Katie and Liam in their St. Patick's Day green.

A little home dyed beer caps off a great St. Patty's Day.

In the Slow Lane of the Audubon...

This weekend we went to the Hawaii Audubon Society with the Cortez family. It is a 1,500 acre nature preserve that has a large number of rare plant and wildlife species. In addition to the flora and fauna, there is a really amazing pool that is fed by the Waimea Falls. The water in the falls and pool is tinted red because of the high iron oxide content and was thought by the native Hawaiians to have healing properties. The pool itself is around 35 feet deep and allows for cliff diving from as high as 60 feet! I dove from the top several times, but the camera was not working for some reason so you will all just have to take my word on it. All joking aside, this place was beautiful. Liam had a blast seeing the birds and plants, but the noise from the falls made him a little uneasy. He held it together for quite awhile, but eventually he reached his limit and let us know it.

We have been here on this island for two years now, but there are still so many things we have not seen or done. Our current plan is to try and do something new every week…or every other week at least. Stay tuned to find out if we stick with it.

Liam is totally keeping an eye on the wildlife.

Far enough away from the falls to still be happy.

A closer view of the falls.

Liam did not like the sound of the falls.

Another of the amazing spots at the Hawaii Audubon Society.

Two tuckered tykes...and yes, those are matching strollers.

He has a very unorthodox fashion sense.

I promise he has not been drinking.

Plenty of room for playing in here.

Here we see a prime example of Liam's permanently red dirt stained feet, not to mention his big personality.

The View From The Top...

So tonight Liam was using me as his own personal jungle-gym when we had a little mishap. As he was attempting to scale the top of Mount Daddy he slipped and head butted me. The bone behind his eyebrow hit me right on the top of my cheekbone. I am man enough to admit that it hurt…a lot. I literally saw stars. Funny thing is that Liam did not seem to feel any ill effects. As I tried to recover my faculties Katie looked him over decided that he was fine.

Within the hour Liam started to develop a bit of a shiner. We decided that we would try to document this most momentous of firsts. That adventure is shown below.

Not off to a great start.

We tried to get him to sit still by giving him the flashlight we used to check his eye with.

You can almost see it...I promise it is there.

After all that, this is the best we could do. It is on his right eyelid. Kind of anti-climactic as far as the bruise goes, but at least he has great hair.

Presidents and Parrots...

I was lucky enough to have a three day weekend due to President’s Day. Katie and I spent the majority of the weekend lounging around the house playing the Xbox 360 and playing with Liam. It has turned out to be, in Katie’s words, “The Best Weekend Ever!” Oddly enough neither of us feel the least bit guilty about our weekend of slackerness.

Don’t get me wrong we still did the day to day house chores, but other than what is required everyday to keep the house up and running we did nothing. It has really been great. I think Liam would prefer it to be this way. Both parents around to play with him all day must seem like a little slice of Heaven for him.

During all this time together Liam has developed a new talent; the ability to “parrot” what he hears. While not entirely new, this weekend he has really put the polish on this newest of achievements.

As a result of this new development we are both on watch-what-you-say-mode. This applies mostly to me because I have a tendency to say things that I would prefer Liam not to learn. Not really curse words or anything like that, just some phrases and words that I should not have picked up myself. Once again, being a dad has forced me to become a better person.

Having kids really is a blessing.

-David

1...2...3...A Cow Says, "Moo!"

So smart!