Educational Time

Since we take our guys to Hawaii we feel compelled to have one educational outing. Max and Braden love this part...

This year we visited the Iolani Palace in Honolulu. I'd met someone at my museum about three years ago who winters in Honolulu. Esther is a docent at the Palace. She set up our guided tour with Willie. The Iolani Palace is beautifully restored and loved by its docents. Hawaii is rich in history.

From the Palace we walked to Chinatown. On our way we found a cupcake shop and indulged, oh my!

Quite frankly, we were very happy we had a snack prior to Chinatown. It was very pretty, interesting, but not appetizing. At all.

Hmmm, cupcakes or bullfrogs? Let me think about it, for one second.

I think we made the right choice with cupcakes. No pictures, as I was walking and eating a lot of frosting. I did purchase coconut malsadas on the street and am going to learn to bake them, we had the baked, not fried version. Yum!

Don't feel too bad for the boys, we still made it to the beach in the afternoon.

And someday they'll thank us.

Scientific Plans

We have an Oahu system, it's real scientific. Three days on the beach, three days sightseeing, three more days on the beach. The sightseeing includes other beaches. The six regular beach days are spent just in front of the beach volleyball by Fort De Russey park. It's our spot, our bums belong there. It's a very scientific system and it works...

For one of our 'car days' we drove to Kailua and rented kayaks. We kayaked out to Popoi'a Island, a bird sanctuary, where we walked around the island exploring. We walked carefully as the rocks were sharp and we agreed to have to paddle back with salt water in the wounds would not be fun. And could attract sharks.

We also visited Lanikai, a beautiful white sand beach. It's on our list to return and stay.

I have family pics of the day but Karen and I are in our swim suits and since I have a little pride left and value my friendship with Karen I chose to omit those pics.

After working so hard we stopped at Teddy's Bigger Burgers. Yep, they're BiG.

This was one of my favorite days. The drive over was gorgeous on the Pali Highway, we stopped at the Pali Lookout, where you can see forever.

I loved the kayaking. Hubby and I thought Mark and Karen were poetry in motion paddling across the ocean. It takes teamwork to kayak and from our view they nailed it. That said, we could not hear what was being said on their kayak ;) I did all the work on ours and Hubby just laid back and trailed his fingers in the ocean...

Next Time

Max and Braden had a really good time with the 'rents in Honolulu. Just ask their mamas. The boys were reminded just how FuN their moms can be, over and over and over.

They were also reminded that it was their last trip. Next trip they will be in college, working for a living and their parents are going without them.

Next time you run into Max or Braden just ask 'em... their mamas are a lot of fun and they are soooooo lucky to have us and our giggles and good times. And we reminded them every chance we had, "you have fun Moms, your Moms are cool, you are so lucky you have us as your mamas, blahblahblah..."

I love these guys. And we are pretty lucky they're our boys.

Post Traumatic Vacation Stress

So last night before I left Waikiki Beach I had one last yummy dinner and topped it off with a macadamia nut kona coffee mudpie dessert. Tonight I had a sliced apple with a Laughing cow cheese wedge.

I'm home and and it's not fun. As a group we will taking a poll for the collective weight gain tomorrow morning.

I'll post more Hawaii fun tomorrow. I'm kinda busy in the laundry room tonight.

Diets and dirty laundry suck but don't feel too bad for me, I had an amazing vacation...

Wait! Feel bad for me... it's back to boot camp tomorrow morning and I'm still on Hawaii time. Which will mean I'm getting up at 2:45 a.m. to work out...

I think I can...

Cheryl

A good name is better than fine perfume,

and the day of death better than the day of birth.

It is better to go to a house of mourning

than to go to a house of feasting,

for death is the destiny of everyone;

the living should take this to heart.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-2

But it's hard. So hard for those left behind. My thoughts and my prayers for Jim, Peter, Christina and Jonny today seem inadequate for their grief. For Peter traveling home from Central America today I'm praying he finds compassion and strength, I can't stop thinking of him and his journey toward grief.

Trust in the Lord, Peter.

Cheryl and I kept running into each other in life. We met as freshman in college as we both lived in East Hall first floor. Later at Third church in the nursery with our little guys Peter and Sam. And so it goes.

The soccer field, school, church we'd run into each other.

A woman of God, of quiet grace and love, Cheryl will be missed.

Until we run into each other again at the feet of Jesus...

A List, An Agenda, A Plan

The list is looooong today.

I need to go to town.

I have to brave Costco parking lot.

There will be many stops.

Some returns.

Our icky mall is involved.

I need to remind myself...

*patience

*thankful {heart} that i can do errands

*that the person that cuts in front of me is maybe having a BaD day

*we are all people with our own agenda

*if doesn't get done IT doesn't matter

ready, set, go...