Today was way too busy to summarize in a FB status like I usually do at the end of an action packed Saturday, so I'm bringing the bullet point version of my day to the blog.
I slept in. Willy went hiking. We each have our priorities, you know.
Rode my bike to the store. Thoroughly enjoyed my mode of transportation.
Met the kids at "Pride 4 Ewa" community carnival type event. Molly rode a pony. Boys climbed rock walls. Lots of bouncy house jumping and roundy-round ride riding. Got some of my money refunded when I raised a bit of a stink after waiting in line for 30+ minutes so Molly could ride the pony again, only to be told once we reached the front of the line that it was one ride per person. Would have been nice to have a sign or something indicating that... Refund appreciated - having to deal with a disappointed 4 year old? Not so appreciated. Still a fun morning in all. Rode our bikes home together.
Grabbed the hula costumes and headed through terrible traffic to Waikiki where Molly and I performed at the Royal Hawaiian. Beautiful setting. I LOVE HULA.
Got to finally experience Spam Jam! That's right folks... a whole festival devoted to a beloved favorite of the people of Hawaii... SPAM! I've wanted to attend since we got here so super glad we made it there this year. Some of the recipes being dished up by local food vendors sounded super yum - mango spam sliders, spam and pineapple pancakes, spicy spam quesadillas, etc. So what did I try? Spam Ice Cream popsicle. I kid you not. It was actually Brady's choice at the Ono Pops popsicle vendor, but he took one (chewy) bite and realized he'd made what he considered a terrible choice. So I let him have my Chocolate Apple Banana popsicle and I bravely took his Spam Ice Cream one. Vanilla ice cream? Good. Candied Spam? Good. Together? Meh. The combination was a little bizarre, but it was an experience!
Dropped kids off at home with Little Caesar's and headed out for a date night dinner. Chose Outback because of a special deal they have going. Ate great food but left with a battle wound after somehow managing to break the entire top off the pepper grinder and slicing the palm of my hand open from the broken glass. Meal had to be replaced because of the potential of shards of glass having landed on my food (there were visible chunks of glass on the table.) Server brought me bandaids and first aid cream so I got to doctor myself at the table. Manager brought my replacement meal and wisely offered to grind the pepper for me. I apparently didn't know my own strength. Disappointed that they didn't at least comp my meal or something. Haven't they ever heard of frivolous lawsuits?
Sheesh. I'll have a sweet scar to remind me of my adventure in the Outback.
Another great day in Hawaii. Starting to feel a little (LOT) anxious about the dwindling number of Saturdays we have left here. No concrete plans yet (in other words no official moving destination yet) but pretty certain we'll be leaving by mid-July. Sigh. We're making the most of the time we've got here though, for sure!
Okay. I had to come back and add pics since Willy pulled them off the card :) There are some fun ones from today!!
Roundy-round ride. Boys LOVED it.
Molly? Not so much...
She did love the pony ride though!!
Ben made it to the top!
Brady made it to the top!
Toby made it to the top
Molly's class! She loves being front and center. Unfortunately that didn't
put her in a great spot for pics this time. And Willy and the boys got stuck in
wicked traffic on the way to Waikiki so they missed her first performance.
Yay! Love this pic Willy got of me :)
If all goes well, this will be the last time I dance in my "tent" dress. We're getting sassy new dresses for our end-of-year show and the seamstress has agreed to fit me for mine and make it just one week before the show so I can wear it fitting right since I absolutely intend to continue losing weight and want to feel GREAT in my costume! :)
This is my fav move in the dance Ipo Lei Momi.
So glad Willy captured it!
In it I'm... smoothing the bedsheets... hehehe.
This is from our "naughty" hula dance.
This one is Willy's fav move though. I may or may
not be... ahem... referencing a certain body part. *blush*
Had to snap a shot of me and Molly after the show before we hit Spam Jam :)
Spam Jam!!
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spammity spam!
See those Spam Jam '12 special flavors?
This would be me eating one of those special flavors:
"Candied Spam Ice Cream".
I almost forgot the funniest part of the day! Ben won sneak preview
screening tickets to a movie because he was wearing the biggest
slippers out of all the men in the crowd LOL.
