December 19, 2013

Awesome sauce, the girls and I slept till 8:00.  I feel amazing!  Cocoa slept till 9:00.... And then puked at 10:00.  THEN he sneezed in the bath and blew bloody boogers all over his face.  THEN he gifted me with a dirty diaper.  He is absolutely bouncing off the walls, and seems to have been saving up for this spectacular day.  Seriously love my steam mop on days like this!

Anyway.....this all turned our day of errands into a quiet day at home.  I cleaned and read, did lots of laundry, the kids played, Cocoa napped 2:00-6:30, I made fruitcake and wrapped more presents that arrived in the mail today, and after dinner we watched the Pacific Northwest Bellet's "Nutcracker" on Netflix.

Mimi tells me what she wants for Christmas

Mimi tells me what she wants for snack

Puts the "fruit" in fruitcake!

December 18, 2013

"I push a button!"

He is about to "fix me."  He says I'm sick, I can see that these two guitars are the answer.

Now he's fixing my hair with a glue gun.

 

I was ghastly tired today- I spent most of the morning on the couch, got my second wind and made some lunch, then took a nap.  The girls and I made Christmas presents in the afternoon, I got a smashing head ache, and went back to bed after dinner.  Fun times, I know :). Life of the party!

December 17, 2013

The tree service came today to take care of some things- we had three rotten maple trees chopped down and some fir and cedars thinned out.  The kids loved watching the chipper!  He is watching the truck out the window, I caught him in his room.

Cocoa has claimed our glue gun as his own- he sneaks behind my desk chair and quietly plays.

Ernie and Cocoa ran out to play with the wood when we got home this afternoon.

Cocoa set up a drum kit on the coffee table.  Right after this we moved the lot to the floor, to protect the nativities.  Right after that, he broke a chopstick hitting the drums.  Wow.

The kids did great while J and I were gone on our trip, much better than I expected.  Monday was rough- the kids were nuts and I wore ear plugs all morning.  I joked on Facebook that I want an earmuff-style head set for Christmas, but I wasn't kidding. All three kids were practicing piano at the same time.

Hawaii Day Five

We are thoroughly tired and used up.  We slept in till 8:00 and grabbed breakfast at the buffet (fruit, miso soup, fried rice, and some cheese and smoked salmon with lemonade.  Holy moly fresh lemonade is good stuff!  Are we noticing that I am eating increasingly larger meals as the week goes by?  Umm... It's good. It's good.  Of course, it's all mostly fruit, fish, and rice.)

Today we decided to be tourist bums.  We drove to Kona today- we stopped there on the way out from the airport the day we arrived  but never saw the town proper.  It's hot and dry and touristy!  Pretty amazing the difference all around the island.  Kona is where cruise ships come in- neat to see a thriving artisan community tucked amid the plastic leis and plumeria necklaces.  (I say that knowing that we filled our suitcase at the tourist shops finding trinkets for the kids at home.  Ha!)

Farmers market finds-

We found the Kona temple today too.  It is amazing how different the temple grounds feel.  Without being over the top, they feel better-dressed than the nicest resort.  Without gates, they feel secluded.    Nice reminder for me.  God does it best.

I loved the orchids and pointsettia by the front doors!

We found a local place for lunch- we both had poke (poh-kee) bowls for lunch.  I had "da hottie" poke (chunks of fresh ahi mixed with a creamy and SPICY dressing), two scoops of rice with furikake (seasoned seaweed flakes with sesame seeds) on top, and a scoop of salad made with fresh fern shoots and seasoned with soy sauce and sesame.  The salad was awesome- I have been studying about harvesting fiddlehead fern shoots in the spring and I will definitely give it a shot next year!  They were crispy like green beans.

There was one other thing in town I wanted to try before leaving, so we walked down the main drag to find a little place above a snorkel shack that sold acai bowls- I had heard of them but never tried them, and this place got rave reviews.  Turns out an acai bowl is a smoothie prepared so thick it needs to be served in a bowl with a spoon.  The blend was acai berries with strawberries and bananas, and ours was topped with granola, papaya, strawberries, dried goji, and bee pollen.  Yum!  Smoothies are hit and miss with my kids, but my "blender ice creams" are always a favorite and they are the same consistency as the bowl today. Could be a good experiment!

