Mama On The Move

When you go see the Breath of Life show at the Polynesian Cultural Center, they sell ice cream at intermission. The best part of that (besides the ice cream) is watching the guys bring it in. They run down a flight of stairs with a heavy tray of ice cream. For some reason, I could watch this over and over. You have to wonder if any of them ever trip and just tumble down those steps with all that ice cream.

Katie is studying ancient Egyptian history right now and in the interest of making it more "hands-on" for her, we've joined a co-op at our church. We've been part of the co-op for a long time, but we've not done history with them until now. I was in charge of this week's craft project so I had all the kids make maps of ancient Egypt out of cookie dough. Katie and I made one at home for practice, then we made one again at co-op so the pictures look different as I used some photographs from each session. Each child started out with one full tube of sugar cookie dough. They pressed each one out into a 10x6 inch rectangle as if it were clay or play dough. We used toothpicks to outline where we wanted land formations to be. Then we outlined the Mediterranean Sea with a blue gel. And filled it in with blue icing. We used Twizzlers to outline the Red Sea. Although the Red Sea isn't actually red, there is a seasonal algae there which is red in color. I thought the...

The kids learned this routine a couple of years ago. Apparently it's still entertaining! I wonder if, when they are my age, they will be sitting around saying, "Remember that thing we used to do with the cups? How did that go? Does anyone remember?"

I signed Emily up for a speech class. I didn't ask her if she wanted to do it. As her teacher and principal, I deemed it was requirement and signed her up. A large number of her friends are signed up for the same class so I knew she wouldn't just be walking into a room full of strangers. Emily doesn't like new experiences, so it's always best to have her go along with people she knows if you want her to try something. So, she groused all the way to speech class about how she didn't want to do it. I reminded her that it's a requirement and that at least she would have friends in the class. She continued to grumble. When we arrived, she bounced in to sit with her friends. I was only able to stay for a little while as I had to take my sister to the airport. I did stay long enough to hear the announcer say that the teens are required to sign up for at least two speeches but no more than five. When Emily got home later in the day, she laughingly mentioned that...

We recently visited Queen Emma's Summer Palace in Honolulu. If you are expecting a "palace", you will be disappointed. It's a nice house but not particularly palatial . If you think of it as Queen Emma's Summer Cottage, you'll enjoy it more because it will meet your expectations. Queen Emma was the wife of King Kamehameha IV. Their only child, Prince Albert, died at age four, and King Kamehameha IV died a year later. It's a sad story. The home was used by the royal family in the mid-1800's. Today it holds artifacts from that time period. Some of the furnishings and memorabilia actually belonged to Queen Emma. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, so I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, find some images on the internet which I am copying here. Don't sue me, please. I did try to buy postcards in the gift shop, but they didn't have any. This photo is of the parlor. Queen Emma acquired this baby grand piano later ...

Over on the windward side of the island is a cemetery called The Valley of Temples. The cemetery is divided into Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and Shinto areas. But the real draw, right at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains, is the Byodo-In Temple. This temple was built in 1968 to commemorate one hundred years of Japanese workers living in Hawaii. It is a replica of an 11th century Buddhist temple in Uji, Japan. This temple has been featured in the television shows "Lost", "Magnum P.I." and "Hawaii 5-0", I believe. I've never seen any of those shows, so I can't swear to it, but I've heard it's so. Here's an interesting fact: this temple was built entirely without the use of nails just like the temple it is modeled after. Before you get to the temple is a large "peace bell". We could hear the sound of the bell every so often as it was rung by visitors. Fortunately it has a very soft tone, despite it's size. It ...

Sometimes, you think you know every inch of an island, and then you stumble across something you haven't seen before. For us, the concept of getting inside a clear plastic bubble and running like a hamster (except on water) was a novel idea. First you get inside a deflated plastic bubble. Then a girl blows up your bubble with a leaf blower. Then you walk inside your bubble up a ramp, and into a wading pool..... .....where you immediately fall down. Then everyone laughs at you while you try to figure out how to stand, walk, and run again. It was like watching my kids be toddlers all over again. Ben said his legs hurt the next day like he'd done thousands of squats. Trying to walk on water is more difficult than you'd think! Gives the glutes a good workout! Ben was the only one who managed to stay standing. He was also able to run a bit. But then the girls figured out that if they flung themselves bodily in the floor of the bubble, they could create a wave which would i...

