Enter excuses here:  Moving, changing diapers, deployment, setting up utilities, feeding kids, cleaning the house BEFORE unpacking, tending to bleeding fingers and bumped heads, missing my hubby, and all that other stuff that mom’s of young children do day after day over and over… all that keeps me from getting to it.  I promise I will try.  Soon.

Soon.

But I have been wanting to post, the photos just are not cooperating with me.

Sigh… technical difficulties.

Hopefully resolved soon.

She is going with her best neighborhood friend and they are very excited to be in the “Dolphin” class together.  Their teacher is wonderful and so sweet.  (Though I might have to add crazy to the description, someone who chooses to be in a classroom with 20  active 3-year-olds… whew… not my idea of fun!  But bless her for being up to the task and caring so lovingly for our children!)  Annika loves going, and would probably not argue about going every day.  She’s just in the Tues/Thurs program though.  She talks about her classmates, and playing on the playground.  “Mommy, we found some spiders in the (play) house and poked them with sticks”  (Great, thinks Mommy.)  “Mommy, I have a little Tyler in my class.”  (She now calls her cousin “Big Tyler” because he’s 6 and not 3 like the boy in her class.)  Ever since she has learned how to talk, she has been very interested in people’s names, and remembers them surprisingly well.  She’s already told me about at least 10 different kids, by name, from her class and that was just in the first two weeks.  Amazing memory, that one.

Over the past few weeks, she is learning to balance more.  She will catch herself as she starts to wobble… but yes, she still tumbles down too!  Jane will even walk to Annika the past few  days, which has big sister beside herself with excitement and usually yelling, “She walked to me!”

(Notes:  Ever since we checked out a book about a family of rabbits named the Abbots who were “Easter Egg Artists” earlier this year, she has wanted to be “a artist and paint Easter eggs”.  Just recently she has added two more aspirations to her list.  She asks me almost weekly to make banana bread.  So I figure, she thinks that when she grows up she can make it whenever she wants if she is a banana bread maker.  And the story on the piano fixer:  Daniel’s electric piano was damaged beyond repair in the move to Hawaii.  And it sat in the garage for a while, before we disposed of it.  She frequently talked about fixing it for Daddy.)

First, we took a quick drive up to visit Holly’s best friend, Jennifer, from growing up and her family in Snoqualmie.   It is so beautiful up in the Cascade Mountains.  We ate outside, played in their beautiful back yard, and even went on a hike.  This hike was very therapeutic for me.  You see, I have had no desire to hike here in Hawaii.  I know it may seem strange seeing that we live in “paradise” according to many people.  My concern was that in the past I have loved hiking.  Daniel and I spent an entire summer hiking or backpacking every weekend in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State.  So why did I not want to hike any more?  Had I lost the desire to pursue one of my favorite passions?  Had I lost my desire to be out in nature?  Had I become a ‘fraidy-cat’ of dirt and trees?  I didn’t know.   But I was excited to get out and hike in the Northwest and see if I really had lost my love of hiking.  And the verdict: NO!  I loved the fresh crisp air, the smell of evergreen, and the work to get to the top.  Yippee!  I still was a hiker… maybe just not in Hawaii.  Why?  I’m not sure.  Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s having such young kids, and maybe even it was being pregnant last year… but probably all of the above.

Back a few months ago, I was on the phone with my dear friend and old room-mate, Nicole, who is married to Daniel’s best friend, Darren.  We discovered that though we both knew of each others planned trips to Seattle, we didn’t realise that they would overlap on one day, July 3rd.  How exciting!?!  So the Guenther Family from Texas, and the Linquist Family from Hawaii had a glorious afternoon and evening to spend in Seattle together.  We booked the same hotel, got put on the same floor.  Took a ferry ride, just to have hang out time and let the kids run around.  Found a great park to let them run some more.  Ordered pizza in the hotel room for dinner, because that was easier with 5 kids, all overtired from travelling.  And then we put the kids to bed and stayed up visiting for a few hours.  Way to short, but way fun to catch up in person rather than over the phone.

We spent the 4th of July with family again.  Michael and new “Aunt” Jenny met up with us at the Space Needle for some more adventures.  Annika was more than excited to ride the monorail to the Seattle Center, see Uncle Mike and Aunt Jenny… and to go to the top of the Space Needle… that was just icing on the cake.  A quick walk though the Pacific Science Center, Seattle Aquarium and Pike Place market reminded us why we love this city so much.  Our last night in Seattle was spent eating a cheese and cracker dinner in our hotel room, and watching the fireworks in Lake Union… from our hotel balcony.  Glorious.  Up and out the next morning… for the long and painful trip back to Hawaii.  It’s just super hard and wearing travelling with young kids/babies.  So much to carry, so much to pack… and so sad to leave the city Daniel and I both love and which holds so many memories both apart and together for us.