Purple / Us

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: Purple - This one purple flower was growing all by itself in the middle of a bunch of dead grass and leaves. It really popped out at me.

Tara: Us - I occasionally take pictures of me and my son because my husband never thinks to take pictures of us. He says he doesn't have an eye for photography so he never thinks of it. Since I like more candid photos and am not so into the posed, say cheese look of pictures, I never get any candid shots of me and my son. So I took this one myself. I don't know if it's still technically candid since we both are looking at the camera but I still like it.

Chandelier / Mouse in the Dark

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Chandelier - We bought this lamp at Target a few years ago, and it's been on my dresser. Yesterday we moved it to the living room. There are no words to describe how much Brandon loves it. (His face looks cut off at the forehead because he was wearing his baseball cap backwards. I flipped it around because the brim was blocking his vision and he kept on running headlong into the playground equipment.)

Tara: Mouse in the Dark - My son's Crocs are a Disney version so instead of holes on the tops of the shoe, there's Mickey Mouse heads. I thought the light coming through looked cool.

Playground Sunset / Pretty in Pink

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Playground Sunset - I don't really have much to say about this one. Every day after dinner, we make our rounds through the neighborhood playgrounds. I like taking pictures right into the setting sun because it just kind of glows in the picture. If you look closely, you can kind of see Brandon's head - he was climbing up the slide.

Tara: Pretty in Pink - Ok so I'm cheating again. Sorry. I took this picture at Graceland. There were such pretty flowers everywhere.

Big Boy Swing / Gum Galore

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Big Boy Swing - My son is 18 months old, and he can sit on the big swing. I was pretty much floored when I discovered this. I think, though, that he prefers the baby swing. I push him a lot higher when he's in the baby swing. (Please disregard the fact that his shorts don't match his shirt. His shorts got dirty and these ones were clean and at the top of the drawer.)

Tara: Gum Galore - I kind of like Orbit gum. My husband knows this and saw a 15 pack box of it at the store and surprised me with it. My husband arranged them in the cupboard like this.

Revenge of the 99 Cent Store / Twisty Bamboo

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: Revenge of the 99 Cent Store - I have several pictures in my Flickr photostream of things I've found at the Marukai 99 cent store (cheap crap - and some steals - imported from Japan). This is a (very cool looking) bento box that I bought two of the other day. (I got one pink, one blue.) They don't actually stay closed and I have to put a rubber band around them to keep the pieces together, but I don't care. They're still the coolest thing ever. They say "feel at ease... enjoy a quiet lunch time while feeling a season. nature put a person at his ease". Awesome.

Tara: Twisty Bamboo - Kerry gave me this bamboo plant when we were both living in New Orleans and she and her husband were about to move to Hawaii. They were three stalks of twisty bamboo. When we moved from New Orleans to Memphis, I put this plant in the cupholder. I love it so much. Since Kerry has had them, there have been some changes. I had to change vases to a bigger one because they are so tall now and just recently, one of the bamboo broke. It's still alive just considerably shorter than the others. I hope the next place we get stationed, we get to drive to because I don't want to get rid of it for awhile. My dream is that someday I can give it back to Kerry when we are about to move. This means that we will live in the same city one day. That would be nice.

Scribble-Face / Shoes

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: Scribble-Face- After dinner, Brian decided for some reason to draw a face on the whiteboard that's inside the door of the computer armoire. Brandon decided that he wanted to climb up on the box of computer paper we keep next to the armoire, and scribble all over it. He actually added quite a lot more scribbling after I took this picture. And of course he drew on the armoire itself, too. He's only marginally interested in sitting at his little desk and coloring with crayons, but climbing on top of a box to draw on the furniture...now that is fascinating.

Tara: Shoes - Our hall closet door is broken so it doesn't close all the way unless you force it. We usually don't close it all the way. Yesterday, while my husband and I were cooking dinner, my son had went in there and brought out one of my shoes and one of my husband's shoes. He arranged them on the living room floor like this. We didn't notice them until after we put him to bed and started cleaning up the living room.

