The Franger Family

The journey home

No matter how much I say to myself “this time will be different” and that we will not be stressed running around at the last minute…it NEVER happens that way. I don’t care if we start packing the week before we cannot seem to ever get out the door like a normal family. There always seems to be honey in our shoes. Well this time the journey begins at 6 am. Blaine decides to do 2 loads of laundry… not planning on that. He also decides to back up all our photos, which is a total time sucker and needs undivided attention… not planning on that either. There were several other things I was not planning on that put us back on our usual “we are already behind before waking schedule”.  In our usual fashion, we literally threw everything we needed to pack in the family room, pushed the furniture together to hopefully keep the muffin occupied for a while and preceded to pack/clean for 4 hours. I swear we have magic marry poppins suitcases that grow as we fill them, the only problem we have EVERY time is weight. Consistently, we are always the couple weighing and re-weighing our bags to the annoyance of everyone in line doing the suitcase shuffle at the check in counter. Pretending to be surprised having NO idea how they got that heavy, and praying for a 51.9 weigh in and a kind agent (who we select by the way as we wait.) Anyway back to the morning, the stress is totally building on top of my last jittery Kona coffee buzz needing to eat something bad. The morning before a trip is always the breakfast of “fridge clean out of random selections”, say… some peanut butter on a rice cake, some seaweed and black beans, as much fruit as our intestines can take and seven glasses of milk to polish it off! After all that I feel sick but have no chance at sitting down to let it pass, I gotta wash every dish in the joint and keep an eye on Ellary making sure she does choke on the leftover bits of sweet potato from several nights ago she is having for breakfast. After all this we have negative minutes to get out the door have not put a single thing in a suitcase.  We throw everything in as Blaine sits on one and I cram the other, and as we are both in a frenzy of sweaty hotness (no, not like that!) we here a loud bang behind us… Ellarys chin has met the edge of the coffee table in a bad way and the blood starts gushing from her NOT breathing face. Once she catches her breath and soaks me with blood I take a deep breathe and have a look. Yikes! There is almost a window from the 3 holes that almost tore right through the front and the back of her bottom lip. As much as wanted to stop everything we still had very little time so I called my mom and handed E the phone and Grandma started distracting her for the desperate 5 minutes we needed to get the heck in the car.  The car ride was rushed and crazy and poor babycakes kept forgetting about her mouth and bumping it and crying over and over.  We got to the airport and returned the Jeep all with 2 minutes until the computer check in closed for our flight. The agent didn’t even have enough time to check in our lap child. Our bags were 16 lbs over (quite normal really) but with such little time we actually had to pay the $30 extra to make it $50 for one bag, LAME. They also said our carry on “personal” items were too big but let it slide. Blaine and I were just dripping with sweat and got into the long security line with 15 minutes to spare before departure. We got stuck behind 3 people in wheel chairs and another couple (on our flight) got expedited 2 rows ahead of us with their ginormous stroller because of lack of time… guess they didn’t get the memo we were on the same flight so we waited in line. Then low and behold Blaine gets selected for a “random” search.  We were the last people on the flight of course and they has to re-open gate the door  :)

Having 2 roller bags, 2 backpacks, a bag of burritos and other extra crap we were holding not including baby, peoples heads were turning as we headed to the rear of the aircraft. Ellary grabbed at least 2 peoples hair, 1 shirt and several chairs as we wiggled down the aisle. It was like bush wacking without a machete. We finally get to our row and we were sharing with a young father of 2 girls and his wife. He could see how flustered I was trying to turn myself around. Blaine was still struggling to push and pull both roller bags. The nice guy next to us was standing there patiently and he could see I was quite unable to shove my oversized bag under the seat, and asked “do you need me to hold her?” I didn’t even reply I just handed Ellary to a perfect stranger. A flight attendant asked me that once a while back, but she sounded like a man with emphysema and I just couldn’t, and hey this guy seemed nice enough.  Finally Blaine arrived and took her back we all sat down and the flight commenced. All in all it went by super fast! Ellary ate her weight in baby food and snacks and took a snooze. Smooth sailing! Second flight from Seattle to Portland was a mere 25 minutes and she slept. After getting the car and the hour drive home she slept some more. Thank God for a wonderful little traveler. Not even a fuss the whole day! Put her down ay 2 am and she slept till 8am and woke up happy to re-discover her long lost toys. Yea for home!

Wondering how it will all fit!

Rushing to the airport and so hot!

R

Layover in Seattle

Yea home! And “new” toys!

Time to mow the lawn?

We’re not in Hawaii anymore….

