25 Months

Ada is a growing 2 year old! It’s been fun to see her interests develop. Currently, she loves to color with markers (learning to not gnaw the tips off), crayons, colored pencils, pens, and paint. It’s a daily occurrence. She also knows the colors of the rainbow along with pink, black, white and brown which helps as she colors. She also loves to put puzzles together and can do simple 12-24 piece jigsaw ones.

We are currently trying to potty train and she seems to be doing ok with it. I am learning patience, sitting in the bathroom with her and reading for 20 minutes takes lots of it!

These were taken about a month ago when she was actually 25 months. I’m still about a month or so behind with everything. Where does the time go?

Bath Fun

After seeing an idea my cousin did with her daughter, I decided to try it out with Ada. Finger painting in the tub! I found some washable finger paints and washable paint-filled brushes for her to use. She enjoyed this for quite awhile and since Ada prefers not to wear clothes, the clean-up was easy too.

She really enjoyed the red which looked a lot like blood 🙂

Lavender Bees

These photos were taken late last summer towards the end of lavender blooming season. The bees were busy weaving in and out gathering the last of the pollen. The honeybees and bumblebees make me smile and look forward to warmer times again. My name also means honeybee (or honey) and so I have a fondness for these little creatures and a healthy fear of them too 🙂

Kona

This is the last of the Hawaii posts. We had a wonderful trip and are thankful for the special memories Ada will have with her Grampa & Gramma.

Our last 4 days were spent at a newly renovated ocean-front condo. It was beautiful, open and airy. The view was wonderful and we finally were able to relax and spend time snorkeling, sitting out on the lanai, and strolling around old town. A nice end to the whirlwind trip! 🙂

I stitched a picture to show all the windows and how the master bedroom was open to the rest of the living area. Sliding paper doors created privacy.

Snorkeling

Our first full day back in Kona we headed to our favorite snorkeling beach and spent most of the day in the water. It was a lot of fun I finally got to swim with a turtle!

I brought our little waterproof digital recorder and took a few pictures with it too. It’s not the highest quality for underwater, but I was able to get a few good ones of the fish. I only took a shaky video of the turtle (trying to swim and record is hard :)), so no pictures to share of him.

These fish would swim right up to us and just hang out, they were very friendly.

Drive to Kona: Pt. 3

After the coffee farm we hurried to see 3 more sites before sunset. Our first stop was a quick look at the Captain Cook monument from across the bay commemorating where Cook died. The only way to get close to it was either by rugged hiking trail or by boat.

Next we drove to the City of Refuge and walked around the ancient settlement with unique huts and carved wooden statues. Our last stop was to see the beautiful St. Benedict’s Painted Church.

Drive to Kona: Pt. 2

After the sea turtles we found a quaint coffee plantation (Greenwell Farms) that offered free tours and samples of their 100% Kona coffee. The farm also had a few animals that Ada fell in love with, especially this dog. The dog followed her during most of the tour and kept her entertained, it was pretty cute.

Drive to Kona: Pt. 1

We said goodbye to Hilo and headed back to Kona for our last 4 days. It took us all day to drive 120 miles but we managed to squeeze a lot in. We visited the VNP one more time to see the volcano in daylight, stopped at Punaluu Black Sands Beach to see the sea turtles, visited a coffee plantation, viewed the Captain Cook monument, walked around City of Refuge National Historical Park, and lastly before dark, visited the Painted Church.

The black sand was amazing. It looked like coffee grounds and rolled right off of our skin, not like normal sand that sticks for a long time. I guess we were not supposed to get that close to the sea turtles but we didn’t know it at the time 🙂

Ada found each shoe’s match and lined them all up for us before we left that morning. She is very talented 🙂

Star Gazing

That night, after the zoo, we drove up Mauna Kea to the visitor center at 9,200 ft. and it was cold! We could have gone further to 14,000 ft. but Ada was too young and we needed 4-wheel drive. The visitor center sets out telescopes each night for free viewings of the stars and planets. It was spectacular. We got to see Jupiter and its rings, details of the moon, the milky way, and several other stars. If you ever get to the Big Island you should visit Mauna Kea, I hear it is one of the best places in the world for star gazing.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1

I couldn’t get a good picture of the Milky Way but included this one to show how thick the sky appeared with its billions of stars.

Hilo Zoo

And now back to Hawaii! You thought I was joking about having them up by summer 😉

These were taken at the Pana`ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens in Hilo (which was surprisingly free). They had some beautiful animals and birds for being a small zoo. My favorite was the Blue Hyacinth Macaw named Zoey, she was stunning!

We ended our afternoon by visiting the official Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. Since it was a weekend, their self-guided tour was a little dull with no one working 🙂 We did get to sample everything in the gift shop though!