A day in the life

Last bit of June

2011-07-10T19:09:00.000-05:00

We went to the Pacific aviation museum with the cub scouts. I hadn't been out there before, it was a good tour. We started out in a flight simulator room, where the kids all had computers with flight joysticks and controls. The instructor walked us all through how to takeoff and land, even on an aircraft carrier. We toured through the museum of planes, and then into a hangar they use for restoration (pic on upper left). A closeup of the hangar windows is on the upper right, hopefully it shows up int he small picture, but there are a lot of bullet holes in the windows - those are the original bullet holes from when that hangar was strafed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The kids got to climb into a couple of the planes, and met a survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack who still volunteers at the museum.

The last bit of June, we went to the Polynesian Cultural center, they were running a June special for residents, so we went to enjoy the cheap entry fees...

Now we're well into July already and the kids go back to school Aug 1. This summer is flying by!

June, part 2

2011-07-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Quickie recap, just more fun stuff. A lot more beach time in June, the kids at a magic show at the library, and Dan and Adam showing how we pick papayas at the house :) Also, I made my first lei! It's about time, three years in Hawaii and I finally made a lei from the plumeria trees we have in the yard. It turned out pretty, and very fragrant!

June, part 1

2011-07-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

Another full month of fun, the kids went to a birthday party that was held at a horse rescue farm just near our house. The people running the place were very nice and friendly, they told us about the different horses that had come to live with them and taught the kids a few things about horses. There was a petting zoo with ducks, rabbits, guinea pig and a goat. Then the kids got to ride a horse. Cole was thrilled, he had the biggest smile the entire time he was on the horse. Adam was not so sure, he said he liked it, but he didn't look like he was having fun!

Straight from the birthday party we headed to camp on the windward side at Bellows air force base. The beaches are so gorgeous on that side of the island, and bellows beach has great bodyboarding for the kids. We had a good time at camp (again!)

San Fran Fun!

2011-06-16T00:26:00.001-05:00

Three of us moms managed to plan a mom's weekend out last month, we took a 4 day trip to San Francisco! It was an awesome time, we did a city tour, an evening show, and a napa wine country tour, as well as eating lots of wonderful food. It was such a nice little trip, I definitely could have stayed longer - there was so much to see there.

My favorites of the weekend were the Napa wine tour and the tour of Alcatraz. The wine tour was so relaxing and it was beautiful there (not to mention warm! San Fran was kind of chilly the weekend we were there). We toured four wineries and did the tasting at three of them. That was one happy busload of people by the time they loaded us up from the last winery. We sampled some good wine, had a wonderful lunch and just enjoyed a beautiful day on the tour.

I also really enjoyed the Alcatraz tour, but I kind of enjoy all those history channel shows too... It really is beautiful out on Alcatraz island, I'm sure it wasn't if you were in innmate, but you can't beat the views of San Francisco. It was interesting to hear all about life on 'the rock' and some of the people that were incarcerated there. The thing I noticed is that it was so cold and windy there, I'm sure it was a miserable place to be a prisoner. You'd probably be cold all the time living there.

Other fun stuff: the food was fabulous in the ferry building - lots of good restaurants and bakeries. We had the best garlic crab meal in San Fran one evening. Golden Gate park looked really cool, if I had more time to explore, this is definitely one place I'd go back to see. And lastly I think it is actually more expensive to live in San Francisco than in Hawaii. Real estate there is even expensive by Hawaii standards!

Here's a photo recap:

(Clockwise from upper left) Golden Gate Bridge, Mina in Lori's Diner, cable car, ferry building, yummy cupcakes in ferry building, seagull at the bay, chinatown, Sotto Mare restaurant

Boat to alcatraz island, entrance to Alcatraz, me at Alcatraz, alcatraz, inside alcatraz cell, the painted ladies (victorian houses), Jen and Mina on the tour bus, victorian house

Trolley car, view of San Fran from Alcatraz island, wine casks on winery tour, poppy, cable car, Mina and Jen on winery tour, me with the aging wine

These and more pics also at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/amykerkemeyer/Lightroom

May Misc

2011-06-13T23:50:00.000-05:00

Just some random pics from May.

Ru and our new bunny Mr. Bun Bun (originally Mrs. Bun Bun we were told when we got him that he was a girl. Oops!). They still aren't getting along too well, the bunny tries to chase and bite the cat. Mr. Bun Bun may have to go in for a little 'attitude correction' (i.e. get him fixed).

I had my 40th birthday, the kids got me a really awesome card and of course I got a cake. So now it's another year older (and another decade!).

Adam also had his end-of-year party for school. Here he his hamming it up with some of his first grade buddies.

More pics to come of my fun, fun, fun trip to San Francisco at the end of May...

Mini vacation

2011-06-13T23:46:00.000-05:00

We got a Groupon deal along with our friends to go for a one night stay at a local bed and breakfast on the windward side. The place was called Paradise Bay Resort - super good deal, we rented a two bedroom unit in a house and the other family rented the one other unit in the house. The house sat right on the waterfront of Kaneohe Bay. It was beautiful and so relaxing!

What was really awesome is that the rental included a pool and also use of their kayaks and a boat ride out to the sand bar in the bay, as well as a continental breakfast. So we made the most of our 24 hour stay :)

We headed out in the kayaks into the bay, and the kids got kind of scared as land pulled away behind us, but then they seemed to settle into it. As we got out into the middle of the bay, we found a sea turtle wrapped in some fishing line, so our friends hopped out and luckily he had brought a knife and was able to cut the turtle free. Hopefully the poor thing hadn't been trapped there too long.

The boat ride the next morning was a lot of fun too, first they took us out to a nice reef in the bay and we swam and snorkeled a little while, then they took us to the sand bar area. At low tide, the sand bar is exposed, we were there close to high tide, and the water was only up around my knees in a lot of places. Adam is sitting down in the picture above. And this is out in the middle of the bay.

We had an awesome deal at Paradise Bay, if you can get a good price I would definitely recommend it. I don't know that I'd want to pay their full price rates, I thought they were too high.

So yet another fun adventure on Oahu!

May Day Festival

2011-05-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

Adam's school had a big May Day festival. First they had a court of princes and princesses each representing one of the hawaiian islands. Then each class had a dance that they performed. The weather wasn't ideal, but the real rain held off until it was over. Adam's class dance was very cute. We made surfboards out of cardboard and they danced to 'Wipeout'

Scouts Makahiki Festival

2011-05-07T17:57:00.001-05:00

There is a big scouts fair in the spring here called the Makahiki festival. The various packs set up booths with games and there are also fun activities and hands on activities by other organizations and the branches of the military. Adam's scout pack was chosen to start out the festival by singing 'God Bless America'. The mayor gave opening remarks after the boys sang. Here is a picture of Adam with the mayor of the City and County of Honolulu, Peter Carlisle.

And here is a video of them singing...

The boys had such a good time there. It is an obvious recruiting opportunity for the military (start young!) and the boys loved it. They got to crawl in all the big military trucks and hold the big guns, even the rocket launchers!

At least I have a few years to wait before they want to run off and join one of the armed forces.

Here are some of the other fun things: fishing (Cole won a goldfish and then dumped it in the stream to join the other fish as we walked back to the car), obstacle courses, ride teh bull, and a zip line. Even Cole did the zip line, I was proud of him.

Adam on the zip line

Cole on the zip line

The scouting event was a lot of fun, I'm definitely glad we went!

Another monthly update

2011-05-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

This seems to have turned into a monthly blog update, that is about how often I get around to updating it lately! Well, this month might be another recap in photos. We had tons of fun again ranging from a scottish festival, Cole's 5th birthday, bike riding, scout camping, and a trip to MN. No wonder I never have time to blog lately! I think we need some leisurely time...

Ice Skating

2011-04-02T20:23:00.000-05:00

I've known about the Ice Palace here on the island for quite some time. Adam's school had a Family Fun night there a couple of weeks ago so we decided to go. I'm glad we did, it was a lot of fun! Adam really took to skating quickly. After a few minutes he was off on his own. Cole needed quite a bit more help, but he went from having his feet going every which direction to skating along holding on to us.

I'll definitely have to keep this activity in mind for a hot summer day.

Mini photo shoot

2011-04-02T20:19:00.000-05:00

I got the boys to sit still and let me take a couple of poses of them. I rarely get good pictures of them together, so this was a rare opportunity!

More March fun

2011-03-25T20:17:00.000-05:00

We kept busy the rest of the week Dan was visiting too. Here's a photo recap of all the sights we saw...

Hiked to Manoa Falls. Since it had been rainy, the falls were gorgeous

We spent a day being tourists down in Waikiki. This is on the property of the Royal Hawaiian, the most iconic hotel on Waikiki. (and one of the most expensive!)

The royal Hawaiian from down the beach

We also made a stop at the Punchbowl - National Cemetery of the Pacific

Panoramic views from observation deck at the punchbowl

We took a driving tour of the island and stopped by the chinaman's hat

Adam found a coconut at the beach. I shook it and it was full still so we brought it home to open up later.

Dan opening up the coconut we found at the beach

Dan rented a Harley motorcycle one day to enjoy riding in the beautiful weather.

We finished off the week with a trip to the beach. We couldn't let him visit Hawaii without spending some time at the beach!

