Doctor in the House, Sipping Gummy Bears to Hanakapaia, A Week at Kalipaki, and Sunday Nights

The Clarks are always a big part of our lives, but this summer, our kids have been inseparable.  They love to dress up, swim, play dolls, play house, play doctor, and play legos together.  American Girl dolls are the obsession for Kate and Shay, and as soon as one of their dolls recovers from a broken leg, another immediately gets in a car crash or gymnastic injury and ends up with a broken leg.  There have been lots of opportunities to play doctor this summer!

The kids love to dress up Owen and the Clarks have a lot more variety of dress up than we do.  Kate kills it with princess dresses but because Zac has never been one to get into costume, we don't have much for boys.

The secret to Owen's heart: crackers.

We tried a raved-about shave ice truck last week and after a 47 min wait in the sun, remembered that shave ice is good but not that good.

Sheratons!  Zachary has started his steady countdown to the last days of summer, lamenting how little surf time he's had in the last few weeks.  By "little surf time," he means that we did not quite make it to the waves every single day.  Don't feel bad for him.

Kate jumped ahead in piano.  She struggled remembering notes and names the last few months, and piano has been challenging and frustrating for her.  The last two weeks, something clicked and it is suddenly much more enjoyable for all of us.  She works hard to impress her teacher.

Owen's favorite place this summer: the driveway.  He hears the neighbor dog and watches it, squealing, "DOGGIE!" and following up every time with "Woof, woof."  He also loves to walk the porch stairs--up and down, up and down.

The VandenAkkers returned from their vacation and we wasted no time getting the kids together at the beach.

Owen now loves the ocean and the pool (it was only the pool a couple months ago).  He wants to chew on dive sticks, try on goggles, and swim like a shark in the shallow, sandy-bottomed pool.  He jumps off the side again and again into the shallow water and still hesitates to jump when it is the "deep," 3 foot pool.  He can't stand it when anyone is touching him in the water--he loves to swim by himself with his floaties on.

We made a few goals for summer and one was to hike the Hanakapaia trail with the kids.  It's on the north end of the island and feels like a long way to drive, plus the parking is tight and the trail sometimes crowded.  But, it is the best hike on the island and we think hiking is the most healthy activity we do with our kids.  We were gifted a sunny, spectacularly beautiful day.

Instead of pushing onto the falls and making Owen suffer in the backpack for that many more hours, we stopped at the beach and played in the shallow water, caves, and sand.  Relaxing instead of pushing on a few miles is so different than my previous self of a few years ago, and it was interesting to realize that I loved playing in the water with the kids, taking our time to eat lunch, watching them build cairns, and exploring the caves.  I still prefer to hike longer than 4 miles, but this was a perfect day for the ages of our kids.

Racing on the sand.

Ariel in her grotto.

The windy section.  Kate:  "I seriously think I might blow over into the water, Mom!"

It's been a while since we've hiked, due to my knee surgery.  I brought bribes--soda gummy bears.  The deal was 20 minutes with no complaining=1 soda gummy.

Kate and Zachary loved crawling through the cave, but Owen did not like the narrower passages.

This baby loves to go "nakey-nakey" in the ocean.  It's all cute until the day he poops.  It hasn't happened yet, but motivates me to keep putting on the silly swim diapers.

Best seat in the house.

This past week, Zachary participated in Junior Lifeguard camp at Kalipaki Beach.  They learned ocean safety and lifeguard skills as well as practicing swimming and fitness.  He liked it but did not love it, because "it took away some of my surf time."  Ha!  We spent every afternoon at the beach for an hour or so letting the kids play in the sand and swim after camp.  Kate and Ava got in plenty of playdates.

Kate also got caught up with her bestie from school, Daysha.  They played dolls and then caught wave after wave at the beach.  These girls have been friends since age 3 when they attended Tutu and Me together.

I love the way she laughs hard in waves.

Practicing dance moves.

Last day of Junior Lifeguard--the kids had a potluck and went out on jet skis.  Zachary was worried that jet skis were too dangerous but we reassured him that he would be fine.  Then, I saw the pictures of the way the kids were geared up and I realized he was safer on a jet ski than he was boogie boarding.

I love that Kate's friends are so into Owen.  They want to love him and play with him so much that it occasionally smothers him.  Most of the time, though, he eats up the attention.

Owen's favorite game to play at the beach: holding hands and running as fast as he can while the waves come up and catch his feet.

