First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for Aaron, Mason, and Bailey. They were so excited. The "before school" part didn't work out exactly like I had envisioned though. Despite packing almost their whole lunches last night and setting the alarm clocks for early enough, there were some unexpected things that caused us to run later than we had hoped. Then, the rain started pouring. I mean *really* pouring down a lot. I had wanted to arrive at the school early, park, and then walk the kids all in to their classrooms. As it turned out, we had to park quite a ways away because of the rain (every single other parent had to drive too!) and we had to walk with the 1 umbrella that we had. The boys finally gave up on the umbrella (too crowded for all of us) and ran on ahead. So they got to school and went to their classrooms on their own. I stayed with Bailey and Lauren and we kept walking in the rain with the 1 umbrella. We got there just as the bell was ringing and got Bailey settled into her class. She hung up her backpack, found her desk and started working on her assignment (what did you do over the summer?). I snapped a quick picture of her at her spot and then had to leave, since school was already under way.




So - after school, I had the kids pose for the "first day of school" pictures on the porch. It was raining again (it had stopped for most of the day, but started again at the end of school . . . go figure!), but fortunately, we have a nice covered porch area, so I still got the photos I wanted.







The kids all loved their first day of school. They are anxious to go back tomorrow. Mason said it was his most favorite first day of school ever (he's starting 2nd grade, so 1 out of 3 isn't too bad!).

New haircut!

I got a new haircut! My friend had been cutting my hair and she has been on bedrest for the past couple months. So my hair kept growing longer. I didn't mind too much, because I was trying to grow out some of the layers and my bangs for a new style. So the time finally came and I went to a new salon and got a new "Beckett bob". I love it!

Aloha!

I haven't made any blog entries in over a week because we have been in Hawaii! We are actually still here and have a week more to go, but I figured I would post some pictures and blog a bit about what we have done so far.

My parents are renting an apartment that is literally right on the beach. There are some bushes and on the other side of those bushes is the ocean. One morning, I woke up early and walked out and took a picture of the sunrise. It was my first ocean sunrise. Growing up in California, I have seen many ocean sunsets, but never a sunrise. It was beautiful.



We have been to the beach a few times . . . twice for boogie boarding, once for snorkeling, and once for just bobbing in the waves. Aaron, Mason, and Bailey all enjoyed boogie boarding for a bit.







Lauren is terrified of the ocean and hates the feel of the sand. She just screamed when I set her down to play in the sand with toys. Eventually she got sort of used to it, but she didn't move around at all. She just sat in one place and reached for the toys she wanted.





I thought we had broken her in and she would be okay after that. But I was wrong. It was the very same thing the next day. We both came to grips with the fact that she was perfectly happy sitting in the chair while everyone else played.



Bailey got stung by a jellyfish twice, but she was very brave and only cried for a little bit. Fortunately, we had a bottle of vinegar with us and I poured it over the sting. It helped ease the pain a bit and she was able to calm down within a few minutes.

Another cool thing that I had not seen before was the crabs. There were hundreds of crabs on the beach. Maybe it was the time of day that we went? High tide? Low tide? Something? Anyway . . . they were everywhere. I just sat and took lots of pictures of them.



Polynesian Cultural Center

We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and had a great time. It was amazing. The best thing was the night show "Horizons", but I don't have any pictures of that. The Samoan part of the show was very dramatic, with fire throwing and spinning. The Tahitians are the ones that do the fast hip dancing and they are so good. The Aoteoroans are a little scary! They have their face painted and stick their tongues out and they enlarge their eyes to frighten their enemies. We also attended an authentic "royal" luau. They had a pig buried in the ground that they dug up and "Cousin Benny" played the ukelele and m.c.'d the program. At one point, they invited all the little kids up to do a hula dance. We visited all the little villages and had a great time watching the shows and playing the various games. Bailey did really well with the Poi ball in Aoteoroa.











And I took some miscellaneous pictures of the kids around the grounds with tikis and waterfalls.







Dole Pineapple Plantation

Yesterday, we went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and did the "world's largest human maze". It took us just over an hour, but that includes a bathroom break before we actually started and a stop to apply sunscreen mid-way through. I was the chief navigator and the kids all had a great time following me through the maze to find the 8 different stops. We also took the train ride out to see the pineapple fields. Grandma and Grandpa came with us (Grandma did the maze with us!). My boys actually look like they like each other, huh?





