Well I have been swamped. But I am finally caught up with the laundry, got all the bills paid, the house is temporarily decent so I am ready to start up-dating things. However two months is a lot to catch up on so I will start with the small stuff and move on from there.
The extra-small: For the past year I have had the best alarm clock ever, it was one of Scott’s old cell phones. It was the best because I would have it in vibrate mode and then just put it under my pillow. It wouldn’t wake up Scott or Alex who as I have mentioned before slept in our closet. Well Yesterday I just made a quick casual stop into the Version store to check and see when our Scott’s cell phone contract expired because we were going to switch but I walked out with an new phone number for my alarm clock. Customer Service did their job and got me what I wanted.
The small: Along the lines of things I have always wanted, I have always wanted
a garden. So this spring with some help from a friend who go me started I put out my 2 boxes and started my square foot garden. For all the work it really is bigger than small news, but yesterday I got my first tomatoe. Unfortunately, my real first 3 ripe tomatoes went to the birds, so I don’t know how I am going to prevent that from happening in the future. I read a bird bath would help deter them because they are just thirsty, so I put out some water in a dish. I am not sure if I want to commit to a bird bath in the backyard since with the power lines above our yard is already a major bird hang out.
The medium: I mentioned above that “Alex…slept in our closet” --that means past tense because on Saturday we finally pulled the crib out of storage and set up the nursery. I chuckle to myself at people that set up the nursery 4-5 months before their baby is born. I just never thought that I was the opposite extreme but Alex is now 9 months old. Boy does time fly. He has done really well adjusting to his new surroundings. We have had wonderful spring weather, but today is going to get hot and I am so glad that he has his own room with a nice ceiling fan. We have had some noise issues to deal with during nap time since he has some good sound insulation back in the closet. Alex is a good sleeper and usually takes 4-5 hours of naps a day, but it is too hard to label that much time as quiet time.
The Large: You have probably guessed where this is going. If Alex finally has his crib mattress and his own room, that means we have done some rearranging and made a sales rep happy at the furniture store. Saturday, we made the plunge and bought 2 sets of
bunk beds and mattresses to go with them.
The details for anyone who wants to know: We have toyed with the idea of bunk beds since the twins were in cribs, but we have just kept putting it off. Two months ago I sold Matthew’s toddler bed in a garage sale and he has been sleeping on the floor ever since. I have been checking Craig list faithfully, but we have gone through so many phases of what we wanted or needed that we couldn’t decide. Saturday I talked Scott into driving to a warehouse over 45 minutes away that online had looked like it had promise to show us a wide variety of affordable beds. This place was a dump; but they did have some affordable beds. The problem was we weren’t looking for a bunch of 2X4’s screwed together; we were looking for a more permanent solution.
On the way home we stopped by Gallery Furniture. Honestly our reason for stopping was because last time we were there we got a free dinner, but since they were a real furniture store with gimmicks like huge play areas, free ice-cream/cookies and a free buffet to serious customers that would mean high mark-ups and no good deals. Well the plan worked we got a sales guy to think we were serious enough that he gave us a voucher for dinner and then we gathered our kids from the play area. We had targeted the least expensive set, close to our price range. Plus the mattresses seemed really good quality and were in the same range as the ones were planning from Big Lots. Honestly after all the work and searching and checking the seller was the delivery and set up. It was late and they promised that our kids would be sleeping in the beds that night. I was ready to just be done with it.
At first I hated the beds; I can say that now because I am satisfied with them. I personally was looking for a nice bed that wouldn’t look like half a bunk bed when it was separated. Scott was looking for durability and that is what we got. I saw a lot of beds like these go through on Craig’s list and I knew if that is what we were looking for we could get a better deal used. But that would mean more waiting, and then finding ways to go pick them up and still then still putting them together. Since the delivery and assembly was a flat fee I decided that was a good deal. The kids were ecstatic, we walked out of the store eating our ice cream smiling and then they topped it all off with giving all the kids their own basketball…including Alex.
