New House...hopefully

Matt spent a four days pounding the pavement looking for homes for us and he was pretty impressive. The first day, he found our house. The agent took him to Murabella, a community in St. Augustine FL and he fell in love with the neigborhood. There were kids everywhere and he thought it was a great place for Makaela and Mia. The house was a bit more than what we were expecting to pay, but it is a brank new build and it has loads of upgrades. We are in contract, but we are still keeping our fingers crossed that the mortgage goes through okay and all is good. If all goes well, we will close on January 10th, which means we only need to stay in a hotel in Jacksonville for 5 days (and I will be able to get my doggies back sooner!!)Kitchen:Livingroom looking from the dining room and a view into the family room
Check out the floorplan at http://www.standardpacifichomes.com/new-homes/florida/jacksonville/murabella/Plans/osprey.aspx
The neighboorhood had a huge pool area complete with a toddler pool. It also has tennis courts, playgrounds, a gym, amnenity center, running paths, a marina, and schools within walking distance. Big plans and we are very excited about it but I wish I could bring all our friends could come with us.

Holiday House

We have been living at Tanya and Jerrod's and the house across the street from them is off the hook. The owners have been working on decorating the house since we moved in. This house has won the house decorating contest three years in a row, but unfortunately, all the blinking lights have been keeping our girls up at night. Oh well, it's all worth it for the season.

Kapolei Christmas Parade

Matt and I took the girls to the Kapolei Parade tonight. The place packs out and parking is nearly impossible, so we parked in a residential community, playing the park for a bit (and got completely dirty) and then walked to the parade. Here are our two joys prior to the parade:
We met up with Steph, Gavin and Dylan and enjoyed an impromptu Burger King picnic while waiting for the parade to start.

Gavin and Makaela couldn't control their excitement to be at the parade with each other:

Mia got a back seat to the parade (literally), so I tried to give her a front seat view, but she was more interested in french fries.

The floats were cute. Many groups passed out candy or trinkets and Gavin and Makaela were all about the treates. A beautiful parade float- so fun:

By the end of the night, the girls looked like this:

Today we had Mia's First Birthday Celebration. Yes, it's a bit late, but we wanted to hold off on a party until Matt was home and then we decided to have a joint birthday with Abby and Gavin since the holiday season was so packed. We held it at the Coconut Plantation Pool (thanks Martins) so we all got to be outside and had plenty of fun. The party was the Hungry Caterpillar theme and it was lots of fun organizing it. Plus we got to celebrate Mia's birthday with close friends.

And here is the funny outake family pic. Daddy and Mia chowing downThe birthday cake:

And all the birthday kids together:
Mia got a little excited about the candles:
Mia also got her own little cake but she was very conservative with her cake eating. She didn't exactly "go to town" like normal one year olds. She was quite dainty about her eating.

So the time has come for our annual Girls' Night Christmas Party. Tanya hosted in her gorgeous new home (an my temporary home) and once again, we had an all out crazy time. We had a night of many surprises (pregnancies, gifts, shoes and shapes -in no particular order). It was definitely bittersweet since this will be my last Girls' Night Christmas party, but it was a blast nonetheless. Jaimi, once again, was an amazing Secret Santa!

Lots of funny faces
Me, Steph and Katie

Our time with Santa

We went to a holiday fair at our friends' school and Santa was there. I thought it would be a good idea, but I guess not.

Night out for the adults!!

We used to be a group that went out every week, now with kids, we are lucky just to get out sans kids (not that we don't love them immensely, but...). We decided to get babysitters and party a bit. We started at PF Changs, chatted and then hit up some bars. There was a Jenn and Matt Q and A game to see how much our friends knew about us. Fun times. Definitely going to miss this bunch! Can't wait to come back, visit and "check out our rental" (all for tax purposes, of course)

Family Christmas Photos

Our Hawaii Ohana got together for a collective and then individual family Christmas pictures. It was definitely sad to think that this is the last year we will have Hawaiian scenery for the back drop of our Christmas cards, but always fun to get together with friends.
Here's a photo that didn't make it into our Christmas card this year...