In addition, we went to Matsumoto's and got the famous shave ice, but I didn't get a picture of it. It was delicious (and way too much sugar for me!). The boys and I also climbed Diamond Head, but there was no way I was lugging my big SLR camera up on the hike, so I had Aaron take some pictures with his camera . . . I'll post them when I download them to my computer.

Today, we went to the Kuoloa Ranch and took the movie tour in an open-air bus. I'll post more about that later, when I get the pictures uploaded.

We're having a great time and can't believe we have less than a week left!

Thumbs Up

Aaron has been asking me to teach him how to make meringue cookies for quite a while now. So today was the day. We doubled the recipe and put in 4 egg whites (whipped to stiff peaks), 1 cup Splenda (we wanted them to be sugar-free), and about 1 tsp. almond extract. The recipe called for 2 tsp. some type of extract or flavoring, but we only had about 1 tsp. left in the jar and decided to go for it anyway. We put little spoonfuls of the batter (is it called batter?) on the cookie sheet and baked them for 30 minutes at 300°. I have seen recipes that call for cooking longer at a lower temp, but this seemed to work well for us and the impatient testers. Lauren gave it a "thumbs up"!

Getting Ready for Hawaii

We leave to go to Hawaii in just over a week, so I figured I needed to get some Rashguard swimming shirts for all the kids. Fortunately, Old Navy had some on clearance and I scavenged through the racks and finally found something for each kid. Now hopefully I can keep them from getting burned on the beach! The boys are pretty excited about their shirts, as they think they look like "cool skater dudes" with them on. I'll have to take pictures of them when we're in Hawaii.

Service is Contagious

My kids taught me a great lesson today . . . service is contagious. There was some work that needed to be done today and so I asked the kids to help me out. The boys had some clothes that needed to be sorted and a closet that needed some rearranging, to make room for the sorted clothes. There was laundry in the dryer that needed to be folded and put away. I started helping Mason sort through and rearrange his clothes and asked Aaron to help Bailey put the dryer clothes in the clean clothes hamper for folding. Shortly after we started our assigned tasks, Lauren said she needed to go the bathroom (and being newly potty-trained, she still needs help). I asked Aaron to help her, so I could keep sorting clothes. He disappeared into the bathroom with Lauren.

I quickly got an idea to see if we could secretly "race" Aaron and surprise him. We finished sorting the clothes and getting them put away and then Bailey, Mason and I had a race to see how fast we could fold all the clothes in the hamper. Voila! We finished and Aaron and Lauren still hadn't emerged from the bathroom. So Mason and Bailey decided to quickly put their clothes away before he came out and I grabbed Aaron's clothes and was finishing putting them in his drawers when he came in the room. "You're putting my clothes away for me?" I said "Yep - I was trying to surprise you before you came in." He said thanks. A minute later, he comes in and whispers something to Mason and Bailey and says to me "Don't come downstairs for a little bit, okay Mom?"

A little while later (maybe 1/2 hour?), they called up to me and said I could come down. Aaron had made grilled cheese sandwiches for all the kids for lunch and made a cheddar & bacon salad for me! What a great surprise! We'll have to see if our secret service surprises continue . . .

Oh yeah - and the knitting class yesterday was a big success and Aaron and Mason both decided they wanted to learn. I got Aaron his own knitting needles and yarn last night and taught him to knit and purl . . . He has really gotten the hang of it and is enjoying it! Here's a picture:

Day one, under way

Mark left yesterday to start his new job, so today is my first day officially as a "single mom". So far, so good. I took all the kids to the gym with my this morning, so I could still do my water fit class. I *LOVE* exercising outdoors in the pool - wish I could do that all year long. Now - we're getting ready to grind some wheat and make some homemade bread, since we ran out this morning (making french toast for breakfast). I'm going to try to remind the kids of the story of the Little Red Hen and see if they will help me! I've got a knitting class/group that I'm hoping to go to later this afternoon and we'll see how that goes with all the kids in tow. And, of course, I've got lots of digital scrapbooking projects going on . . . products and books to design . . . illustrations to make . . . busy, busy, busy.

Okay . . . so - we made the bread and all 4 of the kids helped! Yippee! Here are Aaron, Mason, and Bailey posing with the fresh bread just out of the oven. You'll notice that the loaves may not be as tall as you would normally expect . . . well that has a little something to do with all the bread dough that the kids were snitching. I kid you not - they were eating it by the handfuls! No raw eggs . . . so I'm hoping it's okay!