(They were clearly killing time and coming up with some
crazy contests while waiting for next performers to be ready to roll LOL)
Okay, now this entry is actually done. I don't think anyone wants to see pics of my Outback adventure wound, so I'll wrap this up LOL.
Apparently I still stink at keeping up the family blog. I try. I swear I try. But it manages to get bumped down the priority list and *bam* another whole month has gone by with no updates. March was a busy busy month and I've got a load of pictures to show for it. So this will be a photo blog kind of update. And as I was prepping pics for this post it quickly became apparent that I was going to have to cover the month of activity in multiple posts. So I'll try to do one a day for three days and get caught up! So without further ado...
March - PART 1
Willy and I took a wonderful little trip up to Laie early in March to go to the LDS Temple with members of our ward (church congregation). It was a special day because one of the young men in our ward was getting ready to go on a mission and we were there to support him as he prepared to go. Also our ward had a special training meeting of sorts with the temple president while we were there and had the chance to learn from him and ask questions and it was just a really beautiful day. Willy took some beautiful before-sunrise pictures of the temple and then I took him to see a spot on the island that he hadn't seen yet - Laie Point. It was a really beautiful, spiritual day!
We had an amazingly huge amount of rain this winter. We had some great lightning storms, some incredible downpour rainstorms. Willy loved the lightning and woke me up one morning at about 5 a.m. because the most amazing lightning storm was taking place! It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. He got some awesome video of it!
And the kids took advantage of the rain and mom's good mood and got to throw swimsuits on and go play in the rain one afternoon. I loved that Molly put on her lifejacket for safety!
I'm pretty sure Brady was doing the Chicken Dance
at this point...
Willy started his new job the second week of March. It was bittersweet, of course. Excellent to have him gainfully employed again, but sad to send him out the door in the morning and not have him with us at home for the day any more. He seems to be enjoying his job, although it's a little awkward knowing that it's most likely just a temporary gig. Hard to know how to approach making friends with co-workers if you're not going to be there very long, hard to plan on big future projects when you know you won't likely be there to see them through to completion, etc. But he seems to like the environment and he seems to like the work, and of course we're grateful for steady income again and the opportunity to stay at least a few more months so that the kids can finish the school year and enjoy that consistency before whatever big changes are in store come our way.
At the end of his first week back to work we were in need of a BIG family day. So Willy took us to a beautiful spot on the island that he had discovered when hiking with one of his friends. We hiked through a beautiful bamboo forest and visited the ruins of Kamehameha III's summer palace. SUPER cool place! Gorgeous ruins.
I'm in love with this pic of Molly. Way to bomb the
otherwise perfect shot, girl!! Way. To. Go.
How gorgeous is that?!
Bamboo sticks make great swords
Could have been a nearly perfect family photo! But the camera had something
going on with the mirror inside and the result as a very smudgy, cloudy shot. Boooo!
We took a whole bunch of pics and even passed the camera off to Brady
to get shots of Willy and I :)
Willy played with funky settings on his camera and managed to get some fun
shots of the kids and I (despite the smudge issue.)
Molly has mad cross-eyed skillz!
After the ruins, Willy led the way to a beautiful little waterfall.
Our adventures from that day aren't even over yet, but goodness... this is a lot of pictures. I think I'll break that family fun day up and share the rest of the pics tomorrow. It's time to do some dishes and get ready for hula class. Happy Tuesday evening!
Willy has been really encouraging and supportive of my desire to improve my portrait photography. I'm pretty sure he has some ulterior motives and he's hoping that I'll catch the same addicted-to-new-lenses-bug that he has so that I'll be more supportive when he finds a new camera toy or accessory that he wants to get his hands on. Whatever the reason though, I love the support and encouragement!
So in an effort to focus a bit more on my photography skills and put into practice the things I've been learning, I'm going to start entering the photography contest on I Heart Faces. I've been receiving their email for quite a while and love seeing the photos included in the contest. It can't hurt me to enter my photos, right? Right. So this month's theme is "Happiness" and this will be my first entry in an I Heart Faces contest!
Happiness is Mom letting you put your swimsuit on so you can go outside and play in the spring rain.
This photo was submitted to the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com