Glowing / Lonely Flower

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: Glowing - I photoshopped this picture in an attempt to get the colors to match up with how they looked in real life. It's closer than it was, but it still doesn't really do it justice. In the hour before sunset, colors take on this crazy, saturated, high-contrast look. They seem to glow.

Tara: Lonely Flower - I just want to state that I am cheating. I was way too busy yesterday to even think about my camera let alone, use it.

This was the only sign of Spring in my whole yard this year. I had planted annuals in this spot last year but this is not the type of flower I had planted. I don't know where this came from. I would have lots of other flowers but we have squirrels and at this point I refuse to garden because all flowers are around here, are expensive squirrel food.

Right after taking this picture, my son noticed this flower and in toddler fashion, clobbered it and tried to eat it. So I actually have no flowers in my yard anymore.

Napoleon Cymbalhead / Watermelon Me

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Napoleon Cymbalhead - We have a lot of random stuff lying around our house. A lot of it (like this Napoleon Dynamite Mad Libs) is stuff that was neatly put away until Brandon grabbed it. We then end up sticking it somewhere where he can't reach it - which is pretty much limited to the kitchen counter, the (middle of the) dining room table, and on top of the computer armoire. The Mad Libs and the finger cymbals are on the telephone table, which he could actually reach if he stood on the couch. (Which he sometimes does.)

Well anyway. Napoleon Dynamite has cymbals for a head! That's just wacky!!

Tara: Watermelon Me - I'm kind of addicted to watermelon. During its season I average about one a week. With no help from my husband who, like all fruit that isn't an apple or a banana, hates it. He grew up in a house that didn't have have much fresh fruit. Where as I grew up in a house that had a mini farmer's market in the kitchen. So me? I freaking love fruit. Especially watermelon.

As soon as I buy a watermelon, I cut it up into bite size pieces, put it in my designated watermelon tub and put in the fridge to chill. Whenever I feel the need, I go to the fridge, get my tub and a fork. I have to admit that I only have to do this about three times before the watermelon is gone. This last time while I was cutting my watermelon, my husband thought it he would be cute and carve my name out of the watermelon that was leftover on the rind. He then tried to make me feel bad for not eating my name. I made him taste it to see why I had left that part on the rind. As soon as he tasted it, he quit making me feel bad.

Super Fork / Leaning Tower of Milk

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: Super Fork - I officially lifted the ban on pictures of my son on the internet. Try not to go crazy with it. FYI, he didn't actually eat any of the stew.

Tara: Leaning Tower of Milk - I was walking down the hallway and saw this. Never mind the Cheerios sitting next to it.

Spring Week: Lace / A Bug's View

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Lace - Brandon is always picking up plumeria blossoms from the ground. He invariably picks up ones that have browned a bit, and since he isn't exactly delicate with them, they get more and more bruised as he holds them. They aren't what most of us would call "pretty" but they are absolutely fascinating to him. It made me think about how things that are imperfect and past their prime can be pretty in their own way. This is a bug-eaten leaf on the same hibiscus bush from Tuesday.

Tara: A Bug's View - I took this picture by putting my camera in the middle of this branch. I think it's a fir tree of some kind but I know next to nothing about Botany.

Spring Week: Fuzzy Seeds / Smashed Handprint

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Fuzzy Seeds - Spring in Hawaii is weird because there are falling leaves and seed pods - neither of which are things that happen in the spring where I'm from. It's almost like they took all of the seasons and smushed them all together into the month of May.

Tara: Smashed Handprint- This is my son with his hand pressed against the screen door. (Well actually I guess it's a plexiglass door since there is no screen.) It's been getting nicer and nicer outside, so this day we let him play in the sprinkler and then the dirt.

Spring Week: Coil / Secret Bubbles

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Coil - The theme this week is "spring" and I'm a smartass.