Second beach stop that day - barbers point beach to see the lighthouse

Arizona Memorial

2011-03-21T01:56:00.000-05:00

Monday of Dan's visit, we spent the morning at the Pearl Harbor Arizona Memorial. I hadn't been down there since the new visitor's center opened in December. The new site is gorgeous, it is all opened up with wide ocean views. A huge improvement over the old center. We spent some time walking around the grounds while we waited for our tour start time. The tour of the memorial was somber as always.

When we finished that, we headed over to tour the battleship Missouri. I had never toured that vessel before, it is a pretty impressive ship. When you walk up to it, the thing is HUGE! It is one thing to see a picture, but another to stand right in front of it. I didn't care for our tour guide, but the ship was interesting. I've toured the submarine they have at the site before and if i were serving, I'd definitely rather be on the battleship than the sub. Much more spacious (not to mention fresh air)!

We had Cole with us for the day too and he even did pretty well through all the tours and info. He was especially impressed with the big guns on the battleship!

March visitor fun

2011-03-20T04:22:00.000-05:00

March didn't start out too well, I was sick for a full week and the kids were down with the same thing for a couple of days. Then my brother Dan came for a visit and we had a good time being tourists around the island. We don't usually take the time to be tourists, every time someone visits we end up seeing parts of the island we've never seen before.

We had a busy first day after he arrived, we did two hikes, made a stop at the Pali overlook, and then went down for a picnic dinner at the beach to see the sunset. I think everyone was well worn out by the end of the day.

Hiking Diamond Head

2nd hike - Makapu'u lighthouse - Adam is getting tired...

Pali Overlook - it was windy!

Sunset pic that Dan took

'THE' birthday present

2011-02-25T17:26:00.000-06:00

As a kid, there is always one present that you just HAVE to have. For Adam, it was the AT-AT walker toy from Star Wars. The boys live, eat, and breathe Star Wars. I told him it was too expensive since we were throwing a big party this year. But then I checked and it had gone on sale on Amazon (plus free shipping of course!). Then mom said she'd sent money for Adam's gift instead of trying to ship something. Plus, Adam had a non-stop campaign of how he was eventually going to afford to get one of these. He was trying to figure out what jobs he could do to buy one.

So between the good sale, my contribution, mom's contribution, plus the money I made Adam chip in out of his own money, he got an AT-AT walker. It is the size of a medium size dog, but at least it doesn't eat or poop. The boys love the thing and have their figurines in and out of it play acting out the movies with it. It is suprisingly well made, really sturdy - so I think it was a good buy in the end.

The big 0-7

2011-02-22T01:12:00.000-06:00

Adam turned 7 today, and we had a big party for him over the weekend. I had managed to put off having a big party until now, but early on he kept asking and asking so finally I gave in. So we invited a bunch of kids he knows from the neighborhood, MOMS Club, and school. We rented a bounce house and had pizza and cake. It was a good time! The kids all wore themselves out bouncing and playing on the playground. We had a game with silly string and a pinata too. Adam said it was the best party ever. I reminded him we weren't doing it again next year :)

Adam outside his bounce house

Bounce on kids!

Birthday cake and candles

Cole and one of his buddies

Adam's with the mask decoration off his cake.

After the party was over, we had a lot of fun family bounce time. It was a good time and a good workout!

The party was a great time and I'm glad all the planning is over!

Time Warp Ahead

2011-02-22T00:30:00.000-06:00

Not sure what happened to January and most of February. I seem to have pictures of us doing things, but it is all a blur. Here are a few random pics from Jan/Feb...

More bike riding, but our usual trail has been flooded lately due to all the rain so we've had to turn around earlier and do a shorter distance.

Here is Cole, our little Jedi in training. Note the three additional lightsabers clipped onto his shorts (which are about to fall off with all the weight!)

I took one evening to go downtown with a photography group and take pictures at sunset and then photograph the fireworks that the Hilton shoots off. It was good practice for evening photos.

Cub scouts has kept us busy, here is Adam at the fire station tour we did with the scouts

And Cole got a day out at the zoo with the MOMS club. He LOVED the goats. We spent at least a half hour with the goats and he wanted to go back and visit them again later on. I had seen enough goats by that time.

The big event this month was Adam's birthday party. I'll post pics of that next...

Christmas!

2010-12-29T18:00:00.003-06:00

We had a busy Christmas Eve, a quick visit to a friend's open house party, then Christmas Eve mass and then the boys each got to open a present on Christmas eve. They pretty much couldn't wait, of course. Dinah, they opened your presents first since they were the biggest, lol!

And they got to stay up a little late trying out the new toys. I had as much fun as they did putting things together.

Santa came and ate his cookies and drank his milk after the kids were in bed. He stuffed the stockings and left a couple more presents. The kids actually didn't get up until 6:30, which is late for them. I guess they were worn out from the night before. They were happily playing with the things in their stockings until Dan and I came downstairs to open gifts.

Adam with the cool book the boys got from sister Amy that reads 'The Night before Christmas' and even has their names in it. The look on their faces the first time they heard it say their names was priceless!

Dan with his new aloha shirt for work

It was total chaos when all the gifts were opened with wrapping paper and packaging everywhere. Then it was time for the Christmas cleanup!

Now Adam is still on Christmas break from school and at least the new Christmas gifts are keeping them busy. A few more days until school starts again.

And only a couple more days until the huge New Year's fireworks extravaganza in the neighborhood. This is the last year that arial fireworks will be legal in Hawaii, so I am guessing they are going to go all out this year!

December Misc

2010-12-29T02:52:00.000-06:00

A few pictures of what else we've been up to this month:

Adam's school had an advent program early in the month. They sang a Japanese version of 'Angels we have heard on high'. Adam is front and center in the picture.

The kids played outside and made Christmas decorations...

The cub scouts had their Christmas party and had a surprise visitor.... Santa!

We also made a gingerbread house and made stained glass tree ornaments...

We also went to see the Honolulu Light Festival for the first time since we've lived here. It was very pretty, and we went on an evening without much crowds so it was very nice.

I'll have to add a few Christmas day pictures and I'll be ready for the new year of blogging!

Day 4 on Kauai

2010-12-23T21:04:00.000-06:00

On the evening of Day 3 it was still pouring rain most of the night and I was starting to get discouraged listening to the rain all night long. It did stop before morning though and so we got headed out early, checked out of the hotel and went to do the Kiahuna Plantation train ride. It was still cloudy, but we went out on the train ride and had a good time. It toured a historic sugar cane plantation that was now being used to test different tree and fruit crops for future commercial use. Some of the land was also leased by farmers for growing local vegetables.

Half way through the ride, they had a pen of wild pigs that the kids could stop and feed. They thought that was great. The tour guide said there was a pig overpopulation problem on Kauai and they now have an open season all year for the pigs. There are no natural predators, so pretty much people are the only thing that reduce their population.

The rain held out just long enough. Just as the train was approaching the store where we started, it started to rain again.

Next we headed for the North Shore, our last destination for the trip. It rained all the way up and again, I was starting to wonder if it would ever stop raining. But before we got to the Kilauea Lighthouse, the rain quit. I had told Dan not to even bother to stop if it was pouring rain like it had been on the drive up. So we had quite a bit of luck today with the rain.

I even got to see some nene (Hawaiian goose) at the lighthouse, the only other place I had seen them was at the zoo.

As we drove towards Hanalei, again it was POURING rain. We drove down into Hanalei Valley, which is supposed to be a gorgeous drive through taro fields, but it was still raining. We didn't go all the way down the road since it was a small rural road in a valley and the water was coming up from all the rain. But here is a shot of the taro fields in the rain.

Again we got lucky and it stopped raining shortly after Hanalei. We got to stop at the Maniniholo dry cave which is a lava tube that you can walk into by the side of the road. The kids had fun exploring it. It was not very deep, but once you got past the area lit by the entrance, it was kind of creepy even with a flashlight (but it was a little bitty one without much light).

We drove out to the end of the road and then stopped at Limahuli Gardens. This was a great find, it was a beautiful garden! It had a 3/4 mile hike so it was perfect for the kids to do and bonus, it wasn't raining! I think I read that the terracing is from old rice paddies.

After touring this, I can see why Kauai is called the garden isle. By the time we finished this, it was time to head towards the airport. The sun had come out by the time we stopped back through Hanalei, so I got a chance to stop at the Hanalei Valley Overlook, which some say is the most beautiful spot in Hawaii. This overlook is looking down over the taro fields we drove by in the rain. It was a gorgeous view, so I was thankful that we got one last beautiful view before we had to leave.

So it wasn't a total washout, but I certainly would have preferred a lot more dry time!

Day 3 on Kauai

2010-12-23T20:29:00.000-06:00

And again the evening of Day 2 it rained and rained. This was a pretty wet day, it really outright rained quite a bit of the time. I had really wanted to visit Lydgate Beach Park, so we brought our beach stuff and headed out. We would get wet anyways, so might as well head to the beach. This beach park has a natural breakwater and a shallow lagoon that is great for kids to swim and snorkel. But, due to the storms, the surf was high and lots of driftwood and debris had been pushed into the lagoon. You had to wade out past the sticks and stuff to get out to more open water. The beach was covered with driftwood and sticks too. You can see all the debris on the beach in the pic below.

