April

One day Sasha on her own prepared Jack's meal of rice cereal and carrots. She was so careful not to spill any while she poured and stirred and then fed him the entire bowl by herself. I love her look of concentration (above). Jack loves to be in the work-out room looking at himself in the mirrors, watching me do the elliptical, and especially grabbing onto the weights. I am behind in this blog, obviously, but just a current update: Jack is so close to crawling. He rocks forward onto his hands, holds the position for awhile and eventually becomes stranded on his tummy. In some ways I can't wait for him to get mobile because I think he'll be so much happier. As it is now he gets pretty frustrated when left on his own on the floor right now. He is happiest when he can hold onto our fingers and practice walking, a back-breaking endeavor for the adults in the house. He can pull up on a few things too which prompted us to lower his crib mattress a couple of weeks ago. Lastly this is Sasha's last week at Gabriela's house (the woman above). She has been going there with some other little kids for the past 2 years for a couple days a week. It has been a very nurturing second home for her and we will miss Gabriela so much, but Sasha is definitely ready for preschool which she will start in the fall. I will NOT miss the 20 minute drive to take her and pick her up at Gabriela's especially now that I have to load up Jack each time.
We are off to Sedona, AZ for a weekend of hiking over Memorial Day.

Hawaii cont.

Just a few more pics...The sunset dinner Phil and I had alone one night was one of the meals I will remember the rest of my life--couldn't have been more perfect.

Hawaii Trip March/April

We had the opportunity to travel to the Big Island of Hawaii this spring. Phil had a conference there and so we extended the trip to include a week of family vacation. Though it took a bit of organizing to travel with 2 little kids it was well worth the effort in the end. We all had a wonderful time. My parents accompanied us for the first 5 days when we were at the conference. We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo right at the resort where the conference was being held which was SO nice with kids--full kitchen, separate bedrooms, etc. It was great that my parents could stay with the kids in the evenings while Phil and I went to the conference dinners one of which was a luau (photo above). We were amazed by how beautiful Hawaii really was--more spectacular than we every imagined. We took one day to drive around the island which included a brief stop at Volcanos National Park. Sasha was disappointed not to see any hot lava that day. Other days were spent going between the beach and the pool. I expected the 4 hour time change to be harder than it actually turned out to be. After the 2nd night the kids were pretty much going to bed around 6-7 and waking up around 6. Jack was still at a really easy stage to travel. He was content to sit on a towel at the pool and beach surrounded with a few toys. Sasha loved just spending every minute of the day with her dad about as much as she did being in Hawaii. She's a daddy's girl for sure!