We've been away for a while

We haven't posted anything for quite a while, but with very good reason......

Its hard to blog when your on the beach everyday. I promise we'll be back soon, when we come back to reality in this 50 degree weather.

You know you married a good one....

.... when he looks this dang hot in a mullet.

I love how this picture captures the mullet in mid-flight.



Also very attractive: being able to pass the same mullet wearing hotness to your son.

Seven Months

Louis is seven months old today. I usually try not to ramble on about him all the time, so we'll stick mostly to pics. His favorite toys are mardi gras beads and cords of any kind. Basically he loves anything that could be a choking hazard (as shown in the picture above). He's also a great roller and scooter. Not captured in the picture above is his fall from the hotel bed shortly after this picture was taken. His parents are slow learners. Luckily he seems to be made of some kind of rubbery material that bounces unharmed off of walls and tile floors.
He also really likes being outside. We go for walks almost everyday, rain or shine. He of course likes nice days better (like the beautiful almost 70 degree weather we had on Thursday above), but doesn't complain when we walk in wind, rain or even snow.

He's also learned the very important task of feeding himself Cheerios. This is great for all of us, because now he doesn't have to scream everytime he wants one put in his mouth. This makes mealtimes better for all.

He loves to play with whatever is on the ground around him. Shoes (with shoelaces- kind of the same fixation he has with cords), books, clothes, and whatever else we are negligent putting away.

Unfortunately, we've discovered he is not the best traveler. He has to have someone sit with him in the back or else he gets lonely. And he doesn't sleep well in hotels at all. Our recent trip to Freeport, ME proved this way to well. Luckily, he is still very happy and cute as we drag him around all day long.

On top of all of that learning, he now puts himself to sleep at night, eats baby food like a piglet, has two teeth and loves to pull our hair when he is happy. He's doing pretty good for having to deal with us as parents.

My New Single

I don't normally like to talk about dreams. They are weird, and even when you try to describe them, you can never figure them out. My one last night though, deserves some introspection and evaluation.

It was my last dream of the night. I was a member of Destiny's Child and we were performing a show on stage. It was an awesome show. I even remember thinking to myself in my dream, "I had no idea I was this good of a dancer!". Some of the songs were actual Destiny's Child or Beyonce songs, but just before I woke up Beyonce announced our last song...
Beyonce: "And here is our last song, our hit single, written by our own member, Melissa Faustino!"

In my dream my mind was racing. I didn't remember writing a song for the group. I didn't even know I could write songs. I just knew it was going to be a good one though. We started singing the lyrics of the song....
"Even Jesus' gots a butt alright, alright!. So that makes mine alright, alright!"
[Insert slow, lower R & B rhythm and a lot of booty shaking - I can hum it for you some time if you like, probably won't show the dance though].

I honestly don't remember the rest of the song, but that was essentially the tag line. According to my dream, it was a world famous hit, our latest single. And I apparently had written it.

I have no idea how to interpret this dream, or what my subconscious mind is doing for that matter. To be honest, it worries me a little.

Easter

We hope you all had as wonderful an Easter as we did. The Easter bunny visited for the first time, leaving candy for Louis that we will just have to eat for him. He looks happy anyway.

We had a great dinner at our bowling buddies house. They cooked up a mighty feast and even gave us an Easter basket full of goodies. We contributed some pretty sadly decorated sugar cookies. I had such high hopes for them, but halfway through the process I realized how much work they were and just started slopping on the frosting. Oh well, the rest of the feast was saved thanks to the bb's awesome cooking and delicious ham.

And this is how we feel now. When is it going to get warm????

Trouble Times Two

My neice Avery came to stay with us for almost two weeks while her parents went on a cruise. I thought that it would be crazy and I would be so ready for her to go home, but I was so sad at the airport on Tuesday saying goodbye. I loved having that little girl, and she and Louis were adorable together.

I had to learn to do a few things I'd never experienced before; like carrying two kids down the stairs at the same time (I realize this is child's play for most of you mothers, but it was new to me!), working on a work project deadline until 2am, feeding two kids at the same time, etc., but it was never as hard or tiring as I thought. I loved having her here. Avery spent her days here teaching Louis lots of new an useful things.......

She taught him how to eat his first cracker.

And later, helped him graduate to eating itmes off of the floor and couch.

She also read him lots of books, though I don't know what was going on in the stories whe was trying to tell him (it was mostly just babble). She would get really feisty if he tried to touch the books when she was turning the pages. She also taught Louis how to accesorize. His favorite toy is now her mardi gras beads she left. She also helped him learn the new styles in hat wearing- like how wearing it over your eyes and nose is cool.

But mostly she was just really sweet to him, gave him lots of kisses and hugs and brought him his toys. If she heard him crying, she would drop what she was doing, yell 'uh oh' and head up the stairs to help him out. What a sweet girl.

We all miss you Avery!!!!

