Disconnected!

I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with my New Year's resolution...a post a day for 2011.

I'm transitioning between jobs and had the opportunity to work very little this summer so that I could fully enjoy summer life with the kids. I wanted to spend as little time on the computer and really "disconnect" from screens. The result has been fantastic. We're swimming and hiking and playing with friends and just hanging out and it's been wonderful!

In an effort to "catch up" and recapture some of our summer memories, I am going to try to post a bit each day. I guess my blog will actually be going backwards for a while.

A Beautiful Sunset!

A Sunset with Friends!

Maya and Kai's cousin Kayleigh has been staying with us this week. For her final night with us, we decided to watch the sunset with friends. The kids played in the sand, jumped the waves, ran up and down the dunes many times, and just had a great time.

Just a note that there are no pictures of Kai today. He got to spend the night at his grandparents house with his younger cousins Ely and Evan. He was quite chuffed to be the "oldest" for once.

Max the Maniac!

In April, we started to notice that Hunter was becoming quite depressed without his beloved companion Benny. He hated to be left alone in the house, wanted to go everywhere with us, and just wasn't himself. We decided to take the plunge and welcome a yellow lab puppy into our family. The kids named him Max from the children's cartoon "Max and Ruby". He now has many nicknames including Max the Maniac, Mackers, Macaroni and Cheese, and the list goes on.

Wow how one forgets how much work a lab puppy is. Max is now 5 months old, is 50+ pounds, and is turning into such a great dog. He loves to be around us all the time and truely loves his brother Hunter. They play constantly. He's hiking, swimming, and just being the lovely crazy puppy that he is. Here are a couple of recent pictures of our Mackers.

Max the Pup!

Getting Max!

This morning we surprised Maya and kai. We had them look at a picture of some puppies on the computer and asked if they would like one. Need I say more? They screamed and jumped around the room in pure excitement and surprise.

We proceeded with our Earth day plans and left from the Earth day festival to "the middle of nowhere" in Illinois to pick up our new addition. We drove through rain and wind for what seemed to be hours before reaching our destination. Max was living on a farm...the only only house on a country mile block. He had been born into a litter of 5 yellow lab male puppies. How perfect...we specifically wanted a yellow male pup. Now was the hard part. There were 4 remaining puppies and the kids had the difficult job of choosing which one was going to join our family. Laurie (the dogs' owner) was wonderful and let us hang out in the barn for almost 2 hours playing with the puppies and trying our hardest to narrow down our choice to just one. Each dog had a different colored collar which helped a bit to figure out which dog was which.

They ended up choosing Max (the puppy with the red collar). He was the largest in the litter and right in the middle in terms of temperament...not too rambunctious, not too shy. He was a perfect mix of soft and cuddly and crazy puppy.

He did great on the long ride home. He fell asleep in my arms and stayed there for most of the trip.

When we arrived home, Hunter and Cheeks were the only unhappy ones. Hunter jumped on the couch and hid behind me like a big baby...I think he actually frothed (sp) at the mouth a couple of times paired with some pretty intense growls. Time will tell, but I'm sure they'll be friends soon. Hoping anyway.

By the way, Max is exactly 8 weeks old and still has his puppy blue eyes. What a cutie!!

It's April and 80 Degrees!

Today was absolutely beautiful! We got a true glimpse of summer as the temp. reached into the 80's. We decided the beach was a must. We headed to Beverly Shores where we had the beach completely to ourselves.

Kai built this amazing cascading waterfall/pond thing out of sand while Maya spent her time digging a huge hole to reach water. Hunter just ran wild and spent much of his time fetching stuff in the water.

It certainly felt strange being at the beach without Benson today. This was by far his favorite place to be and was the first time we ever had Hunter at the beach without Benny. We sure do miss him.