Nana Coming!

Nana is coming!!! This is going to be awesome, we just found out today and she's coming on the 31st! Dann and I are already planning for it, we definitely need to hit all the beaches several hiking trails, botanical gardens, and a few restaurants. We're very excited!

In other news, it turns out Childrens Discovery Center is about 45 bucks for a day, pretty crazy. So Dann will be back from school around 9:30 and spend the rest of the day with Sarah. I got a hold of my friend Shelly and she will be able to babysit on the night of the office party. It's really awesome to have them stay with someone we know and trust.
We would like to take Sarah and Julia to a couple museums and start Sarah up for Hula Lessons, there is a really good school that is right here in Hawaii Kai, the teachers are patient and kind and there is no pressure. So I'll have to sign Sarah and Julia up for that.

What's up

Julia still has a cough but is still going strong, I took her to the doctor today and he told me to get back to him if the cough continues after a couple more days. He says at this point it's mostly viral. Hopefully it goes away very soon, it doesn't seem to bother her but it would still be nice to know that she's healthy.
We have Furlough friday until the New Year and now teachers are talking about taking days off to make lesson plans. I really hope that doesn't happen because it's so disruptive to everyones' schedules, we're signing Sarah up for Childrens' Discovery Place for next week, tomorrow Sarah will be with her Tutu.
Dann, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and I are all going to an office party next Friday, no kids are aloud, so I guess that means the kids will have their first babysitter. I just have to find a good one. I'm definitely going to ask around to see if any of Sarahs' friends have a good one.

Sick Julia

Julia has been sick for about a week but she doesn't seem to want to rest. Hopefully she will because the sicker she is the more unreasonable. She's still a little sweetie though.

Thanksgiving Talk

I went to Sarahs' school today and talked to the kids about how the Native American People planted Squash, corn, and beans together so they could grow strong and called them the three sisters. They passed around squash,corn, an beans for a while. Then I showed them Where this happened on the Mainland and also showed them where we were on the map. They looked at pictures of Native American Women planting these things. Then we read Berenstein Bears and the Prize Pumpkin. It kept the kids busy for a while and it was fun for me. We have something lined up for every day this weekend; Thanksgiving, Tree Lighting, Parade, and the girls are seeing a play with Tutu and Poppa on Sunday. Lots and lots of fun for all

Sarah just had her first K field trip and I got to chaperon. It was pretty good Sarah and her pal Kristian were a couple of hand fulls but the two other kids I had were perfect angels it's nice when there is an even balance like that.

Iolani Palace

Sarah was learning about King David, the last of the Hawaiian Royalty. She was very interested and excited that his birthday is tomorrow. So I decided we should go to Iolani Palace; so that's what we did on Saturday, at first the girls said no and then I told them that they could stay home with Daddy and I would go by myself. Julia caved and decided to come, then I told Sarah goodbye and have fun at home so she caved and came too.
We stopped for gas and a bathroom break for me because I had realized that my shirt was inside out while I was pumping gas, whoops! So we were finally on our way, the girls were pulling on each others seat belts in the opposite direction intended so I told them that it was dangerous and against the law, so then they asked if they could hold hands instead so that's what they did until we got to the palace. The parking was pretty easy;parrallel, meter, and in front of the palace gates. Children 3 and under couldn't go into the palace so we did the basement tour and Julia got in for free. My mom pointed out that she is 3 and a half but I didn't think about that. There were so many things for us to see in the basement, there was a whole bunch of black and white prints of the royalty through a couple of rooms with a description of each, there were so many that there was no way we could have read them all with a very antsy Julia. It was very eventful regardless, there was still more to see; the palace dish and silverware, the kitchen, bathrooms(fancy portapotties), Law Room, crowns, staff, sword, feather cape, instruments, badges, and more. We had a good time and hopefully we will go again some time.

