A Rainy Morning with Auntie Betty

Over the last five plus years of life in Hilo, I have developed a special friendship with an amazing woman I call Auntie Betty. I met Auntie Betty many years ago on my daily walking route and if any of you have joined me on my walk while in Hilo, you probably were lucky enough to meet her too!
Auntie Betty is by far the most vivacious ninety something woman I know. She lives alone in her family's home and tends to her beautiful garden on a daily basis. She has played the harmonica since she was three years old and enjoys regular trips to Las Vegas. Auntie Betty is full of life and sparkle and meeting her on my walks has become a real highlight of life for me. She watched me grow while I was pregnant and always greeted me with the same question "How's my grandson?!"

Sadly, my walking route past Auntie Betty's house isn't stroller friendly and I don't get up to that neck of the woods very often anymore. It has been months since Lance and Auntie Betty have seen each other, so this morning we hopped in the car and headed over to pay her a visit.
What a treat.
The highlight for Lance was Auntie Betty's musical birthday card that played the chicken dance song and her collection of tennis balls (on hand to work out arthritis pain)...
The highlight for me was feeling the love in the room that poured out of all three of us.

Two days with the Schaefers

This week, we were graced with a visit from Erin and Neil... and it was a fabulous couple of days!
After being up all night on east coast time work calls (poor Neil), Neil and Lance fell beautifully into the same exact nap schedule! This meant that Erin and I got lots of quality time to catch up with each other one one one and also have time to spend with our well rested loved ones.
It was a big treat for me to get to know Erin's main man better, as she got to know my main men better as well...

this involved time at the house, walking and swimming with the dogs, cruising Hilo town, beach time, bbq ribs, and lots of good chats.

Erin and Lance really hit it off. His big shows of affection were to feed her bites of whatever it was that he was eating and to quickly turn his head toward her with a big smile to make sure she was watching whenever he performed one of his "big moves."

It's been almost six years since Erin and I had this amount of quality time together and boy, did it feel good!!!

Let the Weaning Begin!

No need to go into a lot of detail here, but Lance and I reached a huge milestone last week. It's called Whole Milk and Lance loves it. With dinner. Cold. Straight out of his sippy cup. No more nursing before bed!
He also gets a bottle with breakfast and passes on his morning nap nursing as well!

Lots of mixed feelings here, but the main ones are- relieved that he is actually drinking the milk (and liking it), proud that we made it this far (after contemplating throwing in the towel on more than one occasion), excited to be free in a way that I haven't been for almost two years now, in awe of how fast time flies, and slightly sad to be letting go of this special bonding time with my boy.
I think the key is readiness, and Lance and I are both there.

Petting Zoo

The three of us headed to the Panaewa Zoo this past Saturday. One of the things that Hilo has to offer is a respectable zoo with no admission fee! As a bonus, there's a little petting zoo for an hour on Saturday afternoons. It's close to home and Lance loves checking out the animals. For the most part, he refers to all the animals as "dog!" but worked on saying "duck" this past weekend. His favorites are Namaste, the huge white tiger, the monkeys, and the baby goats.
We took along our new camera and scored some great shots!

Summer Vacation Part Two

Following our family filled week in Tahoe, Stef headed back to Hawaii and Lance and I spent another action packed week in the Bay Area.
After our trip at Christmas time which was full of sleepless nights, a congested three month old, and an early departure back to Hawaii, I was scared to death that my days of calling both California and Hawaii home were over. By the end of that trip, Lance had made it clear that he much preferred heat, humidity, and not being dragged all over the place to meet friends and family. Needless to say, I had high hopes that this week at my other home would go better. And it did!

We enjoyed two days with Pops and Elisi in Marin, spending time together at their house, going for walks, and playing at their palace of a playground.

We spent the rest of the week getting together with friends and hitting up all of my favorite CA hotspots (Target, Trader Joes, IKEA, Stanford Shopping Center).

Lance got to play with Ella while sporting a remarkable bedhead. She shared her toys fabulously anyway, and seems completely ready to embrace her new sister due next month... Meanwhile, I got to pump Ameils with all of my millions of parenting questions as usual.

We also had a playdate with Casey and Ali, and their babes, Tripp and Laila. Casey and I were in the same kindergarten class so introducing our guys 27 years later was pretty amazing! The three of us together go back to junior high school- it's so fun to see where life has taken all of us...

We got to spend time with some of my very special friends and Lance was able to meet a few for the first time! There is something very indescribable about the experience of introducing him to these people who have been such important parts of my life. Sadly, I didn't capture all of the meetings on film and don't have shots of him with Jessica or Mel Case. :(
I did, however, get these shots of him hitting it off (and cozying up) with Kate:
and playing with his first friend (who met him the day after he was born) Mel Callen:
In between time with friends, we managed to squeeze in a few more precious moments with the fam:
and, of course, we got lots of coveted time with Nini
We weren't able to squeeze it all in, but the good news is that this week on my own with Lance really boosted my confidence about making the trek home even more regularly in the future.

Summer Vacation Part One

It's been a month long blog hiatus... for good reason!
Mid July, we packed it up and took Lance to California to spend some much needed time with the McLaughlin women, kids and hubbies. It was a perfect week in Tahoe with all of the families in a giant cabin with nothing to do but hang out with each other!
Lance woke up every morning with a huge smile on his face that grew bigger as we entered the living room and he joined his cousins for the day. It only got better from there with time together at the park, pool, and lake.He took his first bike ride (the helmet was NOT a big hit), played in the sand, climbed lounge chairs, and swam like a little fish in the pool.


Lance also discovered the true joy of the park- he is officially a slide junkie and scoffs at the baby swing these days.

Meanwhile, I got an entire week of uninterrupted time with my sisters and mom.
The final highlight was all of the time we got to soak up with Stef...
It couldn't have been a more perfect week!