Tara: Secret Bubbles - My husband and son were on the other side of the fence blowing bubbles. I didn't know until I walked out of our back door and saw bubbles coming up from behind the fence.

Spring Week: Spiky / Random Magenta

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Spiky - The spring flowers I grew up with are things like tulips and daffodils and hyacinths - pretty, cheerful flowers that just don't exist in Hawaii. This is a flower that grows on bushes around my neighborhood. I don't know what it's called, and it doesn't have any fragrance, but it's pure white and colorful at the same time, and undeniably tropical looking. It doesn't exactly say "spring" to me, but I'm sure it says "spring" to people who grew up here.
(ps, I'm an idiot - it's a hibiscus. Duh.)

Tara: Random Magenta - I took my son on our usual walk yesterday. Usually the only flowers we ever see are some buttercups or dandelions. I have no idea what these are, (Uh, Kerry?) but they were definitely out of place and very pretty.

Spring Week: Pink and Green / Furry Trees

Kerry (top). Tara (bottom)

Kerry: Pink and Green - This is some kind of succulent (the class of plant that cacti and aloe belong to) in a pot in my neighbor's yard. Obviously they don't put too much effort into taking care of it, since the pot is now also full of grass. I thought the colors looked nice and spring-y.

Tara: Furry Trees - After living on this base for a year and a half, we found this really pretty nature walk behind some buildings we never go to. It's fairly close to our house, so I think I'll be integrating into our daily walks.

The only bad part about this nature walk is that there is poison ivy and oak everywhere. You have to stay on the path or you will pay for it with lots of itching. I found these trees neat looking because they are covered with poison ivy, and in the sunlight, they looked furry to me.

Branches / Engineering Wonder

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Branches - Obviously I have a thing for plumeria trees and clouds lately. I think that plumerias might honestly be my favorite thing about Hawaii.

Tara: Engineering Wonder - This picture is not all that pretty but I find it interesting. I'm no engineer or electrician, so I don't know how important this box of wires is, but I have to wonder how effective it is to fix this broken box with lots of rouge electrical tape. Want to know the most ironic part of this? This superb craftsmanship is being displayed right here on the military base I live on. (It's probably totally illegal to take pictures of a military base and then show the Internet. Shh, don't rat me out.)

You might say that this is just a temporary solution until they got the necessary parts to finish the job. I said that too. Back in September of 2005 when I first saw it. I'm starting to think that this is really the finished product. Yay for taxes!!

Rocks / A Duel

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Rocks - We set up a slide in the backyard for Brandon. Sometimes he uses it as a ramp for rolling his ball, but mostly he gathers up rocks in his wheelbarrow, pushes them around the patio, then puts them at the top of the slide and slides them down the ramp. This is the rocks on the mats at the bottom of the slide. (Sometimes he goes down the slide himself, too.)

Tara: A Duel - My husband and I both have Macs that we lovingly call, Mac Daddy and Daddy Mac. Yeah, we stole it from Kris Kross. I always find it funny when they sit across from each other because it looks as if the two apple logos are about to fight. I don't know why. This is just the way my brain works.

Rebirth / Red Row

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Rebirth - Over the winter, all of the plumeria trees in my neighborhood got sick - with a fungus, I'm guessing - and seemed like they were dying. It was really depressing. But it's spring now, and they're all blooming. I wasn't expecting them to, and it makes me really, really happy.

Tara: Red Row - We went to the state park today and I saw these flowers there. I'm not exactly sure of the name of them but I'm sure Kerry can fill me in. She is a trained florist after all.

CHEATING DAY : Goats/ King's Chariot

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Goats - I took this picture on Saturday afternoon, at the petting zoo section of the Honolulu Zoo. (We didn't let Brandon touch anything.) I swear to you, we didn't plan this out in advance as a theme day (the theme being "cheating") - I was watching an extra one-year-old yesterday and didn't have time to take any pictures. I decided to post a picture from over the weekend instead, logged on to upload it, and saw that Tara did the same thing. More evidence that we are freakishly alike.

