I was a bit shocked earlier today. At around 5 PM, Isabella and I were playing in her play area (she is currently in a phase in which she doesn’t want to do anything alone, so I just joined her for now) and all of the sudden I heard *BOOM*, I turn around and see Isabella coming to me (I was a feet or so away from her) with big tears and crying. I took her with me so I could comfort her and at first I thought she fell on her hands as she stood on her knees a bit before it happened, with her face to the wall. But, after I was comforting her a bit, I noticed blood coming out of her mouth.. I can tell you that this was a bit of a shock to me.

Because I couldn’t see exactly where the blood was coming from, I thought it would be wise to get rid of some of the blood so I removed it with some tissues. After that I could see that she had a cut of about half an inch in her upper gums, about the same width as her lower teeth. Apparently she went with her teeth through her gums, I can imagine that must have hurt.

After this I let her suck on some icecubes first so the cut would stop bleeding and the pain would become less, and it seemed to work. The bleeding stopped and she stopped cyring also. Even though I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, I still went down to see my mother-in-law to check what she thought, if I should call the clinic or not as the cut was pretty big for such a small mouth. I then called the advice nurse and she told me it would be better to check in at the E.R. to see if she needed stitches.

Once at the E.R. we were helped pretty fast, and the nurse who helped us first was really impressed by Isabella’s beautiful eyes, even so much that he asked permission to make a picture of her eyes so he could show it to his girlfriend. Well, I can tell you that those things make a dad pretty proud (even though these things happen quite often, we hear so much nice things about her eyes) But ok, after this we went to an area where a doctor would research her, and after this happned the doctor told us that it would be better not to stitch as the cons would weigh more heavy than the pros of stitching, one of the things was because she was currently teething in the upper side of her mouth, and the stitches could do more worse than good in that case. The doctor was also assured that she would be ok, because she didn’t lose consciousness, and she didn’t cry anymore and the bleeding also stopped, which were all good signs.

She is currently asleep, but she remained a bit sad the rest of the evening. I am glad to know she is ok, but I can tell you it surely shocked me at first when it just happened. I hope she will feel better in the morning

• The day is almost over, but still: Happy Birthday Isabella!! (tomorrow we will post some pictures and a video) #

Isabella just turned 1 year old, what did that time go by fast. A year ago both her and Michelle were in the hospital, Isabella even had to stay for almost a full month as she was born two months too early. And because she was born so early, she had a bigger risk in going back to the hospital (50% more chance than full-term babies).. but, fortunately she stayed healthy as can be, and she is currently catching up to the full-term babies also.

So yesterday, on August 25, she turned 1 year old, but her birthday was celebrated by the family of Michelle’s side (my family is at the other side of the world, so they couldn’t be here unfortunately) about a week ago as there were some family members (who live on the mainland) visiting Hawaii that week and Michelle’s mother preferred to do it in that week so they could join also. Michelle’s mom arranged a Hawaiian buffet, which was very good, and there were about 50 people, it was really nice.

Here are some pictures of that birthday party:

Of course we have filmed a bit with the birthday cake, but you can find that a bit more down

A week later, on her real birthday, Michelle and I celebrated it again, but a bit smaller than the week before First we were on Skype in the morning with her Dutch grandmother. Great invention, about 8000 miles away from each other and still being able to speak and see each other (and free too haha). After that Isabella went for a nap, and after her nap we had to go to the doctor for a her regular checkup…

Yeah, believe it or not, but they planned that nicely on her birthday at the clinic (and we can move the date, but you can easily wait another month before it is your turn again). The doctors visit isn’t so bad actually, but she also had to get 3 more vaccinations…. and that was very sad, to see her cry on her first birthday ..at the clinic they were able to translate it to “getting your health as a present on your birthday”, but we saw it more as a sadist thing, to get the shots exactly on that date… I guess it is just the way how look to it Oh well, fortunately she didn’t cry too long, she is a pretty tough little girl when it comes down to these things.

After the doctor we bought a cake for her, one that was also completely meant to be hers. If we had some left overs after she was done with it, then we could get some, but it was first meant to be hers… well, we found out what she thought about that hahaha!

Before we gave her the cake, we put together a big present for her, in her play area, which she totally loved (thanks grandma and auntie in the Netherlands), and after that we had the cake.. and yes, we filmed the part of the cake, and we made some pictures as well. So, instead of talking too much, here are first some pictures, and below that a fun video.. have fun

Here is the video:

The day is almost over, but still: Happy Birthday Isabella!! (tomorrow we will post some pictures and a video)

As promised in our previous post, the short video we shot of the Black Pearl Queen Anne’s Revenge from the coastal road can be found here.

