Pictures From My Trip to the Mainland

Here is a small sampling of pictures that my mom's husband Doug took while I was home. This is a picture of Grandma's hospital....St. John's Heart Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

Girls in the waiting room....(L to R) Cousin Sarah and my sisters Allison, Natalie and Katie. This was taken before I arrived from the airport....Grandma is already in surgery.

Aunt Loretta (with my cousins Jacob and Ashton) picked me up from the airport and brought me to the hospital. This is a picture of me arriving and greeting my mom. :)

I arrived and we huddled.

Yeah, Grandma is out of surgery! :) Doug and Grandma posing for the camera. My Mom and I are very passionate about scrapbooking. Being supportive, Doug captured over 100 moments on camera. Mom and I and all the girls really, made Grandma a scrapbook titled, "The Day You Had Heart Surgery" and brought it to her in the hospital. I think she really liked it, reading it made her cry. Isn't she the cutest thing?

The night I got home the girls made sugar cookies. I went back to Grandma's to take a shower.

OK, when we all get together we get silly. Here we are comparing our bellies.

More silliness. The four of us and Katie's little Ava climbed on the couch and sang Christmas songs (even if we didn't know all the words). Our poor family had to listen to us! :)

My niece, Miss Ava.

My sister, Miss Natalie, playing cards.

My other sister, Miss Allison, e-mailing Kevin.

Withrow Update

Aloha everyone! It has been a busy time in the Withrow home since my last post. A week before Christmas my Grandma had a heart attack and was immediately sent by helicopter to the heart hospital to have a stent procedure done. She still refers fondly to the fun helicopter ride. :) When the stent did not work, her doctors scheduled her open heart surgery. She asked my cousin to bring me and my sister (who is currently living in Costa Rica) home to be with her.....along with the rest of the family who live within driving distance. How could we say no? The family gathered from Missouri, Iowa, Costa Rica and Hawaii to be with Grandma when she went in to surgery. Jeremy (my hero!) stayed home and took care of Jillian. I was gone for 13 days and Jeremy was able to take off from work every day but one. For one day, Jillian went to play with the kids at day care. The other 12, Jeremy and Jillian played hard and had a great time. I am so thankful for him! It was great seeing my family over the holidays....we are never in the same place at the same time anymore...and at the same time I missed celebrating Christmas with my baby who is now starting to understand and appreciate all the fun-ness of the Holidays.

Grandma is doing great! She was released to a nursing facility to complete her rehab a week after surgery. This past weekend my cousin Sarah brought her home, where she was so very excited to be reunited with her kitties. :) My youngest sister, Natalie, moved in and will be there to help out evenings and weekends, when the nurse is off.

When I got home Jillian was extra cranky. Jeremy and I thought that she just needed time to settle into the new normal. Then one day she was laying in my lap and I noticed her one ear was full of junk. We made an appointment for her to see the Doctor....the 2nd doctor we tried and thankfully he was MUCH better than the first one. Jillian had an ear infection! Apparently she picked up a little cold at day care and it turned into an ear infection. Poor thing was feeling so yucky. She has been on antibiotics for 9 days now and I'm pretty sure she is all better, we are just finishing the bottle like good patients. That's what the label says to do, you know.... :)

This is a picture of Jillian hugging Grinch from our neighbor's yard. Our neighbors love to decorate for the holidays and Jillian LOVES it! Everyday she went over to hug Grinch. :) This is also the only picture from Christmas this year. Pictures are my thing....video is more of Jeremy's thing. So this year, we have video but no pics.

Hope you all had a very Happy Holiday season!

And now there is one.....

We stayed with our good friends the Burson's our last few nights in Alaska. Thankfully, Josh let us camp out in his room. At the time, Josh and Luke both had fish tanks....and Jillian loved their fish! At night, we turned on the light to Josh's tank and used it as a night light for Jillian. She watched the fish until she fell asleep. Jeremy and I decided to get fish for Jillian once we settled into our new home. We started with 2 angel fish and a catfish. Everything was great until the catfish tried to escape via the filter and was no more. When we replaced the catfish we also added a plecostamous to the fish family. The new catfish has turned out to be quite an aggressive little guy. The other 3 fish have not survived his torture. Now we are too afraid to add any other fish. The solo catfish zips along the tank, happy to be King of his 10 gallons.

Big Girl Bed

When we moved to Hawaii, Jeremy and I thought we were so smart bringing the travel crib...playpen...with us for Jillian's sleeping place. Within days she had mastered the art of climbing out and escaping the room. When we moved into the house we decided not to set up her crib. We didn't want her to climb out, fall, and hurt herself. So, until we could get a big girl bed, we set up the air mattress. This worked so great....it sat low to the ground and was easy for Jillian to get in and out of bed. It was also big enough for one or both of Jillian's parents to lay down with her. I started laying down with her for 2-3 hours each night, waiting for her to fall asleep. We decided we needed a new plan.

