TripAdvisor travelers ranked Kailua Beach #3, while Tunnels Beach (Kauai) and Waimea Bay (O’ahu) grabbed 6 and 10, respectively. Pretty cool that we live here. We’d have to agree that this is an awesome beach.

Some funny things Sammy has said recently, before I forget:

The ladies at the cleaners enjoy talking to him. One is from Kansas – we’ve been learning about states, so he remembers that specifically about her. She asked him where he is from and he replied “Da beach” in all seriousness. 🙂

Today he was excited to go to Goodwill, where mommy does her very sporadic shopping. I haven’t purchased anything new in quite some time. In fact, I’m so thrifty that I go to Goodwill on Tuesdays whenever possible for that extra 10% off! (Am I sick? Can I get help for this?)  I asked why he wanted to go there, and he said “I need some clothes” and I asked what kind of clothes, to which he replied “I need some WORK clothes.” So funny – not sure if that means working in the garden, working on cars and trucks, working on bikes, or working in an office like daddy…

“a load” according to Sammy. We were dragging about a dozen big bags of leaves about a block down to some trash cans. This was a favor for a neighbor so that their green waste would get picked up tomorrow. We were walking by anyway and figured we’d help. Sam was a real help dragging bags and pushing the cans out for pickup. We talked about how doing a favor is helping someone else out, doing something nice, etc. When I asked him later what a favor was, he said “a load” which is, in fact, correct, right? You bear someone else’s burden. I thought it was interesting how he interpreted it. (We had described the big bags of leaves as a “heavy load.”)

He’s been working really hard on this skill! He drops the ball then gives it a good kick. The ball is one that was sent to us by our postal carrier (Jeanine-Anne) in Coronado when he was born. So the ball is 3 yrs old and still kickin’! It was initially covered with a sweet note and mailed as-is (no package). We had a lot of fun receiving it, as did all the carriers in Poulsbo 🙂 Thanks again Jeanine-Anne! (This is an animated .gif – it should show getting ready, then kicking, in a loop.)

Sam and I have had head colds all week, so I am particularly pleased that something nice came out of this week – I’ve been slowed down enough to make a necklace out of sea glass we found! I have the bizarre compulsion to clean the house and take care of odd chores when I’m sick. Yesterday I filled a backup propane tank for all those hurricanes and power outages 🙂 And today I bleached clean my laundry hamper, and scrubbed our bathroom. Maybe it’s a subconscious attempt to rid the house of germs. I have a grocery bag full of used tissues with a Lysol spray-can sitting right beside it so I can fumigate whenever necessary. Hey pregnant ladies…or those of you who remember…guess what I had to do with every sneeze???

Our friends have a neighbor in the Coast Guard who was able to get a key to Makapu’u Lighthouse, so they graciously invited us to tag along for a VIP tour inside the gated area and even up into the lighthouse! Along the way we broke out the binoculars to spot humpback whales which travel to Hawaii each spring for mating and birthing. Sam got to see a bunch of tail-slaps, but he was very keen on going to the lighthouse and up inside it. He kept asking “are we going IN?” Afterwards we went to Kona Brewing Company for lunch and a sampler (Dave, not me!). Sam was tired but such a good boy during what ended up being a long lunch due to slow service. Maybe it was the promised ice cream for dessert? He really enjoyed that since it was a hot day 🙂

This primer (a PowerPoint presentation) is funny and informative regarding how the sub-prime mess has had ripple effects on other sectors of the financial markets. Here’s what my brother says (he sent the file): the sub-prime mess has tainted commercial mortgage backed securities even though after 6 months of this the default rate on the underlying CMBS loans has barely moved at all….

Just in case I forgot how hard it is to maintain even passable attractiveness during pregnancy, I thought I would jot down a few tips. That is … in case we have a third child some day 🙂

There was one flying through the house last night! I got poked by a little arrow and turned around to find this precious little creature 🙂 HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

Sammy loves his tumbling class on base! Mom took a bunch of pictures today. In the shot above he’s doing one-footed jumping and we count to see how many he can do before toppling over. I think he hit 8 today. Before class started today he waited impatiently for the clock to tick by so he could go out on the floor and do warm ups. He kept asking me in his sweet voice “are we ready to start yet?”