The boys in a rare moment of stillness.

On one of our Sunday walks to the temple grounds, S sat down on a bench and encouraged H to join him, then he suggested we take a picture and so we did.

Bumper Car “Cakes”

With S’s birthday so close to Christmas, we decided that our family would celebrate half-birthdays. It gives us double the opportunity to attempt decorated cakes. These bumper car “cakes” are inspired by the book Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pie, Oh My! We used homemade donut halves in place of the storebought shortcake cups, so our cars ended up shorter. We might do it differently in the future. Also, we did fill the cars with ice cream, but owing to our tropical climate, we did not fill them until just before eating. As a result, we cannot share with you the full effect.

H on the playset

This is a common wildlife sighting in our back yard.

S at the Wahiawa Botanical Garden

We had a busy day on June 19, but one of our many stops was a picnic lunch at the Wahiawa Botanical Garden. The garden was much smaller than the other botanical garden that we’ve visited on the island, but S felt like an explorer in the jungle, so it was worth the trip, at least once.

Sunset in our town

This is a common sight on our walks home, at least when we walk in the evening.

S and Beary-Bear

When we go on our family walks, S tends to be our most reluctant participant. He probably suspects, correctly, that we are trying to get him to take a nap. Sometimes we let him bring a friend so that he’s willing to come along.

S making a “pirate face”

S was making a series of pirate faces and this is one that I caught with the camera.

A photo taken in lieu of a note

S is learning to read and has enjoyed Jane Belk Moncure’s sound box series. I found these books at a thrift store in Honolulu. It is a mish-mashed set of two different editions of the series, with some missing letters. I took this quick phone photo so that I would have a reference of which books we had before I made another trip to the thrift store. A few weeks later, at our next thrift store trip, we found the missing letters.

R and S cleaning up trash on our walk home.

We often go for family walks to do our errands on the other side of our small town. We try to remember to take small garbage bags with us so that we can clean up trash on the way home. On this day, S found a small blue marble as he was cleaning up trash. He is now hopeful, perhaps a little too hopeful, that he will find additional toy treasures as he does his part to help keep our town clean.

S at PCC

I took this photo at the PCC while we were waiting for the Tram Tour. We had walked to the PCC and wanted to use the Tram as a bus service to get at least half-way home. The photo is a little over-exposed, but I was practicing depth of field at the time and this photo documents some marginal improvement in my understanding of depth of field.