From Richard this morning - a nice memory. This is Ben about 6 months old after hiking out to Kaena Point. That's a shave ice he is really interested in! Look at that little hand grabbing mommy. And Sam - you are a trooper, man. You hiked out on your own! Gosh - we still have that little red plane, too. Unreal! You were playing with this yesterday morning! I love you two boys so much.

Dave is working late tonight so I’m stealing a few minutes to record the events of the evening for him.

Dave still at work so I enjoyed those little boys all to myself tonight. They get so enraptured with things – it is fun to follow them from thing to thing to thing even though it is exhausting with them both exclaiming at once. We bought both of them stop watches because they love to race around the house. So this means that since yesterday at 5:12pm when we set the time on Ben’s watch, he has been asking “Mom, what time is it on my watch?” “Ben – can you read me the numbers?” “It’s – uh – it’s FIVE TWO TWO!” “So that is five-twenty-two.” And so on. This morning while I was watering plants it was more of the same, from 9:40 to 9:52. Every minute. I’d say “Now it’s nine forty three, what minute would be next?” “Uh – Nine forty FOUR!” Then “I wonder if I can be done by 9:50?” “When is 9:50?” … Tonight we were doing laps around the house – outside on the gravel driveway and walkways. Many of them. Timing ourselves. My hamstrings are sore because of course I had to set myself a PR, in my Wal-Mart jeans. I was hot. You should see my hair now, after flapping around and getting hot! ha ha! I have WINGS, baby!* We had fun, though. We each set a PR. Then we found a wooly caterpillar. Had to set up a habitat for him. Now he is camping out in the room with the boys. I really hope they remembered to close the lid on their terrarium…hmmm… Sam was very animated thinking of things the caterpillar might want. Both boys worked hard to set him up well and comfortably, and tried to get me to touch him. I faked it.

*I cut my own hair yesterday in an effort to look nice for my first day helping out with a few students from Sam’s class doing math. I usually cut my own hair, have been doing so for years now, but yesterday something possessed me to try a new technique to get more layers in front. It looks better today after a wash, but yesterday it was…interesting. More like a mullet, which if you Google it apparently it’s coming back, but only among the quite daring, edgy crowd. So I’m a trend-setter of sorts. I am not releasing pictures, but suffice to say when Sam’s teacher popped in with the camera to take a picture of us I was thinking about diving under the table along with Ben (who was also at the school with me and was picking up some pieces of a puzzle from under the table!). Now it’ll be in the yearbook!!! Truthfully it is not bad – no one would know. Those who noticed said it was really cute and when I confessed they told me they couldn’t tell. Just a little touching up perhaps needed…