Cam and the doggies

Every once in a while Cam comes home from daycare full of vim and vigour :) Tonight was one of those nights! After racing around inside, he went outside to chase the dogs - sans shoes as he went out the doggie door - and had a blast. Funnily enough, it only wound him up instead of tiring him out - c'est la vie!

ps
Happy Birthday, Grampie!

Momo kite

Cam is chattering up a storm and a lot of it is "mommy/daddy" decipherable, but he's getting better every day. He'll be paakin' the caa in no time :)

Elmo is still an object of great affection and Cam refers to him as "Momo". While at Walmart on Saturday (I know, I boycotted for over 3 months. Trying to boycott again.) I found an Elmo kite, total cheapo thing, for $1, and got it for the boys. I should have looked to see if I could find 2 of them because of 1) the learning curve to put it together, and 2) Cam's fascination with anything daddy touches - best to have 1 for each of them.

While daddy tried to get Momo up in the wind tunnel of our backyard, the long green streamers at the bottom proved to be a ton of fun for Cam as he chased them around. He eventually got a hold of one and got both himself and daddy tied up pretty good. After K got them both untied, Cam got a hold of the streamer (started w/2, down to 1 now) again they were both wound up again in 2 seconds flat. The last time Cam wrapped the streamer around his throat! (everyone is fine) Momo, of course, bounced around on the ground, stepped on and is in quite sad shape, but the 4th try got him up in the air.

I'll look for another one next month :) For a buck it provided a lot of entertainment, mostly good!

19 months flew by

Hard to believe Cam's rapidly headed to his 2nd birthday :) He's feeling a bit better today, although last night was a pretty rough night - he was up almost every hour. We're treating both ears with the antibiotic drops and hope he'll feel a lot better in the next day or so.

Cam the Rockstar

We're in Kauai! I had to put up this picture - it has been WINDY here. All the locals say this is very atypical, and we hope that it will die down before the wedding on Thursday. Sometimes when it gusts it almost knocks over Cam! But the first photo is so funny because all his hair is standing on end. To us, anyway :)

We arrived a few days ago and Cam has settled in nicely. Our flight over went pretty well, despite some horrible flight attendents on American that seemed determined to not allow Cam to sleep (Derek and Evelyn also had similar issues on their flight to Kauai with American - MAJOR decline in this airline!), but according to the people sitting in front and on the side of us, Cam "was a rockstar" during the flight.

He slept a lot, probably 2/3 of the time, and God love the guy sitting in front of Cam's seat - Cam's feet could reach the seat and he mightly enjoyed himself kicking the heck out of it, much to our chargrin. Luckily for us, the owner of the seat was a super sweet fellow who was more than kind. We wish we'd gotten his name, or at least bought him a beer for being so terrific about Cam kicking his seat so much! If you're out there, Mr. Nice Guy in seat 26A on Flight 285 to Kauai from LAX on 2/28 - thank you again for your patience with our son!!

Get this: Cam slept through the *worst* landing I have ever had in an airplane in my *entire* life! Slept through the lights coming on, and most of the other people de-boarding. Slept through Kevin carrying him, still strapped into his carseat, out of the airplane and into the airport. Slept through attaching the carseat to the GoGo Babyz (thanks again for the rec, cousin Chris - was a blessing its been!), slept through us getting all our luggage and finally woke up when he got a blast of wind to his face as we were heading out to get our rental car. He was a trouper and we're so thrilled with how he's handled all of this so far :)

The Point at Poipu is GREAT! Our room (2bd/2bth) is wonderful, top notch all the way. We're on the first floor and have really enjoyed our patio/lanai area. Cam loves to watch the wild chickens run around - only a matter of time before he's chasing them all over the place :) The master bath is bigger than ours at home! Its been fantastic so far :) We did take a walk over to the Grand Hyatt today (its barely 5 minutes away) and its breathtakingly beautiful - the open air lobby has to be seen to be believed. We'll be having the wedding nearby there at Shipwrech Beach, and then taking all our guests to their lu'au. Mike and Sherry are staying here for this trip and we are *positive* they will enjoy themselves.

