Mid-January 2020
Kids did drawings for their cousin’s birthday…I told them she liked cows…How are “cowacorns” not a thing lol?
Zo is doing so great in gymnastics, so proud of her…
Both Luke and Zo are learning to skateboard! Zo got a skateboard first and Luke tried it out and decided he wanted one too. There’s a great skate park in our town. It’s harder to learn than they thought, but they are persevering…
Some fun beach days this week, and a private preview yesterday of the F&B mid-day party’s water bounce house (thanks Johnathan!)
It’s Sunday morning and I’m about to go surf with Jerica, Jeff’s making brunch (and I’ve got snacks covered for later) and we’re all watching football…should be a fun day…
XO
Early January, 2020
Zo spent her allowance on a skateboard and is having the best time with it! So cute. She let Luke ride it as well and he wants to get his own. I’m totally in support of anything athletic.
And, kids are still milking me from the Great Fresno Pepper Incident for trips for ice cream…actually I think ice cream is going to be our new Friday after school thing…
And we had a great whole day of football and Jeff cooking (a take on huevos rancheros) after a friend and I surfed yesterday, so fun (and delicious). Really trying to make sure I get enough rest.
The last 2 pics in this series are kids out the door for school this morning.
So good week last week as always, feels good to be back to school although I do miss having the kiddos around all day…
Happy Monday!
XO
Goodbye 2019! Hello 2020!
Great week this week with the kids off school and very little work for me. Some highlights:
Super fun beach playdate (and picnic)
We made a cake for New Years that was sooo ugly…until I turned it into a “monster cake” (lol) (it did taste delicious regardless of looks)
Kids deciding on the order of the fireworks…we did them in the street with the neighbors…fireworks are a big thing here for New Year’s Eve…
Beach on New Year’s Day with Zo doing great snorkeling (and Jeff watched the kids later in the day and I got a nice surf session in)
A day on the other side that was meant to be the aquarium, but my discount card was expired so instead we did the sugar museum (cool), the Kahului bird sanctuary (not so cool, pretty industrial actually although good those wetlands have been set aside for the birds…) and Heritage Park in Wailuku (also very cool, want to go back). Kids were also working on their homework intermittently, like in the gas line at Costco…
Jui Jitsu competition class
Star Wars, yay!
And the grocery store was just decimated by tourists lol…
I also got a couple new swimsuits (yay!) and had such a fun night out with a friend of mine
And Jeff got me a ukulele for Christmas and the kids and I have had a great time strumming on it…the sound is so Hawaii isn’t it?
Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day of break and looking forward to spending it with the kids…we’ve also got Jui Jitsu and gymnastics starting up again so won’t be quite as leisurely as we’ve been having…the break has been so wonderful…and I’m also excited to get going on 2020!
Happy Sunday!
XO
Christmas week
What a nice week we’ve had! Some highlights:
Ice cream early in the week (I fed the kids hot fresno pepper slices by mistake last week, they are milking it for trips to the ice cream shop lol)
Mumpho Elphie made it to the beach! (And Zo is going to miss him so much.) We made s’mores cookies and put them and 9 carrot sticks out for Santa and his reindeer. Luke said he knows there is a Santa because Santa left part of a cookie behind and his mama and daddy would never do that :)
Christmas was awesome with stockings and snowman pancakes and a glamper for Zo and slime and legos and Cataan Jr. which we are having so much fun with! And lots of other sweet gifts as well, I think everyone felt very loved…and also dinner with friends outside even though it was crazy breezy…we had a wonderful day…
Some great beach time, although still no whales…although there was some awesome life-sized whale graffiti that went up by yoga today…will try to get a picture of it ASAP assuming it stays…the police were there when I was…
A great lunch at Aloha where kids made their own Spam musabi and the requisite chicken was by the Christmas tree…
And overall we have just slept and read and played with toys and played games and watched movies…Jeff had a few days off and it’s been so great and restful and relaxing…
Happy Sunday!
XO
Mid-December 2019
It’s been a fun week or so around here and not too stressful, we’re trying to keep holiday stuff reasonable so we don’t all get exhausted and burnt out. Kids would love us to go crazy with decorations and activities but we do better keeping it moderate. They sure love their elf “Mumpho Elphie.”
Some highlights:
We made cookies for the firemen and they gave us a great tour!
Luke has been promoted to the 8-12-year-old class in Jui Jitsu and is already doing great. Love how committed he is and how much natural talent he has
I read somewhere that it is a measure of your OCD (which I definitely have a touch of) how hands off you can be with gingerbread house decorating and I took that as a challenge and let the kids do their own gingerbread house 100%. They had a blast (it got hit with a blizzard at the end according to Luke lol). Next year I’d love to make our own gingerbread houses and each have our own… #holidaygoals
Love having Kona and his brother as our neighbors…they are awesome boys…
The last pic is my garden on the solstice…it’s mostly in the shade right now so in a fairly dormant period but still not bad for December 21…
Happy Sunday!
XO
Gymnastics recital
Zo did her first gymnastics recital Sunday and did so great! So proud of her! She also got the most improved MVP medal for her class!
Happy Tuesday!
XO
Early-ish December 2019
Lots of great stuff this past week, including breakfast with Santa (the kids still believe in Santa but don’t think this was the real one); Luke’s belt promotion in Jui Jitsu…he went from white belt to gray-and-white which is a big deal, so proud of him; the beach (where we saw some whales cruising in—we think—); the play Matilda over in Wailuku; and the kids’ Christmas program at school, they were part of a play called “Star Search” and the whole program was wonderful.
Everyone in the house has also been sick to varying degrees this past week but we’re all on the mend…we went out and saw Frozen II this morning as a keiki Christmas party for Jeff’s work (great movie), but other than that laying low today.
Happy Saturday!
XO
Sick day
Zo: “I don’t like it when you make pictures of me black and white. It makes me look like an old woman from the 1980s!”
Kids making a working zipline (more like a gondola actually) for their elf-on-a-shelf Mumpho Elphie (hoping he’ll hop in the basket when he comes back tomorrow), and they also make a lower lodge and upper lodge for zipline riders…
A guy working next door fixed our shower for just the price of parts…so nice…need to find something nice to do for him…
He also brought a big box of books his kids have outgrown that thrilled my kids…
Kids are both home with fevers today, although both are feeling pretty good overall…I wasn’t feeling 100% either and this afternoon we made mug cakes and mugs of sparkling cider and watched The Nutcracker and the 4 Realms…so fun…it rained today too so it felt kind of winter-y…
Zo wanting to go to school even with a fever so she didn’t ruin her perfect-attendance-since-preschool record…but we couldn’t send her with a fever and a cough…
Happy Weekend!
XO
Grammy and Papa's Visit, Part 2
What a great 2 weeks + we’ve had with my parents, with school and library visits and gymnastics and jui jitsu, a lovely Hawaiian-themed Thanksgiving, beach sunset, Zoey learning to ride her bike (!!!), making a Christmas chain with Grammy, a heavenly trip to Hana and back the back way, a 4WD adventure to Jaws, walks and rainbows, War and chess and checkers, lots of talks, cards for the dishes for the grownups, a visit by Grammy and Papa to school (Grammy read a book, Papa shared some dried fruit and stories about where it came from)…we made so many good memories. So grateful to have my parents visit, miss them so…
XO