A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to go to Hawaii with my parents and my sister and her husband. It was definitely a much needed vacation, although I'm not sure vacation ever really has the same meaning once you have kids!!!
Ooooookay, so... it's been a while. So sit back, relax, this is going to be a long one!! A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to go to Hawaii with my parents and my sister and her husband. It was definitely a much needed vacation, although I'm not sure vacation ever really has the same meaning once you have kids!!! A 5 hour flight should seem like nothing after multiple 14 hour plane adventures, but man was it challenging! Now, I say that, but really both kids were pretty darn good, just Riley was a LOT of work to entertain!! She's so go-go-go that 5 hours on a plane in the middle of the day is torture to her! But we survived and landed in Hawaii, ready for fun! So we stayed in a condo, which was nice because both kids could have their own room... only downside was, Riley's room had 2 single beds, which were set up in a way that you couldn't just put them together, but there was only like 2 feet between them.... so I basically stuffed that space with pillows and blankets and turned it into a HUGE bed. Bigger than any bed she's slept in. And wouldn't it figure, that she would fall out of that bed not once but TWICE in the middle of the night. Talk about giving your mama a heart attack, nothing worse than hearing a huge THUD followed by screams at 2am! But she recovered quickly and we were ready to start our days in Hawaii! Now, one thing I totally did not expect? Riley was terrified of the ocean. Not really the ocean per se, but more the waves. She's been around then ocean and water plenty of times in New Zealand, but the beach was smaller where we were in Hawaii, and the waves were pretty loud, and for some reason she was terrified! I was totally perplexed! She loved the pool, loved swimming, was alright sitting in the sand FAR away from the water, but was NOT happy to sit near the water, and wanted to be carried at all times! Jackson, on the other hand, was totally not bothered by the sand or ocean... He was pretty much happy most of the time. The tricky thing with vacation with the little ones is balancing doing fun things and playing outside with everyone getting enough rest and sleep. One day we planned a trip out to the aquarium (more on that in a minute), and there was a miniature golf place right next to it, so we decided to give it a try. Riley loved it for the first 10 minutes, then got pretty bored and just wanted to go on the bumper boats. So I spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince her it was a good idea to wait until everyone else was ready before going on the boats. 30 minutes is a LONG time in toddler world, let me tell you. Jack was well past due for a nap, and FINALLY fell asleep thanks to Grandpa who walked and walked and walked him around until he was out. And Riley continued to make it impossible for anyone else to play golf... Riley is so funny, we told her we were going mini golfing, and she says. "Mini golf? Oh! Not MICKEY golf, just MINNIE golf!" Such a little goofball, that one. :) Can you tell she has Minnie Mouse on the brain? These pictures of Jackson below are before his skin started to freak out. The kid has very sensitive skin, and does not do well in the Hawaii climate. His eczema was pretty bad, and at one point his forehead was all rashy and red. He also does not do well in the heat, and our condo had no air conditioning, so sleep was a bit of an issue for him during this trip, but you never would have known it during the day, he was a pretty happy little dude! The boy LOVES to jump. And jump. And jump some more. Only minimal amounts of sand were consumed while he was sitting there, surprisingly! This is Riley's GET ME AWAY FROM THE WAVES face.... just before full blown meltdown. All I wanted was one photo of the two kids together on the beach. Riley was too scared, so we cheated. It think Jennie is holding Jack, and my mom is holding Riley. And we got buildings in the background instead of beach. But they are sort of on the sand, so whatevs. Jacky boy was not yet crawling, but he was so so so close (don't you worry, he is full blown crawling now, there's no stopping him!) It's probably a good thing he wasn't crawling, since now he doesn't stay still for more than 2 seconds! These two bottom pictures show just how awesome my kids' hair is... Jackson's little fluffy mohawk and Riley's ringlets. We made it to the aquarium and of course, Riley LOVED it. She loves all the fish and the ocean animals, so she was in heaven. We could have stayed there for a very long time! It has taken me so long to go through all these photos, and the ones in here a just small selection from the first few days of our trip! I have so many more cute ones to go through and sort, PLUS today this little cutie patootie turns TEN months old, so I have an update coming for him too! So more Hawaii photos, some videos, and a 10 month update coming soon!
