My Little Word Book

Annmarie is crazy for this book. We must have gone through it at least 1,234 times this weekend.
Annmarie was a little under the weather this weekend, so we stayed in. And looked at this book. A lot.
Shoes.
Fish.
I'm thinking.
Monkey.

Feeling better today. See ya.

La Selva and Etsy

My incredibly talented and beautiful cousin, Nikki Silva was featured on the Etsy blog this week.

The post features La Selva, an amazing communal living home. For the full story go – here.

The story will warm your heart.

Also, for those of you not familiar with Etsy, Etsy is a place where you can find handmade goodness. I came across Etsy when I was pregnant with AM and found some wonderful treasures (art, hair clips, paper goods, etc.). Not a week goes by that I'm not tempted (or do) to buy something through their site.

Cheers!

To Four Years!

Hawaii - Part IV - Videos

Here are two videos from Hawaii. One at the beach and the other at the restaurant dancing. And I believe this rounds out the Hawaii posts.
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Hawaii - Part III

Ok - Two more days to go.

More of the same.

Here is Annmarie at the Hyatt. She had a great time at the pool. We were so happy to see our little girl. It's a good thing we missed her so much, because the wining and crying she did on the car ride back to Princeville didn't get to us.

On our last day there we, but of course, went to the beach. This is at Hanalei beach.

Annmarie loved it.
The waves here were a little stronger and we all had fun playing in the water.





Giving Dad a Eskimo kiss.

Papa's turn.
Snack time.

That would be Jamie and I out there.
The beach would really tire Annmarie out.
Grandma and Grandpa got AM this cute little stuffed rooster to commemorate our time in Kauai. Here she is carrying it around.


We had dinner at the Mediterranean Gourmet on our last night. It was your typical kitschy Hawaiian restaurant. I was very happy with my meal.
And Annmarie went crazy over the music they had. Which may have been some of the most uncomfortable music I have ever heard. Hopefully this doesn't get back to the band, because they were really sweet to Annmarie and a lot of other people were enjoying them. Annmarie started dancing and running around the restaurant like she owned the place. Video coming shortly, so you can see and hear for yourself.
Seriously, she went nuts over the music.
We left for home on a Tuesday. 8 Fabulous days in Paradise. Ahhh.

Annmarie was not all that thrilled with the plane ride back home. She did take a good nap, but was just restless most of the time she was awake. She was very happy to be off of the plane and started running through the airport.

(Free)

We dealt with our dead car battery and finally got home.

Annmarie is very happy to be sleeping in her crib again. But I know like us she misses the warm blue ocean. We have some great memories and one day we will be telling her about that time we went to Kauai when she was still our little girl.

Hawaii - Part II - A Vacation from our Vacation

On Friday Jamie and I had a little vacation from our vacation. The two of us headed down to Poipu for two nights. Annmarie stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in Princeville.

But before we left we visited with our chickens. We had families of chickens at our resort. And the whole island is crawling with them. Annmarie got the biggest kick out of them.
Here she is saying good morning to them with Dad.
Jamie and I were ready for some free time to ourselves for a couple of nights. Here we are before we said goodbye to Annmarie.
Driving down to Piopu you go through these beautiful tree tunnels. Love tree tunnels.
We stayed at the Hyatt.
There is an awesome surfing beach with huge waves at the Hyatt. It was a lot of fun to watch the surfers. And the water is so beautiful. I see surfers all the time out at Ocean Beach in S.F., but this is so different.

We spent most of our time, hanging out at the pool, going to beach to watch the surfers and reading. Not all that different from our previous days. Except now we had bar service at the pool, we could read, and we could relax just a little bit more. We also got massages. It was wonderful. Don't get me wrong we missed Annmarie and spent most of our time talking about her. But it had been awhile since Jamie and I have been away together just the two of us.

Our first night there we ate at the Hyatt at their Italian restaurant. It was ok, nothing spectacular. Their signature restaurant was closed for a re-model.


Time at the pool.
The grounds are very beautiful.

