on the day you were born

on the day you were born, my sweet boy...

it was march 24 & so many people gathered to cheer you into the world.

you were loved so much before anyone had met you.

we had everything planned and prepped for you,

yet you turned our world upside down.

it was a tuesday

at 10:59 in the morning,

all 8 pounds 10 ounces of you

decided to show up, and say hello.

(boy, are we glad you did!)

we have yet to stop looking at you in amazement.

you make us laugh everyday.

also, you test our patience everyday,

but when you aren't looking we usually laugh about.

happy birthday sweet coen!

your presents are wrapped and waiting.

a birthday "breakfast cupcake" awaits you.

on this, your magic night...you'll turn 2 before our eyes!

goodbye goodbye (the finale)

our final stop on this tour was in sacramento. we had an early morning flight to the island, so we headed to sac the day before to have a visit with grandpa thelen. coen had a hay-day with all the cool "toys" gramps had in his room. he also enjoyed some silly play time with uncle george and of course he charmed all the ladies...yet again.

a very rare occurrence...a family photo.

grandpa with his grandson and great grandson.

after our wonderful visit with gramps, we headed over to pompa and ba-ba's house for the night. coen looooved their house and all the fun stuff they had for him to play with. pompa showed him all kinds of cool pictures and ba-ba cooked us a delicious meal.

so much fun, so many special people. the end.

goodbye goodbye (part three)

during our stay in truckee we knew we HAD to head out the the ranch. it is so beautiful, and there is so much for coen to see and explore. uncle bubs and aunty shelly live in one of the most beautiful places. we seem to always visit them in the frozen months of winter...what's up with that? even though we have to bundle up, it's totally worth it. the views are breathtaking.

coen's first exploration was checking out a big tractor with uncle bubs. it took some major convincing to get him out of there. good thing the next thing was waaaay better than tractors...

a sweet baby calf! such a cute and curious little calf. coen and i really enjoyed our visit with him.

holding on to uncle bubs hand, ready to check out the next thing.

such a great visit to the ranch. can't wait to go back!

during our week in truckee coen and i had an opportunity to head to reno for a date. we met up at cruz's house for dinner. cruz's mama, kara is a very dear friend from college. she organized a get-together with some of our sorority sisters. it just so happens that 3 of the ladies also have little boys, and they had a wonderful time playing with each other (despite a few 'sharing' issues).

i couldn't get both coen and cruz to look at the camera at the same time, so this was the best i could do.

run, run, run and then...run some more!

i absolutely love this picture of coen and tahlik.

i wish we had gotten a picture of the whole group, but this is a shot of the mama's and their boys. it was so fun to see everyone, i hope we can do it again next time we visit!

you should know that this ongoing post of our farewell tour isn't over yet. i had no idea we were taking so many great pictures, and i don't want to cram them all into one post. with that said, there will be one more final part to this ongoing tale...our visit with pompa and ba-ba and grandpa thelen. be patient, it will be posted soon enough.

goodbye goodbye (part two)

after a great (but too short) visit in medford we headed up to truckee for a week filled with fun and snow...LOTS of snow. there was a good 10+ feet of snow when we arrived. it was amazing and beautiful and cold.

coen was really excited about all the white stuff, and was eager to bundle up and go check it out. what a dude!

it took very little conviencing to get him on the sled. he was totally up for the adventure. truckee has some pretty intense (and fun!) sledding, but we decided to start small, with the driveway.

since the snow was SO super high, wes decided he was going to sled off the roof. yes, that is actually him standing on the top of the roof preparing to make his way down.

pop pop and daddy worked really hard and built coen his first snowman! it wasn't easy to get the dry powder to cooperate, but they got the job done. gami hunted for all the accessories, and he tuned out perfect!

nice work boys!

who likes the snow? coen! coen!

daddy and pop pop came home one day with a new pair of skis for coen. we never could convience him to put them on outside, but there was lots of carpet skiing to be had. there's always next year...

we had a special early birthday dinner to celebrate the BIG 02! since coen has attended a few parties in the last 6 months or so, he is really into the whole idea of birthdays. gami baked him a funfetti cake (he calls it m&m cake) and he loved hearing us sing to him.

uncle bubs & auntie shelly came to celebrate with us. coen loved playing with them and his new tools he got from gami & pop pop.

watching squirrels out the back window. sorry coen and lily, no squirrels in hawaii :(

popsicle time with gami!

my sweet sweet boy!

during our visit to truckee we were lucky enough to get over to the ranch and visit scott and michelle. such a good time, and so so many pictures to share...later!

goodbye goodbye (part one)

our whirlwind road trip started out quite chaotic. before we could hit the road we had to finish up with the movers, take coen to a post surgery follow-up appointment, rent a car, officially sell wes' car, pack and load the rental car, and then we could say some goodbyes. we still had a very fussy, cranky, clingy toddler on our hands, and the lack of photos proves that i was very occupied with him.

our first stop on the farewell tour was to drop off our "mama kitty" at fav aunt's house. we decided she wouldn't make the move with us, and fav aunt was very kind to take her and love her. we were pretty sure that she would freak out about the transition and take some time to adjust. um, we were completely wrong. the rest of our drive i was getting texts with pictures of how well she was adjusting. i think she is going to be perfectly happy

in her new toddler-free home.

.

after a few hour visit, we headed down to medford for a couple days. as long as i kept coen on his pain meds he was alright. in between the crankies he put on a pretty good show.

.

we spent 2 nights at papa george and gramma's house and we got to visit with some very special people. popsicles, playdough and hot tubbing helped get coen through the recovery of surgery. our next stop was to gami and pop pop's house in the snow. stay tuned...

Our welcoming eruption

Hello all. I (Wes) am guest blogging. My advise to you is to pay attention to the pictures and less to the text. It won't be as elegant as Jenni's usual prose.

So here we go. Show up Saturday in Hawaii to hear that Madam Pele has a welcoming party planned. The first thing that happened at the eruption site was a catastrophic collapse of the Pu'u O'o crater. Below is a picture of the steaming pit. Those cracks in the foreground are fresh...don't get too close!

There is a spectacular video on the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory website detailing the collapse at

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2011/Mar/PuuOoCollapse_20110305_small.mov

Activity at this site has been vigorous over the past several weeks with several lava flows (as seen in the beginning of the video). The floor of the crater has actually risen around 200 m (600 ft) recently!

What followed was what is called a fissure eruption, which is where a crack in the ground opens up, and pressurized magma comes shooting out. Fissure eruption can be quite common at basaltic volcanoes in Iceland, Italy and elsewhere.

For some perspective, the photo below shows Pu'u O'o crater in the background with steam in the foreground. The steam was the site of the first part of the fissure eruption which occurred after the collapse of Pu'u O'o. At the time of the photo, no fresh lava was coming out of the ground at the site of the steaming.

The photo below shows the site of spattering when I made it out to the eruption. What you are looking at is two spattering sources, the leftmost spattering source is within a deeper lava lake, and lava is then flowing out of the pond to the middle and right of the picture.

Here's a closeup of the lava lake and flow.

And here's a look at the spattering sources and lava lake from the ground. The trees on the right are about 80 ft high by my estimate.

Below are some random spattering shots for good measure.

The day after these pictures were taken, the eruption stopped. Currently the eruption is "pau" or all done. For the first time in a long time, there is no exposed magma at Kilauea. Weird.