Bread ended up rising like a volcano, and I had olive oil trickling out of the crater at the top. It was soooo good! Can you see the salt? Fun to be able to keep making good bread with my starter from 4 yrs ago 🙂

We had a good day today – went for an early bike/run around the fish ponds, with lots of discussions about fish, whether they go to school or not, how many grades of fish go to school in the ponds (Sam says 10 grades, from age 5 to 15), getting to see “hurry hurry!” at the fire station, then on to Ben’s 2 yr old appt. He is in great health, 35″ tall and 35 lbs (I think – he really freaked out at the ht/wt measurement). He is 75th percentile for ht and wt, 90th for head (big like his dad). He’s got Daddy’s cold now but he’s a real trooper and will still be up for partying tomorrow and through the weekend. We go camping on Mon and Tues, and hopefully cousin Mike and his wife Mary will be here tomorrow if their space-a plans come together!

Team Krug developing trust on a lovely Sunday morning after church.

I went to a PT today to get some insight on a foot numbness problem I’ve had for about 18 months. I have been guessing it has something to do with muscle tightness from running pushing the double stroller. I got new running shoes two sizes bigger than usual, undid the laces as much as possible, shortened my mileage after the marathon and only push Ben now (Sam rides). It has slowly gotten a fraction better but I was very curious to see what the PT thought for short term and long term prognosis, and what the cause was. (I’d been to a podiatrist who thought that it was tarsal tunnel syndrome and also thougth my gait was all off. I had my suspicions, though and wanted a second opinion.) So today after a consult, some focused stretching and some massage my feet were literally almost 50% better! We freed up some space in the muscles for blood to flow again and the nerves started to come alive. It’s unbelievable being able to feel the ground under your feet. I don’t know how I’ve managed like this for so long. I have no idea how I’ve done yoga, but I have noticed my balance is a bit off. Hopefully that gets back to normal with some renewed sensation :0 Long ago I knew PTs were the bomb – I worked as an aide while at Univ of VA and one of my best adult friends was a very gifted PT. She really worked miracles for people and I recalled that often the PT was the one to finally put all the pieces together in the jigsaw puzzle of a person’s unusual symptoms. Why I didn’t get a PT consult long ago I don’t know – I just figured this was a podiatrist’s domain. I had already gotten an MRI and an x-ray and they were negative. Anyway, I share all of this because it is hopefully the beginning of the end of a story which has bothered me for a long time. And it means I can keep running, doing intervals and more speed work vs distance for now as long as I am diligent about stretching. No multi-tasking on that, doing a yoga move for one leg while ostensibly stretching the other ;0 I am thankful to have my body back! And I think I will call my old friend at UVA just to make sure she knows how important she is to many people 🙂 

Lounging the Saturday away after we bid aloha to Gramma.

Ben is mystified by the comings and goings around here – Daddy in NH, then MA, Gramma heading to California two weeks after Richard headed back… So he keeps asking “Where’s Gramma?” Like probably 20 times this afternoon. He is down to once a day for “Where’s Daddy?” – speaking of whom, poor Daddy caught a nasty stomach bug and had to delay his homecoming by a day. I offered to extend his rental car reservation. What a fiasco that turned into – 47 minutes and 4 calls later someone was willing to do it. It was like they’d never experienced a wife offering to do that for her husband. I feel bad for him – he wanted to do only two things in Boston while he was in the area – came super close to one (see the Constitution) and missed the other (Sam Adams).  At least he got to see two of three brothers and his sister’s family. Mahalo McGees for housing him and his Northeast pestilence! 🙂 Dan, Tim and Steve – if you’re reading this – the boys and I were talking about each of you and how much fun you are (shout-outs to “sitting swimmer”, Ben’s fave uncle, and our firstborn’s mountain-biking Godfather!). Tito Pig and Tita Bear – we sure miss you guys but we are so thankful for all the visits we’ve had in this past year.

Half of Team Krug, just in from a snorkel expedition.

