The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men..............

There are some good reasons that it has been a week since our last post. Long story short, apparently Murphy's Law followed us to Hawaii. Colin became pretty ill with a stomach ailment right about the time we switched condos and it seems that Keenan followed suit since, once again, he refused to sleep at night and has been randomly intensely crying for extended periods of time and no one could console him.

Just to make sure that we were paying attention, Mr. Murphy threw in a bad illness for Kat's Mom, who is now in the hospital. Hopefully she will be released today or tomorrow, if the doctors can pinpoint what is making her so sick.

Needless to say, three days ago we decided to cut our trip short. Unfortunately, actually getting out of Kauai took a little longer than we hoped (thanks in part to a nasty gate agent and some mechanical issues) and we just got back late yesterday. Thank goodness we did because the weather has turned ugly in the midwest and I doubt we would have been kissing our home soil had we left any later.

Lessons learned. For the next two to three years (until the wee ones are a little more self sufficient), we will not be vacationing if it involves a plane and two infant children. A car and two infant children, perhaps, but at the moment, I can't even fathom that. Remind me I wrote that when we announce a car trip to visit family.

As usual, Hawaii was warm and stunningly beautiful. I don't regret going, partly because we had a pre-paid vacation that we could not change and was not refundable. When we booked it, we had just intended to take one more trip with Sophia, before she was introduced to her brother. We certainly never dreamed we would be heading to Vietnam before our the scheduled vacation. No matter, we were lucky enough to get 10 days out of the snow and cold. Having said that, I have said it before, and I will say it again "there is no place like home," quite an epiphany from someone who was always a happy globe trotter.


Even if that home is covered with snow.............




Quite a contrast with the windblown flowers on the Garden Isle