My Little Jedi

My daughter tried to pull a Jedi mind trick on me today.

I was asking O what she wanted for lunch today. Here is how it went:

O: "Macaroni and Cheese and chips."
Mommy: "We don't have anymore chips."
O: looking in the refrigerator, "Mommy, what is this again?"
Mommy: "Cottage Cheese."
O: "Mommy, I will have Macaroni and Cheese, Cottage Cheese, and a banana. Then after lunch I will have a chocolate. mmmmhmmm"

O said this all so matter of fact, with no question in her voice what so ever. I did see her little devilish grin. C and I thought it was so funny.

Major Cleaning of Girls Room - Before & After

It took me a day and a half, but I did it! I cleaned, reorganized, separated toys and clothes to be donated, moved stuff out, moved stuff in.

The girls were great. I started on the room all by myself. It's SO much easier, but, like always, I told the girls they get to decide what toys get donated. They donated half of their stuffed animals (which is a lot of stuffed animals) and a lot of other toys as well. I'm very proud of them.

They did have an extra incentive to get rid of toys this time. I told them if they wanted their toy kitchen and table in their room we needed to clean up, reorganized and DONATE toys so it will fit. They stuck to their end of the bargain so I stuck to mine.

Here are some before and after pics.

BEFORE

Under the window is the girls baby cradle (haven't been able to part with it until now) filled with dress up clothes and some stuffed animals.

Bucket shelf unit filled with toys and books. Never a great plan for the books, but never got around to changing this until now.

Entire room. YIKES! What a mess!


AFTER

Entire room. MUCH better. Looks twice as big!

Got rid of shelf bucket unit. Kept the buckets. This bookshelf was in the family room. Works great here. Looks like a big girl room now!

As promised....play kitchen and table. I can't believe they fit perfect here! The girls played with it as soon as I was done with the room.

Next...Mommy & Daddy's room, garage, and office. One room at a time. I will get this house organized!

A Great Start to Memorial Day Weekend

One of our favorite things to do is to go see our minor league baseball team. CK is really starting to pick up the rules and how baseball is played. O, well O likes all the ball park food and watching the mascot, which happens to be a gorilla.

We surprised the girls and went to the game this past Friday night. We had an extra treat with fireworks after the game. That is the best place to see fireworks. Now it really feels like Summer has started, but there are two more weeks of school (darn).

It's hard to see, but Smokey The Bear joined Gigante on Friday.

Life Still Happens While Mommy Is Away

Two weeks ago I went to my yearly professional photography class. Daddy had the girls while Mommy was at class for three and a half days. (THANKS HONEY! You rock!)

I left on Mother's Day afternoon. I arrived at school with a button made by O that read, "I love you." In her own writing. I loved it. So did everyone at class. No need to explain.

On Monday afternoon C sends me a video, via cell phone, of CK riding her bike without training wheels. I cried. So proud of my big girl, but sad I missed it. On the other hand I was so happy she was able to share that moment with her daddy! Very special.

C told me later he tried to get CK to wait until I got home to take off the training wheels. I'm glad she didn't want to wait. She might not have done it. It was all her idea. Gotta go with that right then!

Then Tuesday at dinner I get a pic & text, via cell, from C that reads, "O just pulled it out right now!" O finally lost her first tooth. It had been loose forever and when does it decide to fall out? When Mommy is gone. Again, I cried. I was so happy for O, but was sad I missed it. I was happy she was able to share that moment with daddy. My fear was the tooth fairy might forget to leave money under O's pillow. The tooth fairy was on it!

At dinner that night at school the other moms and I shared our stories of what our children were doing back home that we were missing. I think we all sat with tears in our eyes thinking about it.

Here are some pictures I took when I got home.

Bike is getting a little small. Gotta get a new one soon!

A ride around the neighborhood.

Now, just gotta get O off of training wheels.

Look at that big toothless smile! I love it!

First Holy Communion

She looked like a princess in her white dress and veil. She wore her Baptismal cross pendant. Her ears were pierced for the occasion. She has been preparing for this day for two years. She is ready, yet nervous.

My cousin saw CK standing in line outside of the church, waiting to enter. CK looked very nervous. My cousin new exactly what to tell CK to make her feel better. Thank you!

The mass was beautiful. We had a lovely celebration. We missed family who were not able to join us. We hope to see you soon.

God Bless my beautiful daughter.

Leaving Kauai

Our flight leaving Lihue Airport on Kaua'i departed at 8:40am. We had breakfast at the airport to save time. Plus we didn't have much food left at the condo. I must admit I had tears in my eyes as we left our beautiful condo rental.

CK finished up her journal and O colored, while we were waiting for our flight.

























We had a three hour layover in Honolulu. We had a nice lunch and looked at some pictures on the computer from the past week.

Here is our plane. It's going to be a long flight home.

The girls are wonderful travelers. They can't wait to go on another trip. I told them we have many people we could go and visit by plane.

O was so cute, on every plane, the first thing she did when she sat in her seat was look at the safety/emergency guide. She would sit and look at all the pictures. Then she would proceed to tell me what position we take if we land in water. Every leg there and back. It was so cute. She was a great travel buddy. C said the same about CK.

We are back home now. Now the not so fun part of vacation starts....unpacking, laundry, and back to normal life.

We did everything we planned on -- from surfing, snorkeling, shopping, hiking, swimming, playing, going to a lu'au to just relaxing. We don't have any regrets about missing anything. We were able to do a little bit of everything.

We will plan another Kauai trip. C promised us that. Aloha for now our beautiful island paradise. We'll return soon. Mahalo for the fabulous memories.

Our Last Day in Paradise

Our last day in Kauai was also my birthday.