I went out and checked out the snorkeling and there were lots of fish out in the lagoon. So I brought Adam out and a half a bagel and we had tons of fish around us. Amazingly, Adam didn't freak out. Normally he is afraid of fish by him (again, I'm not sure who's kid this is). But he had a good time with the fish. All you had to do was bend over and put your face in the water and they were everywhere.

We took a drive up to 'Opaeka'a Falls and it stopped raining just long enough for me to get out and snap some pictures.

I had planned on going to visit Kamokila Hawaiian Village but their gate was closed. It is supposed to be a recreation Hawaiian village. Not sure if they are just closed on Mondays or if they were closed because of all the rain.

But here's a shot looking out over the Hawaiian Village down in the valley. (On the bottom right where the palm trees are growing)

Then we tried to drive up to the Keahua Arboretum, but we got most of the way up there and then there was a swift stream crossing the road and I didn't want to try to cross it. I figured if we went in, we might not be able to get back out the way it had been raining.

I had also wanted to do the Fern Grotto boat tour and hike, but with all the rain I decided to just call it a day. So this day was a bit of a bummer. :(

Day 2 on Kauai

2010-12-23T20:14:00.000-06:00

By the evening of Day 1 it started to rain. And rain. And rain. All night long it poured rain. At least by the morning things were lightening up a little to go explore the grounds at the hotel. We were at the Sheraton in Poipu, normally sunny Poipu...

So we walked around and checked out the grounds at the beach and by the pool. On our way back, we happened to walk by the valet lot and saw these cars stranded in the rising floodwaters. Oops! Apparently the guys got the rest of the cars out in time, but clearly these cars were a little damp inside... I imagine there was a lot of apologizing to those folks with cars in that lot. I'm sure they were probably all rentals, hope they got the optional insurance!

Since it was rainy anyways, we spent the morning at the pool and the beach at the Sheraton. It was a little chilly in the pool, so we'd go back and forth from the pool to the hot tub. There was hardly anyone else out, so we had the place to ourselves.

On the way back to the hotel after our swim, Cole and Dan found some fish that had been washed out of the pond and were now stranded on the lawn in a shrinking pool of water. So Cole started rescuing fish and putting them back in the pond. There was a heron who came later too who thought this was great, like an all you can eat buffet.

Later in the day we drove to Spouting Horn, a lava tube by the ocean that shoots water in the air. The surf was pretty high that day so it was really spouting quite high.

It was still raining on and off the entire day. We drove up to the windward side to the huge playground there and the kids played for a while. Thankfully the rain held off while they played.

And Cole found yet another friend (so far on this trip: chickens, fish, and now toads). I know who he takes after, since I was always picking up animals and dragging them home as a kid. I have no idea who's child Adam is because he would not dream of picking up a toad.

So all in all, a wet, but still fun day.

Day 1 on Kauai

2010-12-23T19:46:00.000-06:00

We just got back on Tuesday from our 4 day trip to Kauai, which I had really been looking forward to. BUT, the trip didn't go exactly as I had planned between clouds, rain, closed attractions and water covered roads. I still had a good time though, I imagine it would be even more fun in the sun!

We picked up our rental car and managed to get a Jeep Wrangler, sweet! Dan cashed in his frequent renter days and so we got to pick any car on the lot. It was fun to be in a Jeep again, made me miss my old Jeep...

We headed to Waimea Canyon from the airport, I knew I would like a chance to explore a little bit there and the weather forecast was predicting the rain moving in. So we headed up the mountain to get to the good viewpoints looking into the canyon. Of course, as we went up, up, up we headed straight into the clouds. Not good for viewing the canyon! Here was our view from the first lookout...

Here is what Waimea Canyon looks like on a clear day (a pic I Googled)

Bummer! But, the kids loved the chickens! Kauai is FULL of chickens. I'm sure there are more feral chickens than people on Kauai. Cole loved chasing them and Adam ran from them.

Why does Kauai have so many chickens? Some say it is from chicken farms being destroyed in Hurricane Iniki, others say it is just from the sugarcane workers in the early 1900s whose chickens escaped and multiplied. So who knows! But there are no mongoose on Kauai, so not much to control the population. I didn't see that many feral cats either (maybe all the chickens ganged up on them). The kids had fun with them though.

As we were driving around, Dan spotted a 4x4 only road, so we had to take it. We headed down a dirt path with the Jeep and found a short hiking trail that we followed. I'm glad we did because it gave us our only view of the canyon for the day.

So I got one good picture of the canyon on our trip!

For old times sake, I had to drive the Jeep back up the trail :)

We hiked some more that day and at least had no rain but the clouds would not let up.

More on the rest of the trip as I sort through the pictures.

Gettin ready for Christmas

2010-12-05T01:58:00.000-06:00

We had a great thanksgiving with friends and then the day after we did our traditional deck the halls to get ready for Christmas. No black Friday sales for me, I'd rather spend the day with a tree and some tinsel. With my little elves, we got the place decked out in no time.

One elf was a little unhappy he couldn't reach the tree top

And of course, we had to make some sugar cookies. Adam decided he was the 'master chef' cookie decorator. So our cookies were well adorned with candies.

A bunch of misc adventures

2010-11-22T01:45:00.000-06:00

Now that I look back through our Nov photos, I realize we've kept plenty busy!

Early in the month we went to a carnival with rides. It was really expensive (they all are I guess), but it was fun on the rides.

We also had a school family fun night at the bounce house. Adam enjoyed the boxing and jousting rings that they had there.

At the last cub scout meeting, Adam earned his bobcat badge (the one you get after you learn all the cub scout promises, pledges, salutes, etc.). It was a cute ceremony where they got their faces painted with each color respresenting different virtues.

And then we finally made it back to the beach this weekend and had a nice relaxing morning at the beach. I even got to swim with a sea turtle in the lagoon, the first time I've seen one at this beach.

Aloha! And I'll try to keep the blog a little more udpated!

Photo Class

2010-11-22T01:10:00.000-06:00

I've been taking an online photography class this month so I've been busy reading and looking at photos for class instead of blogging. It is a good class on using a DSLR. I've read most of the material before, but it is helpful having an instructor giving you the tips and hints as well as feedback on photos. The class I am taking is by Katrina Kennedy at Get It Scrapped called 'Your life through the lens'.

So here are some of the photos that I have posted for class. I'll post some updates of what we've been up to as a family too!

Photos of moving subject

Using a shallow depth of field (blurred background)

Photos with negative space (blank space)

Backlighting

We're halfway through the class and I've been able to move to using Manual mode on my DSLR quite a bit. So its been very useful in getting to know my camera better. Can't wait to see what is in the last 3 weeks of class...

My tropical harvest

2010-11-06T02:55:00.001-05:00

I cut the first bunch off our banana tree the other day and put it in a bag to ripen it. Here is our bounty. They are quite tasty too! The next batch is ripening in the background and I've got a few more on the tree waiting to be cut. Mmmm! Now if my papayas would get busy and grow....

Apple Banana

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-02T03:03:00.000-05:00

Scouts - Camp Pupukea

2010-11-02T03:00:00.000-05:00

The cub scouts had a big festival day on Saturday. The boys had a good time, just a few pics of the fun. Adam really enjoyed the 'eating a doughnut from a string' game :)

More Halloween Goodies

2010-10-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

A while back I had bought a set of window decal paints (http://www.amazon.com/Paint-Peel-Window-Art-Kit/dp/B0017KYP7Q). We've had a good time making some Halloween window decorations (and other things too). You paint an outline in black, let it dry and then fill in with the colored paints. When it dries, you peel and stick on the window. Pretty cool! I plan to make some Thanksgiving and Christmas decals too. I used a picture from a coloring book to make the witches hat.

Cole made a very colorful cupcake window decal.

I also decided to get a little crafty with the desserts that I made for the MOMS Club Halloween party. I made some nutter butter ghosts (Nutter Butter cookies dipped in almond bark - yum!) and some 'Wormy Burgers' (Nilla wafers, frosting, and gummy worms). The kids loved them at the party, of course. I also put together goodie bags for the little trick-or-treaters at the party.

I like Halloween, it is so much fun for the kids dressing up and they get so excited to go around and get candy. OK, so I'm not so crazy about the pounds of sugar we end up with afterwards, but overall it is a fun time. It's a good reason to get dressed up, have fun and eat some candy.

Here are a couple pics from the Halloween party that Cole went to. Adam gets to dress up for school on Friday instead of wear his school uniform. So he's going to be a fireman for school (I didn't think his Darth Vader costume would fit with their non-scary, friendly costume theme...). And we already had a fireman jacket and hat, so a fireman it is!

The kids are counting down to C-day (candy day)

Cub Scouts

2010-10-22T22:48:00.000-05:00

We went to Adam's first pack meeting since he was officially signed up in cub scouts. He has already earned his first award. He has been working so hard on his cub scout handbook memorizing all the things he is supposed to know.

So of course like a good mom I had to take pictures of him getting his first award.

Here he is with his new tiger cub immediate recognition award (the white plaquard on his shirt). So as he finishes more achievements he'll get beads to hang on this. He was very excited to get it. To bad I couldn't get a better picture! :)

I'm sure this will only be the first of many!

Pre-Halloween pics

2010-10-16T04:02:00.001-05:00

I enjoyed playing some more with the camera to see what kind of pics I could get of the kids while they were playing with the Halloween decorations that we were putting up this week.