Tutoring at Sarahs' School

Sarahs' teacher asked for help with the kids reading a couple times a week. Since she already has some one else coming on other days. The goal is for all of the kids to be able to get through their reading exercises an hour in the morning. So we really need two tutors per day, but we are getting there. Today was the first day I helped out and it went pretty well. One perk about it is Sarah gets to be the first one in line. However that didn't happen because she was busy putting things away for a long time so I moved on to the next kid, but when it was Sarahs' turn she was so excited. She had her arm around me the whole time, saying I love you mommy, and asked me if I was still her mommy (I guess it is possible to be a mommy and a tutor at the same time), she was so cute. I'm looking forward to the next time.

Julia said that the eel is just like the bad guy from Ariel



the cutest little Jelly Fish ever

Peek-a-boo Octopus we see you!


I know that I posted all the Aquarium photos on Facebook but whatever, I like them so here they are again.

I dropped Sarah off with her buddy Jubilee and then Dann and I took Julia to the Aquarium for a special trip. Julia really enjoyed her time, she let me know about the trumpet fish and the flounder. She also let me know that Monk Seals don't eat penguins. She's just brilliant in my book. After the Aquarium we caught a bight to eat at the mall and then went to pick up Sarah. My moms' long time friend from about 15 years ago came over tonight with her 11 year old daughter(Catherine) that we had never met before. Sarah fell asleep right before they came, she was so exhausted from the non stop play dates that she fell asleep at 6. So Julia was determined to play Uno with the other girl but we didn't have cards so Julia talked the girls ear off for about a half hour. She told the girl about the Haunted House that she went to, flying to Maryland, her old papa dieing and the list gos on and on. We all ended up playing Rock Band;Julia on the drums, Dann on the guitar, and me on the mic. We all took turns, but I finally had to force Julia to bed at 9:30 but she was pretty good about it. After Dann and I were Rock Banded out we retired the instruments to my mom, her bud Deb, and Catherine. I got some pictures of this momentous occasion and I'm pretty sure they are still rocking out.

Duh!

Sarah had her flu vaccine on Thursday, so that's a big part of why she wasn't feeling so super yesterday. I can't believe I didn't connect the two. Last night she came to my room all feverish. Baby Aspirin, a moist cloth, and a fan put her back to sleep in seconds. She's back to her old friendly and playful self this morning.

Sleep Over

Sarah started her play date with her buddy Alex at 8:30 am, it was supposed to go to 2 but she wanted me to pick her up at 1 ( I totally didn't expect that). Julia and I brought Sarah and Alex with us, they played hard and fought hard. Sarah was having a rough day, she got splinters in her foot at the play date and wouldn't let anyone pull them out, I got the buggers out while she was eating lunch. Then Sarah got upset because Julia and Alex didn't want to do the monkey bars anymore. After the monkey bar incident they fought back and forth about who didn't get to go to whos birthday/house and there was a lot of crying from Sarah. Dann has the magic touch though, he talked to Sarah and she almost instantaneously was better. So eventually Sarah got over stuff and decided to have fun playing with the other girls and guess who fell asleep before 8?
Hopefully Sarah will be well rested because she has another play date at 10. I'm so happy that she has little friends to spend time with, she's been wanting that since she moved here.

Furlough Friday #3

3 down 14 more to go. Julia of course gos to school since preschool is not public; Julia has a Fall Leaves Parade today, her class made little leaf head bands and will be wearing fall colors. I'm sure it will be adorable.
Sarah is having a play date with Alex for Furlough Friday. They might go to Bishop Museum but whatever they do I'm sure they will have lots of fun, I'll just see if Dad needs me to do anything work related. If not I'll just straighten up the house.

Halloween




Pictures of the kids from Friday; preparty warm up on the jungle gym. Jubilee is the one with the purple hair. Julia is wearing Sarahs' wings in one of the pictures.




