Finnigan

Meet Finnigan




Nana and Papa went to Ireland for a wedding in December before they came to see us at Christmas. The girls and I read a Magic Treehouse book Nana had sent us in which Jack and Annie travel to Ireland and meet a Leprechaun who grants them a wish. Ella decided she would
like to go to Ireland to get a wish granting Leprechaun. Lucky for her Finnigan the Leprechaun found Nana and Papa at the airport and hitched a ride to Hawaii with them.




His birthday, of course was March 17th so the girls and Nana made him a cake and we went to the Alabama St Patrick's Day parade to celebrate.








Finnigan is mischievous! He hides earplugs, eats candy canes and follows us to parades! We suspect that's his top hat shadow in the picture. Ella is knocking on a fairy door she discovered.

Fun stuff

Thought I'd post some pictures before Charlie deletes them or drops my phone in the toliet.


Botanical Garden Chocolate Festival! They had a drop off work shop for the kids where they did activities, played math games, answered trivia for chocolate and made crafts.


Then in the Arbor Room they had the grown up chocolate tasting event! Mmmm.



We're gotten into carving thanks to Cousin Fred and so the gang is practicing with spoons and Ivory soap in the bath tub.

Child Wise



I will miss this place most of all. All three kids were so happy playing and creating here and I got to hang out with a great bunch of moms and it was across the street.



Lots of friends and lots of mess.



We also visited the Fire Department with Child Wise.

Exercise

Mom's favorite part of this Alabama adventure has been working out. There is a beautiful, under utilized pool 1 mile away and I've been able to take advantage of it a lot! In addition I've been able to run over and sometimes bike over to the pool. My copilot doesn't find this nearly as exciting as I do.



We were also fortunate enough to receive a free 1 week pass to the local YMCA. What a place! Super friendly staff and lifeguards, a splash pool with sprinklers, a water slide and a child care area that my kids begged me to drop them off at. The most impressive thing however was the military discount and if your spouse is deployed free membership (which includes 2 hours of childcare a day!)

The funny thing is there isn't even that much military here, the base is primarily contractors and even base housing is dominated by retirees and contractors waiting for their houses to be built. The opposite of Hawaii and it's wait lists.

Rocket Day

SciQuest is a Children's science museum nearby and in February they hosted Boeing's Rocket Day. The girls were able to build soda bottle rockets step by step and then launch them in the parking lot.



It was pretty amazing how high they went! They filled them with water and then set them on the launch pad.








I will try to figure out how to add the video!

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Back on the Wagon

It's been a month since my last post so I'd better get busy. For Presidents Weekend we headed up to Indiana to visit Nana and Papa .


We worked on the mermaid mural, collected geodes and the girls got to go skiing again. Charlie visited the Wonder Lab with Nana and Mom had a wonderful massage!

We also headed back to Fred and Linda's for some carving lessons. Hannah discovered an eagle as she worked on her carving and Ella found a mouse in hers.









A very fun and inspiring hands on afternoon.