Tara: King's Chariot - Ok so I'm cheating. I didn't take this picture yesterday but this past weekend. I promise, after this no more Elvis related pictures from me. This is one of Elvis' Cadillacs that sits on the Graceland grounds. I added a blur effect just because.

P.S. Great minds think alike.

Ah, What Do! / King's Gems

Kerry . Tara


Kerry: Ah, What Do! - At the music store on Friday, Brandon found the drum room. I showed him what happens when you hit the cymbal, and he just about lost his mind. He spent several minutes experimenting with the different sounds that the various drums made - including the stools, of course. I'm seriously shocked he didn't throw a tantrum when we made him leave.

It's funny because we already compared him to Animal all the time. Remember the moment in The Muppet Movie when Floyd says "Show 'em what you do, Animal!" and Animal says "Ah, what do! Eat drums!" and he starts to chew on the cymbal, and Dr. Teeth says "No, no, not eat drums, beat drums!" and Animal just kind of looks up with wide eyes, the cymbal still in his mouth? Yeah, that's Brandon.

Tara: King's Gems - This past weekend my mom came into town for my son's first birthday. While she was here we went to Graceland. It's one of those things you feel obligated to do if you're in Memphis. When my mom was a teenager, she was the president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Elvis fan club. She played it off like she could care less about Graceland, but I knew she thought it was cool. This picture is an up close shot of a jumpsuit Elvis owned. There were so many displayed but this one had the most gems on it.

Wheel in the Sky / Not a Drop to Ink

Kerry . Tara


Kerry: Wheel in the Sky - keeps on turnin', I don't know where I'll be tomoooooooorooooowww...

Tara: Not a Drop to Ink - This is a jar of pens in our office. I think, maybe, three actually work. Oh and yes, that is a Tide to Go pen. I don't know why it's in there.

Chain Bridge / Cotton Clouds

Kerry . Tara


Kerry: Chain Bridge - I took Brandon to a new playground today. He was terrified of this bridge at first, but after a while, he didn't want to stop running across it.

Tara: Cotton Clouds - It was such a beautiful day with lots of clouds resembling cotton. I'm kind of obsessed with taking pictures of clouds and my son's feet. This is one of 33 pictures of clouds I took yesterday.

Makai / Dragon

Kerry . Tara


Kerry: Makai - The water in Hawaii is always beautiful. Usually it's many brilliant shades of turquoise and green, and blue only where it's deep (which isn't in a lot of places along the coast of Oahu). For the past few days, though, it's been darker than usual - brilliant shades of teal and azure, and where it's blue, it's almost purple. Kaneohe Bay has even more variations of color than usual, and Waimanalo Bay is the greenest shade of aquamarine that I've ever seen.

Brandon fell asleep in the car today, so I took him for a drive so he could nap undisturbed. I can't get out of the car to take pictures while he's asleep in it, so I practiced my ever-improving drive-and-shoot skills. This one was on Kalanianaole Highway, coming down into Hawaii Kai from the direction of Hanauma Bay. ("Makai" means "towards the sea".)

Tara: Dragon - This is a little dragon sculpture that sits under our bonsai tree.

Monkey Mailbox / Glass Beads

Kerry . Tara


Kerry: Monkey Mailbox - This track came with three little cars, but Daddy gave Brandon the idea of rolling balls down the ramps instead. Ever since then, he's been trying out pretty much every toy he has. Today it was his letter blocks.

Tara: Glass Beads - My husband's coworker had won the centerpiece at the Submarine Ball. It was a trifle bowl with candles and glass beads in it. She didn't want it since she had no where to put it. I took it off her hands because I have always wanted a trifle bowl. I'm sure it will stay in my cabinet for years unused until I give it away or it gets broken from having the stuff I really use piled on top of it.

This is an up close shot of the glass beads that were in it.