Here we are on the second night.
There was a wedding going on this night and I had to take some pictures. I have a soft spot for weddings in Hawaii. And since our Anniversary is in September, we considered this our little Anniversary getaway.
For dinner this evening we went to the Beach House. We got there before our reservation and sat on the lawn for a while. I so want to try this (standing on a surfboard with a paddle), but I know there is no way I have enough coordination. It looks so cool though.
We had a nice dinner and the views were spectacular.
The next day my parents and Annmarie joined us at the Hyatt for some pool time and we all headed back to Princeville for a couple of more nights.

It was a great getaway from a getaway.

Hawaii - Part I

We left for Hawaii on Monday, Labor Day. Annmarie did well on the flight OVER and was entertained with a new baby doll, books and Baby Babble (DVD). Oh how she loves Baby Babble. She had her own seat, which I think was necessary, there was no way she was going to sit on our laps the whole way there.
She took a short nap.

And these are the only two pictures I have from this day. We spent the rest of the day getting settled into the house, going to the store and cooking dinner in. We stayed at the Nihilani condos within the Princeville Resort. The place was nice, very clean and had all the comforts of home.
The next day we took it easy and went to the pool. This is going to be the theme of this vacation. It was either the beach or the pool. And I often didn't have my camera.

Later that evening, I was ready for my lava flow, so we went to happy hour at Kalypso's. Annmarie colored and played with her new Hawaiian doll.
We snapped some photo's of Annmarie.

Here she is modeling the pouty lip.
The armpit pose.
And the stare.
Then she offered to pay for our drinks with Dad's credit card. She's nice like that.

We then headed to Bar Acuda for dinner. The food was great (tapas), atmosphere was great as well. Again no pictures. We may have pushed AM a little too far this evening, as she wasn't thrilled about being in a high chair again, but she managed to devour a huge bowl of mashed potatoes. Jamie and I had to speed through dinner, that happens with a kid. Again, the food was great. I would defiantly recommend this place.
Late that evening Grandpa and Grandma joined us from Arizona.

On Wednesday, we went to the beach at the Princeville Resort. Because the resort is closed for renovations we had to go down a ton of stairs to get the beach. But we a had a fun time at the beach and going back up the stairs wasn't all that bad.

We picked up burgers at Bubba's Burger's, took naps (all of us) and then went out to the pool.

For dinner that evening Jamie grilled some fresh mahi mahi and we made fish tacos. They were fantastic! He picked the fish up at the Hanalei Dolphin Fish Market. Fish always tastes better in Hawaii. So fresh.
We went back to the beach on Thursday. We went to Anini Beach. This was a nice beach with calm water, great for Annmarie.

She had a lot of fun at the beach. Loved chasing the water. Playing with her bucket, filling it with sand and water, again and again.


Family shot! And oh yes, you better believe I cropped this photo. There is no way you will ever see me in a full bathing suit on the internet.
After the beach it was nap time and then we all got ready to go out to dinner at the Hanalei Dolphin Fish Market. The same place where Jamie picked up the fish the night before.



These are pictures form the restaurant. It had great views of the river.


And as I look at these pictures, I can't stop thinking how big our girl is getting. Time really needs to slow down.




Here is a pic of my dinner. The fish again was fantastic.
And of course a happy face shot. Annmarie was really great during dinner this evening. We got her an artichoke, which she loved and she ate some of my fish. She appears to be coming around to fish. Fish has been one of the foods she really hasn't taken too.
After dinner (or all dinners in general), we would put Annmarie down for the night, which turned to be quiet the ordeal. Annmarie was not happy with her room in the house or the pack-n-play or whatever. But one of us (me) would have to stay in the room with her until she fell asleep. And she was also waking up during the night SCREAMING! And I would end up sleeping in the bed that was in the room. Fortunately, she has not had this issue at home. She adjusted back pretty quickly. Yeah for Annmarie. Anyway, we spent most of our evenings playing cards with Grandma and Grandpa. The card game 31 mostly, because Grandma forgot all the other games I asked her bring. She is never going to live this one down.

That was our first part of the trip, more to come.....