We made our way back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon, about an hour, reading magazines (him) and blogging (me-hi!) on the beach.  We are there now, watching kids race back and forth on the shore as the sun is setting.  

The conch shell is blowing!  The tiki lighting ceremony is starting :)

A man just ran into the water to swim and startled a whole school of fish into leaping out of the water.

I am noticing that the longer we are here, the fluffier our hair gets!

We had a small dinner at the outdoor restaurant- split a dim sum platter and a piece of coconut tres leche cake.  Did I mention the floor is sand?  This is the restaurant to come to if you're in your swimsuit, it's next to the pool.  Toddlers are a riot to watch there- they ALL climb down from their seats and play adorably in the sand, and then throw it.  I love kids haha.  They're more fun to watch in public than supervise in public, though!

In the evenings there is live music on the lounge behind the lobby- we are listening to the mellowest guitarist I have ever heard.  He just sang Here Comes the Sun and just about put me to sleep!  Fun stuff, he puts a bit of local spin on the tunes.

We will go and pack our bags, get some good sleep, and be ready to go home tomorrow.  

Hawaii Day Four

Early, early day!  Neither of us could sleep last night (weird) but we rolled out of bed a little after 5:00 to get ready to go.  We were driving out of the parking lot at 5:45, with a big day bag stuffed with coats, snacks, water, sunscreen, hiking gear, and maps.  

We headed across the island again, back to Hilo, to catch an 8:00 helicopter flight.  Oh my lands, stars, whistles, and everything else.  Incredible!  We signed up for a "doors off" helicopter ride- we left those suckers at the airport!  So, so glad that my assigned seat was between J and the pilot.  It was squishy, but I wasn't hanging out!  I was the only person not next to an open hole- works for me :). I loved the take off and landing- much nicer than an airplane.  The turns were nuts, though.  We flew over macadamia orchards, towns, and finally Kilaeua.  We saw lava- check it off the bucket list!  It wasn't what I expected- I thought we would fly over the crater, peer inside, and see a bit of a glow from a crack somewhere.  We saw lava flows, mostly black and cooled but burning the fringes of a forest where it touched and was molten.  Maybe four spots?  The pictures are on the other camera.  The pilot showed us where there used to be a subdivision, but it's now covered in lava.  There are still people living there!  Guess they just rebuild if it burns down?  The lava is slow, you have weeks of notice to get out.  Just incredible- we couldn't stop grinning when we got off!

From the airport we drove to Rainbow Falls, just outside Hilo.  Beautiful spot!  We walked down a bit to see some banyan trees- J adores banyan trees.  He really, really likes wood.  A lot.  He clambered all over the rocks at the top of the waterfall- I stayed on the shore and shook my head and took pictures.  I am not as much of a clamberer as he is :)

We poked around a bit in Hilo and got a late breakfast/early lunch.  I had a plate lunch with tempura vegetables and tuna, a garlicky yellow rice, and a great mixed salad.  J had Katsu chicken plate lunch with the same rice and salad.  Afterwards we found shave ice- I have been looking forward to shave ice for a very long time! Mine had all kinds of mochi, gelatins, evaporated milk, purple yams, and a nice scoop of purple yam ice cream on top.  Yum!

After lunch we took off north to round the tip up there and stop along the way if anything looked interesting.  North Hawaii is incredible and just what I thought the island would look like- lush, a bit old, lots of little bridge and waterfalls.  We saw a botanical garden and stopped in- tickets were more than we wanted to pay but we picked up a field guide for the island and checked out the neat artifacts on display.

Lolo, this is an alabaster Buddha from China.

Cocoa, these are Japanese...zombies??  I don't know, but they are ivory.

Next we found Waialoa Valley- this is the view from the lookout.  There is a way down there, and it's 1,000 feet in 3/4 of a mile.  Unless you were a 4wd vehicle driven by a better-than-average driver, it's no vehicles allowed!  There are still people living in the valley, farming rice and taro, but the beach is open to the public via this old county road with an average 25% grade.  Walking is totally allowed though.