Them be fighting words

My family has some weird phrases that Makaela has picked up on and now uses with Matt. One is "bachagaloop" (not sure if anyone knows how it's spelled) and "knucklehead". Well what do "knuckleheads" eat? Knuck-sandwiches, of course! Here is Makaela threatening to give Matt a "muckle-sandwich".

Mia's New Shoes

Mia has started walking so I thought it was time to try her out in some shoes. She had an interesting time getting used to them.

Matt's Back!

After an entirely too long deployment and a stop over in San Diego, Matt finally got home and in typical Hoffman luck style, his arrival couldn't have been more botched. Unfortunately, I had jury duty selection today and while I was trying my best to get to the airport on time to pick him up, the Hawaii justice system made sure that I missed his landing, so there was no family there to greet him when he got home. I had totally envisioned some exciting reunion moment we see on TV, but no such luck. However, he did get to give Makaela a bit of a surprise.

After we picked the girls up we headed out for a family dinner to welcome Daddy back home. It was great being back in Ko'olina together as one big happy family again.

Crazed Gunman

Matt has been in San Diego while he had to "check back in" and while he is in San Diego, he loves to go to Barona to play poker. While he was in the midst of a poker game, the security guards came in and told everyone to run to the nearest exit (probably not the smartest move on the security guards part). People were taking their time until they heard someone was in the casino with a gun and then pandemonium broke out. I guess a gunman ran in to try to rob their plexiglass case of money and started shooting into the casino. Seriously?? Matt was in Iraq for a year and made it out unscathed, but then he runs into a gunman in a casino- we really have the worst luck. Then in efforts to capture the gunman, they closed the roads in and out of Barona, hoping to trap the gunman, but also stranding casino patrons. Matt was exhausted, so he went to the front desk of the hotel and requested a room. The only good thing that came out of it was that Barona offered Matt a free room for his "inconvenience".

Makaela's Family Tree

Makaela's class is learning about family trees at school, so she had a homework assignment to draw the faces of her family members so they could make it into a tree at school. There were a lot of circles, so she felt she had to fill them. I think our trip to NY made an impression on her because she decided to draw Uncle Mike and Aunt Cate for her family tree. Guess all that time with Uncle Mike and Aunt Cate paid off.

Sweet Caroline

I really needed this time to come to terms with Caroline's situation, however, the more I found out, the more it depressed me.  As soon as I got off the airplane, I headed to the hospital and I expected something different than what I saw.  I expected to see someone near death, but she just looked like she was sleeping. Her color was great and she was still radiant.  Her family was there and it brought back floods of memories.  I really believed she would hear my voice and get up and start cracking jokes again. I have shed more tears in the past week that I have in the entire year.  I know I don't speak to Caroline everyday, but I call weekly and never imagined she wouldn't be part of my life.  She always said she would move to Hawaii, California or wherever I ended up moving, but it never happened and now, it never will.

By the second day I saw her, she made remarkable improvement.  She was moving, her pupils weren't fixed and dilated and she was breathing over the ventilator.  Her family decided not to pursue taking her off life support and I really thought we were making progress.  However, by the weekend, she spiked a fever and once it subsided, didn't maintain those improvements, in fact, she worsed. 

I learned a bit too much during this visit too.  Too many stories came out that I wasn't ready to hear and made me realize I need to keep in touch with my friends more consistently, but at I was glad I got to spend some time with her.  I visited almost everyday, taking a day off for Mia's bday and a day to celebrate my Grandma's bday.  In all that time though, I only saw her husband once and only for about 1/2 hour.  I'm horrified by it and feel betrayed because I loved him and felt he was not the man I thought he was.  He promised to be with her during sickness and health and he was no where to be found.  Perhaps this is not he arena to be airing this, but she deserves better.  It has made me realize how lucky I am to have Matt.  I have also seen Caroline's mom in a whole new light.  When we were together, I was the mess and she was the rock.  It was heartbreaking to see a mom make a decision between life or death for her daughter and I just pray I am never in that situation.  It is amazing how strong mothers are though.  She kept praying and was utterly determined to make sure Brigid (Caroline's daughter) is well cared for in Caroline's absence.  I am in awe of these women who perservere in such dire situations.

