The Growing Walnuts: Christmas Card Update

Well it's that time of year again! Christmas cards were mailed yesterday and since I didn't get a chance to write much on the card I thought I'd update the blog for those of you that decide to check it out :) Thanks!

This past year brought lots of changes for us and the biggest of all was the huge move back to Hawaii. Allen took a job with Hilo Medical Center as a clinical pharmacist and that was enough to get us out of Washington. We figured everything else would fall into place once we got here but we've definitely had our fair share of ups and downs and we're still transitioning to our new life. Don't get me wrong though, at the end of the day it's soooooooooooo nice to be so close to all of my family and to be able to be outdoors all year long!!!

I took a job with the Department of Education coordinating health care resources and improving health and wellness in 9 schools in the Kau-Keaau-Pahoa area. It's a big change from primary care but having a teacher's schedule is awesome! Allen is also transitioning to the world of education next week. He's recently accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii - Hilo College of Pharmacy. How strange for both of us to no longer have on-call weekends, nights, hospital rounds, have to carry a pager, etc!?!?

The kids are doing amazing and loving all their cousins to play with here. Esme is 3 1/2 and goes to Keikiland Preschool during the week. She misses her bilingual Chinese daycare in WA and we're trying our best to keep up her language skills. Her favorite colors are pink and purple, she always wants her hair braided, she still loves her noodles and rice (along with most other foods), she loves to play pretend, she's super flexible/bendy and she just started gymnastics. She said that soccer scares her :) She recently had a scare with Kawasaki's syndrome and was hospitalized for a week on Oahu. Thankfully she made it out of that without any long lasting cardiac effects and otherwise she's been really healthy since we left WA.

Chan is 19 months and a true boy! He loves trucks, big tires, puddles, running outside, dogs, etc. It's amazing how different these two kids are. He's just recently popped through all of his teeth (the molars and canines took forever!) and devours most any food that you set in front of him. He's still working on growing his hair and we're hoping that by kindergarten he has a full head of it :) Chan's favorite song is Old MacDonald and he likes to sing the E-I-E-I-O line all the time and hum the rest. He talks a bunch and picks up on stuff quickly. He goes to Aunty Monica's Daycare which is conveniently located just one street up from our house. He's a goofy kid there and enjoys the time with the other kids. He's going through a very physical phase and so he's learning about being gentle and Esme's learning how to defend herself. Yikes!

So that's us! We miss all of our family and friends far away and welcome you to visit anytime! Here's some hilarious flops from our family photo shoot at Liliuokalani Park.

Esme was trying to hold his hand and so he tried to bite her.

Here's Chan winding up to hit Esme.

And this is when both kids were done. They only wanted mom :(

And then here's this weeks photo updates. Chan's cold last week kept him our of daycare the entire time but luckily didn't turn into anything worse. We were glad to get to the beach today to bake it all out of us! The kids love the sand between their toes, in their hands, in the water! That's December in Hawaii for you!