Larry Memmott's Blog

Nothing so new about this, but Aliciya’s Florsheim ad was in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, page E3, this morning, so I figured I’d put it up for everyone to admire.

We had been waiting since July for Florsheim to start using the photos of Aliciya they took. It happened while we were gone. When we got back, Myrna, our maid, told us that she had seen Aliciya’s picture on a billboard on EDSA, the most important street in Manila. Of course, we had to go see for ourselves. Here are a few snapshots.

So then today we had to go see if the Florsheim store had opened up in the new Greenbelt 5 Mall. We knew it was going to be a kids’ store and expected they might use Aliciya’s photos. Bingo!

The two Filipina girls are the shop girls in the new shop. When they saw it was Aliciya they screamed!!! They jumped right into the picture I wanted to take of Aliciya in front of her poster, and it was actually difficult to get photos without them, they were so excited. When we left the shop, they ran to the shop next door to tell their friends and then were out in the hallway pointing to Aliciya.

The Florsheim Shop in Greenbelt 5

Our last weekend in Washington Tanya was feeling well enough to get out more. The doctor had told us on Friday that we could go back to Manila. We decided to take advantage of the incredible fall weather and go out to the Pumpkin Festival at Butlers Orchard in Germantown, MD.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. We got there in the mid-afternoon, so it was not so hot. William was good to accompany his little sister on the Pumpkin Coach ride.

William in the Pumpkin Coach

After the Pumpkin Coach, we all climbed into a hay wagon for the ride out to the pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun, and there were plenty of pumpkins to choose from in the patch. William went home with a giant. Aliciya chose two little “baby pumpkins.”

Riding the Hay Wagon

In the Hay

In the Pumpkin Patch

William with his monster pumpkin

Alex and Chris

They also had a set of slides on the side of a hill for the kids to play on. As you can see, I also qualify as a kid when it comes to slides.

William and Aliciya were hard to keep up with. As soon as they got to the bottom of the slide, they would be running back up again.

For me, the highlight of the day was watching William and Aliciya playing in the barn. They were jumping from the straw bales and fighting with straw just like I did with my brother and cousins when I was small. The whole day brought back a lot of memories for me – childhood summers on my grandfather’s farm. It was exciting to share a bit of that with my kids.

Straw Fight

Aliciya Buried

After the surgery I spent my time running back and forth to the hospital and trying to keep Aliciya entertained. I quickly found that the best way of keeping her happy was to take her to the big Borders Bookstore one metro stop away. There were stuffed animals to play with, and when she got tired of that, she found find a book for me to read to her. William had the Friday after the surgery off, so we got him and the three of us went to the bookstore together.

William and Aliciya had a good time playing along the road as we walked home.

Tatyana released from the hospital

Little imp offering flowers to her mom

The next weekend we got together with the kids again. We had a great time at home, and went out to the National Aquarium and the Old Post Office.

Alex in the Old Post Office Tower

This statue of Pushkin is just a couple of blocks from our apartment.

Pushkin Statue

Since I didn’t get any blogging done in Washington, here I am playing catch-up again. Anyway, we left Hawaii on September 15 for Washington to have Tatyana’s brain tumor removed. It was a pretty stressful time, but as you will see, we had some fun, too.

Tatyana didn’t have her appointment with the brain surgeon until Friday the 20th, and her surgery ended up being on the 23rd, so we had a little time. On the weekend, William came down and spent the night with us. We went to the Mall for a walk and he and Aliciya climbed up onto the Albert Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Science.

Aliciya and William on Albert Einstein’s lap

William on the Mall

Breakfast Time

We met up with Alexandra and Christina and went to National Zoo, too.

Guinea Pigs?

I don’t remember what these rodents were, but they were cute.

Snake

More than anything, these three animal photos were just experiments with my new camera.

Toucan

Of course, Alex, Chris and William had to be at school during the week, so Tanya, Aliciya and I had a lot of time to kill on our own. Since we were living just a few blocks away, we spent a fair amount of time on the Mall.

Aliciya at Jonny Rocket’s

Aliciya and I on the carousel

We had a good time.  Tanya says, surprised, I think, that Manila Ocean Park is actually better.  Still, we had fun, and I got this fun shot.

On Tuesday we decided to drive around West Maui. It’s a beautiful drive, with wonderful views of the coastline. We took a picnic lunch and stopped a couple of times along the way. The most spectacular stop was at the Nakalele Blow Hole. Of course, with Aliciya there and Tatyana ill, we didn’t hike down to the blow hole. Still, it was pretty impressive even from the distance.

Enjoying Front Street

In the afternoon we went for a walk down on Front Street in Lahaina. We parked next to Banyan Park, a whole park filled by one tree. Then we had some ice cream and went shopping.

On Front Street

Under the Banyon Tree

Up in the Banyan Tree

After a short stopover in Honolulu Airport we were on Maui at about 2:30 in the afternoon. Aliciya had slept well on the plane, but Tatyana and I hardly slept at all. We did a little shopping for groceries and such in Wailuku and then were off to our apartment. We are staying in the Kahana Beach Club. Our sixth floor efficiency has a balcony over the beach and a beautiful view of the ocean.

We were so tired that we just stayed in the/apartment/for the couple of hours before Aliciya’s bedtime, and then Tatyana and I went to bed, too. This morning we woke up to a beautiful breezy Hawaii day, and though there was no rain, a gorgeous rainbow across the ocean. I don’t think I have ever before seen a rainbow extending in such a full and perfect arch.

Rainbow from our room

Napili Beach

After breakfast we decided it was time to try the beach. We drove a small way up the coast to Napili Bay, a beach that the guidebook rates as excellent. It was. We spent the morning at the beach.

My babes.