My blog posts often become highlights of the weekend rather than commentary on daily life, and here's a taste of a few things I want to remember:

Zachary:  

• Zachary saved up for a watch this summer and when he got it, timed everything.  If I said, I'll do that in just a minute, I knew if it was 90 seconds or 30.  He timed his chores, his piano songs, his laps around the house, the time Owen napped, etc.  He was devastated when watch #1 broke, followed with watch #2.  He researched better watches every spare minute and decided he wanted a Garmin.  Ding!  We remembered that Brady had an old Garmin, and Zachary is so happy with his FREE watch with GPS, the time, a stopwatch, etc.  Now he is back to spending every spare minute researching an epoxy surfboard.
• Zachary and Chase beg to get together and catch lizards.  The benefit of living in the jungle with our giant geckos and lizards is that there is no end to finding them in the house, in the yard, on the steps, and in the shower.  They now even spend half their time at the beach catching lizards in the bushes.  They've also been brainstorming where they plan to build their "hideout" between our houses (we will be next door neighbors when our houses are built) where they will do homework, sleep, snack and catch lizards.
• One way we are letting Zac earn money is by reading and doing book reports this summer.  We picked out a few books for him: Hatchet, Bridge to Terebethia, and Where the Red Fern Grows.  We warned him that the Red Fern ending is sad, but it was still the most tender moment to walk into the living room as he read the final pages in tears.

Kate:

• Kate is into music and singing.  There is music on in the house at 7am every morning, with Owen dancing and Kate singing.  She wants to be a professional singer.  Sometimes if I sing with her, she stops, feeling bashful.  Watching her sing the soundtrack to "Beauty and the Beast," "Trolls," and "Sing" when we are in the car is a highlight of basically every day.
• Kate is getting more courageous with ocean water.  There was a king tide and big waves on Saturday.  She sat in the sand and got pummeled over and over by big waves on purpose, throwing her head back and belly laughing with each crash.
• I looked up how to play dolls with Kate.  Isn't that silly?  But that's what she wants to play and I need to be better at it, so I got some ideas and I've been trying harder to engage in pretend play.  It's so much easier for me to play board games, read her stories, and dance with her than play dolls, but this phase will not last forever and I want to participate while I can.

Owen:

• Owen is changing every minute.  He points to body parts (belly button, nose, tongue, eyes), he insists of feeding himself with a spoon and fork, and he says a new word every week.  "More," "walk," and "mom" are his most common words.  He babbles constantly, pointing to trees and clouds and airplanes and saying, "OH!" followed by babble.  He looks so much older to me, but at nearly 19 months, he is still only rocking the scale at 21 pounds.  He might look older, but he still loves breastfeeding.
• Rice and sand drive Owen crazy.  He hates the sticky feeling on his fingers.  He does love to throw sand (groan).  
• Bedtime makes Owen come alive.  He dances, runs around the house in circles, plays his own game of toss and chase the binkey, sings, claps, and jumps off (small) things.  It's impossible to not feel his joy and love and enthusiasm, and we end up getting all three kids to bed late because we can't stop soaking it all up.  He's not perfect--he can throw a heartbreaking tantrum and he has plenty of fussy days a month, but this stage of his life is magic.

The house is moving quickly.  The foundation work and pours are complete.  Brady works each night and we spend hours looking at materials together and separately.  Brady somehow balances his workload with the house, but comments that this time around has been a breeze compared to building the first time.  We hope it all goes smoothly.  We still don't love the rental (the washer and dryer broke last week, the fridge freezes half our food while the other half spoils from not having enough cold air, and the roof leaks), but eh.  It will not last forever and in the meantime, we'll keep playing in the driveway and watching Zachary catch lizards.

Saturday, we snuck in some family time at the beach.  It was a gorgeous afternoon with crystal clear water.  That night, we celebrated our anniversary with my dream date--surfing followed by dinner at Duke's.  Brady paddle surfed and I was on my surfboard, and we caught several waves together.  I hope I always remember looking over at each other and laughing while we competed for who could stay on the wave the longest.  It got pretty dark before we headed in, and we showered at the beach, changed clothes in the car (including throwing on some makeup and feeling grateful restaurant lighting is dim), and ran to Duke's with shoes in hand to make our reservation in time and meet up with Nic and Heidi.  Perfect.  Dreamy.  Happy 16 years to us.

Last night, I started feeling sick after dinner.  I was awake much of the night feeling terrible (cold symptoms), and in the morning, I woke up to Zachary and Kate bringing me these sweet notes and doting on me.  They cared for Owen, got everything ready for church, fed themselves and cleaned up, and kept asking, "Is there anything I can do for you?"  My heart was throbbing with love for them and their tender hearts.

The kids hate going on Sunday walks.  Actually, they hate the idea of the Sunday walk and always love it once we are there.  Sunday nights are my favorite.

My little Goldilocks.

Only two more weeks until school starts.  I'm not sure who is going to be more heartbroken that day--me or Owen.  I love summer.