Hawaii Here We Are!

My dad's HUGE sandwich at Da Big Kahuna's Pizza N Stuffs


Classic Hawaii I guess


View of Honolulu from Pearl Harbor


Pearl Harbor


Our group lounging around waiting for a shuttle

We finally made it to our home away from home at the Kona Plantation after two days of traveling--what an ordeal! We left our house late Friday morning, stopped by my parents, stuffed ourselves and our MASSIVE pile of luggage into my parents' suburban with the 2 of them plus my brother and sister and all of that luggage (wow, we looked like the clowns coming out of the car at the circus!), and then we headed to the airport. We decided to park the car at a "Park N Fly" place which was WONDERFUL because a shuttle bus picked us up right at the car and dropped us off at the front door of the airport. No problems getting to our gate for the flight to honolulu and by 5:00 we were in the sky. The 9 hour flight with Sarah was difficult but not nearly as horrendous as it could have easily been. She SCREAMED for a few minutes near the beginning of the flight because she was fighting going to sleep, but once she went to sleep that was pretty much all of the screaming for the whole flight except for a couple of minutes of whining later when it was time for another nap. While she was awake, she LOVED climbing all over the seat and us (Jeremy is sick with tonsilities or something totally unrelated to Sarah's sickness last week, and he is MISERABLE, so my mom sat by Sarah and me on the plane and we sent Jeremy to share germs with a stranger--I think the lady he was sitting next to would have totally flipped out if she knew--she looked like a germophobic of some sort). All in all it was a LONG but successful 9 hours, and we were all so glad to arrive in Honolulu and get to our hotel. We all woke up at strange hours the next morning (like 3 am!) I guess because of adjusting to the time change. We spent Sunday morning at Pearl Harbor and then ate lunch at a FABULOUS pizza joint near the airport. Finally we got on our flight to Kona after going through a very rough and MEAN airport security set-up, and eventually we made it here to our BEAUTIFUL house (more pics of the house later--it was dark last night).

You are probably wondering why I am updating my blog instead of sleeping or enjoying the beach, but I guess I am still adjusting to the time change and I woke up at 5 AM ready to go! So here Mary Evelyn and I are on the computer in the dark...Sarah is sleeping like a log--she is probably glad to have a real bed again!

Practicing for Hawaii

This morning Jeremy and I took Sarah to Fort Yargo State Park to "practice" for our Hawaii vacation. Sarah tried out her new/used backpack hiker, and she LOVED it! Yay! That thing is going to take up her WHOLE suitcase but is going to be very useful once we get it over there. Fort Yargo has a beach at their lake, too, so Sarah got to experience life on the beach. She wasn't too sure about the wet sand, but she did tolerate the water better than I thought she would (my mom and I took her to a community pool yesterday and she was not that thrilled with it...too cold and splashy I think, not to mention she spent the trip over there rubbing sunscreen in her eyes---ouch!--today was a much more pleasant experience for her I think!)

This last picture is our newest family picture--Uncle Joseph and Aunt Alecia sent all of us cute t-shirts from Disney World, so we tried them out--aren't we such the happy matching family! :-)

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Sarah gave us all a surprise this week--she got sick with some kind of virus! She woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday night with a fever of 102.7 or something. We went to the doctor Wednesday morning, and they said she may have a virus and to give it until Friday to see if she got better. By Friday, she was still as sick as ever and her fever had constantly stayed between 101 and 104, even with Tylenol. So we went back to the doctor on Friday morning, and they still thought she may have a virus, but they also wanted to check for a urinary tract infection. They tried to catheterize poor little Sarah to get a clean sample and it didn't work! Long story short--I had to collect a sample at home and take it back to the doctor, but when I took it back they messed it up and we had to re-do the whole thing and return it this morning. After a huge stressful ordeal yesterday, the test at the doctor's office this morning did not indicate an infection. She also woke up this morning without a fever, so she probably did just have a bad virus. Yesterday was Sarah's birthday, and we spent most of the day back and forth between the doctor's office and my mom's house. Sarah was tired and pitiful a lot of the day but did enjoy playing with some new toys last night before bed. She woke up this morning without a fever thank goodness, and we got ready for the big party. Everything was going smoothly until Sarah decided not to take a morning nap. We had planned the timing of the party to be in between her morning and afternoon naps. She was SO CRANKY during the party! Oh, well--what can you do? I hope everyone including Sarah had a good time at the party despite the fact that she was so very sleepy...as soon as the party was over she took a three hour nap and I had to wake her up from that! Enjoy the video clips from the party and the pictures that "Uncle Michael" took :-)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

The good: Sarah looks really cute when she walks--enjoy the video clip, although she would only take a couple of steps for the camera. She did show off how she can push to stand all by herself, though! The bad: Sarah is getting her daddy's temper ;-) The ugly: Sarah having a temper tantrum because Mommy won't let her do something she wants, like go out the back door...enjoy the video! Sarah has been doing baby gymnastics this summer at The Little Gym, so I am also posting some pictures of how much fun she has there.

Happy Father's Day!

Sarah made Jeremy the CUTEST garden stone ever for Father's Day, if I do say so myself :-) What a project(it took several tries to keep her from clawing the cement)!

Girls' Weekend

This weekend 4 of my best friends from college came to my house for our annual reunion--it was so fantastic that everyone was able to attend! We spent Friday having lunch at Hard Rock Cafe in Atlanta and visiting the World of Coke--what a fun picture we took with the Coca-Cola bear! Saturday we hung out at the park playing frisbee and having a fabulous picnic. Saturday night we chatted the evening away like girls love to do :-) Sarah did well on our adventure in Atlanta on Friday, then she got to spend the night with Nana and came back home on Saturday afternoon. She is walking more and more--now she loves to walk all over the house by herself--I still wouldn't call her independent, but she is doing super! It's really funny to watch sometimes because she tries to run but is still all wobbly. The other new thing with Sarah is her budding language development--she is finally signing "more" consistently--funny thing is, she says the word, too--so much for sign language before verbal language :-) She has almost 10 words (ok, maybe some are approximations) now! More, Mama, Daddy, Bye, Hey, Yay, Mmmm, Hello, Nana, Whee, Meow, Woof. Wow Sarah! We're getting ready for the big "1" this Friday and the party on Saturday!

Summer Fun!

Family picnic in our driveway


Sarah swimming at Nana's right before she pooped and spit up in the pool


Sarah swimming in her new pool at our house


Daddy with his brand new girlfriend--the things dads do... :-)


Sarah practicing gymnastics at home in the ball pool she is borrowing for the summer


Helping mommy fold laundry--what a good little helper!

We have been busy bees so far this summer! Sarah has been going to a Kindermusik summer camp for babies, and she is going to "baby gymnastics" at The Little Gym once a week. After this week, Kindermusik camp will be over and our schedule will be much more relaxed. It sure is great to be able to spend lots and lots of time with Sarah everyday--she is such a big girl now! She takes a few steps alone every day and is going to be walking for real anytime. She is so proud of herself after she does any kind of task and claps for herself often :-) She also knows how to throw quite the tamtrum if she doesn't get her way, complete with crawling off to the corner in a huff, throwing herself down on the floor, biting anything nearby, etc...