I was pretty happy I was able to get some decent pics. They turned out pretty cute!

We went pumpkin picking this week too, the perfect photo op! I love fall in the mainland and I especially love fall photos - the colors are so gorgeous. But since we don't have fall colors here, pumpkins are the next best thing. Here are a couple cute shots of Cole out picking pumpkins. (Adam was not happy he had to be in school while Cole went to the pumpkin patch!)

He smiled so nicely for me when I asked him to sit with the pumpkins!

"Here's a good one mom!"

Photo fun

2010-10-14T02:37:00.002-05:00

Last month I finally got myself a DSLR camera, after more than a year of reading up on photography and just learning what I could. I kept trying to do the techniques that I was reading up on in photography but was bumping up against the limitations of my point-and-shoot (although it was a nice prosumer one with a lot of user control).
So I got a Canon T1i with the kit lens and also got a 50mm f1.4 lens. I tell you, I didn't realize what a difference a DSLR would make but it does! I LOVE the 50mm lens. I can get photos with that lens that I would never have been able to capture with my old camera. The kit lens is great too because the wide angle is wider than my old camera.
This photo of Cole looking into the telescope was taken at nearly dark, he was looking at the moon. I never would have gotten anything with my old camera. You can see him clear as day in this pic on the DSLR.

Also, I love the dreamy backgrounds (brokeh) that I can get with the 50mm lens.

I've been having a lot of fun just seeing what I can do with it.

Also, I LOVE shooting in RAW. It makes adjusting the photos in Lightroom so much better.

Did I mention that I LOVE this new camera?

Turtle Bay Staycation

2010-10-14T02:16:00.000-05:00

Last week, friends of ours were kind enough to get us the military discounted rate at the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore, which is even much better than the resident room rate. So we all went on a one-night mini vacation. I tell you, we packed a LOT into 24 hours of fun. Pool fun, beach fun, food fun, we had it all. Here's the photo recap.

Camping in Oct

2010-10-14T01:43:00.002-05:00

It's great that we've found a great group of families to go camping with here. We went camping at Ho'omaluhia botanical gardens again earlier this month. It was right at the start of our fall break week from school, so it was a good way to kick off the break.
The boys and I got to camp early Friday afternoon since Adam had a half-day that day. It was really overcast and looked like it could rain at any minute. So my goal was to get the tent up as soon as I got there. Good thing I did, because it started raining fairly hard as soon as the tent was up. Good timing! I put off unloading the rest of the stuff until the rain quit. By the time Dan got there after work, we had a nice dry setup all ready for the night. The rain rewarded us with some beautiful waterfalls off the nearby mountains, I'd never seen that before when we had camped there. It rained on and off all evening, but it was a good time anyways!

The kids, as usual, spent most of their time playing with the fire.

Of course, fire is even more fun as it gets darker outside...

And it's still fun first thing in the morning (I told you they spent a LOT of time with the campfire). I joked at camp that I should throw out all the TVs and put in a firepit in the backyard instead. The kids did not think it was funny.

I love early morning in camp. Here's a shot of Cole still trying to wake up for the day. Great thing about a tent, the camera is always within a short reach to grab a cute shot.

Mostly, THIS is my favorite reason I love mornings in camp. The morning light is beautiful on the mountains. It just makes you want to sit back, drink your coffee, and enjoy the view (which is exactly what I did).

Later in the morning, we took a walk along the drive into the campsite and the roadside was filled with ripe, red strawberry guava bushes. They were sooo tasty! The kids (and adults) were stuffed with guava by the time we made the short walk back to camp.

Cole and I took a walk down to the lake to see the ducks. We didn't have any bread to bring with, and Cole fed the few Cheerios we had to the koi fish along the way. When we got to the ducks, I told Cole to sit down quietly and maybe the ducks would come check him out to see if he had any food. So he sat and waited rather patiently, but the ducks were not fooled.

Farther down along the lake, some tourists gave us some of their bread so he could feed the ducks. He finally got brave enough to let a big, white duck eat out of his hand.

Here is a pic I snapped of me and Cole as we walked back to camp. We stopped to take a break since I had inadvertently taken the long way back. But Cole was a good trooper and walked almost all the way back (I carried him up the big hills).

So another successful camping trip under our belts!

Honolulu Century Ride 2010

2010-09-28T00:18:00.001-05:00

We did our third Honolulu Century ride last weekend, the first time for Cole to do this ride up on the big bike (the quad). He did the metric century this past summer, so we set out to do somewhere between 50 - 75 miles on this ride. We hadn't gotten a lot of training in this year, so we were just going to play it by ear to decide on the turnaround point.

The ride starts at 6:15am downtown at Kapiolani park and we usually like to start a little ahead of the mass start, since maneuvering a quad through hundreds of other bikes is a little tricky to say the least. So to beat the start time we headed out in the car at 4:45am. This is even a little early by my standards, but the kids were wide awake and ready to go. Breakfast was in the van - poptarts...

We got the bike put together, the kids all ready to go and set out a little before 6am. It was still fairly dark out, the sky was just beginning to lighten a little. We had been on the road for a few minutes already when I took the pic below, so it is a little brighter.

I think the best thing about this ride is heading up along the eastern coastline just as the sun is rising. The colors and scenery are just amazing at that time of day. It makes it all worthwhile.

The pics above are from the first rest stop along the ride. We got there about the time that rest stop opened, since we had headed out a little early. We didn't stay too long since everyone was still fresh, so we headed out after a short break.

The next rest stop was the 50 mile turnaround point, we had a nice long break there along with oranges, bananas, and cookies. That was also when the sky decided to have a nice little downpour, so I was glad we were at the stop instead of out on the road. We waited it out under the tents.

After the rain was done it was time to head out again. As usual we had a lot of people taking pictures (go figure, a 4 person bike seems to attract a lot of attention!). So I got one of the guys to take our pic with my camera too. I made the call to go ahead to the 75 mile turnaround, I felt pretty fresh and hadn't heard too much complaining from the kids so I figured we could make it.

The morning was really nice and overcast until we got to the 75mile turnaround. Perfect biking weather, but eventually the sun burned the clouds off and it started to get hot. Not too bad though, other years it heated up a lot more quickly. There was a playground at this stop, so we had a nice long break before the ride home. And of course, more bananas, oranges, and cookies.

The ride back is always fantastic views with the full sun making the waters just amazing colors of blue and green. Here is a shot as we are approaching Rabbit island. A little while after this the official photographer took our photo along the route, so hopefully he got a good one and I'll order a print. We don't have a shot of all 4 of us riding on the big bike. I hope he had his ultra wide angle lens on!

Adam on the back, I didn't hear any complaining from him the entire ride, except when he desperately needed to stop to pee.

We hit the last rest stop before the end and by this point me and the kids were getting a little sore in the butt. So I was really glad to see this rest stop...

This guy with the old 1950s Schwinn rode for 50 miles on this bike. It weighs as much as a tank and is a single speed, but he did it. Wow!

Here Adam was cooling down dumping water on himself.

They had energy gel at this stop, so I let Adam try some. He actually liked it and went back for more. I have to admit, the chocolate flavored one he got the second time was actually not that bad.

So after another leisurely break (and more oranges, bananas, and cookies) we headed out for the last leg of the trip. Just looking up and seeing the mountain we needed to ride around (Diamond Head), it seemed like a long ways back to the van but the final bit really didn't take too long. We headed through the finish line for another photo-op and then hopped off the bike and walked it back to the van. It was good to stretch the legs and rest the butt for the last few hundred yards.

Here was a pic of the tents set up around the finish line.

So our third Honolulu Century ride under our belts, 75 miles each time. Probably our last? Who knows where we will be next year this time. Probably riding our bike somewhere...

Another month gone

2010-09-27T23:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I've at least managed to get two blog posts up this month! September is almost at a close and the first quarter of school is done at the end of this week too. We've been plenty busy this month, here's some highlights of what we've been up to...

Early in the month I took Cole out to Ko'Olina and brought him out to the manmade breakwater to see the fish. He loves to snorkel so I put him on the board to make it easier to get him in and out there.

In Sept, Monsanto also had a safety fair for the employees and families. They brought in fire dept, police, EMS, helicopter for the kids to check out as well as food, bounce houses, games, and giveaways. It was a really fun time, the kids stayed nearly to the end, so I think we were there nearly 4 hours. Their favorite attraction by far was the helicopter, they got in and out several times sitting in all the various seats to check it out from every angle.

Adam lost his two top front teeth this month too, so now he is short 3 teeth total (he has one missing on the bottom too). His smile is pretty funny! He missed getting this grin in his school pics by just a couple weeks, they took those in early Sept so he won't have any toothless school pics (but I think those are kind of cute anyways!).

The last part of this month we've been getting ready for the Honolulu Century ride, the third time we've done this. The day before the ride we headed downtown for the packet pickup to get our ride numbers and all the ride info. Since we were already downtown, we went over to the Waikiki aquarium which I had not yet been to. I really enjoyed it! I've heard some people say it is small and overpriced, but I was glad we went. It was about the right size for the kids, by the time we had seen the entire thing they were ready to leave anyways. I thought their tank displays were really incredible, plus they had a couple of monk seals in their outside enclosure. So definitely worth a look-see if you're down there.

I love this pic - it looks like the fish are coming in to lunch on Adam!

