Day 128 / 68 To Go: Slumber party with daddy

Posted by: Cris

A few pictures provided by Aunt Wallie of yesterday afternoon's fun at Melody's: Notice Woody in the background, never too far away :)

The girls are seriously obsessed with Flarp! Again today, they waned to sit at their table and play with it for over an hour and a half.

I've realized in the last couple of days that stress of all the craziness of the last couple weeks has taken it's toll on my sweet little Nova. My busyness dealing with broken cars and sickness and broken sump pumps while still trying to make progress on the yard (which has morphed into also attempting to toad-proof the yard) has meant giving the girls much less attention than they need. Since her sickness, Nova has been seemingly constantly on the verge of tears and has a meltdown at the slightest thing. Case in point, this morning she crawled into bed with me and watched an episode of Mickey and was very happy. When we got up and headed upstairs, she was fine until she got to the top of the stair and walked toward her little table to sit down for breakfast. They had moved their chairs yesterday into the living room so they weren't at the table and when Nova walked up to the table and her chairs were gone, she had a total meltdown. For the most part I've been dealing with it as an immediate "time-out" situation and she struggles to get herself under control for 15-20 minutes. This morning, after a meltdown over something else equally ridiculous, I just picked her up and she snuggled herself down against my neck and just clung to me. At that point I decided that all projects were on hold for the weekend and we just spent the day together playing, taking a nap together and lots of holding.

Tonight I'm letting them stay up and fall asleep watching Ice Age and have a slumber party on the couch cuddling with daddy...bad parenting guilt at it's finest.

As I type this Nova has just fallen asleep laying on one half of my lap and Juneau is laying on the other half of my lap trying to stay awke until the end of the movie. Hopefully their resilient nature can handle it for another 68 days and maybe beyond if that creeping feeling that I've been having that Emilie (and the girls) will be stuck in Colorado next year ends up happening.

Day 127 / 69 To Go: Dinosaurs!!

Posted by: Cris

Today was the last Friday until April 1st where I have to be in the lab until 4:30! I'm very excited to have 3 weeks of normal Fridays before getting back to the med students...but, I'm sure Nova and Juneau will try to find some way to still get to spend Friday afternoons with Melody.

Tonight we headed to the Bishop Museum for the opening of their new dinosaur exhibit. The opening night was for members only but luckily, we know Melody who could get us in as her guests.

Juneau & Uncle Tim ready to see some dinosaurs!!

Alyssa was already inside and the girls were happy to see her.

The dinosaurs were super cool and moved and snorted and were borderline scary at times.

The "pretend to be a paleontologist digging for fossils exhibit was a big hit for Nova who loves a project.

Juneau & Melody digging for bones

Despite the warning signs, we couldn't get Oma to stop feeding the dinosaurs.

Outside were snacks and crafts including making your own dinosaur mask.

Juneau-saurus

Juneau-saurus and Nova-dactyl

The whole dinosaur crew

Oma-saurus Rex

Another fun Friday night with our family and friends!!

Day 126 / 70 To Go: Malasadas!

Posted by: Cris

A beautiful day here on Oahu... A first-glimpse of the newly erected gully fence. I had hoped to get a picture up yesterday until the unexpected sump pump project.

The girls are finally and officially back to their old selves. Nova is back to being a giggly little girl with only an occasional breakdown which is more related to the mounting stress of a missing mommy as opposed to sickness (I think).

The lone remaining strangeness from the sickness has been Juneau the last few days wanting to stay in bed and sleep until 9:00 and then take a 2-3 hour nap. She's still recovering her energy apparently.

Flarp Noise Putty - The girls' new favorite toy.

Luckily, it's like a less messy version of play-doh so it hasn't been too bad. Juneau sat at the table tonight after dinner and played with this stuff for over an hour.

Tonight we ventured out to grab dinner and on the way, what was parked in the Windward Mall parking lot but the Leonard Jr's Malasada truck! I told the girls if they ate good we'd get a special treat on the way home. On the way home I pulled into the parking lot and parked and told them I was going to get our special treat. While they sat in the car, I walked over and ordered malasadas. When I got back in the car, Juneau said "did you get our special treat from that Ohio State Buckeyes truck?" - Classic brainwashing!!

