Flanagan Clan

The past week has been very crazy and busy for us. I don’t have half the amount of energy that I normally have, so it’s been taking me so long to get the house clean. Normal tasks like sweeping and washing the floor take a big effort on my part, and require several breaks before the chore is completed. I even find I need to take breaks while cooking a lot more… I just can’t manage to be on my feet all the time. This baby is definitely sucking all the energy out of me!

Sammy hasn’t made things much easier for Mommy lately. He was just starting to creep around the living room when we left for Hawaii, but we came home to find him cruising around the entire downstairs!!! He’s everywhere now, and it’s taking a lot of effort on my part to make sure that we don’t drop anything or track anything into the house that Sammy might try to eat. This is much harder due to the fact that we have Patrick, who is constantly breaking things and dropping things on the floor. Sammy has also discovered the bookcase, thanks to the help of his older brother. He’s been trying to pull things off of it. When Patrick was his age, he was tearing and eating paperback books, so it’s just a matter of time, I think, before Sammy starts doing the same.

In addition, Sammy has been fussy. He’s getting his 5th tooth in, and he’s not been the happiest of little guys. However, he hasn’t figured how to pull himself up yet, and to be honest, I’m hoping that he’ll take his good old time!!! I think he’ll be a little on the late side with learning how to walk, too, but I think I’d rather keep it that way… because once he starts walking, Mommy’s job is going to get MUCH more difficult!

Today I hit 17 weeks with the pregnancy. I need to pull the pregnancy ticker back up to the top… it got buried while we were in Hawaii. For the past 11 weeks or so, I have found myself to have no motivation at all to do any of my cross stitch, sewing or crocheting. For the first two weeks after I found out I was pregnant, I was so busy working on all that stuff, but then the morning sickness started and I lost all motivation. When I was pregnant with both Patrick and Sammy, I really kept myself busy with sewing and cross stitching birth announcements for their rooms. I also had birth announcement cards designed by now, but I’m leaning heavily this time towards just buying some premade cards this time.  I have started a baby cross stitch for this one, but I haven’t gotten very far at all. It’s just been strange… usually I really enjoy doing all that stuff, but I just can’t bring myself to do any of it anymore. Most of the time, I’d much rather pass out on the couch during naptime… getting in any naps is usually pretty rare these days!

One of the things I have been able to accomplish was I was able to finally finish reading a parenting book while we were in Hawaii. It’s called “Don’t Make Me Count To Three” by Ginger Plowman. I would really recommend it. We’ve been struggling with how best to deal with our very willful little Patrick, when and how to spank him, what to expect of him, how to raise him in a Christian home, and so on. The book talks about dealing with heart issues, rather than just the outward actions of a child. We don’t want a child that obeys to avoid punishment, we want a child to obey because he loves God and wants to honor his parents, and this book talked about that a good deal. I will probably go back and reread the book again soon… I’m sure there is much that I missed the first time. I also need to finish reading “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp… it also deals with teaching parents to work on reaching the heart of a child, and not just focusing on the outward actions. I never realized how difficult child rearing would be… and now I just pray that we learn how to be good parents to our children.

Other than that, not too much is new! I’m still just trying to catch up after coming back from our trip. Also, this weekend our neighborhood is having their annual neighborhood garage sale, so I’ve been trying to dig things up to get rid of… it’s been very cathartic to clear out our closets!

Andrew and I got home safely early yesterday morning, and since then, we’ve been feverishly unpacking and trying to get our house back up to the high standard that Andrew and I hold :o). Right now I’m suppose to be unpacking Andrew’s suitcase and trying to figure out where everything goes before he gets back to Costco, so I probably shouldn’t be on at all… but I just wanted to let everyone know that we had a WONDERFUL time in Hawaii. Aside from us both getting a little sunburned (well, more than just a little in my case… I burn way too easily… and it was overcast the day I got burned on my shoulders and chest… really stupid of me, considering I was trying to be so careful about the sunblock!), Hawaii was fantastic, and we’d love to go again someday. I think we might want to bring the boys with us next time. I think they’d find a kick out of going snorkeling, once they’re a little older. Patrick is absolutely in love with the stuffed turtles we brought home. He calls them “Curcles”. We got a large one for him (Dada Curcle) and a small one for Sammy (Baby Curcle), but Patrick adopted both. Yesterday he tried to feed his lunch to his new friends. Our hope is that the turtles will replace d-u-c-k-d-o-g, the toy that shall not be mentioned in our house anymore :o). We hid the d-u-c-k-d-o-g right after giving him the turtles, and he actually went to sleep last night without it. Wish us luck!!!

Patrick’s new friends

I’ll post more pictures later. Also, if there is anyone interested in an inexpensive but really nice place to stay on the Big Island of Hawaii, let us know. We really enjoyed the place we stayed, and would recommend it freely. Just let us know if you’re interested!

Hello! This is now Diane and Rachel! We are the two who were scammed into watching these two boys for these ten days.

It has been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! Both of us work full-time jobs, but it works out well.. Rachel works until 4 (taking off an hour early) when Diane drops off the boys in the car and then takes the other car to work at Target until 11 at night! This last week the weather has not been the best, so we have been making the most of our time inside.

Here is Patrick having fun in the puddles: make sure to note he has his special rain boots on, which he is very proud of!

Despite what it seems like, Patrick and Sammy have been having a good time together. We think Patrick is finally realizing he has a brother who is actually fun to play with! Here are some pictures of the two having a good time:

Sammy trapped Patrick in his Laundry Bin! (Maybe Sammy has a not-so-nice-guy side after all!)

