Fun at the Fair

Our annual trip to the State Fair, was as usual, lots of great family fun. Nanny and Papa rode out with us this year (hooray for a comfy, spacious new van!)
Nanny was smart enough to plan ahead and suggested face painting first so it could be enjoyed for our whole day at the fair, and our early arrival meant for a shorter line, too. After face painting was accomplished we headed for the rides. Sycely took her very first ever trip on the Ferris Wheel-with Papa! They sure looked to be having lots of fun. Papa, in his usual, mentoring demeanor, took advantage of the spectacular views atop the ride and pointed out lots of interesting sights to Sycely. Ella took in some rides of her own, finally tall enough to have more than one choice this year-thank goodness there's no minimum weight requirement!After rides, us grown-ups got some good ol' fashion fair snacks- particularly important: cheese curds! The girls enjoyed some cotton candy while the rest of us munched on a variety of other tasty treats, including delicious ice cream. That's right, we got such gorgeous weather at the fair this year, we were actually HOT and needed some ice cream to help us cool off. Praise God for clear, blue skies, no rain and LOTS of warm sunshine! We put in some time at the petting zoo-Mommy's favorite. The girls, as usual enjoyed this probably more than anything else. It's so much more fun than just looking at the farm animals in their pins-though we did that too, accompanied by Uncle Gary and Aunt Lynda who we'd just run into while walking around.

The girls both got to go on their first "pony" rides. They had a super cool arrangement where they led them around a big, looping trail, rather than just going around in a circle on one of those tied up to the wheel kind of things. The girls both enjoyed the experience immensely and seem to be hooked.

We'd ridden about everything we could, seen everything we could muster the energy for, and eaten everything our stomach's could hold so we regrouped and headed back to the car for the drive home. Another successful family trip to the Alaska State Fair-and another year staying dry!

August

As always, August was a busy month for us. So busy, in fact, that apparently, we didn't manage to take many pictures of what we were up to! Oops!

Dimond tennis started so Lem stayed plenty busy coaching the JV team again this year. We all had a couple weeks of being home together before school started and we enjoyed alot of family time together.

Sycely made her first trip to the dentist-which she absolutely LOVED. The hygienist was super great and even let her be in charge of "Mr. Thirsty," the sucker tool while she did her exam and cleaning. They gave x-rays a shot but didn't have any luck with her tiny mouth so we'll try for those again next time, but she was quite the trouper, giving it a good effort. Happy to report she has no cavities and she was thrilled to get to pick a prize from the treasure box at the end of her appointment-she chose a crown, wand, bracelet, ring set. She's been asking when she can go back since the day after her appointment.

The girls and I headed out to Wasilla one Saturday while Lem was at a tennis meet for Mat-Su Midwifery's Under the Big Top celebration. The birth center was having an event for past, present and prospective families to come out and celebrate with tours, face painting, a petting zoo, carnival games and prizes, acrobats, and all kinds of other fun. Thanks to our spiffy new van, driving out with the girls on my own was a breeze (thank you dvd player) and was a fun way to pass the time without daddy on a Saturday.

I took the girls inside the Miwifery and showed them the office downstairs where we did our pre-natal appointments. We found the photo albums for their birth years and found our newborn family pictures in them. Then we went upstairs and toured the rooms where the girls were born. Sycely could remember being there for appointments before Ella was born, and seeing "her" room then, and could remember "Ella's" room from when she was born there. Ella, on the other hand, was really doing the tour for the first time. She was so excited to see the room and the bathtub where she was born. She recognized the rocking chair right away and said, "This is where Daddy rocked me when I was born. I've seen it in the pictures!"

After our "tour" we headed outside for the festivities. Sycely, of course, was quick to get in line for face painting. Her and Ella also played a few of the carnival games, and especially enjoyed the duck pond where they got to scoop up rubber duckies to bring home with them.

Being their mother's child, though, the biggest hit with them was the petting zoo. They loved the goats, chickens, bunnies, and especially the ragdoll kittens and the baby hedgehog. They spent more time in the pen with the animals than doing anything else, big surprise....not!The girls had one final, end of summer sleepover with Nanny and Papa. The timing actually worked out really well as my dad and Kate had a layover in Anchorage for several hours on their way to Seattle to celebrate my dad's birthday. It was really nice to be able to have breakfast with them and just spend some uninterrupted time just us grown-ups catching up and visiting for a bit before they had to be back at the airport. Dad didn't know it yet, but I was in on the Baseball Birthday and he had more surprises in store for him in Seattle. I bought the Safeco Field birthday package. He got a Mariner's hat, commemorative baseball, gift certificates for food and the gift shop at the field, a card and most importantly his own scoreboard message.

Lem started back to school in mid-August and had a full schedule of back-to-school activities and excitement. Sycely had quite a back-to-school schedule of her own-shopping for clothes and school supplies, registration (I volunteered at registration for a day manning the PTA table), school ice cream social/teacher meet and greet where we met her new (first year) teacher Miss Lara. She also had an assessment with her teacher the week before school started.

