Faces I Miss

Believe it or not, after spending a month here, I'm already missing these faces, not to mention their mother!  Michelle is planning to home-school this year and so we did "school" pictures before they left of all three kids.  They turned out so cute and looking at them makes me miss them all the more!  Patrick wasn't too tickled about having his picture taken, but Grace, on the other hand was quite the model!  I kept telling her she was an awesome model to which she relayed to Patrick that she was a really good role model!!!   Love that Grace!  Then there's Libby....she lights up the room!  Todd was quite sad when she left!  She loved him and let him hold her and she loved on him.  That's when baby hunger starts hitting him.  But after she left he was over that! (thank goodness!)  I loved being with my sis and I'm going to miss her.  Maybe a trip to Virginia in the Spring?  We'll see....

Grace age 8

 my good little "role" model

 Didn't have to pose her a bit!  She's a natural!

 Oh, I can hardly look at this and not feel a little piece of my heart missing!

 Love this one!  Her Daddy's not going to recognize her!  She's changed a lot while he's been gone!

 Patrick--11 years old.  He's really grown up this past year.  He's been a good help to Michelle while Jamohn's been in Afghanistan!

It Rains....

I know you can't tell, but this picture was taken right as a rain cloud was moving across the bay.  People on the beach saw it coming and scrambled to gather their stuff and leave the beach.  I had walked over to where Todd and Gabe were body surfing and got a few shots in before the down pour!  They didn't really notice since they were in the water getting rolled by the waves.  I quickly hurled my camera under my shirt and zipped up my camera bag and headed back to our stuff.  Jake was curled up, head and all,  under a beach towel sitting in one of the chairs.  By the time I got back to my chair the cloud was gone and took the rain with it, and the sun was coming back out.  Yes, it rains in Hawaii and I love how most of the time it's just a quick pass over and then, the sun's back out like nothing ever happened!  The best part was that the beach was deserted and stayed that way for most of the day!  So we had the beach to ourselves for a lot of the day!

I love this shot of Todd emerging from the wave!

Father and son body surfing!  They had such a great day!

This cool little canopy has been at the beach this whole time.  It's kind of Gilligan's Isle-esque. (this is for you Stormy!

This kid got so much sand in his cast yesterday that despite my attempts to clean it out with the sprayer, his bed had mounds of sand in it this morning when he woke up!  He hasn't let that thing get in his way of fun!