early december

since we were spending the second half of december in so. cal, we thought we had better take some pictures in front of our tree at home in hawaii. of course, i'm the one that always takes the pics, so am never in them.

it's a tradition at nanea's school for all of the kindergarteners to go christmas caroling at school on the last day before winter break. they walk all around campus, stopping and singing for the kids all the way up through 12th grade. they were asked to wear red, green and/or white, so they were quite festive indeed!

nanea's class: room 2, the explorers

halloween recap

for some reason we got lots of makena posing solo, and by the time nanea was ready to pose, makena was done. makena decided to do a repeat of last year's costume (that she only wore for a short time), and nanea chose to be a cat. the day i had to go in to start my radioactive iodine treatment. since i was not allowed no human contact after treatment for 11 days, i had to rush to target and luckily found a cat tail and ears and black sparkle leggings. thank goodness for target!

recent makena

loose (and now missing) teeth!

well, the tooth fairy has now made two, what i think is too early, visits to our house. nanea announced her first loose tooth to me, and i actually did not believe her. i was totally shocked when the bottom middle tooth was indeed loose, thinking that she was MUCH too young to be losing teeth! alas, this is not the case. she wiggled and wiggled that tooth for i'd guess almost 2 weeks, and finally, while sitting in makena's ballet class, i suggested she just pull it out and SHE DID! kinda grossed me out, but then again i was never a fan of losing my teeth. she was quite proud of herself and that night got a dollar from the tooth fairy. she was thrilled!

1st tooth pulled out at ballet, VERY proud of herself!

about a week later, her second lower middle tooth fell out at school. she got a great note from her teacher, along with her tooth in a little treasure chest. it was the cutest thing i've ever seen! pics below are from her 2nd lost tooth, taken when we picked her up from school

nanea has the BEST teachers!

Nanea's 1st day of school

Nanea started kindergarten this year at Punahou School. Although a long commute, and a hefty tuition payment, she LOVES school. Her teachers are amazing, and we are thrilled that she has the opportunity to go there. This school that boasts famous alums such as Pierre Omidyar (ebay founder), Steve Case (aol founder), Kelly Preston and not to mention, President Obama. And, I can't even touch on the many, manu olympic and professional athletes (it has been rated in the top of high school athletics program by Sports Illustrated for many years).

first day. SOOOO excited! of course she picked her outfit (courtesy of Aunty Mikie, but she accessorized all on her own)

sleeping mats that I made. she got to choose between "rainbow" and russian dolls. guess what she chose? I was determined to make my own rather than buying one. I think it may have been cheaper to buy one...

self portrait hanging on the wall at school

classic Nanea, posing for the camera. she is NOT interested in sports, but LOVES anything to do with the water.

kenken's 1st day of school

and now for some back tracking...

makena started preschool mid-august. she was very excited to be a "big" girl. today, almost 2 months in, she's doing really great there. she has opened up tremendously and although still shy, has really started to blossom.

excited the morning of her 1st day

of course she has to mug for the camera

very interested in the water table

celebratory ice cream after school. no crying! at least the first day...

hiatus and a surgery

well, I guess the reason for the hiatus WAS the surgery! well, and the chaos of starting 2 kids in school and getting used to a new routine this year. i attempted to keep this quiet, just didn't want to make a big deal, but there was a bunch of cryptic messages and such on facebook so i've decided to put it out there.

so, let's start with the SURGERY. I have never had surgery. only had IVs when I had my littles, never broken a bone, had stitches, nada. perhaps I had better start at the beginning...

in high school (almost 20 years now!), my doctor noticed that I had an "enlarged" thyroid. blood tests resulted in a normal functioning thyroid, so no further tests were ever conducted. over the years, various doctors noticed my big neck, sent me for blood work, and everything was always normal. about 5-6 years ago, my internist suggested that we look into it a bit further and have an ultrasound done. this resulted in the discovery of many nodules/goiters/cysts, both simple and complex and varying sizes, in my thyroid. due to the complex nature of some of them, I was then sent to a specialist (endocrinologist) and sent for a biopsy of the largest. this came back benign (though i've often wondered if a good enough sample was taken...), so I was advised to follow up every year just to track growth.

well, I haven't been the best follow-up-er the past few years. aloha airlines going belly up resulted in a missed appointment, then lack of insurance, then being just plain busy, ended up being 2+ years between appointments. I finally followed up a few months ago and the ultrasound showed significant growth, which resulted in yet another biopsy, which came back as "atypical," meaning not necessarily cancer, but the only way to be sure was s•u•r•g•e•r•y. bummer.