Happy to see grass!

fat lip feeling a bit weird passport photo session

We are nearing our last moments in paradisebut we are very excited about going home and visiting friends and family. I am sorry to be posting sooo many sea turtle photos but I just LOVE them! The pics do them no justice really. The experience of just cruising with them under the water puts you on another planet. The way they just gracefully glide through the water gives you this feeling like your flying. I guess you could say its my  happy place for the moment The water was so clear today I felt like I was in Tahiti, it was practically a swimming pool! I just needed my bali hut on the water and I think I would have parked there forever!

my FAVORITE little sea turtle decided to loose the sun attire happy naky noos not sure about the salty splash!

We have been beaching, snorkeling, turtle chasing, and soaking up the last 2 weeks of our amazing trip. How I will miss this beautiful place! Yellow dragon fruitegg fruit (tastes like durian without the smell)momma sapote sour sope tastes like sweet tarts! the muffin enjoying being chauffeured around as usualMakalawena Beach Kua Bay Beach yes the water looked like it glowed More Captain Cook more turtle chasing! It was like a pool! my island princessshe didn’t know she had the flower in her hair for about 45 minutes looking into the real estate… not so sure she wants to go home! daddy’s girl 

Blaine and I had an amazing morning snorkeling and kayaking out to the Captain Cook monument. The water was sooo clear and this might have been the best snorkeling I have ever done! On the way back we saw LOADS of dolphins. They were everywhere. We were in about 75 ft. deep water clear to the bottom. Needless to say Blaine and I fought over the underwater camera housing. They got close enough to touch! It was amazing.

this is what I found this morning

Luckily it isn’t this crowded everywhere! This tour boat comes and drops of TONS of snorkelers who all have a blast… we just kayaked past them and went to our own spots  :)

We decided to take a little drive south to south point, the southern most point in the US. Just past this area is the amazing green sand beach! It is quite a bumpy trek even in a Jeep Wrangler. It is so beautiful, with huge cliffs and crystal clear water and air. Blaine always has to jump off the cliffs into the water and climb up the rusty broken ladder. Guess who is NOT scared of the horse now! Ellary just magically got over it and even wanted to pet the things!hop in my ride!not too sure about the road up ahead… hold on people!I have a thing for taking photos of treeswelcome to the happy ranch and horse hotel… actually this is an old abandon air force building Blaine took a few of the horses

got smashed on a rock while snorkeling 
awesome taco joint
Blaine and I went on our first actual “go out after the baby’s in bed date!” 

Things are for sure changing for me. Only now after a month here am I really being able get out the door for an all day excursion I less than two hours!  It has been so helpful having family here. My greatest confession of new motherhood is that its so hard not to get lost in it. Being a creative being has more than taken the backseat in the past  months and when I get a mere 30 minuets here and there to burst something out I got NO creative fuel. But the past 2 weeks I am feeling more and more myself having room to breathe and slowly start my engine again. This week I had a totally uninterrupted 2 hour turtle photo shoot. Blaine was in the water with me but as soon as I saw the first turtle I grabbed the camera with a starving death grip and began the chase.  I was in finally able to get over the uncreative hump and shoot away. I had soooo much fun, and didn’t even realize how the time wasted away. At one time there were 3 swimming around me, like I was on a turtle super highway. Anyway, enough of my emo moment.  :)

beautiful beach the pumpkins personal hot tub very upset baby when daddy picks her up and takes her away from her poolE pointing at the turtles Let the turtle photos begin!  :)Blaine took the next few random beauties the new ride

With the help of the grandparents, I FINALLY get to be in the water for extended shooting time! Even though the water wasn’t super clear I had a blastYea for baby freedom!   

Blaine’s favorite thing in the world! Nap with daddy.sleepy facenow she’s happyBlaine picking papaya from the backyardthe snaggle toothpicking up the grammieshave icekayak adventureBlaine caught a pufferfish to show everyone  :)the pumpkin STILL hates the horse…try number 4she saw that there are now 2 horses so she pulled out the DOUBLE point!

We had such an amazing time with my Dad this past week and are very sad to see him go! We decided to spend the last day at the beach with him and our friends. They brought some SUP boards and we decided to give it a try. Though the following sequences of photos are quite funny, grandpa did get up on the board. I have to hand it to him it was quite wavyWe had some hard laughs and he is always a good sport. His famous quote is always “life is too short” not to laugh etc.

