Playing Catch-up… Back to Hawaii

We have been extremely remiss in keeping our poor blog updated with all of our goings-on.  This will be my attempt to shove six weeks worth of activity into one night of blogging.  Please excuse what I am sure will be less-than-stellar rapport.

We never really finished giving the goods on our trip to Hawaii at the end of January, commemorating Cindy’s end of maternity and return to work (boo) and BW’s start of his parental leave and QT with Finn for the month of February (yea!).

As I’m sure you would have suspected, we had an amazing time in Kauai.  We spent most of the time (to Cindy’s delight) watching whales and waves from the lawn overlooking the beach right outside of our back porch, but ventured out here and there to see some of the lovely sites of Kauai.

One of those was a short drive up the coast to The Spouting Horn, where you can watch water rush under a lava shelf and burst through a small opening at the surface, making a loud groaning sound as it does. 

 

We also visited lovely Waimea Canyon, the largest canyon in the Pacific at 10 miles long, 1 mile wide and more than 3,500 feet deep.  It was a long and windy road, especially for those of us who get a little – ahem – carsick, but worth the trip.

  

 

 

 

Mostly, though, we just hung out by the beach and hit happy hour at the nearby hotels for my new favorite tropical drink, the Lava Flow.

Finn pretty much lived in his carseat attached to his stroller, which worked well for everyone.  He had his “friends” to play with, could easily be shaded and could be “rocked” with one hand while I either drank a beer or held a book with the other.  Nice setup.

 

Finn was great the whole trip.  He continued sleeping through the night like the little sleeping champ that he is, played happily in his seat or on the lawn, didn’t mind his paranoid mommy who smeared SPF 50 over every exposed part of his body whenever he went outside (and added socks if his feet were showing).

We got a new camera for Christmas (thank you, us), so BW worked most of the trip trying to tame the new animal.  I thought I would end our Hawaiian recap with a fun sample of some of my trip favorites.  You can see them all on Brian’s Shutterfly account.

 

 

…I cannot WAIT to go back someday.

The Many Laughs of Finn

Finn is a pretty happy kid.  We can do almost anything to make him laugh.  Or, we often don’t have to do anything and he laughs.  But we are generally pretty silly folk so making him laugh just gives us an excuse to be weird (“it’s for the children”).  Here are some examples we managed to get on film…

1)  Wake-up Laugh (On the lawn in Kaua’i).  He is this way every time he wakes up from a nap or a 10 hour nighttime sleep.

2)  Aggressive pounding freak out Laugh (on the red couch)

3)  Swinging Laugh (in his swing – not for the vertigo-weary)

Oliver the Grey becomes Oliver the White

We go out on vacation, and Oliver gets his typical wearing out with the other dogs at the Seattle Canine Club (please use your best Thurston Howell, III voice when you speak this location).  Unfortunately he often comes home with a little extra Giardia, kennel cough, fleas, bronchitis, and any other ailment that may cause unexpected expulsion of bodily fluids (ewwww). That is only sometimes though.  This time it was bronchitis and a 103.7 fever, but I digress.

It is however guaranteed he will come home not white but full on greasy grey.  This past trip was no exception.  Pictures to prove it – you can tell he even is ashamed of his mess!

Before…sad grey Ollie

and after…happy white Ollie

Hello, Paradise

Brian first introduced the concept of a family trip to Hawaii about four days after Finn was born. The logic was to take the trip at the end of my maternity leave and at the beginning of his parental leave, so we wouldn't have to use any vacation days, and we would get to visit our friend, the Sun. Honestly, I thought he was kidding, so I smiled and said "sure!"

Imagine my surprise when, a few days later, he started sending me listings off of http://www.vrbo.com/. He found a unit that had everything we thought we'd need - a floor unit with a kitchen, just a few steps from the beach. Oh, and wi fi. Can't live without the internets! Next thing I knew, we had a condo in Kaua'i for a week and airline tickets. Let the adventure begin!

I didn't travel much as a kid, and although I have since remedied that with a couple of jobs that had me traveling so much I got the fancy gold cards that helped me skip security lines, I had zero expeirence traveling with a child, let alone an infant. BW was no help in this arena either, however he is a much more relaxed traveler than I am, for which I am always grateful.

