The Dog Days of Summer

It's hard for me to believe that summer is winding down already . . . where does time go? I do have to admit, though, I don't get the same emotions about the end of summer that I used to get, in some good ways and some bad. On the one hand, I used to dread the arrival of months of cold weather, and since we don't really have seasons here, I don't feel that same sense of dread. On the other hand, I always really enjoyed autumn, with the cooler days and changing leaves, and obviously here we miss out on that whole event. In the end, though, I guess I would rather forgo the few weeks of nice leaves if it means I don't have to scrape the frost from my car windows, worry about icy roads, or wear tons of layers to keep warm. Ah, the benefits of Hawaii . . .

Last week we kept busy with our usual swimming lessons, as well as a trip to the beach and a trip to the Aquarium down on Waikiki Beach. I decided to be brave during our Aquarium trip by NOT taking a stroller (for the first time ever), mostly because it's too hard for Zander to look at stuff when he's trapped in his seat. I was a little nervous about letting both kids run free, but they stuck together pretty well and neither one ran off on me, so we had an awesome time. This weekend, my friend Amber (I've know her since high school and she did my wedding photos) who now lives in Maui flew over to our neck of the woods to take some family pictures for us. Wouldn't you know, it hadn't rained in several weeks and hasn't rained since, but for the one afternoon we needed some nice weather, it was pretty bad. So, we became weather chasers, driving all over the island looking for any patches of sunlight. It worked a couple times, and the pictures turned out great. I'll share those when I get them back from Amber.

This week we have more swimming lessons, as well as a pool day down at Pearl Harbor and a Waterslide day planned, so there will be no shortage of water-related fun in our world this week. Brian's been busy at work, but they are pretty short on man power this time of year, so that's to be expected.
Oh, and here are a few more cute pictures from our trip to Michigan for your viewing pleasure. The first one is a picture that Charley took right before we got on the airplane, the second ones is of our trip to Deer Forest (or as I call it "Redneck Disneyland"), and the third one was taken down at Waco Beach on Lake Michigan . . . Zander sure loves his Grammy Bev!