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My last post was a little bit of a downer, but our trip wasn't all bad! It started a little rough, but once we got into the hotel and got all settled down, we packed up and headed off to the local aquarium. But not before stopping to feed the little guy in the parking lot while Riley needed to urgently use the potty RIGHT THIS SECOND. Do you know how hard it is to take a half decent photo in a super dark aquarium while chasing a toddler and trying to also look after a baby? Yeah. At this stage Riley wasn't too sick/feverish, BUT it was about 3pm and she hadn't had a nap, so she was a little... fragile, let's say. But she sure had fun! She loved seeing all the fish, pointing out the different colored ones, and would say "wow that's a really really big one!" over and over again. She got to hold a starfish (she was stoked about that one), and was super excited to get to see all these animals from her "sea animals puzzle" in real life! Seahorse, octupus, stingray, shark, etc... Although she was disappointed there was no dolphin. :) Jackson started out in the stroller, but was absolutely fascinated with every single thing around him. He was the happiest little guy, just looking around, taking it all in. Overall it was a really fun, totally successful trip. We probably could have stayed a lot longer but I didn't want to push our luck with a napless toddler and overstimulated little baby! The following day we stopped at a butterfly farm right near the airport. The place was actually really awesome, and I think Riley WOULD have enjoyed it if she was not feeling absolutely miserable. Literally right as we arrived there was the beginning of her miserable-ness. She spiked a fever, only wanted me to carry her, and just was not doing so hot. Needless to stay, we didn't stay very long. We did stay long enough for her to get scared by a HUGE butterfly flying right at her, and she thought it was going to bite her. I finally convinced her that he wasn't going to bite her, it just wanted to look at her, so for the next 30 minutes she went around chanting "he's not trying to bite you, he's just looking at you!" There were also baby alligators, HUGE crocodiles, and a bunch of different tarantulas. But at that point Riley was in a total feverish trance, so we had to go. But they clearly made an impression on her as she mentioned the crocodiles multiple times today! Speaking of today... Riley was feeling slightly better, although at one point her fever was up over 103 again, but mostly hovered around 101.5. She went through waves of feeling pretty good and being in good spirits, followed by being miserable and clinging to me like a little koala. Around 9:30am she basically climbed into my lap and fell asleep, so I transferred her into our bed and she slept there for about 3 hours. Poor little bug. I hate it when she's so sick. Although I must admit, the extra snuggles are always welcome. And always love an excuse to stay in pajamas all day long! Thank goodness Jackson seems to be feeling alright. He was a trooper today, just hanging out, trying to roll over, trying to eat everything in sight, drooling up a storm, and about to sprout his two bottom teeth. His eczema also seems to be improving, although sometimes it's hard to tell. We saw a naturopath the other week, and I got some good insight from her, started taking some probiotics and some fish oil supplements, and I've changed to a completely dairy free diet. Next step is going wheat free as well, so I've slowly started phasing out wheat from my diet as I didn't want to do such drastic changes cold turkey. It's pretty tricky making sure I'm eating the right stuff since I'm not used to this kind of diet, but hey, for this little face, I think I can manage. Sometimes I still can't believe how much Jackson is turning into a real little person. Manipulating toys, looking at everything, grabbing everything in sight, yelling out when he's frustrated or wants attention, staring at me with his gorgeous blue eyes, bouncing like a crazy person in his bouncer.... Oh yeah, and? The big news of the day? We sold our house!!! Hooraaaaaaay! That's a huge stressor we can check off the list, thank goodness. One step closer to being back to the US! Now on to the next task... selling our stuff, and deciding what to pack up and ship back to the US! Oh yeah, and crazy thesis writing for my oh so over-worked and over-tired husband. October can't come soon enough!
We're having lots of fun here in Tahoe. It's just me, Mark, the little one, and my parents, and I'm kicking myself that we didn't do this sooner. Riley is loving the outdoors- the pools, the sandy "beaches," the playgrounds, the restaurants, the plethora of doggies, and all the little kids she finds. The first day we got here we stopped at King's Beach, and at first, Riley was not too sure of the sand. It was unstable, she had trouble walking, and she just wasn't so sure. But it only took minutes for her to realize all the potential for fun... We had buckets, we had watering cans and more sand toys than any one baby should have. Mark built her a sand castle and we stuck sticks in it and collected rocks and twigs and water and water and more water. I'm positive she would have loved swimming if the lake wasn't so freezing cold! She warily went in just far enough to fill up her watering can, and then she bolted out before she got too wet. And of course, we finished off the day with a little fun in the pool with daddy. Riley is lovin' this place, and her second day was even better than her first (stay tuned for more pics)...
Welp, we're here in California!! And I really think the trip could not have gone better! Here's the rundown...
2:30 pm We left our house for the airport. I had woken Riley up from an almost 2 hour nap in order to nurse her and get her ready to go on time. 3:15 we arrive at the airport to discover a huge line to check-in, full of LOUD screaming teenagers. I thought for sure Riley was going to get scared, but she coped very well! 4:00 put Riley in the front pack and she falls asleep for 40 minutes 4:40 pm board the plane right after Riley wakes up (woken by the screaming teenagers) 5:00 take-off for Auckland (45 minute flight)-- Riley did not like having to be buckled in, but did very well on the flight and only cried for about 1 minute total! 6:00 pm arrive in Auckland, transfer to international terminal and wait in a HUGE line to go through security. Riley fell asleep in the baby bjorn for 30 minutes! 7:30 finally board the plane, we were literally the last people to board, but we got the bassinet seats which was SOOOO awesome because there were ELEVEN babies on the plane. Eleven. 8:00pm take off for San Francisco!! Riley stayed awake for the first 2.5 hours of the flight, which was probably longer than she should have but there was no getting her to sleep with all the lights on and all the activity. She was in a pretty good mood though, and she was SUPER smiley and making friends with all the passengers and the flight attendants. Finally at 10:30 they turned the lights off, and she fell asleep about 2 minutes later. After she'd been asleep for about half an hour I tried to put her in the bassinet... success! But whoever decided to place the bassinet literally right behind the toilets is an idiot. Her face was basically right next to the toilet. Have you ever heard an airplane toilet flush?? It is LOUD... So any time anyone flushed the toliet adjacent to her head, she got startled and woke up. So she slept in my arms for the next 7-ish hours. Which means no sleep for me! So yeah she slept from 10:30pm -5:45am (waking twice to eat briefly). She was awake and happy as can be until we landed at 7:30am, and promptly fell back asleep in the baby bjorn after we landed. Literally, an angel baby. I could not be happier!!! AND, get this.... she has not yet cried when my parents have been holding her, even if I am nowhere in sight. She's not afraid of them!! Hooray! Anyway, lots of pictures to come tomorrow, for now, we all need some much needed sleep! We made it to New Zealand... luckily. We left on Wednesday, and barely made it onto our flight. I got off work early on Wednesday, and casually drove home to meet my mom, who was going to drop Mark and I off at the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30, and it was only 3:15, so I took a shower, loaded the stuff up in the car, and printed last minute directions and information for when we arrived. Mark took a quick shower, and at 3:45 we were off. We were flying domestic (San Fran to LA, then LA to Auckland) but for some reason we heard we still needed to get to the airport 2 hours in advance. Whatever, better safe than sorry. |
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