The big event of the month was the Honolulu Century, I'll post another blog post with pics and the highlights...

Scrapbooking like crazy

2010-09-03T21:27:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm trying to make up for all the scrapbooking that I DIDN'T get done last year while I was MOMS club president :) I've gotten a ton more pages done this week. I'm finally closing in on the end of 2009. Whew!

Nearly done with Aug09

2010-08-27T21:11:00.002-05:00

Nother page done

2010-08-24T18:46:00.001-05:00

I'm determined to finish this 2009 album. I'm done through June now...

Sunrise

2010-08-21T02:01:00.000-05:00

On Sunday morning of our camping trip, Cole woke me up quite early - 'Mom, I have to go pee'. So I got up earlier than I had planned and brought him to the bathroom. I realized it must be close to sunrise so I grabbed my camera when we got back to the tent and headed for the beach. It was worth getting up early...

Camping at Bellows AFB

2010-08-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we had a great camping trip. Friends of ours sponsored us onto Bellows Air Force Base to their campground. The campground is across the street from the beach, so the first night there the kids went out hunting for little crabs at the beach. Cole caught one!

The campsites were nestled inbetween ironwood trees. They are tall, skinny trees with really long, fine needles. It was nice in there since it stayed reasonably shady and the tents didn't heat up as much.

Here is the gorgeous beach that was right across the road from the campsites. Isn't this beautiful! The sands on the windward side where we were are very fine so it is almost silky when you walk on it. We did see a few Portugese man-of-war jellyfish on the beach but nobody got stung all weekend.

We spent Saturday morning playing at the beach. The sand is great for digging and there were nice waves for bodyboarding. It was very shallow pretty far out so it was great for the kids too.

Here is Cole hanging with the girls from camp. There were about a dozen kids altogether in the group of people we camped with, so the kids were rarely at a loss for what to do with themselves.

The boys playing back at camp...

Bellows was great, nice campsites which were pretty quiet at night, hot showers (yay!), a minimart across the street (is it really camping when you can run across the street to get ice and beer?), and they also had a playground and mini golf just down the road too. So hopefully we'll get a chance to camp there again sometime!

More scrapbooking

2010-08-20T12:58:00.001-05:00

Getting a couple more pages done the past few days. Still working on 2009 photos

One more

2010-08-12T02:54:00.001-05:00

've finished scrapbooking through March 09. If I can keep at it at this rate I may actually finish 2009 and get a book printed!

I'm on a roll

2010-08-11T03:02:00.000-05:00

I've got a couple more pages done. Yay!

Scrapbooking again

2010-08-10T03:13:00.000-05:00

I've been trying very hard to go back and get a complete album done for 2009. I'm done with January and half done with February after 2 days. For most of the pages I'm just putting my favorites on in a 4x6 type fashion, and then I've set aside certain photos to scrapbook. I plan to bind it all together in a book at one of the printing sites and hopefully move on to another year to finish (I can dream big anyways...).

Here are the layouts I've finished the past couple days

School Days

2010-08-06T02:56:00.000-05:00

Aug 3 was Adam's first day of school. In the last week before school started, he had only one request - go to Chuck-E-Cheese. So we made a trip there and the kids plowed through a bunch of tokens and had a good old time.

I also happened one day to pick up a couple of Star Wars coloring books and I didn't know how much money's worth I'd get out of those! The boys adore anything to do with Star Wars right now, and they had some large size character faces to color in the books. So we've been copying them onto cardstock and the kids make masks out of them. We've got quite a collection already.

Then Adam had his first day of school this week - a first grader! This year he is going to Our Lady of Good Counsel catholic school. He looks so adorable in his school uniform. This should be a good but challenging year for him. I think they step things up quite a lot in first grade compared to Kindergarten. They also attend mass once a week there at the school, a friend of mine went to the school mass today and saw Adam there. She said he was trying to do the songs and motions that go with it (I think they try to make the mass a little kid friendly). Most of the kids went to school there before so they knew the routine, but she said he was trying his best. Week one of school is almost over and they started in on homework on day 2, so I think we're going to be spending a lot more time on homework this year.

Well more updates hopefully sooner than later this time!

July

2010-08-06T02:33:00.000-05:00

Wow, yet another month gone by. Of course there was no school in July so we spent a lot of time trying to stay busy with both kids home. We did some Christmas in July crafts (complete with Christmas music) since I had picked up a Shrinky Dinks kit dirt cheap on clearance. The kids really enjoyed that one. They wanted to put up the real Christmas tree, but I drew the line there.

I bought the kids a couple 'Dig a Dinosaur' kits with dinosaur bones embedded in plaster, and they're still working on that one. It is a fun activity, I think Cole and I have spent the most time at that one.

For MOMS Club, we headed to the firehouse. It was a great tour, they took us through EVERYTHING. That tour must have been over an hour long (with kids from infant to school age) and the kids had such a blast. Then to top it off the firemen handed out coupon books with a bunch of food coupons including free Happy Meals, so we had lunch included with our tour. Bonus!

The coupon books also had a coupon for the Dole Plantation Maze, so we headed up there to do the maze again. I had done it with the boys a few months back and I think we found 5 of the 8 stations hidden in the maze. This time we found all 8. I think it is easier the second time around :)

Waimea Valley

2010-07-09T02:06:00.000-05:00

Finally the blog marathon is almost over, I've almost caught up to the present day! Last weekend we went to Waimea Valley on the north shore. We had never been there before, it was a beautiful place. It is a huge botanical gardens which has a path to a waterfall at the back of the park. The waterfall has a pool at the bottom that you can swim in, they have a lifeguard and everything. The water was a little chilly, so my kids wouldn't go in past their knees or so. I figured they'd want to go swimming! Oh well.

It was a pretty nice place to visit. The kids got tired on the walk out since it was mostly uphill. But then when we got back to the entrance gate when we were done, Adam said 'How did we get back here so fast?'. So I guess he didn't mind the walk back so much.

Random stuff

2010-07-09T01:53:00.000-05:00

Just a few more random updates. I finally am NOT the MOMS Club president anymore, so I've had a bit more free time to do crafts (and blog!). I finally made Cole's fabric painting into a pillow - he had done this picture in a Families for R.E.A.L. preschool class back in winter, and it turned out cute.

We did a beach day last week and when we were at the Ko'Olina lagoons, we saw the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies! It was pretty cool. Someone said that Johnny Depp was not on the island yet for filming, so I guess no use in trying to swim out to the boat. I love coming across random filming while living in Hawaii. While we were at the beach I also tested out my new underwater camera. It worked great, I got a little Samsung and am very happy with it so far. I tried taking pics of the fireworks around the neighborhood with it too, the shots were interesting.

Adam started some 'Sea Monkeys' (aka brine shrimp) last week, he looks like such a little scientist carefully measuring out their food. I'm afraid the Sea Monkeys had a bit of an accident though, no survivors. Adam was reaching for something across the counter last night and knocked the container over. He was pretty upset about it, although the mourning was short, he was over it by this morning. :)

Dinos at the Mall

2010-07-09T01:23:00.000-05:00

We went to see the dinosaurs at the mall a few days after we got back from vacation. It was also the day after I went to the midnight showing of 'Eclipse', so I was a LITTLE tired but I figured I could handle following the kids around the mall so they could hunt down all the dinosaur exhibits. It was pretty fun, and better yet its FREE (unless you stand in line and shell out the $4 to ride the mini train around the dinosaur exhibit - no thanks!). Of course it did cost me lunch at the mall, but then again I was tired and didn't have to make lunch :)

Catching up

2010-07-09T00:40:00.001-05:00

Wow, I looked at the blog and realized I'm almost a month behind. I guess that's what happens when it's summer break and you go on vacation for a while.

We headed to MN for a nice vacation, it sure was a change in temperature from what we were used to. When we got to MN, first we drove through torrential rain to get to Silver Bay and then when we got up there it was 58 degrees and raining. A little bit of a change from 80 and sunny every day! It was actually nice to be cool for once though, I didn't mind getting a chance to wear my jeans, I almost never wear them here!

The boys had a good time at the playgrounds there, by the lake and doing a little walking on the trails. We were there to celebrate my parent's 60th wedding anniversary (a little early since it is actually in November), so we had a nice dinner with all my siblings while we were there and we took some family pictures.

On the way back we spent the night at my sister Kathy's and I also had a chance to catch up with an old friend from undergrad who I hadn't seen in about 15 years. It was a lot of fun to see him and meet his wife and family. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that undergrad was THAT long ago already. I'm getting old!

Well I'll have to sift through more pictures and see what else I've fallen behind on blogging.

Scrap Layout

2010-06-13T02:16:00.000-05:00

Pineapple paradise

2010-06-12T03:35:00.000-05:00

Shortly after we moved here, sometime around the fall of 2008, I planted a pineapple top cut from a pineapple we got at the store. It slowly grew out in the backyard and now FINALLY we have a ripe pineapple!

I was getting a little worried that this little guy would get ripe while we were visiting MN. I would hate to wait 18 months for a pineapple to grow and then miss out on it! Well yesterday we went ahead and picked our pineapple.

We cut it up after dinner tonight and it was really sweet and tasty. One of the best pineapples I've had, so I guess it was worth the wait. Now supposedly in another year it might produce another one, that's a long wait!