Sycely was ready for the first day of school, and though it's hard to believe we have a first graders, off she went. When she arrived, she had a 2nd grade buddy (elder) assigned to her. It just happened to be a girl that was in her ballet class this summer so she already knew her! Having a few familiar faces really made for a great transition into her new class.She's in the Optional Program this year and so far it's been really fantastic. She's in a 1/2 class so she'll have each of her teachers for 2 years the rest of elementary school. She's really thriving in the student-guided curriculum and loves all the multi-grade work they do with the other classes in the Optional pod. She also really loves that her best school friends from last year are in the other, next door 1/2 optional class so she gets to see them every day. Her teacher and their teacher spend much of the day team teaching so she gets lots of time with her buddies.

Ballet started back up at the end of August too. She's been promoted to the Intermediate class this year. She's the youngest and smallest as usual, but she did leap over 5 speed bumps in class recently so it doesn't seem to be holding her back any. She's more comfortable and confident in that dance studio than any other place. Not only does she enjoy it, she really excels at it. She's got great posture and carriage when she's dancing and she's so precise and intentional by nature, that she's really loving being in the more advanced class where there's more focus on that type of stuff.

Waimea Bay and Turtle Beach

Our last morning in Hawaii we enjoyed breakfast of fresh fruit and pastries on our giant balcony one last time. Sycely scoped out details on our destination for the day-Waimea Bay and Turtle Beach-in the travel book at the condo.Waimea Bay is just up the coast toward the North side of the Island. It was about a 45 minute drive through luscious forests, along the rocky beach coast and through the famous Dole pineapple plantation. It was pretty incredible to see the pineapples hanging off the plants, in rows and rows and rows for hundreds of acres as we drove up the highway.

Wiamea Beach was incredibly beautiful, and of course, much less crowded than Waikiki beach. We brought along our floaties and a boogie board from the condo. Sycely was glued to that thing spending almost the entire day afloat, riding the waves in to the shore.We grabbed some lunch before heading back to Honolulu and made our way to Turtle Beach, just 5 miles down the road, back toward the city. Turtle Beach, as it's come to be known, is a warm, sandy beach where 28 green sea turtles frequently come to bask. It's pretty much a daily occurrence to find a few turtles lounging here and soaking up the warm afternoon sun. Because the turtle frequent the area so often, they are used to people and have even been named by the Guardians (volunteers who help protect them). They have a binder with pictures of each of the 28 that use the area and they note distinctions in the head markings in order to tell them apart. They know the ages of some of them and they stick a sign in the sand with their name and other details when one of the turtles comes ashore. They also put a red rope around the area the turtle are laying in. This is to keep people at least 6 feet from the turtles so they are not disturbed.When we arrived there were two turtles ashore basking-Wully Bully and Olivia Dawn. I was literally in tears being so close to these sweet creatures and was so touched that Lem had thought to research this place and give me this once in a lifetime opportunity. It wasn't but a few minutes after we arrived that we spotted another turtle not too far out in the water, making its way to the shore. It was incredible to watch the turtle drag itself slowly up the beach and snuggle up with the other two.Turtle Bay was definitely the coolest thing I've ever done in my 4 trips to Hawaii and I would LOVE to go back again and stay in the Northshore area so that I could go and watch them every day and maybe even be a Guardian volunteer at some point.

We headed back to the big city to wash up and get packed. I snapped a few photos of our condo and our view. I went up to get some shots of the rooftop pool area and was greeted by this gorgeous rainbow. Hawaii was giving us quite a send-off! We had a direct flight home that night, so we headed to the airport, returned our rental car and grabbed some dinner before changing the girls into their jammies and getting settled on the plane for the trip home. Both the girls were exhausted from all the fun in the sunshine and Sycely was sacked out about 2 minutes after we took off. Ella took a little longer to fall asleep, but was snuggled in and asleep before long. All in all and pretty smooth flight home after a pretty fabulous trip to Paradise :)

Honolulu Zoo

On our second day in Hawaii we checked out the Honolulu Zoo. Sycely served as our tour guide and helped us navigate through all the animals and attractions.

One of our first stops was the elephants-Ella's absolutely favorite animal. She was tickled to see the big fellas up close and called out to them waving and talking. It was so fun to see her so excited and having so much fun.There was lots of animals that we don't have here at our Alaskan animal zoo and the girls loved seeing all the animals that are typical zoo animals-monkey, tigers, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, lions and lots and lots of wild peacocks-which Sycely just couldn't resist stalking and petting! The zoo also had a special learning area that had a tank of giant goldfish you could climb inside of, a guinea pig tunnel exhibit, and a petting zoo. The girls got a hoot out of getting to pet the goats as they lounged trying to keep cool. They even tried to milk a (plastic!) cow ;)