We woke up to rain. This was the day we planned on snorkeling. I already told you how it all turned out in my last post. Now for some snorkeling pics. Not too many, sorry. It's hard to take pictures when in the water. We did buy a cheap waterproof film camera and will post those pics once we get the film developed.

The best place for kids and beginner snorkeling is Lydgate Beach Park in Wailua. It was perfect. This day was VERY WINDY, but we still saw lots of fish. We all loved it. I learned this was C's first time snorkeling too.

CK wanted to try out O's Lookie Board. She did snorkel and did great! I just don't have any pictures of that. Hopefully with the film water camera.

O on her Lookie Board. She had so much fun! Next trip she'll be snorkeling with her sister.

For my birthday dinner we went to a wonderful restaurant in Hanalei....Bar Acuda.

Bar Acuda is a tapas restaurant. (ta-pas [täpǝs] (n.) origin-Spanish. A variety of small savory dishes typically shared communally amongst friends.)

It was fabulous! Here are just a few of the dishes we had.

Honeycomb from the North Shore with Humbolt fog blue cheese, Mizuna greens and Fuji apple.

Banderillas - grilled flank steak skewers with honey and chipotlé chili oil

Grilled Mahi-Mahi with salsa verde

We also had:
Whole roasted tomato bruschetta with leeks, balsamic and grilled bread
Roast chicken breast salad with croutons, bacon lardons, and soft egg
House smoked trout salad with grapefruit, avocado, fresh horseradish and arugula
Roasted pork shoulder with potatoes

The view from our table.

Another view of Hanalei in the evening. (C took this image. Very nice.)

Singing Happy Birthday to Mommy back at the condo. Thank you for my wonderful birthday cake, Tiramisu Cake.

I had told C that the trip was my birthday gift. I didn't want him to buy anything else. This fabulous vacation with my family was all I needed (plus I bought myself enough things on the trip). The girls didn't understand this. O was very upset when they sat me down to sing Happy Birthday and she hadn't made me a card. I quickly got her a piece of paper and a pen. She made me a nice little card. I love it. Such a sweetheart.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the beach on the other side.

I promised to tell you about the chickens and roosters on Kauai. Here is the story.

Chickens and roosters were brought to Kauai as domestic pets and also for cock fighting. In 1992, hurricane Iniki came through the islands. It was not supposed to hit Kaua'i, but at the last minute turned. The people on Kaua'i did not have time to pack up everything before the hurricane hit the island. The chickens and roosters then roamed free and multiplied. They have no natural predators on the island.

The chickens are the only ones who will eat the centipedes, so the locals love them. The chickens and roosters are everywhere. In yards, on the side of the road, at the beach, on the golf course....everywhere. We saw many hens with their chicks. The rooster was always close behind.

The roosters also don't seem to know they should only crow at daybreak. You will hear them all day long. It didn't bother us at all. We didn't hear them until we opened a window, so they never woke us.

These two images I just had to post. A little about each of the girls on our wonderful vacation.

CK is my little model. She always has the perfect pose. She is so photogenic.

She wanted to go snorkeling so badly. She practiced in the condo pool and was doing so well. When we woke up this morning to rain, she was so upset. As the locals say, wait 30 minutes and the weather will change. It did and we went. We are so proud of our CK. She did so great snorkeling today. She saw lots of fish and crabs and can't wait until our next trip to snorkel again.

We found O's curls! They were in Hawaii! All week she has had curls and waves around her face and at the ends . It has been so cute. I hate to go home. She'll loose them.

O is the one who makes us laugh. Our little sleeper who got tired every afternoon.

The first two days of rain here on Kauai O kept asking me, "Mommy, you said it was going to be sunny here! Where is the sun?" The sun did come out for us and it was wonderful. O so happy.

Since O doesn't swim she was nervous about snorkeling. I rented a lookie board (this link is to purchase the board. I rented it for $6.50/day) for her. Once she saw what the lookie board was she felt much better. She had so much fun today on her looking board. She was able to see lots of fish and crabs.

I will be posting some snorkel pics, but had to share these stories right now.

A Beautiful Day at the Beach

Monday was our day at the beach. We went to Hanalei Bay. C took a surfing lesson while the girls and I sat and enjoyed the sun and gorgeous views.

More beautiful birds....even on the beach.

Hanalei Bay

Our little beach girls playing in the water. Their favorite place to be.

Jumping waves

Watching daddy surf. "Go Daddy!"

His instructor was so impressed. He said he could have a new career.

His cheerleaders coming to greet him as he comes in.

Done for the day. He had a fantastic time and is now looking into doing it at home. I have a feeling we'll be bringing a board on the plane with us on our next trip to Hawaii.

The water looked too nice, I had to take a dip.

Easter Sunday in Kauai

As we were planning our trip to Kauai the girls were very worried the Easter Bunny would not find them. I reassured them he would....and he did! He brought them a beautiful Hawaiian lei each and a flower clip for their hair. He also brought a mini My Little Pony toy.

Another Easter tradition we have is an Easter egg hunt. Since we didn't have time to color eggs and I didn't have the plastic ones I hid the foam eggs the girls had made and they looked for those. They loved it.

Easter dinner was boneless leg of lamb, couscous and green beans - delicious! C did a fabulous job. Thanks honey!

We went to Easter Sunday mass at 9am at St. William Catholic Church in Hanalei. It was a wonderful community. The church was full and about 90% were visitors.

After dinner we went for a walk through Princeville. Here is a picture of the entrance into our condo community. Thank you so much L and M for letting us stay in your wonderful villa!
It's beautiful!

We walked through what we believe to be the Princeville neighborhood. I imagine these houses are locals or private vacation homes. They are absolutely beautiful. Each one different.

Sunset in Princeville! Easter doesn't get better than this!