Makahiki 2009

Makahiki is pretty much a big scout jamboree that they have here in the islands that is for the whole island. This year they had it at Sand Island. Randy had a scout camp over there so he took Tyler along with him since he had to be there early for the Pinewood Derby Race.
Tyler didn't win districts but he placed 7th out of about 15 boys. Good job Tyler.


Watching a demonstration with attack dogs.

Randy's troop.

The rest are pictures of all the cool stuff they had there. The kids and I joined Randy and Tyler later on Saturday. We were there in time to watch cousin Jett's Pinewood Derby Race. He placed 15th in his district. Good job Jett. It was fun to be with most of the family. Of course Jan & Aaron and his family were there, along with Julie, who braved coming by herself with her two little ones to support her nephews. We love you Julie! And Aunty Jill and Corey who even came early to watch Tyler race and stayed till Jett was done with his. You guys are awesome!
After touring the grounds, checking out all the cool stuff, we headed home.

It had been a hot day so we stopped in Aiea to find shave-ice. Well, we randomly found this place.


The shave-ice there is yummy!!!!!!!!!!! They put all kinds of stuff in there shave-ice. We will definitely go back, because there are other combinations I want to try.


I had the strawberry shave-ice with mochi balls, azuki beans and ice-cream on the bottom. So good!!!!!! We went home to dinner waiting in the crock pot. It was a nice family day.

Local Foods

To all my friends in AZ, this post is for you. A lot of times I mention different foods that we eat here in Hawaii, and I get questions about what that is exactly. It finally dawned on me to post pictures of them.

Self explanatory. These are staples that you will find almost anywhere on the island. The main entree are usually teriyaki beef, teriyaki chicken, and kalbi ribs, all served together.

Onigiri. Different styles. It is basically a rice ball with seaweed.

Mochi. These are fancy ones. Randy is good at making mochi and my kids LOVE it!

Manapua. My personal favorite when I'm pregnant. It is a bun with char siu pork inside. Kind of a local chinese dish.

The ever popular lunch of kids on the island ----- Spam musubi. It is just like the onigiri except you slap on a slice of spam that was cooked in a little bit of teriyaki sauce. Mmmmm.

There you go. Now you will have an idea of what I'm taking about when I mention the above in future posts.

Aloha!!!

The Last Super Raider

There have been many of you asking me "what is a Super Raider"? First of all, a raider (not sure what that even is), is the mascot for the kids' school. If you are a student who behaves, does their best, is respectful, goes the extra mile in school duties, the teacher selects you to be honored at an assembly they have once a month.


With that said, Tyler was selected to Super Raider for the month of March. He is the last of our kids to receive this award. Good job Tyler! When I asked him what he wanted, he quickly said, "Oooooh! I want a spam musubi lei!" I said, "WHAT!" "I want a spam musubi lei mom." Well, I told him I could get him a candy lei, balloon and one spam musubi. I refuse to give a child that much spam. He was fine with that.

For those of you who don't know, this is a "spam musubi" (MOO-SOO-BEE). They are the size of a deck of cards.

Easter Weekend

Let me just say that there was too much candy! But still a great Easter Weekend.
We did Easter Egg Hunts& Easter Dinner with the family.


Easter activities on Saturday with the Hippolites. The girl in pink is Kara's best friend! Part of their activities was putting together these Easter Bags for the residents at the Kahuku Hospital. It was fun to see the patients with them when I went to work. They loved them!

Micah trying to find eggs.

All the kids comparing the number of eggs they found. We had a brunch afterwards. Thank you to the Hippolites fro inviting us.

Sunday we went over to Jan's house for a nice Easter dinner with the family.

Everyone brought so many eggs, there weren't any more places to hide them. We just threw them out on the lawn, which was ok for the babies.

The kids receiving their instructions from Aunty Jan before heading out there. The most important detail ----- there is ONE golden egg.

Randy playing around.

The kids looking for eggs. Grandma makes the hunt fun for the big kids. Her eggs have money. The golden egg is worth the most! That was last egg that no one could find. Corey hid it well. We had such a good laugh every time we saw the kids walk right past it. Finally, someone found it. It was Micah! He got the golden egg. Lucky him.

Happy Easter!

Conference Weekend

It was conference weekend and I had a goal to make this an enjoyable experience for everyone, especially the children. I was determined to be prepared. Well, I wasn't totally, prepared that is, but I felt it was a great success as far as having a great weekend.

The Monday prior, we had a FHE lesson about King Benjamen giving his sermon from the tower and how everyone listening had pitched their tents and faced them towards to tower to listen. The kids instantly made the connection with watching General Conference and asked if they could make a tent. They couldn't believe their ears when I said, "Yes. You may make a tent to watch conference in." The excitement for General Conference was beginning.

With the kids still having Spring Break, my wonderful plans were getting put on the back burner, but were not forgotten. I had explained my ideas to Randy.

Saturdays session went fairly well. I was sleeping because I had worked, but Randy and the kids watched Saturday's afternoon session and did the activities provided.

Sunday was the best. We all got up early and all watched conference together. I know the kids probably didn't pay attention for all of conference, in fact I know they didn't, but they did their best.

These candies were for our conference bingo game. I'm going to have to fine tune that game, otherwise we end up eating too much candy.

I think what made it great was that we were all together, some watching conference, others doing the conference packets I made, or playing in the tent they made.

After watching conference we played with the Apostle Cards I printed out. It was fun reading the interesting facts about the apostles. Did you know that Pres. Monson raised pidgeons as a hobby? No. Neither did I.

We made orange rolls and scarfed them down while playing with the cards. We had a nice dinner and just a great Sunday.

Just wanted to share the ideas I had found.

Koolina Beach

Our last day of Spring Break we spent it at the beach. We drove all the way to the west side of island and joined cousins at Koolina Beach.

These beaches are great for kids. They are man-made lagoons at the Koolina Resort (Marriott Hotels). Disney is actually building a resort there as well. Anyhow, we spent all morning there swimming, while the adults just chatted. We were tired by the end after spending all day out in the sun. I went to work that night just a little bit pinker.

Free Swim Lesson

One of the best things about living near a university is that when they need guinea pigs, it means free for the participants. A swim class for would-be instructors needed test subjects to see if they have what it takes to teach kids to swim. I took Micah over as a volunteer. The pool was on a ranch, oddly enough.


I was surprised when I saw this dome tent over the pool. It was kinda cool. I think most of us parents wanted to go in there because we were standing in the rain with the wind blowing, while the kids were in here in a heated pool. Micah definitely enjoyed himself. Now I need to sign him up for real lessons.