Happy Halloween!

My 'lil one with his 'lil pumpkin! He picked it out and then drew the face himself (with a pen) and I cut it out.


Today, at my 'lil one's pk3 class, they had a Halloween parade where they all walked around the school wearing their costumes. They were all SO cute! Mine was a Train Engineer (complete with the whistle which he loved blowing!) My oldest daughter called earlier that morning and wanted to attend too so I picked her up on the way. Here they are...my oldest and my youngest.

Trio Dinner Again.

I worked at a place for 12 years (and loved it) before resigning to stay home after having my first son (close to seven years ago.) It's interesting how you have such good comraderie at work but when you're no longer there, the friendships slowly fade away. But there are a few of us who get together each year no matter what to celebrate our birthdays. My two former coworkers and I see each other three times a year (sometimes another time or two if we're at the same event or girl's night out.) Two of us pay for the birthday girl's dinner around their birthday. I don't know how long we've been celebrating this tradition but it's probably close to 13-15 years now. Even though we're not really similar to each other, we all have stuff in common so I always look forward to the next upcoming celebration. Recently, my friend Sherry celebrated her 50th birthday. She chose to go to a steakhouse this time and loved her t-bone steak! I loved kidding her because she took the bone home to chew on later to get the rest of the meat off of it.

Here are all three of us (Sherry in the middle) as well as the awesome cheesecake dessert we shared afterwards!

Monkey's Adventures

My preschooler sleeps with his monkey every nap and bedtime. 'Monkey' will jump out of bed (which means my preschooler will throw him from the bed) when something is needed (when he needs to use the potty or get a new tissue.) By jumping from the bed, I have to go in his room to place him back into bed (and get said tissue or help preschooler with potty or whatever.) This 'monkey jumping' outta bed sometimes gets to be a problem so we try to ensure the sleeping routine covers each issue beforehand. That silly monkey!

Sometimes, when we go places, Monkey will ride with us! Looking through my pictures in my camera, I ran across a few I took while waiting in the car (and I don't remember why.) I remember I was looking at something and my preschooler had placed Monkey up there and I called for him to get down (in a pretend mad voice.) Each time I instructed him to get down, my preschooler would break out in a hysterical laugh!




In fact, even as I write this post, Monkey is jumping (being thrown up and landing on my preschooler's head or in my closet where I have to stop and go find him amongst my hoard of boxes or clothes or on my bed where he needs to come get him causing my laptop to move all around, lol!) I am hearing a little pretend Aaaah! and then I see Monkey fly past me. Afterwards, I always hear a little "Monkey jumped!" or "Silly Monkey!"

Pumpkin picking!

I love this time of year...Autumn! I love that it gets cooler and the leaves start to change colors! When I am older (with fewer responsibilities,) I want to get in my car and drive scenic routes looking at all the gorgeous leaves of the trees! I am currently burning a cinnamon apple candle in the kitchen as I look at the thermometer outside the window, 82 degrees at 6pm. I loved that it has been in the mid 60's lately though. Can't wait for it to get cooler yet enjoying temperatures right now. At least it's not very hot! We picked out our pumpkins this week. While my first grader got a rather large one, my preschooler got the tiniest one possible, lol! It was fun walking around the 'pumpkin patch' for an hour inspecting and looking at all the different kinds!

Train Museum

I had planned on visiting my sister-in-law today (she lives about 2 1/2 hours away.) She thought it'd be nice to meet somewhere in the middle, have lunch and then go to the beach. Rain was in the forecast but we decided to go anyway because we could probably find something else to do anyway.

And, of course, it rained all day long! We went to a place for lunch I hadn't been to before and it was really nice. The kiddos loved the shrimp there so we'll definitely be returning. We walked along an area with many shops and then to a Railroad Museum that none of us had visited. It was better than I thought it'd be. Most of it was outside (we were able to climb up and into real railroad cars and engines.) For some reason, my preschool loved saying, "I'm a doctor." Apparently, he wanted to make sure we knew because he must have said it about 75 times...in an hour. Each time I acknowledged it, he repeated it. Even when I didn't say anything, he let me know. It was becoming almost funny though and it was a lesson on patience for me!

At one point, it was thundering and lightening (scared the kids a bit!) We were walking in a railroad car getting ready to climb back down and into the rain and weather again, my first grader stopped me and got ahead of me. He said, "Mom, stop, I want to die first. I don't want you to die so I'm going first so you will be ok." I heard him say it but it didn't register as we're walking. And, then all of a sudden, it occurs to me what he had just said. He was probably thinking that the lightening might strike us as we were descending and wanted it to hit him, not me. I didn't even have a chance to say anything to him. He just went on as if it was just another statement of his. But to me...it was more. I was caught offguard and awed in his protectiveness. So incredibly sweet.

