Hawaii - Oahu Part 2

The day after Thanksgiving Mike & Brenda took us to this beautiful beach perfect for the kiddos.  It had a bunch of these little tide pools that were safe for Duke and Kennedy to wander around in and explore without us worrying they would be swept out by a wave.  This beach is about a 3 minute drive from Mike and Brenda's house....not a bad backyard to have at your fingertips :)  Also, after days of being sick and not eating anything, Duke is lookin' like he needs a cheeseburger!

Family photos by Mike Torres

Duke with his namesake

And we bid farewell to Oahu.  Off to healthier and more fun times in Kauai!

Love,

Chels

Hawaii - Oahu Part 1

Is this not the saddest vacation picture you've ever seen?

That is a picture of a poor, sick, sick baby Duke.  In Hawaii.  

Poor little guy still has sand on his toes.

We had a 6am flight out of Baltimore and at around 10pm the night before our flight I heard him start choking on the monitor.  I went to check on him and found him (and the bed) covered in throw up.  We cleaned him up and got him back to sleep, only to have the same thing happen a few minutes later.  Perfect timing, 5 hours before we are supposed to leave for the airport and i'm STILL NOT PACKED.  After determining that he was definitely sick, we called the Dr. and she told us we should still travel in the morning and to bring lots of plastic bags.  To make a long story short, we pretty much had the worst (and extremely looooong East Coast to Hawaii) travel experience of our lives.

We finally made it, only to have Duke continue to be very sick for about 5 days....and then pass it on to me.  Right around the time he started feeling better I was in the thick of it and ended up in urgent care with a steroid shot in my behind and a bag full of antibiotics.  So, our first week of vacation was pretty much a bust.  Not to mention Ritch was working every day, all day.  It's a good thing I brought a good book and also a good thing we had a second week in Kauai planned with my parents.  Thankfully we more than made up for our yucky start with a super fun finish.  

Here are some pictures from our time in Oahu over Thanksgiving week.

The view from our balcony....it was painful to sit up there and see what we were missing out on.

The view from a drive we took after we started feeling better

Aaaaaand somebody is on his way back to feeling like himself....

We had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Mike & Brenda and their adorable daughter Kennedy who live on Oahu.  Mike is a photographer and took this family photo (which made the back of our Christmas card!).  Dinner was delicious and included a few special Hawaiian touches like mac salad, rice and cocoa puffs (not the cereal, the chocolate-y pastry puff) for dessert.  Brenda cooked the whole meal and it was delicious!!

Lots more pictures to share soon.

Love,

Chels

A few forgotten Colorado pictures

I was finally (FINALLY!) starting to go through our Hawaii vacation pictures and came across these forgotten pictures from Colorado that I LOVE.  At this rate i'll be posting Christmas pictures in April.  Stay tuned!

Well first (is this even legal, I don't know??) Pop Pop really wanted to take Duke around the block in the convertible.  After some convincing I agreed to turn off the airbag and let him go SLOWLY around the neighborhood.  I think they both had fun :)  Pop, this one is for you.  And if you get arrested, well, sorry.

And....some pictures of DLG that I love.  We were at the park and he wandered off into the field behind us into his own little world of dirt and rocks.  This boy could throw rocks all day.

Love,

Chels

A Quick LV Trip

My Mom, Duke and I took a super quick weekend trip to Las Vegas visit my Aunt Kathie and Cousins Jami, Paul, Cruz and Cam.  We haven't seen them since my wedding almost 5 years ago (and the boys since waaay before that!) so it was great to catch up.  Duke was a big fan of the DRUMS (!!) and could not get enough of cousin Cam.  He just wandered around saying "Cam....Cam....Cam....".  It was pretty cute :)  Jami cooked some yummy meals and we had a girl's lunch at Serendipity.  A quick trip, but a fun trip!!

My Mom had not been inside of the Wynn and I wanted to show her the pretty mosaic floors and the beautiful flower displays hanging from the trees.  (This is where Ritch and I stayed when we had our Las Vegas "legal" wedding before our Mexico wedding).

Duke taking it all in...also he refused to walk on the shiny marble floors (??)

We finished our trip with a drive by this special little place....

I still can't believe we didn't get a group picture of all of us together.  Guess we'll have to get together again soon!

When Duke and I got home after 2 weeks away in Colorado (and Las Vegas) Ritch had set up this AWESOME toy display for Duke in his room.  These crummy phone photos do NOT do it justice.  He built a little bit every day...robots, trucks on roads, buildings...it was amazing.  Duke just stood there looking at everything saying "Wow, wow, wow, wow".  And then proceeded to destroy all of his hard work :)

Oh yeah, and we came home to this - 

Love,

Chels

Little Fox

I decided on a fox costume for Duke for Halloween this year.  Simple, easy and cute.  Duke Leavitt was a fox for approximately 2.5 seconds before he was just a boy in a brown sweatsuit and tail that he didn't even know he was wearing.  Better luck next year?

Duke's fox costume is from the darling Etsy shop BHBKidstyle out of Portugal.  They make the coolest felt masks and once Duke is more into dressing up i'd love to pick him out a couple more animals.

Love,

Chels

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