Arc Light / That's Easy!

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Arc Light - At Ikea I found these awesome glass vases that, if you put six of them together, form a circle. They come in six different colors, so naturally I got one of each. Today I finally bought some flowers to put in them. I had wanted *white* sweet peas and tulips, but I do like how the pink and purple turned out. I put a candle in the middle of the circle and it's really lovely how the light glows through the different colors of glass. From above, though, it just reminds me of a multicolored, flowery Iron Man chest. Iron Girly Girl, maybe?

Tara: That's Easy! - I work with my kids using educational workbooks. This was found in one of Maggie's books. Not sure what she's supposed to do here since it's kind of already done.

Cosmos / Fairy Tale

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Cosmos - This is a picture from way back in October, the day that I brought my DSLR and allllll of my lenses to Kurihama Flower World, but left the battery on the charger at home. I took all of my pictures that day with the Hipstamatic app on my phone. Appropriately enough, the reason I've been posting all old pictures this week is also a technology glitch - my Aperture library self-destructed and I have to rebuild it manually, literally one day's worth of pictures at a time. I'm up to mid-October of 2006. So when it comes time to post a picture here, I just kind of randomly open folders until I find a picture I like. Thanks, technology!!

Tara: Fairy Tale - I'm still nursing my sick little girl so this is another old picture. This was taken last summer when my husband went through a Geocaching phase. The kids and I weren't as enthusiastic about it as he was so he sadly let it go. Although, the wasp sting he got on his last Geocach made it a bit easier to stop.

Ume / Sick Day

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Ume - It is cold. Really, really cold. But the blossoms have already started. I'm pretty sure that these are ume (plum blossoms) - they're the first ones that bloom. Brace yourself, there are going to be a lot of blossom pictures once sakura (cherry blossom) season starts.

Tara: Sick Day - My necessities of the day. Tissue, moisturizer for my sad dry nose, ChapStick because of all the mouth breathing, water in a plastic cup so I don't have to keep picking up our extremely heavy glasses, and of course Jell-O. I'm starving but it's the only thing I can consider eating. Why don't they make Jell-O with medicine inside of it? I'm kind of high on meds right now so I'm not sure if that's a brilliant idea or stupid.

A Gift / Toe Painting

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: A Gift - Brandon is always picking flowers and handing them to me.

Tara: Toe Painting - My son the artist. [This is a backup picture. I am on vacation.]

Fireworks / Breakfast

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Fireworks - I know, I know, again with the hibiscus bush! What can I say, I see it every day when I take Brandon to the park. Anyway, something about it reminded me of fireworks, not just with the bursts of pink and orange in the center of each flower, but in the way that the big white flowers burst out at you from the green foliage, like fireworks, and there are other flowers that are somewhat past their peak drooping in the background - like with fireworks.

Tara: Breakfast - My son eating his breakfast of bananas and grapes. I didn't realize until after I gave it to him that the bowl matched the food.

Pink Flowers / Sleeping Flamingo

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: Pink Flowers - This picture is in my flickr photostream, but nobody ever looks at it. I love it, though. I love how it's kind of misty and dreamlike. I took it at the Waimea Valley Audubon Center (aka Waimea Falls) in Haleiwa. [This is a backup entry. I am traveling and was unable to get to a computer to upload a picture today.]

Tara: Sleeping Flamingo - This is old. Sorry.

I took this when we visited the Birmingham Zoo.

Shimmery / Curly Tree

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: - Shimmery - When it rains in Hawaii, it almost always stops very quickly. I took this picture while taking a walk shortly after an afternoon rainshower. I love, love, love plumeria scattered on the grass, and this one had so many raindrops on it that it shimmered in the sunlight. (Click on it to see the full-sized version; you'll be able to see the droplets better.) [This is a backup entry. I am traveling and was unable to get to a computer to upload a picture today.]

Tara: Curly Tree - This is one of my favorite plants just because it's so weird. It's called a Pony Tail Palm. It's maybe a foot high and looks like a mini palm tree.

$30 Wholesale / Transfixed

Kerry (Top) . Tara (Bottom)

Kerry: $30 Wholesale - One thing that absolutely blew my mind when I first moved to Hawaii was the tropical flowers. Obviously, they grow here. So things that have to be imported to the mainland, and therefore cost an arm and a leg, grow on the side of the road here. Stephanotis (Madagascar jasmine, I believe is another name for it) costs .75 - 2.00, depending on the season, per blossom - wholesale! And here it is growing on somebody's backyard fence. Incredible. [This is a backup entry. I am traveling and was unable to get to a computer to upload a picture today.]

Tara: Transfixed - This is my son eating a snack while watching TV. The weird part is that I had CNN turned on. He pays more attention to the news than he does to his shows. I think he likes watching people talk to him.

6-7/8 / Water Lily

Kerry . Tara

Kerry: 6-7/8 - Brandon and I both wear Crocs. He wears a size 6-7, and I wear an 8.

Tara: Water Lily - I didn't have any charged batteries yesterday so I'm using this picture from when we went to the Zoo this past weekend. This was in the pond outside of the Panda exhibit.

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.

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.

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.

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: 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.

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!!

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.