Playing Around Here's a picture of Max and Woody jamming. Max hasn't been practicing the violin lately, but he uses it as a rhythm instrument...

Max, sitting on my head, showing off a flower he picked for his mother.

Finally, pictures from a new source: scanned prints! I finally got the scanner out of the box and set it up. I need to play with settings and such -- and when I get the slide attachment attached, watch out! -- but here's two shots from a roll of film that was in my camera for about two years. The first one comes, I'm pretty sure, from his third birthday, when he got the trains.

The last one is more recent, part of my first attempt to finish off the roll. Note the length of his hair, above and below....
  ¶ Saturday, June 24, 2006 0 comments

  Fathers' Day

This was my Father's Day Drawing. After listening to the clickable frog chorus (thanks, Mom!), he said that the top is a blue dart poison frog. Looks good to me! Happy Father's Day, to my Father, Grandfather, Brother, Father-in-law, Brothers-in-law and all the other fathers out there! May all your scribbles have frogs!

We don't have a lot of places to hide in this house, but we do our best. (short break because Max wants to swing in the rain)

I found Max	Max Found Me

Just because
  ¶ Sunday, June 18, 2006 0 comments

  Large, Quiet Brown Frog Lately, we've had more coqui (ko-kee) frogs move into the neighborhood, with their piercing cries. No pictures, because whenever I see them, I try to spray them (citric acid, which is much easier than the hydrated lime some people use). The sad thing is that I love frogs, at least the bug-eating, relatively quiet ones. So I was quite pleased to spot, while out trying to see if the coqui had moved closer to the house, a large, quiet brown frog hopping up our path.

The good news is that Max is loving summer camp, and has even started making his own sandwiches for lunch!

The bad news is that we've all been at least a little sick this week, and I've had to cancel a conference trip while we recover. (at least I can still show the videos I had planned for the days I was going to be away, so no class prep stress....).  ¶ Thursday, June 15, 2006 0 comments

  Mama's Got a Brand New 2Gig.... Woody's got a follow-up project to her iPod Shuffle book in the works, this time working with the Nano. It's got a screen and so there are new navigational and organizational issues, not to mention all the old issues with accessing the iTunes software, etc. Anyway, you can't do these projects without having the thing on-hand, so we have a brand new Nano in the house. Woody doesn't usually dress up for the FedEx deliveries: this was her "going-to-luau" clothes.
Actually, in one of the grand ironies of modern life, she found out that the Nano had been delivered not by hearing the knock or even the truck, but because they sent us an e-mail after it was dropped off by the laundry room door...  ¶ Tuesday, June 06, 2006 0 comments

  Yes, we live in Hawai'i Max's preschool had an end-of-year "authentic Hawaiian" potluck Luau, featuring performances that the kids have been working on, and which we've been hearing in bits and pieces, for weeks. (When they asked us to bring "authentic Hawaiian" food for the potluck, we were a bit uncertain, but after consulting with the teachers we figured out that it mostly means "stuff they eat around here") The teachers made costumes for the kids, which was pretty impressive.

Max was really excited about this event: he's been singing and showing us the hand motions for weeks now. He wasn't actually too thrilled with the costume, though, and changed out of it pretty quickly without us even asking.

At least we had a bright, warm day for it!


After his nap (he's been napping again! Also growing: he's 44.5 inches), we went to an appropriately celebratory dinner (McDonalds, where the Happy Meals have nice toys for a change; yeah, we let him pick, why?) and then a walk at our favorite Liliuokalani Gardens. The wildlife was remarkably photo-friendly tonight.

  ¶ Monday, June 05, 2006 0 comments

  A Day of Play

One of the last Keiki Fun Playgroup meetings was a trip up the Volcano to Devastation Trail, a short hike with some stark scenery. It's one of the few times I've actually felt that I didn't have a wide enough lens...

After the trail walk, we decamped to a nearby park for lunch and play. Max made a new friend: Elijah. Most of the time they were Pirates! It was pretty windy that day: Max didn't spend the whole day holding his hat on, but the camera did seem to catch him that way a lot.  ¶ Saturday, June 03, 2006 0 comments

  24: Hilo Style David and Michelle came in 6pm Sunday and we dropped them off a little after 5pm Monday. I promise not to do an hour by hour schtick, but it was a quick visit. Sunday we just did dinner; Monday we did Volcano (Lava Tube, Halemaumau, Jagger Museum), Big Island Candy, Hilo Hattie's. Max got to play with them, dance and show off the Hawaiian stuff he's learning for the Luau on Monday; great fun.

I dusted off my old Minolta, finished off a 24-exposure roll (that I probably started before I got the first digital two years ago, and I have no idea what's on it) and a 36-exposure roll. They'll be developed by Saturday, I'm told.... man am I spoiled. Well, we'll see. And we've got DSL service now, so there's no reason I can't upload BIG pictures now! On with the show!

	Apparently, wearing a lot of hats all at once never gets tired. At least not for the single-digit set....
	Max's favorite place at the park is still Thurston Lava Tube. This time we all went a couple dozen yards into the unlit portion before the Dresners turned back (the Schlossbergs went on for a while, brave souls).
	After the Tube, we went out to the Halemaumau overlook. As you can see, it was a beautiful day, very unlike the cold, rainy Spring Break trip.
	We took a quick trip up to the Jagger museum, from which you have a fantastic overlook of Halemaumau. It's really humbling to realize how little of the crater you walked before turning back in exhaustion....
	The Jagger Museum is in the same building as the Volcano Observatory, and you can see some of the instruments they use to monitor volcanic activity.... I'm sure this was just a routine microquake. Nothing to be afraid of.
	So, we got out of the park as fast as we could and had lunch.

Max made out like a bandit at Hilo Hattie's, by the way. He got a half-off coupon for an oyster pull, and ended up with two pink pearls. We're getting them set (in silver, not at gold/platinum-only Hilo Hattie's) and we'll do pictures when they're done.  ¶ Thursday, June 01, 2006 0 comments