An eventful weekend

It started out with a fun birthday pool party for Jake's pal Bryson.

Jake really enjoyed playing in and out of the water and I loved gabbing with the girls.


Maui for a day!
My friend Kalena was in Maui for work during the xterra mountain triathlon this weekend so I jumped on a 5am flight for the day on Sat.

We participated in an 11k trail run that was the exact run portion of the mountain tri the following day. I decided to take my camera along, not only for visable proof, but also in hope of capturing the magical views along the course.

Cheese! We started with about a 3 mile climb up Haleakala and when I say up I mean I could put my hand in front of me and touch the lead runners calves...steep and unforgivingly HOT.

I did something to my camera settings and somehow all my pics turned out blurry, but you'll get the jist of it. Finally we started to plateu and descend with a gorgeous view of the ocean and Lanai

After a mile or so on the soft sand beach, we climbed through the spooky forest, jumping over and through moss covered trees. Loved it!

Then a quick 1/2 mile on black sand followed up by loose lava rock as you dodge the incoming swell. We finished up allong the beautiful resort grounds and I came in 1 min away from placing 3rd in my age group. This was an experience I'll always remember and know I'll be competing in more off road races in the future.

We grabbed a delish brunch and enjoyed a few of Maui's hot spots to include Hoopika point.

When hiking out on the rocks I was suprised when I heard this seal barking at me to leave him to nap. You can't hear his grumbling over the howling wind, but he was not liking me being so close After this quick video I left the tired teenage seal to sunbath in peace.



Good times with a great friend.

For Father's Day I had a great idea and got Chris and Jake matching board shorts. Well Jake didn't grow quite as fast as I had anticipated so they still hardly fit, but I made it work as we headed to the beach on Sun.



They were show stoppers on the sand....so handsome.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we headed out to our local pumpkin patch. It is actually more like a farm in which you pay to park and pay to labor through endless fields in search for your perfect pumpkin. It was a great time, however I am glad that it only comes around once a year:)

I expected Jake to be running up and down the endless isles attempting to pick up all the orange balls he desired, but he is a smart cookie and decided to be carried 99% of the time and just point at the ones that grabbed his attention.

And the search begins!

Found em!

Now this was the point in which I realized that we should have bought that wagon we spotted a few days ago. Those pumpkins were heavy!

This year, the farm allowed people to pick their own corn for $15 a bucket.

We felt like impersonating labor workers for the day and decided to go for it! I had regrets 3 minutes into our farming adventure. This was HARD and not a job for the squeamish. We managed to find one keeper for every 10 we checked do to bugs. Now this was a first for us, but we knew to at least look inside the husk for bugs, everyone else we saw just picked them off the stock and put them in the bucket...Eww.

Jake's favorite part of the farm was the soft dark dirt, as you can see. Today officially marked the dirtiest day of his life.

We soon left Dad to do all the hard work and ran to the car to bring back snacks and cold drinks.



Time to shuck em. Jake was eager to help out.

We can't wait for Halloween.

Sick Call

The calm before the storm
On Friday Jake and I joined a friend and her boys to tour around the Honolulu Zoo. They have made drastic improvements to the grounds and enclosures and I am happy to report that it is no longer the sad place I visited years ago. I expected Jake to "ohh" and "ahh" at all the animals, but for some reason he was a bit intimidated by all of the animals and cried every time we approached a new exhibit....except for one particular habitat.

The REPTILES. He loved them. They were small, in small glass cages, and he could run around the dark tunnel without a care in the world.

Is it bad that I had a feeling that Jake was sick and I wanted to document it with a pic? I kinda agree with all of you shaking your head "yes" right now, but that is just what I did. Jake wanted to be held constantly and watch TV, two things that were out his norm, so I had a feeling that he wasn't feeling to good.

Jake came down with a nasty stomach bug that lingered through Tuesday night. It turned out that most of the kids from his day care had come down with it and quarantine was put into place to make sure everyone recovered. We have been extremely lucky with Jake and his healthy immune system so this was the first time we had experienced the intense moments of being a parent of an ill child. Scary, sad, and so thankful that he is finally BETTER!! :)

More independent by the day

Haleiwa Triathlon Relay Team

Jaime, Amy and myself competed in a sprint tri this morning and kicked butt. We were the 2nd female finisher and 1st in our age div (female relay) finishing in a quick 54min.


It was an extremely early morning, but Jake and Chris were great supporters and braved the early morning alarm (4am!) to come and cheer us on.

Jake has become quite the handy helper lately and wants to assist in any and all tasks around him. He now loves to feed the fish, pull weeds, and sweep.

Going down the slide all by himself!

Jake also loves to "take care" of the dogs from time to time which included reading Koda a few stories this afternoon. The other day he tried putting his own sandle onto Koda's paw, but Koda was less than cooporative with that task.

Bubbles have become the toy of the week and he finally was able to do it on his own the other night.

Chris started up another exciting season of ice hockey this week. He had 2 games and scored a goal along with an assist in each one! Jake really enjoyed watching the game as he explored the entire ice rink and thought that every single player was his Daddy.