It was really really hard to do!  Really really hard.

I may have tried to make it go faster by taking 3-foot-lunges up the hill, speed walking till I cried.  J reassured me that I would make it, even if he had to push me up the hill.

From there we booked it to the King Kamehameha statue and then kept driving.  We were so hungry and nothing was open!  Hawaii seems to shut down at 5:00.  The sun goes down at 5:30 and by 6:00 it's pitch black.  We found an open sign in the window of a really sketchy looking place in Kohala- I was pretty sure it was going to be a stinky bar, even though their sign promised burgers and tacos.  Surprisingly instead of Buds and sports tv inside we found clean booths, thank you notes from kids on the walls next to first place awards from the local chili cook-off and a happy man back in the kitchen hollering that the catch of the day was Ono and the avocado burger was great.  J had the avocado burger with onion rings, I had the ono fish tacos with fries, we shared a pineapple shake.  Man it was good!  Fish is the thing here- it was perfect.  Nice and firm, great clean flavor.

Home for swimming, hot tub, showers, and lights out.  We are exhausted, haha. What a great day, I still can't believe what we've been able to do this week.  It is so far outside of anything I had ever considered I would be able to do!  Snorkeling, turtles, lava, helicopter, petroglyphs, amazing food... Just wow.  So grateful for this week.

Hawaii Day Three

Well, rising early wasn't an issue today!  After yesterday's exertions we didn't roll over until 8:00.  Slipped into our resort clothes, and went for breakfast.  

Koi pond, while waiting for our table

rentals.

Birds waiting for someone to walk away.  Just waiting...for breakfast :)

Omelette, soup, fruit, and a little scoop of muesli for me.  Omelette, fruit, and four little donuts for J.  Man doesn't mess around!  We explored the resort a bit- I looked for a beach hat but looked ridiculous in all of them.  I later complained to J that next to all the glamorous women here I feel like a fake in a place like this.  He retorted "You're not fake, they are!  YOU are real!"  Love that man.

We explored some corners we'd never been in before, and checked at the beach shack about equipment 

Found a lily pond

 

Looking towards the water from outside our room.

Beach at the resort, with schools of little snorkelers

Pretty sure these are parakeets eating bugs in the grass.  Hawaii is crazy.

Flowers on the grounds

Hibiscus 

After breakfast we came back to the room to book a helicopter flight and check on zip lines in the area.  

The beach sounded like a REALLY good idea today, we spent all afternoon there!  We both snorkeled for the first time- incredible!  There is a coral reef between our cove and the ocean.  It was scary to breathe at first , but I saw red, blue, yellow, white, and black fish.  I saw two eel- y things , a puffer fish, lots of sea urchins, and a whole school of white fish.  We saw big turtles too- amazing :). We sat on the beach long enough to dry and warm up and rented a kayak.  Very fun, and saw more turtles swimming.  Watching them float there just like the snorkelers and pop their heads up, open mouthed, to catch air was really funny :)

We didn't take a camera with us , but I would like to state how unfair it is that J gets the long legs, the long eye lashes , and now beach waves.  My hair just got bigger, phooey.  What a rip off, beach waves are supposed to be THE THING.  Ha!

Neither of us burned today, but we used up half a bottle of sunscreen to make that feat happen :)

(This is his smolder)

After showers, we put our hiking shoes and left the resort on foot to find a petroglyph trail just north up the coast.  Very cool :). We got back to the resort with just enough time to plop into chairs on the lounge and see the nightly tiki torch lighting ceremony.  A fellow in a green skirt and a shell necklace blew a conch shell and jogged around the grounds lighting the tiki torches.  If there were kids nearby he was a good sport about letting them help :)

We watched the sun set and then got dinner at one of the open air restaurants. Just across the path we found a group of turtles sleeping on the beach.  

Another amazing day- snorkeling, turtles, kayaking, hiking, petroglyphs, tiki torches, and open air dinner!   We need to leave at 6:00 am tomorrow, so early bedtime tonight :)