Mother's Day Gift

This year for Mother's Day I had dropped some not so subtle hints that I wanted a jewelry armoire to hold my ever growing jewelry obsession collection. This is the one I had chosen from Amazon and showed to Shelby:

 He decided that a pre-fab impostor wood cabinet was no good and would not withstand the moving around that we do. So instead he went to a local carpenter here on the island, Bruno Narciso. Bruno and his dad run a carpenter shop where they build and refurbish anything and everything. Bruno is so talented he has won awards from Lisbon and also visits a trade school on another island to teach carpentry to students there. They do amazing work. Shelby had them do a solid wood mahogany cabinet for me based on the picture. It is so sturdy and mahogany is a hard wood which will definitely last through our moves. Many people that come here have custom wine racks made from wine barrels, that tends to be the island souvenir of choice. We decided to do this instead and I'm so glad! I love it!  Here is my cabinet. The grain of the wood is so beautiful and that is the natural color of the wood, the carpenter only put a varnish on it, no stain. 

He spent an entire day trimming the inside of all the drawers with the velvet.

While there he branded his logo on to the back of the piece. Awesome! 

The shop where they built it.

Canyoning

My friend Lisa has been bugging us to go on this rope adventures trip. Someone told her it was like a rappelling ropes course and that you only got a little bit wet. This was a problem for me as any natural water on this island is waaaaay too cold for me to get in. Even the swimming pools are freezing. I begrudgingly agreed because the ropes part sounded fun, the water part, not so much! When we arrived and they handed us wet suits I questioned the water part. The guide laughed at me and told me we would be getting very wet and tried to tell me the water was not that cold. I laughed at him. It was at this point I realized my friends lied to me! We were apparently getting soaked. I also learned that we were not in fact rappelling, we were canyoning, which involved some rappelling. Canyoning is where you travel down the distance of a canyon overcoming any obstacles by swimming, climbing, jumping and rappelling.

The very first obstacle we came to was a rock slide that we would have to slide down into a deep pool of water. It was steep and the end of the slide jerked to the right and seemed to really jar your body a bit going down. I was not liking this! Here it is...

 I skipped that one because the guide told me it was the worst one and there was a way around. After that we hiked down a bit and went into the canyon deeper and then came to a cliff we had to jump off into the water. The guide totally had my number. He lied! That first thing was not the worst, but now he had just made me hike down into a canyon and I didn't have a way back out or around and so off the rock I went. Here is Shelby jumping off that rock, I didn't get my picture taken because I just went for it as soon as my feet hit the rock, before I had time to think about the cold water below and chicken out.

Soon after that rock we got to the rappelling part and then I was happy and having a lot of fun. Despite having a miserable cold also it turned out to be a very fun day. I was cold the entire time, despite the guide swearing to me the wet suit was warm, but I survived. I hope they have something like this in Guam because that will be awesome! Here are the rest of the pictures from our trip.

Canyoning Agualva

Angra Fest Children's Parade

This week is Angra Fest, a large week long festival in the largest city on the island. It takes place annually at the same time and there are bullfights, parades, cultural dancing and all kids of events. They all start on island time, which means nothing ever begins before 10 PM at night (except the bullfights) and with a baby we don't participate too much. Colin and Shelby did go with some friends down to Angra to watch the children's parade (which began at 9:30 at night!). There were a few floats and they gave out candy and ice cream to the children in the crowd.

Wordless Wednesday

Five months old

Five months old already! He's still hanging around 15.5 pounds, smiles almost all the time, loves to reach and grab at everything in sight, pushes up and doesn't mind tummy time, still sucks his fingers nonstop, and has definite favorites when it comes to toys. He sure can have his fits but he's a total charmer most of the time.

I take a lot of these in order to get 1 or 2 decent shots.

Ooooh feet!

Carrying on tradition

Each summer since we have lived here there has been a giant slip n slide down the hill behind our house. The neighborhood comes out to play and everyone has a blast. Last year the family that hosted it moved right after the event. This year we carried on the tradition and set up for a slip n slide block party. The kids will definitely miss this annual event when we are gone!

We're ready!

There they go!

Water gun fight.

Water balloon launcher!

Kite time!

Wordless Wednesday

It's that time of year... No, not that time! I meant bullfight season.

We went to my favorite bullfight today. As usual the bull got a little up close and personal with us. Thankfully, no one was drooled on and the bull didn't spill any of our drinks this year!

The Sweetest Story, Ever!

Colin wrote a book in Kindergarten. Here is the book he wrote...

So Long Kindergarten!

Today was Colin's last day of kingergarten...we have a first grader on our hands now!

Last night I gave him a book called "The last day of Kindergarten." This morning when he went to school he left the book propped open to this page on his pillow. So adorable!

Working hard on his presentation for the parent breakfast.

Snack time!

Colin and his buddy Christian.

Caleb and I on the swing, Colin thought it was hilarious we were swinging together.

Colin and Ms. Hobson on the last day of school.

Caleb's first cold

Caleb starting with a stuffy nose Saturday night/Sunday sometime. Soon after came the cough. Poor kiddo sounded terrible and with little babies there just isn't much you could do. Today when Odilia came over she too noticed the wheezing that had recently started. She said it sounded a lot like when her son had asthma, so I decided to call the doctor. They got us right in and a few hours later we were at the doctor getting checked out. Doc said his lungs sounded terrible and he was wheezing quite a bit. He told us it is restrictive airway disease, which is tightening of the air passageways, related to illness or irritation. He said it is similar to asthma, but doesn't flare up with allergies or physical activity like asthma will. He said it's something Caleb should grow out of, but for the next couple years when ever he gets a cold it's more than likely going to settle in his chest and he will have trouble breathing and will wheeze. So for now we have to use a nebulizer to give breathing treatments every few hours to help open his airways. As his cold wears off he will be better and we won't have to do anything until he gets sick again. The treatment he had in the clinic was very helpful and he responded well right away.  Here he is getting his treatment at the clinic, he didn't mind it at all and just breathed in and went to sleep.

His treatments at home he either sleeps through or chews on the end of the tube like a teething toy. LOL