Walking, peek-a-boo, and a birthday celebration...

Sorry, we've been busy getting situated, so the blog has once again been neglected. We've had a very busy July fly by! Cade had MANY milestones this month. In a span of about a week he learned to play peek-a-boo by covering his face, throw kiss, smile, and WALK! Yes, we now have an official toddler! He learned to walk so fast! One day we were counting 2 steps, the next day it was 17, and by the third day he was walking everywhere. Cade playing with his birthday cake on his real birthday

Cade's birthday cake at the party
Centerpieces; we covered his formula cans in Transformer wrapping paper and stuck a label on them. We covered candies in celophane and attached them to a stick and made them stick out the cans. I found these cute Transformer paper boxes to make and made them also stick out the containers.
Kau kau (food)

Ice cream sundae area

Beach time! Playing with daddy and Uncle Thomas. Uncle thought it was soooo fun to play in the sand again and was glad he had an excuse to do so.
Relaxing on comfy Aunty Lisa
I know my friend Heather is going to roll her eyes at this picture, but we're starting to potty train Cade. This picture sums up what he thinks of the situation!

Moving...

We have officially moved back to Maui! Everyone, including Sporty, made it here safely! It still feels like we're only here for a visit. I think once Garrett starts work next week and I get a job (fingers crossed!) then maybe it will feel like we live here. We've been trying to settle in and start organizing, but the humidity makes us very sluggish! Plus, our albino skins need some sun!

We took Cade to the beach for the first time. Lathered on SPF 50+ every half an hour and after we dunked him in the water. He tolerated the water and sand;definitely needs to get accustomed to it! He hated the cold shower to rinse off all the sand!

Cade is such a flirt. He would stare at all the girls who walked by or were near us and wait until they made eye contact. Then he would give them his dimply smile. Aaahhhhh we gotta watch out for this boy!

Oh, and Cade just started taking a couple of steps on his own! He's also standing and just trying to catch his balance more and more everyday!

Quick, much needed update...

Sorry, things have been getting very hectic around here with our big move coming up. Here's a quick update of the last few weeks.

Our good college friends stopped by at the end of May for a quick visit. We met Cisco and Kaui's daughter, Kaila, for the first time. She's a doll! Kaila and Cade had a lot of fun playing together!

They both HATE the playpen when they're by themselves, but for some reason, they both wanted to play in it that day. They were content in it for about 10 minutes, then soon realized it wasn't fun anymore. We had so much fun watching them interact. Kaila is 6 months older than Cade, so it was neat to get a preview of things he'll be able to do in the near future!

We went to Uncle Chester's graduation party. Congrats!

My cousin and her family were visiting Seattle, so we met up at the Seattle Aquarium! This was Cade's first time there and it was neat to watch his curiosity towards the animals. He's in to pointing at things and the animals at the aquarium are very easy to see, so he was excited! This is the first time he's shown an interest in animals or proved he can see them; usually he just sits in his stroller and falls asleep.

Cade pointing at the HUGE tako (octopus in Hawaiian)
Cade hamming it up with his cousin Kyle, who is pretending to play the guitar

Cade has no concept of sleeping in on the weekends. He sleeps through the night, but gets up between 5:30-6:30 to drink a bottle, then will go back to sleep for a couple of hours, which allows us to sleep a little more too. We take turns getting up with him in the early morning, but I'm usually the one to get him around 9. We bring him back to our bed and let him crawl around us, usually to wake the other parent up. Cade had fun waking Garrett up the other morning; he was poking at his face and finally decided to dig his nose!

Cade is becoming much more adventurous. He loves to crawl up our stairs and has even tried crawling down them (backwards). He is into tippy toeing to see things higher up and pushes boxes over to places so he can stand on it. His new favorite thing is to stand up on his car or sit down backwards and make his butt hit all the buttons. Ohhhhh no...I feel a rambunctious toddler on our hands!

Weekend getaway...

Our WA friends surprised us with a gift of a weekend getaway before we move back to Maui. Let me also include, this was a Cade-less getaway! Yes, we survived (ok, mostly Lynn ) leaving Cade in the more than capable hands of Aunty Trisha. Uncle Kyle helped out a little bit too. :)

Cade enjoying WA beach time with Aunty Trisha, Uncle Kyle and Sporty.

Notice the sand isn't very nice looking

We started by taking a 3 hour boat ride from Seattle to Victoria. I didn't take any pictures of the boat, because we didn't have very happy memories on the way up to Victoria. Yes, we both got a little seasick. Blah...

Then we were picked up by a ziplining company and went on a 2 hour zipline tour!

Map of the 7 lines we zipped down. Once you get on the course, you go from tree to tree; they've built platforms onto the tree that you zip in and out of. It was amazing!

This was the longest line: 1000 feet. I thought it was wierd that they used feet, since we were in Canada, a metric country.

Picture of our gear. It's basically rockclimbing gear. Not comfortable, but very safe!
Victoria Harbor view from our room. Apparently, we learned we stayed in a haunted hotel, although nothing wierd happened to us.
Famous Empress Hotel

The Empress at night (the hotel, not Garrett)

Parliament building at night

We had a wonderful time together, enjoying such a historic and classic city. We walked around the city, went on a ghost tour, and just enjoyed our baby-less time. Although, everytime we saw a baby or stroller, we always made a comment about Cade or wondered what he was doing at that time. We didn't make it to Buchart Gardens, so we'll have to make it up to Victoria again.

