Collin's Loose Tooth

I noticed one day when Collin was crying at me about something that one of his front teeth was crooked. I felt it and sure enough he had his first loose tooth. It has hung in there pretty good - it's been loose for a couple weeks. But EARLY this morning he came into our room and said "Do you want to see what I found when I was wiggling my tooth" and he was proudly holding up his tooth in his hand. We were very excited for him, and then shooed him back to bed. He has been waiting and waiting for his tooth to fall out since his good friend Connor lost his tooth and got money from the tooth fairy!!

Last night Collin put his tooth in his special pillow and went to sleep. This morning he woke up and found $2 and a note from the tooth fairy - she even said that mommy could keep the tooth this time, but somehow it got lost. Maybe she'll let us keep the next one too!! His other bottom tooth is REALLY loose too.

Collin at T-Ball

Collin has started playing t-ball for the summer. He is playing with his good friend Connor, and some of the time they spend more time goofing around than anything. Tonight they both did really good. Collin got his first out!! He was playing 3rd base. He fielded the ball and stepped on the base to get the out - he was pretty excited (of course it happened before I got out the video camera) - doesn't it always. Connor got an out too! For the rest of the game he tried so hard. He fielded a whole bunch of balls and threw them to 1st for the out, but they just couldn't quite get it. He did so good - we are so proud of him!

HAWAII

We only have one more day left. We have spent the last few days of our trip doing a whole lot of nothing....mostly laying in the sun, reading, swimming, drinking wine, and snorkeling. We found a great snorkeling spot - one of the best we have ever snorkeled. We have gone there 3 times already.

At our luau

Rain Forest hike

One of our favorite beaches along the East Coast of Oahu

One of the places we snorkeled.

The view from our place on the North Shore - it is amazing. The beach is literally just steps away.

Aloha!

Well we survived the 8 hour plane ride, and now I sort of understand what Cyndy and Bill are talking about....we had to struggle to stay awake until 8:30 last night, but seem to be adjusting okay today. We spent some time at the beach and did a nice hike up to Diamond Head today. We were told it was only a mile from our hotel so in an effort to save money we decided to walk there and then do the hike. Oops...it was more like 2.5-3 miles just to get to the hike. So we got to see some of the local life here in Honolulu. Matt has a team building thing tomorrow where the are having a grill-off. Each team gets ingredients and they have to cook/grille it however they see best, then it is judged and the spouses get to come eat it! So I will get to hang with some of the other wives tomorrow morning. We are mostly enjoying doing things like...reading a book and not reading the same paragraph 50 times, applying sunscreen to only one body a day, having a snack all to ourselves, going to the beach with nothing more than a towel and book, sitting on a beach towel at the beach with no sand on it....etc. So thanks mom and dad for watching the kids. We are having a great time - each day feels like about 10 days!

view from our balcony.

4th of July

The kids are not only obsessed with fireworks, but now they want to wear their headlamps to watch them.

We took the kids to a parade downtown Evansville. They stood and waved their flags like crazy until they realized people were throwing candy. The flags were quickly abandoned and replaced with ziploc bags.

Even Madelyn got in on the action. She kept walking out into the street and picking up sucker after sucker. She wanted them all opened at once. Grandma had to hold her to keep her from getting run over. So she sat on grandma's lap and waved to everyone.

Fishing

The first thing that Collin did when we stepped out of the van at the cabin is run to find his fishing pole so that he could practice casting. It is what he spends most of his spare time doing. If you can't find him, he is usually off somewhere "casting" into whatever he can find. Ella has gotten into it too this year. After a couple days of practicing they were ready to trade in their plastic fish for real hooks. We took them out on the boat and found a great spot where they caught one fish after another. Collin got so excited every time he got one!

Ella was willing to touch the worms even though her big brother wouldn't go anywhere near them. They were both brave enough to hold the fish and throw them back in the lake.

Playing at the beach

The kids had a lot of fun at the cabin this year for the 4th of July. The especially like to play at the beach.

Big surprise - Madelyn is not afraid of the water.

Both Collin and Ella can make it all the way out to the ladder this year!

Faster, faster....the kids had a blast tubing. Ella hit a monster wave and came crashing down on the tube with her chin and got a rug burn down her chin and all the way under her neck. That only stopped her for about an hour and then she was out there again, until the front of their tubes went under and they both got a face full of water.