Ella on her way to switzerland

We love the Zurich airport! Family room!

Little girl, big TV

Ella watching her Berenstain Bear DVD

Merry Christmas!

A few pictures from our wonderful Christmas! Ella and her cousin astrid wore matching dresses for the christmas party. So cute! Christmas tree and a cozy morning watching Ella's new curious George DVD on morfars new tv.

No pics...

My Laptop won't connect to the Internet so until I figure out how to upload pics from my iPad, the blog is on hiatus. Sorry! But we are leaving soon, on a jetplane, pretty sure we'll be back again...

The Return to Polipoli!

 Daddy overdid the shimmery sunblock..

 Can you see the Big Island behind us?

 I can walk on my own!

 but it's not too bad sitting in the cockpit either..

 And this is how happy I am!

They walked through a rainbow!

It's been a while since we've been a proper hike. The weather has not been very nice lately, but we went anyhow. Much to our surprise, it was sunny up there! Above all the clouds! We re-did the Mamane-Skyline Trail, and it was so different now when we had visibility! We even saw the Big Island!

Ella and Walter in action

Ella's kicking along while Walter enjoys the ride!

Working on her masterpiece

Yup, taking after Mommy! Or is she sketching and taking after Daddy?

Ella and Dada checking the surf at Honolua Bay

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble gobble time again! We invited ourselves, kind of, over to Chris' house for dinner! Ella and Walter were sooooo cute together, but no camera so no pics of that. Ella was quite the Daddy's girl so the only pic from Thanksgiving is of the two of them.. It was an absolutely delicious feast and we were so full that we didn't even bake the apple pie I had prepared. We spent the night and Ella stayed up waaayyy past her bedtime.

Ella's new friend

Ella got a new friend in the mail! Her cousin Liam sent him and he will go on a bunch of adventures with us! Here, him and Ella are playing at the park in Honokowai. Today, Ella climbed all the way to the top and took the long slide down, all by herself!

chapter umpteenth in the series of unfortunate events

the camera has been stolen! Garrrrrr!!! Arrrrggghhhhh! Very upset! The memory card had all of our pictures from O'ahu plus a lot more! Not to mention it is an awesome camera, waterproof and all! Bad karma all around for whomever with sticky fingers who couldn't resist! So for the foreseeable future, the pics for the blog will have to be taken from my crappy cellphone camera.

This is Ella doing her Christmas shopping..

We went for her check-up and she is off the charts! She is over the 100th percentile for her height, but otherwise right in the middle of the curve. She weighs 24.7 lbs, 11 kg, and is 33 inches tall, 84 cm and still the best baby ever (the doctor didn't really say that, but we think so..). She got her first molar as well and knows how to say Elmo! She got some shots at the doc's and Mommy took one for her to show that it's not that bad. It actually hurt quite a bit, but I kept a good poker face..

warm-up vacay on O'ahu!

With just over a month left until oyr big trip, we took a weekend trip to O'ahu to see some dear friends. We flew out of our very own neighborhood airport on a little propeller plane! Yours truly got some great Marriott hook-ups at Ko Olina, which is the time-share property on O'ahu, much like where I work, so that was the home base. We all surfed a bit up on the North Shore, even me! Ella, the fish, had fun a little closer to the shore. A visit to Sunset Beach, where Ella made a new friend and some mexican at Cholo's and we were ready for bed. Awesome day!

 the wright's have arrived in honolulu

 Ella hanging ten

 Ella and her new friend Gabriella at Sunset Beach

 At the Marriott, not too shabby

 Ellie and the boys enjoying the jacuzzi

 the fish

 We vacation in style

 holding on tight to uncle

 man-made or not, it sure is a pretty place

 Ella's cool in her hat

 Luckiest baby!

Woke up early the next day to check the surf, but the weather wasn't inviting and we all felt a little sick so we hung out at the Marriott instead. The sun came out and we explored the pools and the man-made lagoon. I am convinced that Ella will develop webbed toes and fingers as well as gills any day now. We had a fabulous dinner and a really good time before we had to make a rather early night. Wake up call at 430am... Didn't want to get stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. We ended up saying goodbye at the inter-island terminal while our dear friends headed for the international one. Since we were three and a half hours early for our flight, they offered us an earlier one with a short stop on Molokai. Gladly accepted! At eight in the morning we were back on Maui, completely pooped, all three of us..

Ella and the Sea

 Ella waxing Daddy's board

 Big waves, little girl

 Mmm, yummy salt water..

 Ella loves Walter's tractor!

Story time with Walter!

Halloween!

After a four year hiatus, the grand Halloween celebration is back in Lahaina! The street closed for traffic with thousands of people, a lot in costume, live music and all kinds of shenanigans! We had so much fun! Ella was a clown princess, very classy of course! Kel dressed up as the animal from one of Ella's books 'Put me in the Zoo' and I was a mime. We walked down the street and looked at all the fun costumes people had come with, then we went for dinner. Ella charmed the pants off of everyone of course and ate a LOT! Darkness fell and we slowly made our way back up the street with the crowd. Awesome! Ella fell right asleep when we got home! She is big in Japan now, by the way.

Finally! The Pumpkin Patch!

Pumpkins everywhere! 

Ella-sized house! 

This one we took home.  

It was brilliant! Ella loved all the pumpkins everywhere and tried her best to say 'pumpkin'. 

beachtime with Walter!

We wanted to go to the pumpkin patch, but it turned out that it is open every day of the week, except MONDAY! Looooong drive for nothing, and we missed out on some surf as well. But we recovered with some beach time with our friends at Hookipa. Walter didn't like swimming, but Ella went berserk!