Today we meet Derek, Evelyn and the kids over at Brenneke Beach (there is a great man-made reef so there aren't any waves in the area, which is perfect for little kids. Kauai is known for the great waves which makes it awesome for surfing, but not necessarily little kids), and Dick and Janice joined us for a while too. Totally had a great time, got some good pictures. Got a terrific one of Dick and Janice we'll need to send them - they are having the trip of a lifetime, but we'll let them share their stories. All we'll say is, if you're down on your luck, you might want to ask if you can rub one of their bellies :)

That's all for now. We're having a wonderful time, the weather is terrific most of the time (except for the wind) and we're really enjoying ourselves. Kauai is so lovely, we would totally visit again. We know there are a lot of family members that aren't here with us, and we miss you all. Will try to post a few more photos soon and keep you up-to-date.

Love,
Kevin, Michelle and Cameron

Happy outside kid!

We've had a bunch of rain this past week and finally got a clear afternoon, although it was overcast and cold, that didn't deter us from playing outside. Cam was *thrilled* to get to play in his beloved wagon, although it did require a bit of drying out :)

Rocks, rocks and more rocks

Cam's love affair with the small rocks in the back yard continue! So far he hasn't swallowed any but we have to keep a close eye on him.

Got this fabulous shot with the wonderful new lens my folks got me for Christmas (and also my 40th birthday in April - had to be a double-holiday gift b/c its just too much for one!) and we are looooooving it. The zoom now goes to 105mm, which is double what we had before, but the biggest difference is the vibration reduction - its really helping us get some great shots that would have been blurry with the other lens.

This is probably the BEST photo of Chance we've ever gotten - typically his ears are back (he's very submissive with us, we suspect abuse from his former owners) and we got lucky with the light :) We're betting we get some great photos this year courtesy of this wonderful lens. Thank you so much, mom and dad!!!!

Photogenic Tuesday!

We had Cam home with us this afternoon and got some photos out in the yard in the afternoon. The light was great and Cam's attitude about it all...well, let's just say there was a range :) Exhibit A - see the final photo!

In the first photo, here is a lovely picture of Cam eating rocks. Fun, huh? Don't worry, we got it out before he swallowed it - mostly he wanted to see our reaction (tried to be neutral but there was lunging involved to remove aforementioned rock).

In our next photo, we *finally* have a photo of mommy and Cam. I got to have a shower in the morning and didn't look like a vagabond, which was a nice change. Cam, however, could care less - he wanted to chew on more rocks.


Here we have our obligitory "gorgeous baby" shot. Note that mommy is nowhere to be found while Cam is smiling.




Our last photo is of Cam after he's been told its time to go inside because its getting cold, and its snack time. He was less than thrilled, to say the least. All of this in about 30 minutes :) Cam survived going inside to have his snack and warm up! Ah, the trials of being 15 months old, lol!

Grass is gross

Cam's walking is coming along quite well, but sometimes he overdoes it and ends up flat on his face. Totally typical for *any* little kid learning how to walk! Well, he's tripped on the grass in between the flagstones in the backyard several times, and now has a new method for traversing on the flagstones. With clapping in between :)

Not-so-sure-Natureboy

Cam's crawl has gotten super-fast, EXCEPT when he's put into new terrain. Then he coverts to this funky crab-crawl that is much slower but he's not sure he likes what his knees are touching. I tried to get this on video but I was laughing too hard :)

Fun Saturday!

We had a great day today; the weather was gorgeous, everyone got some sleep last night and all was well in the world. So we cracked out the swimming pool Kevin got Cam for Christmas and Cam looooooooooved it :) We'll try to upload some video tomorrow of Cam splashing around.

Daddy also got a super cute photo of Cam with mommy. Still think he's the most adorable kid ever! :)

Really, it was THIS big!

Cam is showing daddy just how big the lizard he saw in the backyard was :)

Sunshiny Friday :)

We're having gorgeous Friday here in sunny California, so Cam was hanging outside with mommy while she checked on her newly planted roses bushes. Happy Friday!!!