Zoo Animals

A few weeks ago we went to visit family up in Buckeye Country, Columbus, Ohio. It was a cool little trip that we saved a good chunk of change on by flying on Skybus. Never heard of it? Well apparently its a growing airline company that is based out of Columbus, OH that initially only flew to a handful of destinations but have rapidly expanded. So what's so special about Skybus that is worth blogging about? Well, its their10 - $10 seats that are available for each flight they offer. YES 10 BUCKS! How it works is apparently they save a lot of doe on not offering all the frills and pretty much give you what you want; a ride somewhere. So they go cheap-o on you by
1) Not having a booking department - all internet based sales.
2) Flying into obscure/small airports.
3) Having you pay five bucks a bag you check
4) Not feeding you - though they do offer you food to buy off a overpriced menu (but apparently of food that is locally prepared in Columbus)
5) Hiring young and cheap labor and outfitting them like so and
6) Going cheap on the gas.

Yeah, the gas thing is a little sketchy to me, but hey you choose your own adventure...
What ever happened to those books anyway?! Remember library time as a kid? Those books were my favorite to go and find during library time because it totally looked like you were being all studious when really you were reading like a paragraph a page and after each page you'd flip to another and so forth, jumping all over a 200+ page book that could be over in like 3 flips. Back then, something about leaving the library and knowing you read 5 books, albiet C.Y.O.A. books was satisfying to me. Considering the rate at which I now finish books, I'd give my young padawan self props, but I guess finishing 5 CYOA books in an hours time isn't so noteworthy considering the conclusion that you can draw that I must've not been a good decision maker. So on decision making I don't think Skybus was such a bad decision finanically considering I've opted to take Fung Wah and Lucky Star, (the infamous China Town Express buses) to NYC, in the past.
So anyway, back to Skybus and Ohio. They announce their flight plans and if you are any type of an advance vacation planner, you could be lucky and snag a seat for a price less than two McDonalds value meals. I know, both sound good right? Yes, nuff said...don't hate. So we flew to Ohio on $10 tickets! We get herded on the plane like cattle because their is no assigned seating, which could be a thing to throw down over for most, but being that Melissa knew the tricks of the trade from serving in Taiwan and the fact that we got to pre-board because we had Louis it was all good. We get on the plane and get settled and these obnoxious women decide to sit in front of us. They noticed after getting settled in that we had a baby in tow and made all sorts of comments about how worried they were because they were sitting in front of a baby and tried to get a few people to change with them...basically making a scene. Long story short Louis didn't say a peep and slept for most of the flight and those ladies were louder, ruder, more oblivious than any persons I have ever flown with. It was these same women that kept many of us from relaxing/slumbering and even woke Louis up in the end because of their shrills and flirts they were carrying on with the Male flight attendant...gag.
We had a lot of fun in Ohio and got churchified out there as our trip consisted of visiting LDS church sites in Kirtland, taking a RLDS (now the Community of Christ) tour of the Kirtland Temple and taking a trip to peep on the Amish. It was all very entertaining and fun. Visiting the Amish was pretty cool, but I must say you'd think we were visiting a zoo with the kind of spectators that we were, taking pictures, pointing at the different outfits, and being amazed with their horse drawn buggies. We found ourselves saying things like "oh look there's a little Amish baby" or "there's another one, look" as if they were a rare specimen in a zoo. My favorite was an Amish guy working in the cheese factory that was not only wearing a hairnet but a beard net which was obviously specifically customized to fit over the uniquely shaped Amish tailored beards. The funny thing is that the Amish totally capitalize out of zooing themselves out. They advertise their craft and themselves out with signs like "Come spend a day with the Amish" or "Enjoy a home cooked Amish meal..." etc. I won't go into what comes to my mind if I was to spend a day with the Amish, but maybe one day I'll find out if my preconceived opinions are true.

I guess in some weird way, I can relate to the Amish about being zoo'ed out. I remember as a kid growing up in my small town in Hawaii, many tourists looking, pointing, and snapping pictures of us "hawaiians" while we were doing our day to day things. I can recall tourists either gazing in amusement or asking me or others to pose while simply raking the leaves, walking home from school, playing in the rain, or playing outside or at the beach. I always thought it was kinda strange but also pretty cool, imagining that maybe one day the photo would end up on an ad or something. I admit now, having been exposed to a more mainstream lifestyle, going to school shoeless, running around shirtless, having a year round full body tan and not just those slipper and shirt line tans, or surfing/boogie boarding at the age of 8 could be unique, but it wasn't to me then. Maybe it's good that my pictures never ended up on any ads as they probaby would've been on sanitation campaigns. I guess one other thing that I am grateful for is that the Amish kids weren't like how we were as kids because I can remember on a few occassions throwing rocks at the toursits cars. Okay, before you judge me I have to make a disclaimer; we weren't trying to hit the tourists, just their cars which are mostly rental cars anyway and most of the time the points came from hitting their hubcaps.

Back to ads and pictures, we were treated to family photo shoot by our sister in law who is quite the photographer. Thanks guys for everything!! Here's a sampling:

Full family pics to come.