Resting Up for the Big Move

July was a rough month for our circus. Kathleen had not one, or two, but three back-to-back viruses. Each time we thought she was about to get better, she didn't. The pediatrician assured us that it's not actually all that uncommon for small children to get more than one virus that way. Apparently small children have this window of extra susceptability to a viral infection just as they recover from a virus. Who knew we'd manage to find a virus in that window each time?! (There's actually a chance we're up to virus number four: Kathleen has a pretty congested nose right now, poor kid.)

So, although we'd had plans to spend lots of time with friends and at the beach during our last weeks on the island, instead we just spent lots of time at home. We'd have loved to be able to go on a pontoon boatride on Kaneohe Bay again, or have taken the whole family to church one last time (we went in shifts -- Mama one weekend, Daddy the next), or invite some dear island friends to our home for food and fellowship, or swim at Waimea Bay or Bellows or Ko Olina. But that was not meant to be. And staying at home had upsides, too. We managed to sort through lots of closets and other paraphernalia before the big move. (The Salvation Army either loves or hates us. We're not sure which!) Although we still had a bit of scrambling to do before the movers arrived, we were in better shape that we'd have been otherwise.

During one closet cleaning, Kathleen discovered my Lambie, a (not-so-inventively named) stuffed lamb from my childhood. Lambie became Kathleen's constant companion. He ate with us. He slept with Kathleen. He even got his own spot for crafts.

Kathleen explains to Lambie that he's not allowed to use the glitter glue. He's not old enough. (I didn't explain that he was nearly as old as Mama. That would be practically impossible to understand!)

Lambie didn't get to come on the big plane trip to California (or to Illinois, for that matter), but the movers packed him very carefully, and we know Kathleen will be thrilled to see him again in a few weeks.

And since you simply can't stay indoors forever, even when you've been sick, we headed to a deserted park one morning. At the time we thought Kathleen was just about over her virus. Little did we know she'd run a fever and start the process all over again the next day! But for about forty-five minutes one morning, the girls seemed both happy and healthy and delighted to be at the park.

Madeline could not be contained. What you can't tell in the above photo is that she's actually headed down the tube slide. The child has no fear!

Madeline would race to try to keep up with her big sister.

Kathleen spent almost all the time at the park in her favorite spot -- the swing! Swings are rare at parks on Oahu, so Kathleen made the most of it whenever we visited this one!

Anyway, that's how our last few weeks went on Oahu. We've survived the packing up and packing out, the stay in the hotel (okay, you don't really survive a stay at the Hale Koa so much as you enjoy it -- and we did enjoy it!), the flight to California, and then twelve hours later, the flight to Illinois. There'll be more on all of those adventures in the near future, although the photographs to document them might take a bit longer. Our camera crashed on the cement lanai the day we moved out of our house, and the photos of everything are trapped on a memory card too old and too large to fit into our laptop's card reader...