Sarah had a playdate with her friend Jubilee from 8 to 1 for Furlough Friday and they were both so good together; they swam, made forts, threw golf balls in the pool, "ran from wolves"(the usual kid stuff) when they couldn't decide what to do together we made brownie cup cakes with gummy worms for the bake sale at Hahaione later that night from 6 to 8.
Dann was going to help with set up of the Haunted House, then he was told he was MCing, by the time it started he was slinging pizzas, he told me it was a lot easier then watching kids. Sarah didn't want to go into the haunted house, we finally convinced her and she was scared, she went in again with me and she cried, I felt so bad. Julia didn't go in at all, she was way too scared. The cupcakes were a hit, every one was sold.We also got free dinner;one of the perks of Dann helping in the kitchen. Basically Selika (Jubilees Mom) and I ran around like mad after the kids all night. I couldn't believe the kids still got up early. They really have that internal alarm clock thing happening.
The kids had a lot of fun trick or Treating. We went to Koko Marina Shopping Center and Sarah went in to each of the shops by herself while Dann watched from the door way. Julia and I lagged behind, Julia accepted candy from about half of the stores and the other half she would walk in, look at the person handing candy out, and then run out. It was very odd but funny. After that we went to my grandparents place, ate chili,and then my grandpa took them out around his neighborhood for another round. The house rule is that they take 10 pieces out and then I take the rest of the candy to the office, but we'll probably end up eating it, we've made a pretty good dent in it already.

Sarahs' teacher Miss Kimura is in the green, the kids were so funny half of them came back inside to dump the juice out. I was proud of my little Sarah for drinking it and liking it. We were so happy to see each other, she kept giving me hugs, Sarah is such a sweet girl.
They loved using the scoopers for the goo, they really didn't want to get dirty:).


Jan reading Curious George, she made her ears, arent they cute?


Sarah is going to have a little Halloween celebration in her class today. Another mom and myself are going to bring the kids cookies and juice, read the kids stories, and get all messy with pumpkin goo;how could that not be a party:)? Will take pictures to post later.

It's later and the party was fun, there was supposed to be cookies but they weren't there. Sarah was bummed about that but they are all getting massive goody bags tomorrow so I think they will get there sugars worth. Jan (Seth's Mom), read Curious George to the kids today, she was dressed as a cat and the kids loved it! She brought some ears and a tale for me too of course.
After that it was time to get messy with some pumpkin seeds and goo. The kids were very reluctant to touch the gunk, but everyone got a try and it seemed like they all enjoyed it.
Then it was time for some refreshing Organic Apple Juice, about half the kids were grossed out by that too! That was ok because it was more for the grown ups, haha.

We did end up going to Kopolei on Saturday. It was some nice family fun, super hot, but fun none the less. As soon as we got there we invested in a big plate of fruit and water, perfect to beat the heat, next was tickets for Sarah to get on the big bouncey slide, moon bounce, and Julia to get on the flying elephant.
Sarah was getting antsy and we weren't about to buy more tickets so Sarah and Dann waited for Julia and I at the petting Zoo until Julia was done with her ride. The kids didn't seem to thrilled about the animals, they were pretty stinky and dirty, Sarah did enjoy petting the rabbit.
Next it was on to pumpkin picking, first time we did that in a patch, it was slim pickins for sure, pumpkins don't seem to fare well in tropical climate, but it made for a fun pumpkin hunt anyway. Good times and of course will be back for more next year.

The Potluck

We had some fun at Julias' Potluck, I got her batman hat ready just before we were out the door, so that is what she is in the pictures. But for Halloween she will indeed be Tinkerbell. Sarah let me curl her hair before we left, the first time she had curlers in her hair. The girls had lots of fun running around the playground at Julias' school, had some good food, cupcakes, and made some crafts;pretty cute stuff.

Thursday Sarah gos to school in costume. Friday neither of the girls have school but there will be a potluck at Julias' school Friday night(need to make Lasagna), the girls will wear their costumes to that. Dan, me, and the girls plan to go to the pumpkin patch in Kopolei. Next week Friday,Julia and her class are going to The Japan American Institute of Management Science and they will sing Halloween songs for JAIMS, after the kids get a treat for performing. there will be no school for Sarah but a Fall festival that night at her school, where all the parents and kids will dress up, carve out pumpkins, and go through the haunted house(Dann is helping with set up of the haunted house), and a bake sale too of course(hopefully I can make and bring a goodie). Sarahs' class parents are collecting goodies from all the parents for the kids, I might try my hand at popcorn balls, they are great to eat.