My sister Sherry came to visit recently and we took her snorkeling at Shark's Cove on the North Shore. That makes us sound brave, doesn't it? Snorkeling with sharks. Fortunately there weren't any sharks. I would have come screaming out of that water if there were. Even though they say if you don't bother the sharks, they won't bother you, I'm not taking any chances. I've seen "Jaws", I know what I know. Sharks Cove is made up of two very different areas. There is a very open area where lots of scuba divers head out into the ocean and the brave snorkelers go. Conceivably, there could be some sharks over there. See how it opens up into the ocean? Looks like a big candy jar to sharks. Full of candy with a soft, chewy center. Just kidding. Maybe. The other portion of Shark's Cove is rocky as all get out. You definitely want to wear reef walkers, or you'll be staggering around all those rocks as you try to wade out to a good snorkeling ...

Emily was able to go on a Dolphin Encounter for her birthday two years ago and Katie had asked to be able to do it for her birthday ever since. Since we all really wanted to do it, we decided to just make it a full family event and take all five of us on the dolphin swim. For this activity we chose Dolphin Quest at the Kahala Hotel and Resort. We had a great time there with Emily's swim and wanted to have the same wonderful experience! We got to watch the trainers feed the dolphins and give them a quick checkup. The dolphins looked like they were have a blast just playing with each other before we even got in the water. The trainers were wonderful. They told us about each dolphin and how each of them has a different personality. We learned about the feeding and care of dolphins as well (so I can count this as an educational field trip, right?). We were able to have a lot of contact time with the dolphins. We were able to pet them, hug them, and kiss them. We raced one (he t...

Katie got a cool new game for her birthday called "Just Dance". You have to follow the moves on the screen in time to the music. My hammy family is having a great time with this one! This was one of the first attempts. Even Kerry joins in when it's more like karate than dancing! The show stopper.

Well, she's gone and done it. Katie turned eleven. I thought eleven scoops of ice cream would be plenty, but no. Apparently thirty scoops is the going thing for birthday parties. They also served a giant goblet of hot fudge that everyone was able to drizzle over their scoops. We also had a "chocolate decadence" birthday cake. I was quite happy to fill up all her birthday guests with sugar. None of them were coming home with us afterward. Katie got a mask from my sister. She had really wanted this mask and was so excited to get it, she wore it for the rest of her party. Even as she received more and more bling, the mask was still the central focus. I think I need to keep her away from Las Vegas.

We were heading back home from Honolulu today when Katie said, "Look at that cloud, it almost looks like a tornado!" I looked, and my heart skipped a beat. It did look very tornado-like. And it was close. In the quick glances I could take while still trying to actually drive, I could see it was really an unusual cloud formation rather than a tornado. But I was concerned that maybe it was forming into a tornado and so I was feeling a little unnerved by it and just wanted to get home. Katie got the camera and tried to get a picture of it, but it was set to "video" instead of "photo" so we got a quick video of it as we were driving home. Luckily, it didn't turn into anything worse but it did make the news . If it had touched the ground, it would have become a tornado. Yikes.

We had some family members visit us recently and we took them to all of the fun places on the island.  The one thing I haven't done before though, was the Polynesian Cultural Center Luau.   We've been to PCC many times, I've blogged about it before and we've been to the HA Breath of Life show several times and loved it just as much each time we go. But we'd never eaten at the luau before so we decided to try it. First of all we were late, we were waiting to ride in the canoe and it was a longer wait than we expected, so we were one of the last groups to be seated.  They led us to a table in the rear, but the view was still very good.  The tables are tiered so you aren't trying to see over people's heads.  Rather than bring you plates of food as they do at the Hale Koa luau, there are four buffet tables set up.  The servers dismiss the tables to go to the buffet line so there isn't a huge log jam of people waiting to get to the food.  B...