Swells and Sunsets

Yesterday, we heard about a swell bringing in 25-35 foot waves to the North Shore. Brady left work a little early, and we cruised up. We only saw 15-18 foot waves, but caught a dramatic sunset and Brady got to find out the capabilities of his new camera lens. (No photoshop was used.)

I'm Number One

It's hard to believe that Zac is now one year old. His first gift from Mom and Dad was a haircut--which was very overdue according to Brady. In a matter of minutes he transformed from a baby to a little boy. Heidi did an excellent job on Zac's hair as seen below.

We tried alternate hairstyles.

Here are some of Zac's birthday memory favorites.

1. Perhaps it's that Zac's birthday is so close to Christmas, but he figured out underneath all that wrapping paper there are great surprises. "Wo!"--his favorite phrase as the unwrapping began.

2. His new train toy which he had to immediately take for a spin around the kitchen-- all while still saying "Wo!"

3. Books from Erin. Zachary loves books.

4. Our attempt at making Zac's first birthday cake. If you're now laughing as you look at the picture, we are laughing with you. Seriously, we're rookies, what can we say? If you guessed that this cake is supposed to be Nemo than you really are guessing. Ha ha.

5. Watching Zac have his first taste of chocolate cake and ice cream. He went for the ice cream first...

then washed it all down with a healthy piece of chocolate fish-head. He honestly ate the entire thing. Like father, like son.

S&N

We loved having Natalie and Steve visit! We have looked forward to hosting them over the holidays for several months, and the house seems pretty empty now that their two week visit is over.

On Saturday (Dec 27), we went on a hike with them to see two waterfalls. While normally a very easy hike, it was quite muddy, and the falls still looked like chocolate milk. It was beautiful walking through the forest, though.

Unfortunately, forest means mosquitos, and Zachary and I were attacked! It rained on us part way through the hike, and we think a lot of the repellent came off with the rain. When we woke up Sunday morning, Zac had 12 very swollen bites! They seemed to swell even more at church (where I'm sure many angry mothers thought I brought a child with chicken pox to church), so we stopped by the pharmacy on the way home to see what dosage medicine we could give him. While the pharmacist talked, tears were just streaming from my eyes. I felt so bad that I let this happen!! I realized then that as each year progresses, I get sappier and sappier.

This shot is post-Benadryl. Pathetic, huh?

One night, we all got ambitious with a present from Brady's boss. Although I am absolutely anti-toy guns, it was a blast playing gun darts and competing with S&N. We had a pretty intense scoring system, and a close competition.

We also enjoyed some fun dining experiences. Here is the famous Hula Pie:

New Year's Eve was a blast at Jeff and Dawn's house. Zac turned in a bit early. In fact, none of us made it to midnight. LAME! Oh well. We should have done the 8 min New Years like the Ritchies!

Steve and Natalie are like two honeymooners, constantly exchanging affection and kisses.

According to tradition, we went to Hanalei again on New Year's Day. The weather and waves were once again favorable! I kept telling S&N that they must have brought the good weather with them!

Natalie ate up the boogie boarding, and Steve was again successful on the waves. I had to add this classic Natalie shot:

Brady looked hot catching some great rides:

During my turn, I was able to go out with Megan, who is a dancer. She is a natural! I really loved talking to someone in the water. That doesn't happen very often anymore.

Here I am, about to hop on a wave:

Zachary is a true beach baby. We were at the beach 4+ hours, and even without a nap, he was the happiest kid in the world. He loves to play in the sand, splash in the waves, and find things to stick in his mouth. It's fun to see him so delighted.

When we were done for the day, Zac decided to take a turn at the surfing business. Good job, baby!

Thanks, S&N, for sharing some good times!!!

Mele Kalikimaka

When you use your blog as a family journal, it starts to become like your actual journal--empty!

After weeks of poor weather, we started the holidays off with huge waves and beautiful sunshine at Brennecke's beach Christmas Eve. Zac ate it up--as you can see below. He was getting as stir-crazy with the weather as we were! He kept walking up to the water line and falling forward as the waves came in, with a surprised gasp and laugh every time. We loved the turns in the water, especially since this beach is sometimes so rocky it's not worth it in the winter.


We rushed home to shower and pick up Steve and Natalie from the airport. We were so excited to have family here for the holidays!

If Cory and Kristen ever make it out to visit (or Natalie, Ang, Karen, any of you ladies who so desire!), I'm going to take her on a run with me to this destination. It's the best running around town, and close to three miles from our house. A perfect distance for a great view.

Brady called me from work on Christmas Eve Day, and said, "Santa is rowing into Kalipaki this afternoon. Do you want to go?" My reply? "That's the lamest thing I've ever heard of in my life." I changed my tune when I realized we could fit in some boogie boarding beforehand, and when Santa's canoe arrival showed up on the front page of MSN that day. I decided if it was good enough for national news, it was good enough for me.

Speaking of news, this picture ended up in our local paper. At least Zac's reaction is a little more favorable to the Hawaiian Santa.

Christmas Eve we sang some hymns, read Luke 2, and had Zachary open his first present. Actually, we opened the present for him. Apparently my chiding, "No, no, no" for the previous two weeks kept him from thinking it was ever okay to touch the wrapping paper.


I know sugar plums are only supposed to dance in the heads of children on Christmas Eve, but there was no way I could go to sleep realizing it was my baby's first Christmas the next day! I kept waking up over and over again, seeing the clock only 10 min past the last wake-up. When it hit 5am, I asked Brady if he was awake. Yep. We turned the monitor up to max volume, and the minute we heard a PEEP from Zachary (a full hour later), we booked it to his room to see what Santa brought.

As you can see from the picture above, Zac loved the biscuits Santa brought. He loved them so much that he wouldn't drop them to open any of his presents. Really, he was pretty apathetic about the whole presents deal, and it took some convincing to even play with them. I get that it will kick in about two years from now, but it was still funny how much of an anti-climax the event turned out to be!

We had a tasty Christmas breakfast with Matt and Megan and family, and Nic and Heidi and family, before heading up to Hanalei for the day--our Christmas tradition now two years standing. It was a spectacular day with sunshine and great waves.

Steve is the most athletic visitor we've had (at least that we've seen surf!), and he picked it up right away. Natalie had a fun time boogie boarding, and we all enjoyed the surf.
We even saw a double rainbow. How picture-perfect!
We ended the day with dinner at Nic and Heidi's. It was a refreshing day, and we enjoyed the time with friends and family!

Santa Baby