to rise. Since I'm shorter than pretty much everyone, I didn't get the best view, but I did snap a some pictures after the sun began to lighten up the crater.

This was the left side of the crater. The sheer enormity cannot be captured in a picture.

This was the first part of the sunrise.

This was the ground floor of the crater.

This was right on the ocean - just a random little cave.

They had these light beacons - I had to take a picture because I find our lighthouses in the Northwest so beautiful.

This was one of the beaches we visited.

This was the morning we flew out - Colin really wanted to go snorkeling here. We packed up early. The picture doesn't capture how aqua the water is. I was sitting on a rock quite far above it and could see the fish swimming around.

This was a sunset from our lanai.

Someone actually had a pet deer in their car in the KMart parking lot. Colin's words, "THIS is why you carry a camera around." I'm just so curious where they will put the deer when it is full grown??

This is a picture I took in San Francisco airport - they were featuring Japanese cartoons. I knew Sissy would love to see Hello Kitty. Sure enough, she asked if I could buy this for her.

We were waiting for breakfast at a restaurant called The Gazebo (our only meal out) and it rained. We stood under umbrellas of fellow tourists and look at the rainbow I captured. Amazing.

I loved seeing all the palm trees- they are such a novelty to this Oregonian!

This palm tree was swaying in the breeze while I read on our little beach in front of our condo.

This was the second to last night - we watched the sunset at Black Rock - and the cliff divers.

This was right outside of our lanai. So relaxing.

I wrote the kids postcards everyday. Hawaii mail is slow - I received almost all the postcards in the mail when I returned. I will keep these for the scrapbook.

Here the sun is about to burst out of the clouds. It was spectacular.

This tree we found as we trekked through a kid of rainforest area on the way to snorkeling. It looked like it had hair! There were wild chickens running around everywhere. It was crazy.

A close up at Black Rock.

The sunset at Black Rock.

This kid carrying the torch was the cliff diver.

This was our plan to L.A. - I got claustrophobic just looking at it. We actually had to walk on the tarmac to get to it.

Los Angeles.

This was my view most of the time - reading my book while Colin goes out to swim or snorkel.

Another self portrait - I tried to take pictures of us to text back to the kids.

We visited this museum called "The Whaler"- all about the early history of getting whales and what life was like for those sailors.

This was one of the early crews that caught whales.

One of the hotels had a pond with actual flamingos.

As much as I love Maui and all its beautiful tropical weather, I also love being back home in the cold weather, preparing for Thanksgiving and creating Christmas gifts.