Yeah! Jillian now has a big girl bed! :) And a new bed time routine. Jeremy has taken over the nigh-nigh routine and Jillian is loving it. They read 5 books and then Jeremy leaves to work on the computer...within sight of Jillian. She plays quietly for about 2 hours in her room, then gets in bed and goes to sleep. During this, I am either at work or in bed reading a book. We're not crazy about the 2 hour playtime, but she stays in her room and right now we are just thankful for that.

Play-Doh

Jillian has discovered Play-Doh and she just LOVES it! When I take her to my MOPS meetings, the kids play with Play-Doh and she would talk about it all weekend. We picked some up for her and it is the greatest activity! :)

She is so serious! :)

Potty Time and Nibble Tray

Jillian is potty training now...we started a bit at the condo but have really made progress since we've been here in the house. She does great at home....I still put her in a diaper at night and during trips away from the house. Those will be the next milestones. :) One night, we were all just hanging out at home. Jillian came to find us and told us that her baby was going potty. :) Jeremy and I thought, hmmmmm.....after following Jillian to the bathroom, this is what we saw. I had to get a picture, it was so cute. I don't think my reaction was appropriate though because since then I have thwarted many attempts for toys to "go potty".

I am reading "The Discipline Book" by Dr. and Mrs. Sears. Its really great....it is one of those books where I REALLY agree with some things and REALLY disagree with others, very interesting. Anyway, they write in the book about making a nibble tray for their children. They would take an ice cube tray and fill each section with a different, yummy treat and leave it in the fridge, within reach, for their kids. I tried a variation of this for Jillian....I made her a nibble tray using a chip-n-dip dish. I gave it to her at lunch and put the leftovers on the bottom shelf in the fridge, so that she could help herself throughout the afternoon. Oh and I left the fridge unlocked for her. :) Normally it is locked because she will get in there and eat everything and anything she can get her hands on....like condiments. She loved it! I had her help me make it too. This nibble tray has steamed veggies with a small bit of cheese, chips and salsa, plain noodles, mandarin oranges, goldfish crackers and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into crustless bite-size pieces.

Happy Halloween

Jillian was a pretty princess this year for Halloween...which is a major holiday in Hawaii!! :) Especially compared to Alaska where it is usually too cold to want to leave home. Jillian loved her costume and wanted to wear it every moment until the big day. As soon as we got her dressed for the evening (which I waited until the last minute, right before we were about to walk out the door because I didn't want her to get anything on her dress) she decided the dress was itchy and she didn't want to wear it anymore. Ahhhhhhh! Fortunately, we convinced her that she was mistaken, the dress wasn't really that itchy after all.

To prepare, I put Jillian's hair up in hot rollers. We made eye contact in the mirror and she told me "I'm pretty". Oh, I thought that was so cute that she felt pretty doing fun things with her hair....I told her I think she is pretty ALL the time!

A local church sponsored a free Halloween party for the kids...it was massive! They had taken over the community gym and a portion of the parking lot. Outside there were games with prizes, food booths, a climbing rock wall, a couple jump houses (which we did not brave), and a DJ from a local radio station. Inside they had made a life-size Candyland game. It reminded me of a haunted house because it was so dark (Jillian even started crying when we went through the doors into the darkness), but instead of scary stuff there was a path of painted squares on canvas and colored lights and all sorts of things from the game. Along the way, girls were dressed up as game characters handing out candy. Jillian loved it!

Here is Jillian getting a piece of candy from one of the girls. Actually, I think she was supposed to be Little Red Riding Hood...she's not in the game, right?

While staying at the condo Jillian and I met another mom and her 4 year old daughter, Teegan. Monica and Teegan, dressed as a very cute Jasmine, met us at the gym for a fun evening! We arrived at opening time (6 pm) and it was already packed. By the time we left around 7, it was wall-to-wall craziness. I am so glad we went early!
By the time we got home from the gym, the 3 of us had pretty much devoured all of Jillian's candy. So, we decided to trick-or-treat the neighborhood. We walked around and visited our neighbors and replenished her candy stash. :) About half the houses were having big parties. Many families had moved their BBQ grills to the front lanai or driveway and had set up tables for their guests. At the first house we wondered, is this private get together, maybe we should skip this one. Then we learned that they were set up to see the trick-or-treaters. We think that sounds like a great idea for next year. Pull the grill out front and have a party. Want to come party with us? :)

Pumpkin Carving!

Jeremy carved Jillian's pumpkin the night before Halloween. This was her first pumpkin ever and our first since we were kids. We cleaned him out...but could have done better (you can see the stringy things in the picture hee hee)...then we toasted the seeds, yummy! :)

Jillian was very interested in what Jeremy was doing!

Kiss the pumpkin! :)

Pumpkin Patch Festival

One afternoon Jillian and I were out running around and decided to stop at a deli for lunch. We saw a flyer for a pumpkin patch festival in a town about an hour north of Kona...Kamuela. We convinced Jeremy to go and we all had a fun day. Jillian got her first pumpkin and she loves it so much! Pumpkins are a new favorite this year. We learned that the festival is an annual event sponsored by the Hawaii Preparatory Academy....we can't wait to go again next year!