But our banana tree has decided to produce a bunch of bananas, so in a while we'll have some more tropical fruit. We have a dwarf apple banana tree that I put in last spring. Apple bananas grow all over here, I don't know if you can get them outside of Hawaii but they are very tasty.

Here is the flower pod that will produce the bananas. You can just barely see the baby bananas way up underneath the outer petals in the pic below.

Not sure how long it takes the bunch to grow, but I'll have to keep a close eye on it. Them I just need to wait for our papaya tree to get bigger and I'll have some fresh papayas too. Gotta love Hawaii!

Last day of Kindergarten page

2010-06-07T01:40:00.003-05:00

A day on the bike path

2010-06-05T02:46:00.002-05:00

Since we spend so much time on the bike path here on the weekends and also since we never know how long we'll be here or when Monsanto will tell us it's time to move on, I decided I should chronicle a typical day on the bike path so we remember what it looked like.

Here we're just starting out, looking out over the golf course across the street.

As we head down through the neighborhood, we go past Adam's old school...

Here's a shot of me and Adam taken from the bike along the way

Once we get down through the neighborhood and under the freeway, we head down to the Pearl Harbor bike path. The start of the bike path begins near a 'convenience dropoff center' i.e. a place to drop your trash that can't be picked up curbside. Then it runs along the back of some properties in Waipahu (a different part of Waipahu than where we live) where there is a small canal with fish and ducks in it. Many of the yards have chickens, roosters, and ducks living in them. You can see the canal in the pic below and the bridges from the yards over to the bike path.

Once we get past the residential section, the bike path runs right along Pearl Harbor. Here's a view of the Mid Loch, which I think is basically a ship graveyard. These ships don't look like they've seen any action in a long time from the amount of rust on them...

A shot of Adam on the bike.

Further along, we come to the taro patch,

And the watercress farm that are alongside the path.

More pretty views of Pearl Harbor looking towards Ford Island.

This is nearly at the end of the bike path, our turnaround point. You can see the Ford Island bridge towards the left in the picture.

And it seems that a ride wouldn't be complete without a stop to fix the bike. This time a jammed chain. But we were off again shortly.

Now I hope in a couple years or more we can look back at the bike path pics and say 'Hey, I remember that!'. Because who knows where life will take us next. It would be nice to know!

Scrapbook Fun

2010-06-04T23:27:00.001-05:00

I've finally had time to play with Adobe this week and finished a layout.

Misc May

2010-05-30T02:44:00.003-05:00

Just a recap of the rest of the month. Here are me and the boys on my birthday. They had a good time decorating the cake!

And the end of May was the end of school for Adam. Here he is with the pinata that he volunteered me to bring to class on the last day (without asking me first of course!). But he was so excited about it we went ahead and got a pinata for the party.
Waiting for the bus on the last day. This will be Adam's last bus ride since next year he'll be going to private school, so I'll be driving him.
Dan and Cole joined in the fun waiting for the bus and put on a show.

I went to Adam's end of school party, here was his class getting ready to put on their little program. There was a slideshow and then the kids sang through a bunch of the songs they had learned throughout the year.
Adam wanted me to take a picture of him and his teacher, but then when it came time to take it he was not happy about it (and I think the spots on his face must have been on my lens because I'm pretty sure they weren't on his face when I took the picture).

And lastly, just a picture of the boys having fun. Now I've caught up with May, I'm ready for a new month to start!

Camping, again!

2010-05-30T02:27:00.003-05:00

We headed out for another camping trip in May after the first one was such a big hit with the kids. This time we stayed for two nights AND we had a tent v2.0. (unlike v1.0 which was too small for all of us plus it got wet when it rained). So here's the new tent looking very happy in its beautiful campground location.

There were hoardes of kids to play with again and everyone had a good time. One of the more popular activities (when they weren't running around chasing, screaming, and just having fun) was to hang out in the hammock.
And of course they got to roast marshmallows and make s'mores
Here's the first morning in the tent. Notice how short Adam is compared to the new tent!
We had a little rain overnight (and we stayed dry!) and were rewarded with a gorgeous rainbow over camp.
Morning definitely is the most beautiful time of day there, it just makes the mountains look stunning.
Then on Sunday morning we packed up early and headed out of camp as soon as the gates opened. I had to drive back across the island, unpack the car, shower, repack the car and head over to run the MOMS Club banquet at lunch. It all worked out well though, and here's a picture of my great board from MOMS Club. I'll miss having board meetings with them (but I won't miss the board meeting part).

Still catching up, so more pics to come, as always.

2010-05-12T23:52:00.003-05:00

A little belated update on my Mother's Day. We had a nice day, Dan made breakfast and the kids were so excited for me to find my Mother's Day gifts: cards, flowers, a huge balloon and chocolates!

Here is the card Adam made for me at school. The day he brought it home, he rung the doorbell after he got off the bus and then he ran around to the back door and snuck in to hide it while I went to the front door. Pretty clever plan for a 6 year old.

I tried to get a Mother's Day picture before we headed off for church, but the kids were having none of it. This was as good as it got!
Here is a picture of me with the gigantic balloon that the kids picked out at the store...
Then we went out for a nice hike in Aiea. The weather was perfect for it.

Busy weekend coming up, we're heading out for another camping trip on Friday until Sunday, and then the MOMS Club year-end luncheon is Sunday at 1pm, so I'd better start on the packing list for camping and have all my stuff ready to go for the luncheon (since I'm running the show!). I'll breathe a sigh of relief after Sunday when the luncheon is done.

I'm sure I'll have some good pics from the weekend...

Mac Nut Farm Tour

2010-05-01T03:50:00.004-05:00

On Friday we headed over to the other side of the island to visit the Mac Nut Farm tour. I'd read the reviews on the place and they had great things to say about it. One of the ladies in MOMS Club organized a tour and so we went along. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive so we could start our tour, the kids had a good time cracking macadamia nuts with a rock. They were actually getting pretty good at it.
For our tour, we all piled on this old jalopy of a bus. Our tour guide had a great sense of humor and had us all laughing. They toured us around the grounds a bit to see the different types of trees and plants there.

Decorative banana - nonedible

Then the tour stopped for a while down by the shore of a man made fish pond. Later in the tour they said this fish pond had been built over 800 years ago. He did a demonstration of making fire (pretty similar to the polynesian cultural center one) and then he did a nice show with twirling a flaming torch that he had lit from the fire. Adam later tried to imitate this (minus the fire, of course!)
Then he showed us how to husk and open a coconut, gave the kids a taste of the juice inside, scraped out shavings (it was yummy!) and then made some coconut milk from the coconut shavings.
Here is Cole with his pile of coconut shavings that he then handed straight over to me...
The chickens were hanging close by after the bus arrived, then we figured out why. They were waiting for coconut handouts. The kids were more than willing to oblige.
At the end of the fire-making / coconut shaving demonstrations, they had braided headbands for everyone. Doesn't Adam look thrilled with his!?
The last thing on the tour before we headed back on the bus was to take a little boat out on the fish pond. It had some beautiful views of the mountains and countryside.
I would definitely take visitors back there again. It's a long drive though (OK, by Hawaii standards). It is nearly as far from the house as you can get (which means it was about a 35 minute drive).

We had a beautiful day at the waterpark yesterday, now today it's rain, rain and rain. I hope it clears up soon!

Haleiwa Metric Century

2010-05-01T03:07:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday we headed on up to Haleiwa on the North Shore to do the Haleiwa Metric Century Ride. We got there early to get the bike set up and get us all ready to ride. We started to draw quite a bit of attention right from the start. We headed out before the mass start, not wanting to deal with all the riders in close proximity to our big bike. It was a nice cool morning, in fact the boys were a little chilly but I thought it was perfect riding temperature.

We stopped at the first rest stop (we stopped at every rest stop to keep the kids happy...) had snacks and drinks and had more admirers of the bike. I got someone to snap this photo of us all on the bike.
Things were going well and the kids were entertained with all the new things to see since this is not a route we normally ride, so at each rest stop we decided to keep going instead of turning around to go back and finish. Here we are at the final turnaround point, the halfway mark of the ride in Swanzy Beach Park. Beautiful views of the mountains and the quad leaning against the fence below.
The ride didn't quite go so smoothly after that, we broke a spoke shortly after the turnaround point and had to stop for repairs, and cookies for the boys. We got going again after it was all fixed up and had a pretty smooth ride after that. I really didn't hear any complaints out of Adam and Cole until we got to around 53 miles (out of 58). So at that point I got out the stash of suckers that I had hidden away and that kept them preoccupied for the last 5 miles.

So this was Cole's first big ride and he did great. 58 miles in total (so it was actually a little shy of a true metric century, which would be 62 miles). Not quite up to Adam's longest ride - he did 75 miles in the century ride last Sept. So we'll have to see how many miles we can do this year in the Honolulu Century - I guess we'll shoot for 75 with Cole and see how it goes.

Here are a few more photos from the ride...