This was the first we'd had malasadas since returning to Hawaii so this was a brand new treat for Juneau and Nova and as you can imagine, they LOVED the experience.

Cinnamon sugar donut with chocolate inside...what's the downside?

Tomorrow the girls head to Melody's house for the afternoon while I'm teaching then we're off for an evening of fun.

Day 125 / 71 To Go: Catastrophe du jour

Posted by: Cris

I'm sure some people were beginning to get worried as I was that it had been a couple of uneventful days without a potential catastrophe...there hadn't been a car breakdown, or a dog poisoning, or a flu epidemic...I was starting to get worried.

Luckily, after working all day on the fence (the gully is now officially closed off with chainlink - it is quite exciting), I was just finished cleaning up and ready to head inside - it was 5:00 pm. I had hung out with the girls for a little bit this morning but was looking forward to spending some time with them this evening. I trudged into the house through the sliding door on the bottom floor bedroom and was greeted as I stepped into the hall by a solid layer of water coating the downstairs hallway - the smell made it clear very quickly what I was dealing with.

See, when you live on a hill, the bottom 2 floors of the house are below the sewer so on the bottom floor is a 30 or so gallon pit where everything (EVERYTHING) that goes down a drain (or toilet) on the bottom 2 floors ends up before being pumped up to the street by a sump pump. So what happens when a piece of a rag somehow ends up in the sump pit (torn off of a rag in the washer and sucked down the drain? - not sure) and then gets sucked into the pump and renders it disabled? Then daddy gets to spend 2 hours pulling open the sump pit, pulling the sump pump out from amongst the sewage, cleaning the pump and putting it all back together...but wait, that's not all...then he gets to sop up the 2 inches of water that have run to the low spot on the bottom floor which happens to be inside the closet that runs underneath the stairway - on hands and knees under a stairway with what turned out to be 5 gallons of sewer water isn't nearly as fun as it sounds.

The 2 saving graces: 1) there wasn't actually anything wrong with the pump and as soon as I extracated the rag piece, it has been running fine and 2) Nova had decided to be a grouch this evening so Nelson finally had to threaten her with coming to have a talk with daddy. He brought her down to the bottom of the stairs where I was sopping up water and I told him to leave her there. We had a talk and she straightened out her attitude so I told her she could go back upstairs because I was going to be awhile...She said "I want to sit here and wait for you". So, while I worked, she sat on the bottom stair and we told stories for another half hour...the highlight of my day.

I managed to get everything cleaned up and pretty much back to normal in time to come upstairs, clean up and sit with the girls and watch the last half-hour of "How to train your dragon" while the girls cuddled ALLLL over me.

This Toy Story bowling set was part of Aunt Donova's valentine's day package and it has become a permanent fixture in our living room - the girls love it!

Lunchtime:

More of Juneau's funny faces caught on camera:

Naptime - Nova generally sleeps with her eyes most of the way open - it's freaky!

Fresh out of the bath and ready for dinner - I had timed it to share dinner with the girls until the eruption.

End of the day cuddle on the couch with daddy and a show:

Don't look know but we're about to break 70 days to go...still seems like a lot!! But, I was looking at my master schedule tonight and March and April are packed for me so it should go fast. We are heading into the time period when decisions are made by the Army for where the doctor's go for next year officially so please pray for that forthcoming news.

Day 124 / 72 To Go: No internet...No problem!

Posted by: Cris' phone

Living in Hawaii has its quirks...like the regularity with which the electricity or cable goes out. So, tonight with no internet, we'll see just how smart my 'smart phone' really is. But this post will have to be short.

I was on my long teaching day while continuing to cough like a chain smoker, but I survived and the cough is seriously diminishing.

The absolute best news is that even though they both needed to go back to bed at 930 a.m. and sleep until noon; when they got up, both girls seemed back to their normal selves...especially Nova who came running with a big smiling hug when I came through the door today.

You can see the return of that adorable cute smile in these pictures from today.