The students set up a variety of games and rides...Jillian REALLY wanted to ride on a horse. Jeremy and I were too nervous for that (maybe next year) and she had to settle for a train ride. I was fine while the train did a little circle for the parents to get pictures....then he left to ride around the tents, out of my line of sight, and was gone for quite a while! I started to get a tad nervous, but all the other parents were acting like this was normal procedure. Right when I thought we should go find them, the train came back. I probably should have been paying attention to the train's travel destination from the beginning. Jillian had a ball and is still talking about her train-train ride. :)

We ended the morning with lunch and a hula performance. I can just see Jillian taking hula lessons, how fun! :)

We've Moved!

WooHoo, we have house keys! :) We did the final walk through on Friday, October 12th and were given the keys to the house! Yeah!!!! Most everything is done...a few little things remain, but we are so happy to be here!

Our first sunset. The sunsets here are gorgeous! Immediately after the sun goes down, its very dark. There is no "dusk" and so few street lights. It feels odd to be warm AND dark! :)

Number One priority: paint the garage floor. Once that was done, Jeremy and I hung the blinds.

While we were hanging blinds, Jillian was creatively learning the best way to escape. Now there are chains on every door. Jillian is going through a naked stage...I just can't keep clothes on the girl. Before we put on the chains, I caught Jillian in the front yard wearing only socks! :) We had a plumber come out this week and I had a talk with Jillian about how we were having company and needed to stay dressed for company...the minute he walked out the door she started stripping! What could I say, she stayed dressed for the company! :)

Our household goods were delivered on Monday. We had so many boxes, they couldn't fit in the house! The moving guys filled up the lanai and then the yard with the extra boxes. Jeremy and I worked nonstop to empty all the boxes and get everything inside. We weren't fast enough....by the time I got to my craft room I found a cockroach in with my scrapbooking things. Euwwwwww! I have no tolerance for bugs and the house was sprayed before we moved in...but, there is only so much you can do with the outdoors. I immediately put the box back outside and waited for Jeremy to help retrieve the remaining items from the box. I hate bugs! Alaska really spoiled me in that way!

All tuckered out and nowhere to sleep. Jillian took her nap on the blue chair while I finished unpacking in her room. Mostly she did all her own unpacking, we popped open the boxes with her toys and clothes and let her take charge! This kept her busy for hours and allowed Jeremy and I to make progress in other areas of the home. It was like Christmas in October!

South Point

After we left the turtle beach, we drove to South Point....the most southern tip in the United States (supposedly it's not the Florida Keys like many people believe). This cliff is not actually south point....but many people stop here because it is the closest you can get by car. (Unless you have a 4X4.) The point is a bit further and you hike to get there. Jillian and I opted to sit in the car and eat pie while Jeremy went for the hike....mmmm, homemade lemon creme from a local diner, yummy! :) This is a popular spot for cliff diving. In this picture you can see the old boat lifts...now being utilized as diving platforms. We saw a girl jump...Jillian looked at me horrified and said, "Mommy, she jumped the side!" Yep, she jumped off the side, but she climbed back up and was OK.

This is the metal ladder that can be used to climb back up. The water here was amazing....very, very pretty. The cliff protects the water and makes it very calm. The water is clear and you can see for hundreds of feet...which is why we read that this is a good place to snorkel. WOW, can you imagine getting your gear down and back up?

Before we left some local guys came to cliff dive.

Another jumper.

This is actually South Point. There are no cliffs here but the water is too strong for swimming.

I think this is the monument for the King who was swept out to sea.

Windmill farm on the way to the cliffs.

Punalu'u Black Sand Beach Park

Yesterday we went on a little adventure. We drove about 60 miles south to see our first black sand beach and it was very cool. We brought all our beach gear and planned to go swimming. But, it was a very windy day and the waves were crashing! We saw 2 turtles on the beach and Jillian just LOVED them! We took tons of pictures and all of us got close enough to touch them....even though we did not. After the photo shoot, we walked down the beach and saw a sign that said stay back 15 feet from the turtles...they are resting! Ooops, next time we'll be better behaved.



The sand is very fine, ground up lava. That being said, compared to normal sand, it is a bit rocky. And super HOT to walk on! Overall, the beach is very, very pretty!

Our New Home

We found a really cute house and are hoping to close on Tuesday. They have done quite a bit of work since we took these pictures...we'll get updated shots next week during the final walk through. We are very excited that Jeremy will only have a 5 minute drive to get to work...he could practically ride a bike! And we'll definitely live close enough for him to come home for lunch. And NO travel! We are just very excited, period. :)

Front of the house....Jillian is walking back up to me. She runs down this hilly dirveway so fast, it makes me so nervous!

The ocean...a bit of the view will go away, there will be 2 houses built across the street.

From the back.

Kitchen.

Dining, entry and the door to our bedroom.

Jeremy in the living room...the living area, dining area and kitchen are one room. I really love the open floor plan. :)
Jillian could live in our closet. :)