Phew

While my mom was here she helped me finish Nadine's quilt. I had been sewing as often as possible the last few weeks so it'd be at the point she could help me. And it looks great! I'm so excited with how it turned out.

And this is an actual pieced quilt. It was so much dang work. Every square was supposed to be pieced, but luckily I decided to only piece the pink and black-diamond squares; good thing, too, because even those took me forever. And my brain doesn't understand how to piece it (I'm not good at puzzles, either), so it took me especially longer.

Because I had so many huge gaps between sewing time, I would forget how to put together the pieces. So I made myself a cheat sheet.

"Sew pink first, green second. Got it." And it helped a ton.

I think the pink and black-diamond pieced squares are the best part of the quilt, and I'm fairly proud of myself for doing most of the quilt. Though I'm not sure I'll piece a quilt again for years; at least not with parts that tiny. The bigger squares were much easier.

T-i double-gah-rrrrrrrrr

Want to see the front of this adorable outfit? It's on the baby blog.

Got a whale of a tale to tell ya lads

Yesterday we hiked to Makapu'u Lighthouse on the southeastern edge of the island. It's not really a hike, because it's a paved trail, but it's fairly steep and isn't just a leisurely stroll, so I'm calling it a hike.

It's a nice trail, about 2 miles long, with fun plants along the way leading to this beautiful lighthouse.

I love the red roof with the bright blue ocean behind it.

Notice my weird neck crane to try to get the lighthouse in the picture? Heh.

Another winter perk about this trail is it's one of the best places to see whales on Oahu. Todd and I hiked it a month ago and saw the backs and spouts of a couple whales, and that made us quite excited.

We went again yesterday so my mom could hopefully see whales, and we were not disappointed. Not at all.

We saw one whale breach at least a dozen times. We watched for about 15 minutes, and it just kept jumping out of the water. It was incredible. We could even hear the splash sound a few seconds delayed--he must've been pretty far out, and must've been huge, though he looked dinky to us.

Our regular, Joe Schmo cameras actually did a pretty good job. However, I've never wanted a nice camera as much as I did yesterday when we got home and looked at what are actually really cool shots of a jumping humpback whale.

I've always wanted to see a whale breach.

The trail ends at the lighthouse, and you also get a spectacular view of the windward side of the island. It's stunning (though we are partial to this side of the island).

The colors in the water are amazing.

On the way home we stopped at Jack in the Box and this beautiful hibiscus was by the drive thru. I love that about Hawaii--beautiful plants are randomly everywhere.

Baby blog updated

I need some advice and ideas--help!