Waimanalo Fair

It was pretty small but the girls had a lot of fun. First they got on the Merry Go Round, then ate of course, Sarah wanted to save her appetite for the samples, Dann surprised us while we were getting drinks and we shared a funnel cake and hung out for a good bit. There was a big Cookie person walking around and they of course got a big kick out of that, there were so many kids crowded around him and boy were they rough at one point the poor cookie guys' eye popped out but someone fixed it for him right away. Then we met up with Kristen and Alex and then the three of them got on the Merry Go Round, I'm sure that will always be a kid favorite. The girls did the fun house, Julia was confused and wouldn't move so I got a ticket to help her through it, we both had fun. Alex fell in the fun house so it wasn't so fun for her. Then it was time for Cotton Candy because sugar makes everything better. We cleaned up, the girls ate pizza, and then they did the giant slide all by themselves. I was a little nervous about Julia doing it all by herself but she grabbed that potato sack that was about the same size she is, climbed up those stairs, and went down the slide on her own! I was afraid she would be upset but she loved it and wanted to do it again! After all that it was time to get home, the girls were so riled up so it was really hard to get them to settle down but they did go to sleep eventually and I was so exhausted that I just remember falling asleep and loving it.

The Beach

We had our playdate today, it turned out I didn't need to be at the inspection till later so we met our buds at the beach right where Magnum PI used to film, first time for us. Kristen watched the girls for a good while when it was time to be at the inspection, then we met at Mcdonalds. The girls seem pretty happy, we all had a good time and we're meeting up tomorrow for the Waimanalo Fair. There is talk of Kristen and Alex moving but we really hope that they will be able to stay.

Play Date Tomorrow

The girls are having a play date tomorrow with their bud Alex. I'm going to a inspection for the morning. So Auntie Kristen will take the girls to the park. I hope they are super good for her, I told her that if she needs to she can drop them off with Dann. I'm sure the three girls will have lots and lots of fun

Both Girls are Back In School!

Sarah and I had a pretty good time, she really wasn't interested in going out and doing anything. She had two things she wanted to do, play princess with her princess action figures or play on the swing set, she was content to those two thing. She was very excited to get back to school though, she was a little bored at home. It's so quite at home, it's a nice little break, my Dad and Mom are visiting little Eve this week, so I'll be taking care of the business while they are gone. I'm soaking up these fine hours of quite.

Venture to the Mall and Haunted House!!!

This one is for you Angie!!!


Hairless Guinea Pig!






We set out for our journey to Windward Mall last night the whole way looking for a Pizza Hut Restaurant but we failed miserably. So we decided to find some parking once we found the Mall, it was the first time we had been to that mall so we had no clue if we were going in the right direction or not and the kids wouldn't stop carrying on, so Dann told them we would go back home if they didn't stay quite until we got there. So Sarah shouts "Zip it, Lock it up, and throw away the Key!", that brought back some child hood memories. So we finally get there and look for parking for a while and then finally get inside!!

The first thing we saw was a huge tunnel playground, I automatically was impressed and thought, here is a kid friendly place!! We didn't do the playground this time but Sarah got on the little Carousel with two babies, she was in heaven! Then Dann and Sarah went to the pet store and so it was Julias' turn to get on the carousel. After her ride she wanted some candy from one of the many machines, it was definitely a kid trap in there! I didn't get her the candy because we didn't have any more quarters (plus she gets nuts when she gets it). Next we met up with Dann and Sarah at the pet store, they had hairless Guinea Pigs and 3 day old chicks! Soooo cute(the chicks at least the hairless Guinea Pigs were kind of creepy and bizzare but great for people with allergies I'm sure)!!


