Hawaii

Yes, it has been a long time since I posted. You may have wondered whether our family traveled to a tropical island far away from civilization, and then remained there, never to blog again. Well, it didn't exactly happen like that, although we were tempted.

Let's see..we had a few more days in California and more adventures including quality time in San Jose with our friends Eva, Bruce & Sonja (who is 2 years older than Eliana) and Sheryl, Sean, Sophie (1 yr older than Eliana) and Sasha, who just turned a year. Then it was off to a week in Hawaii at the Westin Villas on Maui, in the Kaanapali area of the island. Two year ago in January 2007, we got a call from my parents asking whether we had any plans in January 2009...turns out they had bought one week of a 2 bedroom timeshare at the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas.

So who would possibly say no to a week in Hawaii in the middle of winter? The night before we departed from San Francisco, we noticed that the weather forecast was for the coldest winter weather on the East Coast in 15 years...we were thrilled to be far from the cold.

I have so many photos to share! This one summarizes the whole week:



We saw many, many smiles from Eliana throughout our time there...how could she not smile when she was doted on by Nene, Bampi, Mommy, Abba, Tanya & Uncle Larry, with extra drop in attention from Aunt Ann, Uncle David, Lauren & Josh?

How did we spend our time? Things evolved into a routine; in the mornings we would walk from our resort to the Westin Hotel and back, about a 3-4 mile walk. When we got there, we'd stop for breakfast:





The macadamia nut pancakes were particularly good. Eliana also liked looking at the flamingos, although she didn't get the whole standing on one leg concept.



In the afternoons (and sometimes the mornings as well), we took Eliana swimming. She LOVED it.





(Bampi wasn't sure he was recording the video above, so his toe makes a candid appearance.)



Then, we had other adventures. One cloudy day we went into Lahaina and had lunch at Kimo's, including their famous Hula pie...





which was, as you can imagine, very sweet. The funny thing is that we rarely give Eliana sweets, so she's just looking at the chocolate and ice cream with a puzzled expression.

Another day, we visited the Needle of Iao. Eliana had a great time walking up and down all of the steps.





Another cloudy morning, we visited the Barnes & Noble. Good news, Bampi found that they had many copies of his books in stock:



And even going for a walk outside our door was scenic and beautiful:





So that's it..hard to believe that we've gone and come back already. Anyway there's no question that a change of scene is always a good thing..we have warm memories of our trip and are working on creating some local adventures now!

California Playin'

We are now in the Bay Area, and since we're on vacation, we've been having a number of adventures, probably too many to document. However, I'll share a few of the good ones.

We are staying at Nene and Bampi's house--we arrived here on December 30. As my last post predicted, making it to the airport was a little bumpy; we found ourselves with a lot to do at 6:30am. But Eliana was great. She did wake up early from all the noise of packing and getting organized, but she sat calmly while we packed and got ready. We told her that we were packing our suitcases and going to the airport, and she understood that we couldn't give her our full attention. Once we got to the airport, we got on the plane pretty quickly. We took off and she met some new friends on the plane, then crashed and took her usual 2 hour nap, but this time on Abba's lap. It was not too bad for traveling with a toddler.

Things here have evolved into a routine...6:30ish wakeup, breakfast and playing at home or possibly an outing, following by 1-3pm nap and more playing until Eliana (and the rest of us!) need to rest. She adjusted to the time change quickly.

So what is life like here? This picture says it all:



Eliana is sitting in the big chair, and Mommy, Abba, Nene and Bampi (and Uncle Larry too when he was here for a few days) do what we can to make her happy, and every once in a while one of us takes a rest! Oh well, she deserves it.

About the adventures..first of all, this is Finley:





Who needs a rocking horse when you can ride a frog? I was concerned that Finley wasn't strong enough to hold Eliana, but Nene and Bampi said she's welcome to ride him. So Eliana takes a frog ride when she's in the mood.

The other day, Finley had his first meal. What happened was that Eliana was walking around with her plastic fork, and in typical toddler fashion, she wanted to see what would happen if she put the fork in Finley's mouth. Then, she accidentally let go, and the fork fell into Finley.

Immediately, Eliana said, "Where did the fork go?" and was very upset to have lost her fork. I tried to turn Finley over to get the fork out, but Marty said I was under too much pressure at that moment and might hurt Finley. Fortunately, Uncle Larry helped us out later and managed to get the fork out with no harm to either Finley or the fork.

As mentioned above, we have gone on an outing every day. The weather is not exactly warm, but it's manageable if we bundle up (and a lot warmer than New York!) Here are some pictures from a walk on the Tiburon bike path:






We walked to the playground, and Eliana got to play a little:





I have to admit that another family at the playground gave us a hard time for overdocumentation: Marty was running the video camera, I had my camera out, and so did Bampi..all on one little girl! We wouldn't want to miss a moment.

Uncle Larry came to Marin for a few days and got some playtime with his niece:



She had a great time with him and looks forward to spending more time together in Hawaii next week.

Lastly, on Friday we went for a ride to Los Altos for a meeting...on the way back we met up with our friends Cindy, Jason and little Aidan at the Stanford Mall. We were looking for a warm place to talk and realized that Pottery Barns Kids was a sort-of hands on toy store..so Eliana "tested" different items:





Fortunately she is not yet at the stage in which she has to buy something before leaving the store. So we were able to leave the teddy bear there.

Eliana enjoys exploring Nene and Bampi's house. We mostly play in the family room, but every once in a while she wants to "go upstairs," just to go upstairs. Today after we went upstairs a few times, we got a little tired of going upstairs and wanted her to play in the family room. So we said we'd put the safety gate up at the bottom of the stairs. Eliana said "No gate, no gate!" and then pointed to the spot next to the stairs where we could put the gate away, and said, "Gate right here!" She is becoming a little director..but it's so cute that it doesn't get to us too much.

So we're here until Saturday, working a bit and playing, and then head to Hawaii for a week. I'll see if I can share more in the next few days.