I had to add this one in b/c it was too funny  E covered in sandfirst try getting up on the boardtake twoBlaine off in his own worldhurray for round 3!Dad and I went for a last snorkel, the sand was so pretty in the evening E was not to happy about leaving

wheres the daddy still can’t reach the ducky HUGE LEGGS!uni-baby-daddy

Yesterday we went on an amazing snorkel adventure. It was sooo much fun! Blaine and I got to go while grandpa watched the muffin in the baby pool area in the lava rock.  We had come here before and Ellary played in her floaty for about an hour and there were lots of other babies and moms joining us, but this time it was just us for a bit. She was just cruising along and by her feet next to a rock I saw an eel! It may have been small but it still freaked me out so we waded away from it for a while Once Blaine and I were on our own we saw all kinds of fish and the crazy part was that you can actually reach the end of the reef, like drop off into the “blue abyss of death” kind of end. It was a bit eerie swimming on the edge and looking over into nothing but the deepest blue you have ever seen, but it was super fun.

We ended the day with a luau at my dads hotel. I LOVE luau food, and Ellary loved the show, she just stared and pointed so hard like it was hurting her arm “DO YOU SEE THAT!” The fire show was awesome and I am glad that Ellary didn’t freak, she was just mesmerized. Believe it or not Ellary is actually wearing one of MY baby dresses. I am so glad I had the opportunity to put her in it, thanks mom for saving it, soooo special!  :)

Lunch to start the daygrandpa snorkelingBlaine taking photos of a “spiny sun star” This spiny sun star is unreal! Other-world looking!Some kind of cool anemone creatureBlaine and the “blue abyss of death” (there are definitely tiger sharks down there and who knows what else!)Blaine is crazy, he snorkels into caves and takes photos of themHappy Ellary and Grandpa awaiting our arrival backCutest smiles everLuau time! This is a dress my Mom saved from my babyhoodPointing at everything!eyes are glued and mesmerized by the dancingtired and cracked out pumpkin 

It was a bit rainy this morning until the afternoon, so we spent the morning being lazy and doing a little shopping. We finally replaced Blaine’s wedding ring since he lost it years ago snorkeling in Mexico! I am so excited for the bridesmaids at weddings to STOP hitting on him The ring is perfect for him, made of titanium and two different types of wood, a light Koa and Osage.  After that we went to the beach to catch some waves and a nice sunset. BOY did we get some nice light! I LOVE this type of light. I honestly can say this might have been the most beautiful night I have ever seen at the many oceans I have visited.

We had a super fun photo shoot with friends who own Kona Henna, and I got a chance to hop in the water and take some fun pics of Ellary and Blaine. We were so excited because my dad was flying in to meet us and hang out for a week! As we were throwing everything in the car from the beach we actually saw his plane fly over us. We were in such a rush to get him at the airport that we had a little mishap on the way. The beach that we were shooting at all day was just north of the airport and there is a nasty lava rock road to get there.  You can do it without 4 wheel drive but you have to go slow, which is not convenient if you are in a bit of a hurry. Our rental car is a dodge charger and the thing has like the longest hood on the planet with the smallest windshield. Blaine is an amazing off road driver and we almost never get into a pickle, but the car did not help us this time at all. We just drove over a not super huge rock that Blaine just couldn’t see and bang the oil pan had a softball size hole in it. We could drive the car no further, but luckily there is only one way out and our friends were close behind us, they were more than happy to help. Good thing for auto insurance and the rental car company being super nice and understanding, they had us in a new car quickly and painlessly so it was just an inconvenience and not the end of the world.

Now that my dad is here, it has been great to have help getting out the door in the morning. We went to Kona Blue Sky Coffee, for a little tour and tasting. It was super fun. They had a huge garden on the estate as well that had all sorts of amazing fruit trees and plants. There was a nice couple from north Carolina on the tour with us. They had some pretty funny questions for our guide. I think they meant to go to Mexico and not Hawaii. The guide said “Here is an avocado tree” and the North Carolina guy was like “Oh so thats an avocado tree huh? They are big! So do they have a lot of guacamole here?” and the guide pointed out some banana trees and said how they use the leaves for cooking and wrapping rice, and the guy asked “Oooo so like for tamales?” ummmm that would actually be a corn husk! Anywho… we made another trip to the farmers market, and I picked up some more interesting fruits. I mashed a bunch of them up (which took like an hour!) for Ellary and she sucked them down.

Ellary was supposed to be sleeping in her portable crib at the beach….

Some fun shots for Kona Henna Studio

Our friend Shadow enjoying his SUP board with his kids

Blaine and Ellary playing in the waterMy dad’s plane flying over us while we were leaving the beach!
Rental car bummer!E with her coffee cup

Coffee beansBlaine’s signature omelette  bread fruit, passion, star, mountain apple, mangosteensapodilla
rambutanEllary and Grandpa