That was enough of "The Kid Trap"next it was on to the Haunted House. We waited in anticipation as we heard screams coming from inside and saw people come out looking scared, I kept thinking, is this going to be too scary? It was fine though, Dann held Julia and I held Sarah. She just closed her eyes for the most part.The scariest thing were the masked people waiting in dark corners, talking all creepy, and moving towards us. They had black curtains hung in each door way so I kept thinking someone was going to jump out, they also had a freaky clown, scared me and Sarah to the bone. So once we had about three more rooms to go I would just start looking for the nearest exit, I don't know about Sarah, but I had had enough!!


We were really hungry after the Haunted House so we waited at IHOP for about 25 minutes, got bored of that and went to Ruby Tuesdays and they had a 20 minute wait so we were out of there! What do you think we saw no less then 5 minutes of driving? YES, it was Pizza Hut...and it was good. Once we got in the car and shortly after deciding it was possible to share the beach towel they had conked out.

Fantastic Day!

Sarah and I had a great day together. We put away the dishes,made banana chocolate chip muffins that we ate through out the day, went grocery shopping, played Tinkerbell online, and picked up Julia,one of the teacher tells me that Julia made a new friend today! Sarah was a good big sister and patted Julia on the head when we picked her up. When we got home from picking up Julia at PreK we went over The "Pocket Daring Book for Girls Things To Do", provided by our friend Erin. This book is great for any one who needs activities for kids. There is one chapter on 14 different kinds of tag, we got through 7 and I was exhausted, one of the tags was Zombie Tag, Julia was it so she had to pretend she was a Zombie and so she tagged me and I was a Zombie too, that was when Sarah decided she didn't like Zombie Tag, Julia got confused and then frustrated by most of them but we all had fun none the less. Julia fell asleep early needless to say and so Sarah and I enjoyed a delicious dinner of Salad and Rice with sugar peas on top. She ate everything with the promise of gushers for dessert, she's such a good little girl.

Sarahs' fall break

Yesterday was a little hectic, I was in and out of the house all day with showings and what not. Luckily Dann and Mom were both there for the girls. I did make the mistake of giving Sarah chocolate chips and then she flipped out later when I wouldn't give her anymore. No chocolate chips for Sarah today! She ended up kicking my mom last night and so I put her in time out and that's when she started dumping out all of her toys. Well that's when I had to leave for a showing. When I got back Dann had finally calmed her down with some Invader Zim. I told her she still needed to apologize to my mom and clean her room. So she did!!! She was such a good little girl and Dann and I were both pleased and pleasantly surprised. Today we are just relaxing and Sarah has acquainted me with The imagination Movers.

Busy Girls

The girls and Grammy are going to a play today while I work. It should be a good little break for Dann after our wild ventures over the weekend. This week is Fall Break so Sarah and I are going to have to keep busy, maybe she can have some more play dates with her buddy too. It's going to be fun having some one on one time with Sarah, we haven't had that in a long time.

The girls and I went out to some fun fair thing today, they had Jamba Juice, glued shells on picture frames, Sarah got a crown painted on her face, they played a ball in cup, had shave ice, and bought books from the book fair. It was a fun hour.

Sarah and Julias' First Sleep Over

The girls just had their second Play Date yesterday with a girl named Alexandra from Sarah's school, they had so much fun that it turned into a slumber party, first one for all three of them. They all had a lot of fun,Alex's Mom, Kristen brought gourmet cupcakes, yummy! We all had pizza for dinner, and then made cookies. Sarah had a little explosion yesterday right after dinner but she settled down before the cookies were ready. Julia had a explosion at about 10 pm last night until I took her out, gave her some hugs, Dann and I read her a story, and then she was ready to get back into bed all by herself, Alex and Sarah were already asleep by the time Julia settled down. It's always hard when there is an odd number, Sarah exploded because Julia and Alex were having fun and Sarah felt left out, Julia exploded because Sarah was in the middle of Julia and Alex. So we all know how that goes when there is an odd man out. The three of them were really great and there were no fights at all. They had pancakes for breakfast, watched Calou, and had popsicles before it was time for Alex to go. Sarah,Alex, and Julia were trying to find a way to keep Alex's mom out, rigging traps and what not, funny little kids. It's great to know we have a friend to trade kids off with, very fun for all!