Oh, and we're happy to report the boat ride back to Seattle had a happy ending; neither of us got seasick! :) Ginger candy does help!

May visitors...

We are blessed with three sets of visitors this past weekend. First, Garrett's mom and aunty Lorraine came to visit.

We headed up to Pike's Market. While we were waiting for coffee at the first Starbuck's, Garrett and Cade snuck off to take this picture. It's hilarious!

Famous Pike Pig

We went shopping in Oregon and stopped to eat at a Burger King. Cade wore his crown and ate like a king!

Our second set of visitors, Derek, Stephanie and Lori came up for the Red Sox vs. Mariner's game. Cade was happy to help his Uncle Derek and Uncle Kyle cheer on their favorite team!

Before the game
Family pic at the game
Cade giggling with the rally monkey!
Cade loved watching the game! He clapped a lot because he heard everyone else clapping! He did fall asleep for a few innings in Grandma's arms, but woke up as we were leaving.

Cade got to FINALLY meet his Aunty Lori! :)

Our last set of visitors were Garrett's classmate, Levi, and his family. Andren is 7 months older than Cade, but looks way older! They ate dinner and had fun playing together!

Garrett bought a new game and gave Cade a remote to distract him.

Mr. Photogenic smiles so nicely when he sees the camera. He was happy Daddy allowed him to play with the controller!

For those of you who don't know by now, we are getting ready to make a big life change! No, we're not having another baby, YET. We are preparing to move back to Maui at the end of June! We always planned on moving back and didn't realize what a hard decision it would be when the time finally came. We have made MANY lifelong friendships with genuine and caring individuals here in WA, who have supported us like family. So, sorry but this blog may be a little neglected in the months to come as we move!

May Happenings...

So I was politely reminded today that it has been nearly 3 weeks since updating the blog. Here's a quick review of what we've done since May started 11 days ago!

Our little ham smiles at the red light on the camera. Smart kid. He uses this cheesy smile to get food from us. Hard to resist, huh!

For a little guy who is now only in the 5th percentile for his age, he sure has some chompers! He uses them to carry things around while he crawls. This little cell phone that goes with his car toy is his favorite to carry in his mouth.
Four bottom chompers and a 5th popping up on the side. He's getting better at brushing his bottom teeth, but hates brushing the tops.
Four top chompers. Every once in awhile we have to dig in his mouth for something he's not supposed to be chewing and he BITES down on our finger! OWWEEE!

On May 5th we celebrated Boy's Day! In the Japanese culture it's a day of honoring the boys by dressing them up in hapi coats (like a kimono for boys) and displaying koi fish outside for good luck! It is not easy to get a 9 1/2 month old to sit for a nice picture! He kept getting up and moving all over the place!

We celebrated Lynn's first Mother's day! One of our friends told us about a fundraiser at the zoo, so we ventured out in the morning and were able to see the animals. The last time we were there, Cade was only about a month old! Boy, has he changed!
Cade got to meet a peacock up close! Don't worry, he didn't peck us or get any closer!Cade sent me flowers at school for Mother's day!

Cade is learning new things so quickly and he is full of ENERGY! He understands how to play with Sporty and is learning the word "no" better. Don't worry, Green Doggy is clean, Mom! :)

Cade is getting better at walking with assistance. Since we took this video a few days ago, he walks with the car without falling!

The next few weekends will be busy with visitors from all over the country: Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho and Illinois! We'll try to update when we're not busy!

Memorable weekend...

We had the opportunity to take a short vacation to a small beach community, Seabrook. It's located on the coast, about 2 hours west of Olympia, near Aberdeen/Hoquium.

Seabrook is a new community of beach houses. They're very cute and quaint! They look small from the outside, but they're very modern and big on the inside! This is main house; 2 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. It also has a side mudroom and outside shower, which came in handy later!
Garrett, Cade and I stayed in the carriage house next door! It was a little one bedroom, 1 bathroom, with a small kitchen and living room.
The house allowed pets and was baby friendly! We didn't have to bring any furniture for Cade!

Cade had fun all weekend playing with his friend, Roxy. They played with the plastic bottle together for at least a hour one night!

One of the main reasons to take this short vacation was to try out clamming! Notice, the sky isn't as blue and the sand isn't as tan as Hawaii! It was a cold morning! We were not very optimistic that we would be successful. There's a 15 clam limit per license, and we didn't think we'd find anywhere near that limit. We also thought 15 was a small amount to eat!
So we starting digging...
and digging...
until finally we found one! Once we were able to recognize the air bubbles in the sand and that we had to dig REALLY deep, we were very successful!

I even tried my hand at it and found a few

The only one who probably wished they stayed back in the warmth of the house was Sport. He was not a happy camper that he had to walk through water as the tide started to quickly come up!

YAH! Clam diggers! Our clams and a few sand dollars! We estimated we found about 40 clams (estimate because some of the clams broke as we dug for them)
The next step was to wash off the sand. This is where the outdoor shower with warm water came in handy!
Then we had to take off the shells! Trisha and I formed a successful clam-shelling assembly line.
Almost cleaned clams! We still had to dissect them, oh, I mean cut out the gills and guts. Fun! (Yes, for a biology teacher, it is! :)
Sunday was a much sunnier day, so we took a stroll on the beach again.
Cade and Daddy
Successful weekend getaway with fantastic friends!