The EXTRA Large: Scott and I just returned from
Hawaii a week ago. We are pretty regular about taking vacations without the kids and this year is no exception. Scott’s mom invited anyone to come stay with her at her timeshare in Kona, so our sleeping arrangements were already taken care of. I found a great deal on plan flights, so we just rented a car and traveled the island. There were seven of us total in the one bedroom condo. (Scott’s mom DeAnn, 2 sister Laura and Audra, and his brother and his wife Mike and Julie plus us.) Housekeeping probably got a little suspicious when we kept asking for more towels and sheets, but everyone seemed comfortable with the arrangement.
Scott bought a great travel book and read it cover to cover and then and went back and tabbed and highlighted. I skimmed through the book, but mostly I just loved looking at the maps and reading the highlights. We went to the Big Island which has so much to do. We were hardly in our condo except to sleep at night, and due to the 5 hour time change we were all ready for bed by 8 pm the first few nights and I was wide awake by 5 or 6 in the morning.
One of the highlights was that we flew over the day before my birthday, so I had a great day in Hawaii. Another day after 4 wheeling we went to a Black Sand Beach where the sand was tiny lava crystals that had broken apart when the lava had hit the water. I insisted on sitting back and relaxing there because I didn’t want to leave. Scott and I finally went scuba diving and loved it just like we knew we would. We saw turtles, sting ray, sharks, eel, an octopus, and some other rare fish that our dive instructor got so excited about that he grabbed my camera to take a picture of it. I have no idea what it was but it was big and rare. Toward the end of the week we went spelunking in a lava cave and then rushing up to the top of Mauna Kea for the sunset. Every day we had wonderful sunset, but it was a difference experience to be above the clouds.
The biggest disappointment was no lava. Everyone else has always come home with cool pictures of bright red flowing lava, but the best we saw was a small glowing cloud as the lava hit the water far off in the distance. We tried to solicited to park rangers to take us past the roped off zones, but it looks like there was no way around it. A couple of years ago we hiked the park for over 6 hours looking for active lava with no luck. At least this time it was only a 10 minute hike and they wouldn’t let us get any closer.
Here is the quick travel log:
Sat: Flights toKona —sunset at Happuna Beach
Sun: My B-Day. We went to the local stake conf.
Mon: City of Refuge, 4 wheeling at South point, & Black Sand Beach
Tues: Wamiea, Polou Valley & some of the north Beaches
Wed: Shopping, scuba lesson, Happunna Beach
Thurs: Scubba Diving, Kiholo Beach
Fri: Traveled to Hilo and Puna to find the Lava
Sat: Volcano Park, hiking, lava tubes, Mauna Kea and star observatory
Sun: Un-named Black Sand Beach, Rainbow Falls, Drive to Kona and flight home
After one week I was ready to come back home to my kids. Alex fared really well while we were gone, and I was never really worried about the others. They loved having sleep- over’s with their friends. I brought home everyone chocolate since that was my favorite. Samantha got some flower clip on earrings, Jacob had requested a buggy board, Josh had only asked for chocolate and Matthew had asked for a hat. (we got Josh a Tee shirt but he switched it for Matthew’s hat). Since the week long diet of Chocolate and Mac nuts showed some signs on the scale I have joined Scott in the realm of low-carb eating. We still have some chocolate hanging around, so I guess I will just have to save it for our next vacation when we go with the family to Lake Powell and then up to Salt Lake.
As a side note: We bought Scott’s plane ticket so it is official that I will be in Salt Lake with the kids while Scott stays returns home to work. We will be planning a big Birthday Bash for Scott and Alex in Salt Lake for Alexander’s 1st Birthday.
I guess I only highlighted the most recent instead of covering the last two months. I will have to start sorting through the pictures and updating the web pages.
Long story short the kids were still up at 11:00 pm. I didn’t want to just do the posters for them, and I guess since we had such late hours over the weekend camping, I figured we would let it slide. We pasted away late, and then even this morning Samantha was putting glitter on her two smaller posters. 
I hope this ends up to be a good experience for them win or loose. There is one position for Jacob’s grade next year, and only 3 positions for Samantha’s grade. Who knows how many kids are running, but I know that there are 2 from Jacob’s class- multiply that by 8 classes and probably there are at least 16 for that one position. I am not even going to guess how many are running against Samantha. 