As I write this, the family should be taking her off life support tomorrow. Caroline wanted her organs donated and I am happy that her organs will help other people live, but I would give anything right now to have her wake up.   I honestly thought my trip home would give me closure, but it hasn't.  There will be a big part missing from my life when she leaves us and I won't get to go to her funeral, (which is another reminder why I need to move closer to home). It has made me realize that I need pay close attention to my family's health, value my family and friends a bit more, make sure I have a living will and medical directive to spare my family those decisions and make sure I slow down to enjoy everything b/c you never know when it's your time. 

While we were in the hospital, I kept singing "Sweet Caroline" to her, but now I'm not sure I can hear that song anymore.

Celebrating Mia's Birthday

Mia got an impromptu birthday celebration because our family already had planned a Breeder's Cup party (watching the horse races), so we added in a birthday cake :-)  It was great to have everyone already together.  The family hadn't seen Mia since she was 6 weeks old, so everyone got a kick out of her personality.

My baby

The girls loved Uncle Mike and Aunt Cate (as always) and Makaela said she was going to "marry Uncle Mikey". Mia found a lot to bond with him over too :-)


Uncle Mike, Aunt Cate and Makaela

Mia in her usual stance (thumb in mouth, hand down someone's shirt),but she didn't want anyone else but Grandpa.

Mia is 1!

My Mia is 1 already! We hadn't expected to be in NY for her birthday, but this was the first time one of the girls got to spend their birthday with family, so it was so nice. Mia is a total Grandpa's girl, but Sammy (the dog) really loved Mia.

We also headed over to my stepmom's house to see her and my brothers. It was great to get the girls together with their uncles.

Making funny faces with Uncle Bobby

Uncle Ryan, Makaela and Uncle Bobby

The girls and Grandma Teri

Bathtime in Grandma's Sink

I haven been glued to Facebook and my cell phone awaiting updates on Caroline's status, so I decided to fly home when it was decided that she would come off life support.  We flew out and the girls were pretty good on the plane (then again, Makaela is a frequent flyer). However, Mia did poop all over me (thankfully it was at the end of our trip, but gross regardless). It was good for the girls to spend some time with my family while I was up at the hospital. Makaela apparently thinks she can only take sink "baths" at grandma's house, so here she is trying to be a baby in my mom's sink.  Definitely think she is getting too big though.  Mia, however, is a perfect fit.

Flexing with Uncle Joe

Halloween 2011

My entire team got into the spirit of Halloween today for our students. We all dressed up as puns, literary characters or idioms and the kids had to guess what we were. We got pretty clever. We had two costume changes and some examples were Russ taping a quarter on his back (Quarterback), Trish dressing in black with a stamp on her (blackmail), Terry's shirt that had ears sewn on it (I'm all ears), Desiree with hair coming out of her tank top and wearing a flower pot on her head (Harry Potter) and me wearing peppers on my shirt (Dr. Pepper). No one guess that costume, but they did my first costume. I wore a pig mask Makaela had made in school and wrapped myself in a blanket (Pig in a Blanket).

After school I got the girls dressed (Makaela was Rapunzel and Mia was a ladybug) and we headed over to the Weidas for the second annual Treat or Treating Gala. This year our group grew considerably with the addition of the 2010 babies.

 Some costumes were shared so we had a replay of the Little Mermaid, the Strawberry Fairy, and the Ladybug and all the kids looked adorable. This year the parents didn't dress up, but we were pretty busy chasing after little ones.The kids really were lazy trick or treaters. They rode most of the way in the wagons and it was more of a work out for the parents. Mia got the royal treatment the entire time (of course she can't walk so we had no choice :-)

Our entire gang