Morning on the beach

Noah and I decided to spend the morning on the beach (rough life, I know...) Noah loves playing in the sand, which is good because the beach on base had A LOT of sand. He's starting to get a little more adventurous in the ocean, but the waves on base are pretty big (as in they've wiped him out when he's just been standing on the edge!) so we spend most of our time digging in the sand or rolling the trucks in the sand with an occasional splash in the water.

One of the neat things about Kauai is just how different each of the beaches are. I took a couple of these pictures to give you an idea of how vast the sand is at the beach on base and also how private it is! We went the entire morning without seeing another person on the beach.

Fresh Fruit

One of my favorite things about Hawaii is the abundance of fresh fruit available, especially on base! There are several banana trees on base (we actually have one in our backyard but it hasn't produced any bananas for us yet), a few mango trees, coconut trees, and lemon and lime trees.  There are also some papaya trees that we haven't found yet.

One of the mango trees near our house (and you can see some coconuts in the tree behind it)

An aloe plant on the side of our house

Four years of fun

One of our neighbors offered to watch Noah for us this past weekend so we could go out for our anniversary. We went to an amazing restaurant with a great view of the ocean, mountains, and sunset!

Happy 4th anniversary to us :)

They gave us each a free glass of wine!

That's a lot of love!!!

Ocean view

Sunset

Enjoying some shaved ice with macadamian nut ice cream on the bottom. Delicious!!!

Noah's first house

Since Noah is the youngest child in our neighborhood (I think the next youngest is 5), he was recently the benefactor of a house! One of the neighbor girl's had it in her backyard but she was getting too tall for it so she asked her mom if they could give it to Noah :)

The house is perfect for Noah because it has some of the things he loves: a sink to "wash" his hands and a hammer and screwdriver with some nails and screws for "repair" work.

The other big addition to our backyard is Noah's first "big wheel"! Noah found it at a big garage sale and I couldn't get him away from it. It was at only the second booth of this garage sale and we still had a lot of booths to check out so I told him that if he was good the rest of the time then we'd get it. Wouldn't you know, he was a total angel the rest of the time! So, for only $2 we got a big wheel that Noah loves, and as a bonus all the buttons work and make lots of noise! His legs aren't quite long enough to use the pedals (but they are really close!) so Noah has a few other methods of pushing it around :)

One method is to walk beside his big wheel

Another method is to push it from behind :)  Those are the banana trees in our backyard!

Sometimes Noah gets a little frustrated when it doesn't turn like he wants it to, and he ends up flipping the bike which is exactly what happened here!

New alarm clock

For the past week there has been a new alarm in our house telling me it's time to get up: "Mommy, are you?" This phrase is repeated over and over again until I open the door to Noah's room. It would definitely be nice if this alarm clock had a snooze button option ;) but at least his cute, smiling face helps take the edge off the early morning.

The other morning we had lots of fun playing with bubbles in the backyard! Noah enjoys both blowing the bubbles and chasing them!

Noah has also decided that when we walk to the NEX (the minuscule convenience store we have on base) he no longer wants to ride in his stroller, but instead he insists on pushing it the whole way there. He thinks he's such a big boy already!

The joy of a water hose

Noah absolutely loves playing with water! He got an awesome water table for Christmas that he likes playing with, but for some reason it isn't near as much fun as the water hose. Once he gets it in his hands, its a battle to pry it back out of his hands!!! Thankfully, we don't have to pay for water!

Watering the brown spot in our yard :)

He couldn't decide which of his favorite things he wanted to play with!

Cleaning off his lawn mower just like Papa taught him :-D

When I got up to try and take a closer picture Noah told me to "sit" back down! Apparently, he thought it was hysterical to boss Mommy around...

Reaching in for Mommy's water

Filling up his water table

Mowing Day

Friday was "mowing day" on base so the two lawn guys were all over the neighborhood on their riding lawn mowers. Noah loves watching them mow the grass, so we usually spend most of the morning either sitting on the sidewalk or following them around with Noah's lawn mower.

Friday, we ended up following them up to the berm to mow, which meant I got to enjoy the scenery :)

The weather was gorgeous!

What kind of view do you have while mowing? ;)

Reason #54 why you should all come visit! Off in the distance are the cottages on the beach that you can stay at!

Happiest boy in the world :)

We stopped at the playground to pet the alligator ;)

Working on his throwing technique, haha

Crazy hair!

Relaxing in the hammock after a busy morning!