surgery was scheduled, delayed, and the re-scheduled. i had a great surgeon. great nurses (pre, during and post op), and a really cute anesthesiologist, who ended up being quite good as well. a partial thyroidectomy was scheduled to remove the questionable 1/2 of the thyroid, with the possibility of a total thyroid removal should that 1/2 be cancerous (they biopsy while you're still knocked out on the table...isn't that cool?). 2 hour surgery, unless it turned out to be cancer, then it would be 4. and i would have no thyroid. i went into the OR at 11:45am, and woke up in recovery about 4:15pm. yup, cancer.

the good news: stage 1 papillary thyroid cancer. the most common of thyroid cancers, and the most curable. in fact, probably one of the most curable cancers there is. essentially, the removal is the cure, with a little radioactive iodine treatment 5-6 weeks post surgery. given my age and the stage of cancer, there is very little chance of recurrence.

the bad news: well, there really isn't any bad news really. good, right? i have a pretty good looking scar at the moment (see photos below), but that will fade eventually. the 3 days in the hospital and week i was out of commission weren't all that fun, but it's over now. really, my biggest worry was the girls, and whether or not they would be able to "survive" without me, and they did. thanks to my super-duper noa for taking emergency leave from his new job (when surgery ended up being more than anticipated), and to my parents for taking time off to come and help with the girls.

and now for the pictures...

day 1: post surgery. swollen & bruised.

week 1: glue removed, still have to wear steri-strips for a week, still pretty bruised.

week 2: no more steri-strips! shiny from tamanu oil, thanks Lependus!

week 3: swelling much better (hard to tell, but it is!)

a smile & love from cousin holly. makes for great scar distraction (at least for me!)

summer vacation - part 2 (camping!)

no family reunion (in nor cal at least) with noa's family is complete without a trip to the very special and beautiful wood's lake. noa's family has been coming here since his dad and aunts were young. about 20 of us camped for 2 nights. the campground had just opened that week due to late snowfall (yes, there was still quite a bit of snow on the mountains in JULY). the days were gorgeous, but we froze our booties off at night. in the 30s/40s! in the beginning, our little princess nanea was not so thrilled at the thought of no bathrooms and showers, but by the end of the first day she was peeing in the bushes with the best of 'em!

the second generation of cousins (3rd generation of the allen clan)!

from back row, 1-r: justin, jaimie, makena, nanea, cole, sophie, mili, tess, jorja

the beautiful wood's lake

our last night in sac, the day we returned from camping. WARM and TIRED!

summer vacation - part 1

we were lucky to spend the last two weeks before school started in northern california with family. LOTS of family! our trip began with a quick visit with poppy and rose marie in benicia. the girls love, love, love poppy and rose marie (and i do too!) we had a really nice visit and i took the girls to the jelly belly factory in fairfield on the way back to sacramento. i wasn't willing to wait in the hour + line for the factory tour, but we did manage to purchase $50 worth of jelly bellies. we also got to go to trader joes and chipotle, which of course was my own selfish agenda.

makena and poppy

after returning to sacramento, we made our way northeast for a few days. we spent a great day at pinecrest lake with friends and cousins. the lake was F R E E Z I N G, like ice cold freezing, but it didn't stop the kids from jumping right in. especially our little fish nanea, who of course i managed to not get any pictures of. blue lips and shaking, but she wouldn't get out! holly bought a boat for the kids to paddle around in. since joseph was the oldest (9), he was volunteered to paddle the little kids around. he took his job quite seriously and literally toured the kids around for about 5 hours. everyone had a great time!

joseph rowing sophie and makena; makena preferred to play in the "sand," which was really more like a very thin layer of dirt.

what's a trip to the lake without a soft serve ice cream cone?

back in sac, a trip to the zoo and fairy tale land was in order. the zoo was really nice and fairy tale land is basically a really big playground, fairy tale themed. huge slides and things to climb in, from mother goose to winnie the pooh. the kids had a blast. and the morning ended with lunch at chipotle. this was also the day that baby was "lost," only to be found later that night (see previous post).

nanea as a zoo keeper; tess and nanea making friends with the tiger

makena getting a lift from justin; nanea and her friend the orangutan

woo hoo, woo hoo, i'm driving cinderella's coach!