Cole with cookies from the rest stop

Adam and an orange from the rest stop

A pic from on the road - Cole in front of me and Dan in front of him

Camping

2010-04-04T23:18:00.004-05:00

We went on our first camping trip with the boys this past weekend. We went with some other families and had a great time. We only did a one-nighter since we wanted to be home to go to Easter service on Sunday, but it was a good test run for camping with the boys. I had a great time relaxing and the kids really had fun just running with all the other kids until they were exhausted. It was great for them to pretty much be able to run free with nobody checking on them.
The campsite itself was absolutely beautiful. We were at Ho'omaluhia Gardens, they have large grassy areas to camp on, reasonably close to the parking lot and decent bathrooms. We had a little rain the first night, and I think if we ever got some heavy rain we might be a little soggy in the morning. But we only got a little damp on this trip.
I still can't get over how pretty the whole gardens were and that we got to camp there. We'll definitely have to go back the next time the group heads out there or maybe we'll organize a few friends and head back over.
We had a nice Easter morning - early church and then the kids hunted for their baskets. The rest of the day has mostly been rainy so we've just hung out and relaxed.
Now it's back to reality, school and errands and all that fun stuff again tomorrow.

Here are some photos from the camping trip...

It really was this green!

The kids were playing Hot Potato

The older boys were working on starting a campfire

March Musings

2010-04-04T20:09:00.004-05:00

Well, as usual another month has passed since I've blogged. Time just slips by and its another month before I know it.

This month we finally tried the box-car races that are right by our house. Talk about fun! Those little cars go pretty fast down that first hill. You roll them up a little hill to start and then let them go and try to stay in your lane around all the corners. At first, Adam was afraid to drive his own car but then he got brave and he did great. Some of the other kids there were driving off into the grass but Adam was speeding around the corners and kept it right in his lane. I don't think I'll hand over the car keys quite yet though...

Dan and Cole (car on the left)

Adam posing on one of the boxcars

The starting hill (Adam-middle car, me and Cole, car on the right)

I think Adam beat us on that run...

Other stuff this month, we helped out to put on the MOMS club Easter Egg Hunt. Here are Adam and Cole helping to stuff eggs. We had about 450 stuffed eggs in the kitchen by the time we were done.

We also took our first rides on the quad this month. I don't have any pictures of us all on the bike yet, but here is Dan with the bike at one of our rest stops along our ride.

More pics to come since we just got back from a great camping trip. It was soooo beautiful there!

Menehune Chocolate Factory Tour

2010-03-06T18:35:00.005-06:00

For our 'Furlough Friday' activity through MOMS Club, we went to the Menehune chocolate factory for a tour. I had never heard of this place before someone set up the tour, but it was pretty great. The kids got a little talk about how chocolate is made and where macadamia nuts come from, etc. Then each kid got dressed up in an apron and hair cover and went to work making their own chocolate covered macademia nuts. Then, they had all the free samples you could eat. It was kind of like torture for me since I gave up chocolate for Lent, but they did have a few non-chocolate things I could sample! I would highly recommend the tour, it is worth it just for the samples! They put the kids' candies they made in the freezer and then before we left, each child got their candies back all boxed and shrink-wrapped. Pretty awesome!

Showing the 10lb chocolate bricks that they get in to make the candies with...
Getting ready to make their own box of candies...

A whole room full of kids in aprons and hair nets is pretty cute!
Chef Adam and Chef Cole
Now we're on to the sampling part. It turns out, if you let my kids eat as much chocolate as they want, eventually they stop eating it on their own before they get sick. I was actually surprised...
The rows of sample bins...
The finished masterpieces.
So if you happen to be on Oahu, take the tour!

Family visit fun

2010-03-06T01:41:00.003-06:00

My sister Connie and her husband Steve came to thaw out in February from frozen North Dakota. So we had a good time being tourists around the island for a few days. We only seem to make it out to do these things when people come to visit. We headed out to the west side of the island for a nice sunset.
At Dole plantation to see the pineapples...
Visited the beach on the North Shore.
Cole decided to make some snow angels (the poor deprived kids - they can't make snow angels)
And Adam caught a pretty good wave on the bodyboard
Adam had his birthday while they were visiting too. My baby is 6!
We took a hike up to Makapuu lighthouse to see the sights on the windward side of the island and do some whalewatching. I actually saw some whales this time, but they were far out and so hard to get a picture of.
So we'll have to see who we can get to come out and visit us next.

Likeke Falls hike

2010-03-05T11:37:00.003-06:00

We did a hike up to Likeke falls in February. We hadn't tried the trail before and it took a little hunting around before we found the trailhead. Once we were on the trail it was a nice, easy to navigate trail. The vegetation along the trail was beautiful, lots of wild ginger and heliconia. Here is us early on in the hike.
The trail was nice and even and not muddy at all. So it was a very pleasant hike. I think the falls were about 0.75 mi into the hike. We checked out the falls and then continued on the trail for a ways to see what was ahead. There were more gorgeous plants, plus some stands of bamboo if I remember correctly. We turned around so the kids wouldn't get too tired on the way back out. We probably hiked a little over 2 miles in total.
Here is a picture of the falls, not large but very pretty.
Adam enjoying himself on the hike.
Dan and Cole
Some of the ginger that grows wild all along the trail.
We'll have to try to check out some more new trails again sometime. Oahu has so many different trails I'm sure we could live here for a long time and not try them all. Just have to get the mileage up of what the kids are willing to do now.

Winter in Hawaii

2010-03-04T02:17:00.010-06:00

We've been enjoying winter here, Hawaii style. Cole and I were out trimming the palms in the yard and Cole started playing with one of the big fronds. I told him he looked like a peacock, so he started posing for me. Here is my little peacock...
With MOMS Club we went to Moanalua Gardens. It is a nice little park, very quiet and secluded and they also had a very nice koi pond. I think the group of us fed the fish at least 10lbs of koi food that a couple of the moms had brought. The fish actually stopped begging for food the kids fed them so much.
Also in Moanalua gardens is the 'Hitachi Tree'. This tree is the actual one used in the Hitachi ads (http://www.hitachi.com/hitachitree/en/). Apparently they pay royalties to the owner of the tree for use in the ads. Tour buses come full of tourists from Japan and they all get their pictures taken with it. It is a lovely tree, but I'm not sure what the big deal is all about.
Some days here can be a little chilly here (I can hear you laughing!). When I say chilly, I mean that you might not want to put on your swimsuit and stand in the breeze while you're wet. You're probably ok if you're not just coming out of the water :) It was warm enough this day to break out the slip n slide. Maybe the pictures can thaw you out just looking at them...
Adam's been taking tennis lessons for a couple of sessions now, but he still hasn't made it out of the beginner class. His coach said that his swing is now good enough but he has to get a little more focus. He's the one who is usually looking at the birds flying by rather than the coach. He is just not my little athlete. That's ok, I certainly was no athlete when i was a kid either - at least not in the 'organized sports' capacity. Cole will start the same beginner class next session, so we'll see how they do together. Maybe a little brotherly competition will give Adam some motivation to pay attention. :)
Well I have a bunch of good photos still to post, I'll try to get busy and post more. For now, I think I need to get some shut-eye. Night all!

Green Eggs and Ham

2010-02-22T01:44:00.002-06:00

For the past couple of weeks, Adam's class has been practicing doing 'Green Eggs and Ham' by Dr. Suess. On Friday, they had their big debut. It really was cute. Adam's line was 'I do not like them Sam I Am'. Since that comes up several times in the story, he gets to say it several times. He did a great job, all the kids did. There was an outside dramatic arts program that came in and worked with the kids. One of their big goals was to get the kids to step out of their comfort zone and get past their fear. So none of the kids looked scared or talked soft when they got up, so the people must have done a good job with them.

Like a good mom, I took a video:

Yes, MIA again

2010-02-15T00:58:00.005-06:00

I really, really don't know where time goes some months. Here it is, more than a month from my last post. Well I got a new computer, so that ate up some of my time getting things transferred and everything set up just the way I like it. I have no idea what I did for the 3 weeks before that. Let see...

I did a parent-child preschool class with Cole during winter quarter. He had a really good time being in a classroom with other kids. Part of the program was a field trip and we went to a watercress farm. It was really interesting. Watercress is a salad-type green that grows in (surprise, surprise) water. It has an interesting flavor, it kind of reminds me of radishes. It is tasty stuff, fairly popular around here. Anyways, on the tour we got to see how they grow and harvest the watercress and got a bunch at the end to take home.

Adam really wanted to go to the Children's Discovery center, so one Furlough Friday we headed down there. We spent four full hours there and I'm sure they would have stayed longer but the place was closing. Below are Adam and Cole doing winter - Hawaii style (sledding and ice fishing).

They had tons of dress-up, role play areas for the kids. Here is Adam passing judgement on Cole (I'm sure the verdict was guilty...)
And here are my two little news anchors
They had a ship that you could raise and lower the flags on, load and unload cargo with a working hoist, ring the bell, it was great fun for them.
Adam enjoyed the Japan theme area

We've been keeping plenty busy,I'll certainly try to update more soon!

What happened!?

2010-01-05T01:47:00.008-06:00

So I am SERIOUSLY delinquent on updating the blog. Life happens. And I don't always have time to blog about it!

Let's see, what has gone on since I last posted... Thanksgiving... we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with our friends in the neighborhood. It was a great meal and we didn't have to eat turkey for a week straight since we split up the leftovers.

