November

November was marked with cooler temperatures, fun weekend outings, and Ella starting preschool!

Yes, he really is this adorable and sweet!!

Ella and Auggie having a grand old time hiding in the cabinets at IKEA

ADORABLE

Evan and Auggie on a playdate with Babcia 

Evan and Auggie on a playdate with Daniel at the local mini-golf park where the batting cages were Evan's favorite!

Auggie cheering Ella on for her first day of school!

And we are off to preschool!! 

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Second day of preschool. Less enthusiastic, but still proud to wear her backpack! 

Our little fire-fighters

Just being adorable

With school starting, Ella stopped sleeping again.  We briefly tried having her sleep on the lowest bunk in Auggie's room, but it did not go well.  Auggie valiently tried to support the experiment, as well as try to get Ella to listen to reading time.  She prefers her own books. 

Ella, getting ready for snuggles and books. 

The art table has moved away from the wall to the middle of the living room. Art and Creativity need space.

Auggie  - how he usually looks. 

The month ended with a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at Babcia and Dziadek's house.  

Hawaii (Day 5)

Today was a “slow day” in that we took longer to leave our home and we did a lot of sightseeing through the car windows while Ella napped. 

We started the morning by driving back to the North Shore to swim and wade in Shark Cove, which is a sheltered snorkeling hole that both Auggie and Ella could safely wade into to see fish and crab. We have no pictures from the swimming, but did spend some time at the beach afterwards before the hot sun forced us to retreat.

Afterwards, we went across the street to our now favorite food truck garden and enjoyed another Açaí bowl while the kids collected odd fruit off the ground.

Then we set off on a drive along the North Shore to the east side of the island.  The views were spectacular, but we didn’t make many stops since Ella was napping in the car. Favorite tourist sparce towns included Punaluu, Kaawa, Waikane. 

We liked our drive so much - and Ella was sleeping so well- we looped back to Lanikai Beach. This was a mm big change in the feel from our desolate tropical rain shadow towns - small streets with tightly packed million dollar homes hid a beautiful but overpopulated beach.  The area was postcard perfect, but we did not have much time to enjoy it, as we had to head back home.

By the time we finished with this last beach, we were through all of our dry clothes and wearing wet suits. Since we had returned our rented booster and Auggie was now riding with a safety car vest, we dressed him in Daniel’s one remaining dry shirt, which he absolutely loved.

We made it back to our condo in time for a quick change of clothes and brief packing for our early morning flight the following day, before returning to Ala Moana beach to meet up with Chris for a picnic of Burmese food while awaiting the weekly fireworks show over Waikiki. Kids barely made it to the fireworks, which were at 7:45, but passed out within minutes of getting in the car. We didn’t take many pictures, but Chris did and we will post them in a few days. 

Hawaii (Day 4)

We had another busy and fun day in Hawaii!

Kids slept in until 6:30!! (With just a brief Ella wake up for water and reassurance at 4am.)

Daniel and Ella went on a morning stroller walk to pick up pastries while Auggie worked on homework.

Agnieszka admired our city views.

Then we took off for a drive back to North Shore. We settled on the Banzai Pipeline section of Sunset Beach and got to watch surfers, jump waves and collect seashells. 

Once we were done with the beach, we stopped at a food truck garden for lunch. Auggie and Ella shared a Wagge beef burger and Açaí Fruit Bowl. Agnieszka had an amazing poke bowl with salmon and Thai seasoning on top of coconut rice. Daniel ate delicious fried shrimp tacos. 

We drove back near the Dole Pineapple Plantation and managed to get a picture of the pineapple fields. Auggie was not impressed.

When we made it back to our condo, we decided to take a pool/spa break...which is never a break with a fearless and fierce 2 year old who loves to jump into water - hot or cold.

After a lot of showers, we headed back to Ala Moana beach for more sand, water and sunset, because you have to take a shower sometime, but it’s not an excuse to not go back to the beach! 

Auggie collected lots of shells and coral; Ella played in water up to her neck, refusing to get out of the water even when she was shivering. We stayed until the beautiful sunset.

We finished the day with Burmese take out in our condo, surrounded by sparkling city lights.