We are also really lucky that Finn is a super easy kid. Nevertheless, we had no idea what to expect when we hopped on our Hawaiian flight at 8am on Thursday morning.

The fates were smiling fondly on us that day. First of all, the plane was only about 2/3 full, so the very helpful agent put us in a three-seated row with an empty middle seat for Finn, which meant we could bring his car seat on the plane and not have to hold him for the entire 5 1/2 hr flight. Then Finn fell asleep right before we got on board, and stayed that way for the next 2 and a half hours. For a little while, it was BW watching a movie on his Zune and me reading People magazine - just like old times.

Finn was pretty much wonderful the whole flight. He got a couple of meals, and a couple of diaper changes (courtesy of Brian, although I would have loved a hidden camera in the tiny airplane bathroom to watch him working that one!) and mostly just hung out in his car seat with some toys and either played or slept.

We changed planes in Honolulu and boarded a 20 minute inter-island flight to Kaua'i. This time I had to hold him for the flight, but since it was lunchtime (again), that kept him very happy. We nabbed our rental car in time for his nap, and made our way to our little condo in paradise.

Today was our first full day of vacation, and was aptly filled with a whole lot of nothing. Just enjoying the scenery...

on a stroll down the beach...

looking back at our resort from the Sheraton next door

pina coladas at lunch

We also learned some things about Finn today.

1) He likes being warm because it means he can go without socks and shoes. And he loves his toes.

2) Although he's not a big fan of the wind in his face, he does enjoy it when it blows his toys about and he doesn't have to do anything to make them chime.

and perhaps most importantly...

3) He HATES wearing his hat :)

TAKE.THIS.OFF.ME.NOW!!!!!

Needless to say, we revised our plan to just keep him out of the sun rather than have him screaming the entire time.

More pictures soon... Mahalo!

-cw

Finn, Interrupted Week 11, Episode 2

This was actually suppossed to be the first installment of Finn, Interrupted but got delayed due to the size of the file and my impatience. This one features Finn, his friends Frog & Monkey and a cameo by Ollie. Enjoy!

The Envelope Please…

Brian will tell you that I am the first person to roll my eyes when someone comments on what a good dog Ollie is.  Now I agree he has improved leaps and bounds from the absolute craziness of his first year and a half or so that had us stating “good thing he’s cute” on a regular basis.  But despite the fact he’s made big inroads, especially since Finn arrived, there are a couple of areas where we still don’t really have full control. 

One is his jumping.  This one is our fault, as we do not discourage such behavior because we think it is cute and like being greeted at the door with a 20 pound fluff ball, balancing on his back legs while jumping up and down, growling a smile.  Lesson for guests:  don’t wear nylons or white pants to the Walker house.  The jumping thing is not likely to change anytime soon.

The other area where Ollie always seems to need vast improvement is his walking etiquette.  Most walks, especially ones where there are other dogs, squirrels, strollers, kids or trees where dogs may have peed in the last decade, involve a decent amount of leash pulling, Ollie admonishing and apologizing to other pet owners.

This is why I have been reluctant to take Ollie on walks with Finn around Greenlake.  We have a nice Mutsy stroller that, while very stable and comfy for Finn is quite heavy, a little unwieldy and tough for me to control with one hand.  How will I be able to handle a dog that is pulling me after every four legged creature we encounter while staying on the “feet” side of the lake path?

It isn’t often I am happy to be wrong.  But today I am pleased to announce that I had completely underestimated our little crazy white dog. 

We trotted off on our walk around the lake in the middle of the day to limit traffic, and Oliver was an absolute joy. 

There were a few moments of slight pulling, but all it took was a quick jerk of his leash to restore order.  Most of the nearly 3mi trip he just kept pace with the stroller, on the left side, leash slack.

Because of this incredible accomplishment, I am thrilled to present our little White Wonder with the “Best Dog in the World… Today” award.  Congratulations, Oliver!

Our big winner, looking quite pleased.

Finn from my iPhone

A short video mashing up some Finn pictures of his first couple months of life, as seen from the camera on my phone.

 

-b