December was the busy month. Barb and Steve came to visit. We had a good time being tourists with them. I think we showed them a good time around the island, and I'm sure we thawed them out a little from their Colorado winter. I have a ton of great pictures, here are some of them:

Pics from Barb & Steve's visit

Then about a week after their visit we left for a vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii. I had a really good time on that trip. We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa which had fabulous pools and an ocean fed lagoon where you could snorkel with turtles and fish. We took some road trips from the Hilton and spent a couple of days just enjoying the resort. The hotel was so huge that they had a tram and a boat to take from one end of the place to another. So the boys loved it (do you want to take the train or the boat back to the room??).

After a few days on the Kailua-Kona side of the island, we drove around the south end of the island over to the Hilo side. We saw the volcano national park, which was really impressive. I could have spent a few days hiking there if we didn't have a couple of small kids with us :) But we had a good time exploring what we could that was not too far from the road. We drove down to see the ocean entry point for the active lava flow. We hiked about 0.75 mi across a lava bed to the edge where we could see the lava entering the ocean (quite a distance away). As the sun set, you could see the orange glow of the lava. After the volcano we spent one night in Hilo and then flew out the next morning. We came back a couple of days before Christmas. Here are the photos from our Big Island vacation..

Big Island photos

For Christmas we were supposed to get together with friends again, but their son came down with strep throat and so we were on our own for Christmas dinner. I went out to try to find a chicken to roast for dinner but ended up with turkey. I picked a small one so we wouldn't have to eat turkey and turkey and turkey. We had a nice day at home.

We had a typical New Year's at our house. I went to bed early :) Then I got up to watch the neighborhood fireworks at midnight. It wasn't as bad as last year, it was breezy so the smoke didn't build up so much. I happened to find this video on YouTube of a New Year's video in Kunia (the neighborhood we live in) from this year. Skip to about 2:45 into the video to see what folks here do for New Year's....

Click here and skip ahead to 2:45min

You can see the 10ft strings of firecrackers they set off and the huge aerials that people light off. Remember these are all RESIDENTS lighting these off. And the aerials can be seen in every direction... People have money to burn, literally!!

Well Happy New Year everyone and I'll try to update the blog a little more frequently...

Ohana Fun Fair

2009-11-05T00:15:00.003-06:00

We went to the school's fundraiser fair tonight, the Ohana (family) fun fair. They had a big inflated slide and bounce houses along with some rides. There were a bunch of games that the kids could play too and win little prizes. The kids both had a good time. Cole surprised me though, there was one ride there that had a really long line. Adam didn't want to wait in the line but Cole decided that he wanted to ride that ride. He stood in line with me and waited patiently for probably a half an hour. He never complained once or even asked when it would be our turn. When we first got in the back of the line I even tried to talk him out of it, but he wanted to ride THAT RIDE. So I waited in that line with him the whole time. I had planned on riding with him, but the lady running the ride said most adults are pretty squashed in there, so I grabbed Adam and he got to ride with Cole. He had the biggest grin on his face the WHOLE time.

Halloween

2009-11-02T23:51:00.003-06:00

Here we are, getting ready for the big candy event of the year...
We met up with two other families and headed out around the neighborhood in search of sugar.
They were all so cute and they really had a good time going door to door and walking the neighborhood seeing all the other kids dressed up.
Now what do we do with all this candy? They each filled a gallon ziploc bag when we got home. I've found a few prize pieces in their bags (Andes orange chocolates, among others, Mmmm). It's all downhill from here calorie-wise. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. That's why we all make new year's resolutions!!

Dinosaurs and monsters

2009-10-31T01:45:00.002-05:00

Since Adam was off school (again!) we went to the Bishop museum to see the Dinosaurs exhibit. It was a lot like the exhibit that we saw back in St. Louis before we moved. There were lots of animatronic dinosaurs along with some smaller fossilized pieces. Adam thought it was great, but Cole was not quite so sure. Some of them he would check out and others he gave this suspicious look at or ran away. There were quite a lot of moving, roaring dinosaurs in one section, so he was a little freaked out.

Then today we went to the MOMS Club Halloween party, so I dressed up the little monsters for the party (ok, so they were a skeleton and a robot, and they didn't act too monstrous today). But Adam managed to find something to be mad about even on his way to the party, and thus the grumpy picture. Oh well.
Now on to the real candy-fest tomorrow - - Halloween! We're heading out to trick-or-treat the neighborhood with friends. It should be a good time.

It's almost Halloween!

2009-10-31T01:24:00.003-05:00

I got some things on clearance after halloween last year, so we spooked the place up a little bit for Halloween this year. MOMS Club took a trip to the pumpkin farm to get our pumpkins for the year too. And some cute pumpkin pictures!!
Mom's little pumpkin :)
Little strongman...
This pumpkin that he picked out just happened to be rotten inside when we went to carve it. Eeewww. Good thing we got two pumpkins.

Trip to MN

2009-10-29T02:51:00.005-05:00

My blogging is so far behind now it is pitiful. Taking over the MOMS club presidency has taken a lot of time and energy. I think I've got a handle on things but it still just takes a chunk of time each week.

So I'm finally blogging about the trip we took in early October. Well, at least october isn't over yet before I post. The weather was nice when we first got there but then they were predicting a freeze, so grandpa, grandma and the boys went up to pick all the tomatoes off the plants. Since it was such a cool summer there were still tons of green tomatoes there.
I took the boys on a little hike up the hill behind the house and they had a really good time just walking through the woods and exploring. Something they don't get much of a chance to do anywhere else.

We went out on the Friday we were there to see Split Rock Lighthouse. The boys had never seen it and it had been years since I had been there. And the weather was absolutely beautiful that day. Here's a view of Lake Superior, it certainly is gorgeous scenery (and this comes from someone living in Hawaii!).

The next day was Katie and Josh's wedding. It was a very nice ceremony and they had the old union hall all decked out for the reception. It looked great! It was FREEZING this day and really windy though!
Dan and I at the reception
Mom & Dad at Katie's reception
All the siblings together...
It was nice to have everyone together to catch up and see what's new. Here is Cole below with cousin Laura.We had a nice relaxing visit, but since it was so cold at the end of our visit, it was nice to come back home to warm up!

Now we'll see if I can make some progress catching up on some more blogging!

Honolulu Century Ride 2009

2009-10-20T02:57:00.011-05:00

A little late, but here's the ride report for the Honolulu Century Ride we did at the end of September. It was an early start, I think we left the house at 4:30 or some very early hour like that to drive downtown. We met up with the Hawaii On Tandems group and we headed out at 5:50am, a little before the mass start. It was still dark heading out:
We had a little rain early on in the ride, but we didn't get too wet. It cleared up quickly to a rather nice day. It was kind of crazy windy early on in the day, we were riding into it for portions of the ride out. Somehow I don't remember having a tailwind on the way back though...
The scenery was spectacular as always. Looking out over Manana island in the morning sun:
Everyone got to the first rest stop at Sandy beach in good spirits. We had a few snacks and generated a lot of interest on the triple. A couple from India stopped us to take our picture there, his wife stood by us and grabbed onto my arm like we were old buddies.

We hit every rest stop along the way to make sure everyone was happy. They had oranges, pretzels, sports drink and bananas at pretty much all the stops. The kids filled up on LOTS of oranges. More comments and pictures at the second rest stop. At least we got someone to take our picture with my camera:

Here we are at the rest stop that is the 75 mile turnaround. Everyone still in good spirits and there really has been no whining up to this point.
We found a nice little playground park tucked in amidst some condos. The kids really had a good time on the equipment they had here since it was different from the rest of the playgrounds around.

We did 75 miles and the kids did absolutely great. Nobody complained and I didn't even break out the bribery snacks (suckers and fruit snacks) until literally the last few miles of the ride. Adam chatted away the entire ride and sang the entire repertoire of songs he has learned in Kindergarten (over and over). We met the goal I was shooting for and so I was very happy with the ride. I was a little disappointed in the pictures that the ride photographer took, but he got great shots of us last year.
Now maybe soon I'll catch up on some more blogging!

Where has the time gone?

2009-09-20T02:41:00.013-05:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted again. I just don't know where all my time goes sometimes. We've been pretty much into the school routine during the week and biking on the weekends trying to be ready for the Honolulu Century ride next weekend.

Here's a few random pictures I've taken during the month. The one on the right is the new building Dan has been putting up, he took us out to the farm to see the changes last weekend.This weekend we did a morning ride and then after lunch and shower we headed out to the airshow at Hickam Air Force Base. The traffic heading into base was pretty heavy and they parked us in a HUGE lot (it was actually an airfield just outside the hangar area). We took a shuttle over to the show and I think Cole thought that was the best part (we walked back to the truck at the end instead of taking the shuttle and when I asked him how he liked the show he said 'I wanted to ride the bus again').

Cole on the bus

We made it there and looked around at a couple of planes before the Thunderbirds show started. A lot of the planes were open to go inside and look at.

The Thunderbirds took off a short time later and I really enjoyed the show. Adam lost interest after a while and Cole was a little tired. But at least at the start they seemed to enjoy it even though some of the passes the planes made were very loud.
The cargo planes they had open to visitors were enormous, they made the airliner planes there look really small.

I liked this hangar on the way out- so this is what you do when the plane won't fit...
Cole was 'helping' me tonight when he was supposed to be in bed so I took his picture in his new jammies. He's got new pajamas and guess what he's going to be for Halloween. Double duty jams.

It's been a long day so I will be off to bed now.

More scrapbooking gettin done tonight

2009-09-09T02:28:00.001-05:00