What's Melanin Got To Do With It?

We've been back from Hawaii for a few weeks but the memories have not faded. Little Lily really increased her comfort in the water and was quite independent (much to our chagrin and worry). \

She would have spent every second of every day in the water if we had let her. The Marriot did fun afternoon activities for the children daily and one day was shaved ice with that (disgusting) FD&C dye, massive sugar load. Lily was *so* excited about them. Jamisen ate his with less gusto but was still delighted... that is, until he puked. I may have tried to tell him that it was the sugar that made him puke and put the fear of all things sweet into him.

The best part of the trip was getting the entire family together. The cousins are so fond of each other and baby Alise is at the age where every single time we see her, she's just expanded her vocabulary and her skills. It makes life extra fun. Grandma took a kid or two every morning to go on a long exploration of the boardwalk. She event found penguins (!!!) at a hotel on the strip and the girls enjoyed feeding them one morning.

This picture was taken at the giant banyan tree in Maui. It's huge, with branches and limbs reaching an entire city block. The girls enjoyed playing hide and go seek while the adults tried to steer them clear of the area where some rather sweet, herb-y smelling smoke could be smelled (eh hem, eh hem).

 

Jamisen, our sweet redhead, fought a daily battle with the sun. Fun fact: the reason that redheads burn more easily in the sun is because they don't have as much sun-blocking melanin in their skin. Thus, his battle to reapply sunscreen enough and Chris's store run for aloe vera cooling skin spray.

Despite this propensity to burn, Jamisen loved every moment of Hawaii and especially loved the lack of routine, the lack of access to healthy food (yay! so much packaged food in hotel rooms) and the lack of an enforced bedtime. The inmates ran the asylum, and, they were happy. =)

Hawaii Fun, Laughter & Sun

We are such a lucky and blessed family for many, many reasons. One of the main reasons is that our family unit is so tight. We just ALL got back from a week in Hawaii. The entire Faiola-family side went and stayed at the Marriot on Maui. 

The Marriot is right on the beach so it's a seamless transition from pool to beach to pool to beach to hotel room for snacks to pool to beach ... repeat x 7 days x 12 hours a day. It was simple, it was easy and the sun was shining every day.

Chris got a full-size shovel and bucket and then proceeded to build the Taj Mahal of sand moats with the kids. It was an impressive structure and the kids got really into building it.

The "vacation" was a true vacation for the kiddos. They had no worries and had such a wonderful time. The adults all came back exhausted and so tired. One of the other parents at the pool told me that when you travel with kids, it's not a vacation; it's a trip. Ahhhhh ... is that why we came back so tired?! =)

Lily loved the sand. She got dirty. She ran around. She took sand baths. She was extremely friendly to everyone she met, including one stranger (man) that she sat on in the hot tub and started talking to. Lily was closely monitored by Chris so the man looked at Chris and said, "No stranger danger with this one, huh?" We explained that Lily has the most open, trusting heart and we want it to stay that way as long as possible.

Jamisen is developing into quite the fit young man. Do you see those deltoids bulging out there? He is ALWAYS hungry (wakes up hungry; goes to sleep hungry) and generally will eat most things put in front of him. When he doesn't want to eat them, we call them "adventure bites" and the rule is that he always has to take at least one.

At one point, Jamisen had the bucket upside down and was pretending he was on a boat and was the ship captain directing everyone. It was good creative play.

The play structure that the kids + Chris dug and built on the beach made quite the stir with passer-bys. They loved it and the kids especially loved having to escape the water and run into their little moat for safety.