The two playing together:

We are sad that our time with our little boys is coming to an end… but it was work. Here are the “instructions” we were left with:

… and most of those are a list of things Patrick may not do.

Also, we were supposed to water the yard, but (hooray!) it rained most of this week.

Patrick got dressed for the occasion.

Today we also visited Opa in the hospital and gave him a card and a balloon. He was very thankful to see us there, however he was tired after the procedure he had been through. (By the way.. It went VERY well and he is feeling so much better!) Patrick was a little unsure of getting out of his stroller.. it was a little different to see Opa all hooked up to wires and in a new place, but Sammy got to lay with Opa a little while, trying to help him feel better. We have some cute pictures but we have to wait until Jonny downloads them!

On Thursday we made a trip to the southern most tip of the island, and consequently, the southern most tip of the US (yes, contrary to what you may think, it’s not in Florida!). What is at the southern most tip?

Windmills, three rows of broken down, rusty windmills. Further off was a row of more modern, functioning windmills. It was quite windy, and so they want to harness some of that energy somehow!

Blue ocean… the picture doesn’t do it justice, but the water was a deep sapphire blue. So beautiful.

And a rocky, rugged coastline.

Two and a half miles from the southern most tip, there’s a very unique beach that we really wanted to see. It’s a green sand beach. The pictures, again, don’t do justice, but on closer look, we did find the sand to be actually green. It was soooo weird!

Here’s a picture of the green sand beach. To reach the beach, there was a steep path down a rocky cliff… not exactly the sort of thing a pregnant person would want to do, so we didn’t make it down to the actual beach.

Here’s an idea of what that cliff was like.

After persuasion from Andrew, we made our way to a rocky beach, which had some green sand, though it wasn’t the main green sand beach. There, Andrew searched for the semi precious green stone which makes the sand green. There were small chunks of it in the cliffs around the beach.

This is the cliff that we had to climb down in order to get to the rocky beach. It was really dirty.

Our feet, our legs, our hands, our arms were all covered in dirt once we got back from our 5 mile hike and our trip to the rocky beach. It was quite the adventure!

Our lizard friends still liked us, even though we were dirty.

Last night, we went to one of the resort hotels on the beach, and went to see the turtles come out of the water for the night at the hotel’s bar. We sat on a little patio over the water, and there were lights shining on the water so that we could see beautiful tropical fish swimming by as we had our drinks. It was hard to get any good pictures, but we did see lots of turtles and fish. We also got to enjoy yummy tropical drinks while listening to authentic Hawaiian music. Andrew had a passion margarita, and I had a virgin lava flow drink, which was a pina colada with a yummy strawberry syrup at the bottom. It was so fun! Tonight we might try going to another hotel down the beach, where you can watch manta rays swimming at night. Andrew wanted to go snorkeling with the manta rays, but I have to admit that I’m not that comfortable with that idea. Maybe next time we’re in Hawaii, we’ll bring along someone who will go with him :o).

If you look closely, you can see a really pretty Moorish Idol fish in this picture

My yummy drink. Doesn’t it look neat?

That’s all for now! We have two more full days here, and then we’re back home to see our sweet little boys again. As fun as Hawaii has been, I’ve really, really missed them. We’ll be home soon…

10:09pm, Wednesday, June 6, 2007. This is our fifth night on the island. The sound of frogs or some other tropical creature that makes chirping sounds is emanating from outside of our room. The fan is on, which is good because it seems to put at least a small dent in the runaway mosquito population. Suffering with slightly-slower-than-back-home Internet access and a non-HD TV in alternating freezing and sweltering constant 75 degree weather has been our life for the last few days. Then there are the Others. In line ahead of us at the store, clogging the roadways during rushhour and swimming around us at the beach. It’s been terrible. Absolutely awful.

Okay, so maybe not quite so bad. But it’s definitely been different. We’re staying in Kona, a lush part of the island. The terrain is definitely tropical. Banana trees, all sorts of weird flowers and fruits and palm trees all around us.

Here’s sunset from where we’re staying, overlooking the town.

Some parts of the island are just old lava flows. In fact quite a bit of the south-eastern part of the island is either recent or current lava flows. Here’s an idea of the contrast.

Other parts (like Hilo on the eastern side) look similar.

The trees are beautiful.

As are all the colorful flowers…

Yesterday, we spent much of the day exploring the island. One of the most spectacular sights was crossing the island on Saddle Road. It’s one of the few [only?] roads that cuts across the central part of the island between two of the massive mountains. It was built in the 1940’s by the military for strategic purposes (i.e. hastily and carelessly). Although they’re currently trying to fix it and have significantly upgraded part of it, much of the road is essentially a 55 mph single lane road. All the bridges have yield signs and car rental agencies have a specific clause denying insurance coverage on that stretch. The views are amazing. It alternates between stark…

and terrain that looks very unlike Hawaii…

Horse farms and the largest cattle ranch in the U.S. seem very out of place.

It’s been a lot of fun so far, but we’re missing our little guys back home. We’ve heard conflicting reports of their behavior and we’re now unsure what to believe. We’re thinking about adding another member to the family. Patrick and Sammy, want a sibling pet? They’re cute AND they can help you save up to 15% on car insurance!

We miss everyone at home and although it’s fun to be away we’re already kind of wanting to get back. Until then,