By the time we finished seeing all those cars outside at the museum, we were cold and wet. We walked down a couple of blocks and went to a store to eat ice cream and drink strawberry shakes. The boys rode one of those horses (with real saddles) that you put 50cents in to ride. They loved it! And, as we were enjoying the moment, my first grader ran into his soccer teammate (who was also with his family in the same place!) What a small world that we ran into someone we knew (in a place 2 hours from home.) Their plans had changed too due to the weather and they were also making the best of it.

We drove home shortly afterwards. I hate driving in dark, rainy weather because the monotony and the sound of the rain pounding on the car makes me sleepy, lol! But we got home safe and sound. As we were getting ready for bed (or rather, sending the kids to do last minute errands as they're getting ready,) my first grader came up to me and said, "I have something for you." As he came closer, he hugged me. Awwww...it's days like these that I love being a parent!

Mountain Climbing

Just as my hubby and I arrived in Hawaii and were met by my brother, he mentioned the activities he and his wife had planned for us that week along with taking us mountain climbing. I initially thought he meant hiking on top of a mountain but was surprised to learn that he meant actually climbing up the side of a mountain. He has been mountain climbing a lot lately (as part of his job on occasion) and his place of employment had all the equipment we could borrow. I am afraid of heights but the idea seemed exciting. Since I didn't have to worry about having kids with me and the fact that he mentioned his wife also being concerned since she had not yet done it either, I figured it'd be a great adventure. It turned out absolutely wonderful! We spent about four or five hours climbing up and then back down the mountain. It was totally awesome and I'd love to do it again!!! The only thing I wish were different were the little annoying ants that climbed all over you as you climb. There were SO many red ants (that did not bite) that could crawl on your fingers and hands and arms as you climbed. You'd have to fling them off before they got further up your arms or legs. Before we started up the trail to the first leg of our climb, my sister-in-law took a picture of my hubby, my brother and me. In the background is the valley between the two mountains. That's where we climbed up.


My hubby was the first one. We were using a prusig which was a sliding knot tied to the rope that we used to pull ourselves up and also to our caribiner connected to our rope (from our harness that we wore around our hips/legs.)


I just love this picture as my hubby nears the top of this wall. The tree at the top has it's roots going all the way down and they're firmly attached. It's so high up that it looks like he's entering a hole up toward the sky.


And, of course, here's me climbing up. We all had to stop and pose for a picture. The whole way we're climbing, we're getting lots of support as the other three are helping us find a spot to put our foot or fingers or remind us what we should be doing to make it easier.


Here's a spot where I stayed at the lower area a little while as the others moved up just to take a picture showing how high we were climbing and what it looked like with all the ropes, cables, or scary areas.


Even though I did really well on all the really scary places where I should have been scared, I freaked out right here. For some reason, I couldn't find a place to put my feet and felt like I were going to fall. I just got stuck. At this particular moment in time, my brother is encouraging me to lean back and extend my arms because even though I can't tell, there are more places to put my feet. If I did that, I could then continue vertically to get through this spot. I ended up attaching my caribiner to the rope as a back-up and finally leaned back. When I did that, I moved right through it. At one point, I remember saying that I felt like crying because I was so frustrated and scared. After I conquered this challenge, I felt like I could do anything!


The biggest wall we climbed was the last one. This picture shows my sister-in-law going up first (well, actually, my brother had to climb up first to tie off the rope for us to use to climb up as he belayed, or supported the rope with us on it in case we fell.) She did so well the whole day and I loved being able to do this with her. My hubby uses this kind of stuff in his job so this was not new to him as was my brother. But for us girls, all this was new and kinda scary. I loved the 'peer pressure' because I felt that if she could do it, I could too. She loved it so much that she went up this wall twice! She had a lot more energy than I did!


This is me climbing.


This is a picture of my sister-in-law going down. As difficult as it was going up, it was even scarier going down. Off this edge, you had to walk off backwards...and while leaning back the entire time. If now, you'd swing forward and be flung against the mountain rock. So, I had to literally talk myself down slowly. It was nice having the others help as well. At one point, my brother reminded me to keep my legs square with my shoulders. At another, my hubby encouraged me to lean back. My sister-in-law was also supportive letting me know how great I was doing. I finally got over this edge too and even got to the point where I could 'bounce' off the wall near the bottom.


Here's a picture of my brother and me. Halfway up, there was a spot where you could see the ocean in a distance. So beautiful!