Garage progress!

Just before we went to Hawaii, Jeff finished the foundation for the garage. Here are some photos.

This is the full-size cement truck with its hose running back to the garage. If you click on it you can see the clever name of the cement pump.


Here is Jeff with his friend Simon.






It takes a village to raise a foundation.







The actual pouring of the cement.







Eventually I will post some photos of the final product - an actual foundation. Now he just has to build the garage. The scary part is that even as I write this he's in the den looking over house plans, planning to add a second bedroom to our upstairs.

Hives!

Well, it's good to know that at least one person besides my parents is reading this, so I am inspired to write again (so soon!). Melina woke up this morning with a huge red blotch on her face. At first I thought maybe it was from a blanket she was sleeping on, or maybe she had gotten into my makeup bag. When I saw other blotches all over her body I started doing research on the web and came up with Fifth Disease (a very common, benign baby problem) or rubella, which also isn't a big problem unless you've been hanging out with pregnant women, which in fact we have. So I called the doctor, and over the phone she diagnosed it as hives. Apparently rubella was wiped off the face of the earth (or at least the US) last March, and Fifth Disease looks different. The interesting thing is that Melina was hanging out with another baby with hives a few days ago. I didn't think hives were caused by a virus, but apparently they can be.

This evening I decided to give Melina a bath because I thought it might make her feel better, and she loves baths. Bad idea. Apparently the warm water made her itch even more, so she started crying miserably, and then when I took her out of the bath she cried even more because she wanted to stay in. Finally I gave her a little Benadryl and she spent the rest of the evening looking slightly dazed.

Hawaii

We spent ten days in Maui over Christmas, just north of Lahaina. We rented a condo with my parents - a very nice condo, although perhaps a little small for five people. All in all, it was a great trip, with much snorkeling, dining, walking Melina around, playing on the beach, taking surf lessons, swimming with turtles, driving up to the top of Haleakala (the volcano), and whale watching. Melina did great, except for a brief period where she learned that screaming in a restaurant could get her a lot of attention. Christmas dinner (at a very fancy restaurant) was kind of a low point for that reason. Actually, it was just weird to spend Christmas in Hawaii, where it doesn't seem like Christmas at all. I think next time I would go for New Year's instead, or go in January or February when the rates are lower.

I usually write more details about our trips, but I was too busy during this one to spend much time in contemplation. Also, since I was with my parents (and I always think they're the only ones who actually READ this blog), it seemed kind of redundant to write more here. But maybe there are other people out there reading this? If so, please let me know!

I am fighting off some sort of cold right now, so if this post seems listless, that's why. Maybe I will post more details later. For now, here's a photo of Melina with her big pineapple.

Bloggers' guilt

OK, so I haven't updated this blog in more than a month - a month full of Christmas preparations, stress, travel, adventure, visiting parents and many errands. I guess that's why I haven't updated. December was really a pretty overwhelming month. To top it off, Melina got chickenpox on the day we were having a Christmas party, three days before we were scheduled to fly to Maui. I had a complete meltdown thinking we wouldn't be able to go to Hawaii, and I had to call all of the party invitees to tell them about the chickenpox. Turns out it was a VERY mild case of chickenpox, and we DID have the party anyway, and we went to Hawaii, and I DID survive December although at times it felt like I was going to blow a gasket.