Dave took today off to play with us since he’ll be in undisclosed locations over the next three weeks. He went out to get a latte for us this morning, then went to work for a couple hours to tie up loose ends, then home for beach time with us, hot dogs, beans and Cheetos for lunch (Sam says that’s a “camping lunch”) and now BBC’s Wild Pacific with Sam while Ben reluctantly naps. Pretty cool to see island life on these incredible documentaries. Just saw Easter island and the famous relic statues. While we’ll be missing Dave as he travels to NH then Guam, I’m glad he’ll get to see some of his family and we’ll get to have visitors from my family! Cousin Mike and his wife Mary will be coming for a couple weeks! We are so excited. We’ve been planning fun things for them to do should they need some adventure along with relaxation time. Sam wonders how many laps across his monkey bars Mike the Marine can do. He thinks 7 laps. Wow. Mike, you up for this? We can’t wait to see you guys – I’m already scanning the flight lists to see when they start populating info for your leave time 🙂

Out for an after-dinner romp, this was taken moments before Sam did a faceplant and got holes in his palms!

Today I spent a couple hours getting two websites polished up for a friend who owns (and loves to open!) restaurants here on the island (www.sakestreet.com and www.formaggio808.com). To celebrate going live with both, we went out to dinner at one of the restaurants (Formaggio Grill in Kailua) with the boys. Sam picked out my dress – he was so cute looking in my closet and asking “Is that your casual side of the closet?” pointing to my shirts. He then picked out the polka-dot dress above that I haven’t worn in about 5 years. Ben screamed when I put a dress-up shirt on him – lately he has reacted violently any time you even hint at messing with his shirt, even if it’s filthy and it’s time for bath. Strange dude. But we finally got him dressed in a nice aloha shirt and all out to dinner. Sam enjoyed his dinner very much – “I really chowed down on Dad’s red pasta. I liked Formaggio Castle – everyone all crowded there feasting at the long tables.” It was so fun seeing it through his eyes – indeed it would seem like a castle with the tall ceilings, low light, and long tables of feasting! The food was delicious, I had my barnyard and underbrush wine again (love!) and we felt like a walk after dinner. For our boys, though, they don’t walk. They run. Often things go well, but tonight while Dave was snapping this picture of us all jogging Sam went down inexplicably hard and poked pretty good flaps in his skin. While he was screeching Dave tried to round Ben up for the truck, but Ben wanted to keep running (Dave was fearing a second face-plant) so he started screaming, too! With a Dave-mai tai in me followed by the wine and lobster mac and cheese, I was in good shape to handle all these ruffled feathers. Dave literally thew his arms up in the air in astonishment at the double meltdown happening on either side of him in the middle of the marsh trail with all the nice folks out for a walk/ride, several families rescuing a fish from the middle of the canal with a rake and many other poles duct-taped together, and a wedding on the other side of the canal. It was all so incongruous but very funny in retrospect!

Miss Dana left the boys such a nice note and MONEY for taking care of her doggies while she was away! The boys really did take good care of the doggies, each hand-feeding the dogs little bits of food so they would eat otherwise they’d be too lonely and depressed. She totally overpaid – money for both boys – and Sam did the honors of dividing up the money. Out of $10, he gave Ben $4, then gave $2 to the kids in Pakistan (Pennies for Peace fund on his shelf) and saved $4 for his truck fund. Thank you, Dana! Then tonight during prayers Sam said he was thankful for the holes in his hands because he has a strong body. Ben then said he was ready for his big-boy bed (he just moved into Sam’s old toddler bed yesterday). That’s a wrap from Kailua…hope you all had a good day!

With Dave back from Guam and all of us relatively healthy once again, we had a fantastic Saturday morning at the beach. We even skipped an uke lesson for Sam…probably not the first island family to yield to the pull of ohana time at da beach. Mom and Richard graciously served as cabana boy and girl, going to get towels, water, snacks… And Dave wrestled my SUP down for me – that was a fun morning! Loves to my fam 🙂

Sam body-surfed for three hours straight - he couldn't even be enticed with Cheetos!

"Mommy, I carry my paddleboard!"