A small update (08/07/2010): I wrote yesterday in this post that it was the Black Pearl but I just found out that it was no longer named the Black Pearl but the ‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’, Captain Blackbeard’s ship. This probably explains why the ship looks so damaged (and why they were rebuilding the ship when it first arrived). The ship, however, did arrive as the Black Pearl, but the current name is the Queen Anne’s Revenge.. Due to this, I changed the titles and text in this message of this message a bit.

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I have blogged before about the Pirates of the Caribbean and them going to film here in Hawaii but until recently we thought it wouldn’t be really accessible, it would’ve been more luck than anything else to see something of it all.

However, last week, we read in the local paper that they were filming in a pretty nice accessible location and today we decided to take a look if they were still there. After searching a bit along the coast (we knew on what side of the island they would be but not the exact location haha), I suddenly noticed a few masts and figured I would know where the ship would be, and I was right (they would be here for about two weeks, or so we were told, so if you are in the area and want to take a look in the coming days, you can find them here (click)).

Unfortunately we didn’t see them actually do some filming, and we didn’t see Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) either (it was probably too late on the day), but we did see the ship ‘the Black Pearl’ ‘the Queen Anne’s Revenge’. I can tell you it looked a lot better than the last time we’ve seen it, when they were still building and doing repairs and such (see pictures of that here). It looked more ‘finished’ now. Well.. finished?

To be honest, it kind of looked like the Black Pearl Queen Anne’s Revenge has been on fire… I don’t know if this is supposed to be because of the many fights in the earlier movies of the Pirates of the Caribbean, or if it was something that happened in this movie (and what we will have to see when the movie comes out). It is, however, very clear that when you look closely on the pictures that you can see the ship was pretty battered. The masts look a lot shorter than they should be (or so I think), you can see soot and burned wood everywhere, pieces of railing are missing and you can continue this list. It was pretty cool to see.

Next to the pictures of the Black Pearl Queen Anne’s Revenge we also made a few pictures of the surroundings, which I will add below, so who knows, you might recognize some of the area when you’re watching the movie

And like promised, a few pictures of the surroundings.. I am curious if we will still recognize it all when we watch the movie..

We also filmed a little bit from the road that goes around the bay over there, I still have to convert that and upload it to Youtube. When that’s done, I will add it to our blog

I know.. it is pretty quiet on our blog lately. I cannot do much about it really because there are not that many things happening, and ok, maybe sometimes there is but sometimes I just don’t feel like writing for all kinds of reasons, plus it is a lot of work to write a piece like this, and to translate it. But don’t worry, no news means good news

I wrote in one of my older posts that we would have a new layout soon. Well, that layout is waiting, but I haven’t had much time to actually implement it into the blog. Mostly I am just too busy as Isabella is becoming a handful nowadays. It might take a while longer haha.

But ok, how are things here? Things are doing welll We cannot complain, nice weather and we go out once in a while, like to the beach for example. Isabella really likes the beach haha. Here are some pictures

Last weekend we also went to the Byodo-In temple at the other side of the island:

I don’t think we have that much new pictures besides these (we have them, of course, but they are a bit older by now and they don’t show anything really new in the sense of the backgrounds and such).

Isabella will have her first birthday later this month, so we surely will have some more pictures by then. There will be (and I am not surprised that this amount will be doubled) about 50 people coming to her birthday, we’re doing a buffet through a catering with some Hawaiian food, yummy We will do this a week before her real birthday because there will be some relatives from the mainland who will be visiting the islands, so they can celebrate along (this was the wish of Michelle’s mother). There goes our small party which we originally wanted haha. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, we will still do something small on her real birthday

Maybe we will go back to Kaneohe later this week as we found out last weekend that they are currently shooting for the Pirates of the Carribean on that side of the island.. who knows, we might see some famous people

• Someone is ready to go to the beach… http://twitpic.com/2754×3 - http://twitpic.com/2754xj #

Someone is ready to go to the beach… http://twitpic.com/2754×3 - http://twitpic.com/2754xj

• Our congratulations to Spain! And to the Dutch: We’re very proud how far you made it, we never thought we would make it this far! Awesome! #
• Isabella is playing with orange blocks.. no excuses for #ned: win the finals! http://twitpic.com/24h0tz #
• last game of the #worldcup starting soon.. let’s see if we can hang the orange flag out again #