skipping to now... salt pond beach

I almost can't remember the whirlwind summer that we had.  Catching up is feeling like work.  So I keep avoiding it.  The now is so much more fun.

I just ordered a gigantic canvas of this photo of Samuel.  It is so very very Samuel.

 And so is this one.  He's showing me a crab.  I have to play it cool with these things and say, "That is awesome Samuel" instead of, "That is so gross."  If I show any alarm, I run the risk of him chasing me with it.  When that happens I have this involuntary laugh that makes it hard for him to know that I am really really serious that I want him to stop.

And this one just might be the most Samuel.  Feet not even on the ground, happy as can be, a million miles an hour.

Okay, okay, maybe this one is the most Samuel.  Total monkey, right?  He is using his feet to play in the sand.

This is Eva.  And this photo is very much her.  Pondering on the shore, light ocean breeze, soft billow clouds in the back ground... definitely Eva.  I love this one.  

But Iordered this one gigantic because she is looking at the camera.  I kind of regret it.  But regretting is kind of an annoying hobby of mine (but not as annoying as the involuntary laugh when I am really scared.)

 This one is also Eva.  Relaxing in the water with her dad.  Kicking back, not a care in the world.

 Little Moosey loves the beach.  He crawls around, tastes things, crawls around some more, sits, tastes some more, and crawls around.

 Here he is sampling what the beach sand has to offer.  Can you believe the scenery?

 Just another of him really feasting.  Don't worry, he usually just spits it out after a while.

 And in every stage I think to myself, "This is the cutest stage.  I love it.  I don't want him to change."  I always miss the stage once he moves on, but I seem to fall in love with the one that comes next soon enough.  

 The beach.  Bringing out the best in all the kiddos.  Letting them roam and not having to worry about the messes.  Because at the beach, you're supposed to get messy.  

van's dance hall, topaz, and one seriously gross hotel

Want to see a temple on top of a revolving disco ball?  How about one that also has train tracks and a train that goes around it?  Drive through Delta and you will pass by one of the coolest places ever and not even know it. I never would have guessed this crazy dance hall would be nestled in the middle of this town. The history of the this place and the guy who dreamt this place up is interesting to say the least.  It would have been so much fun to see this place when it was up and running.   

 Cute cousins in the dance hall.

 We stopped and learned about the Japanese internment camp in Topaz.  Growing up, I always felt a little uncomfortable when people would talk about these kind of things.  The topic would inevitably bring some unwanted and awkward attention to me.  Then people don't really know what to say and instead of saying nothing they kind of let me know how bad they think it was.  Then I kind of end up trying to make it less awkward by saying something but usually make it more awkward.  So, though this trip was more about learning about history and less about me, I couldn't help but feel that same awkwardness.  And let me just get this out... One lady had the nerve bring up how she had heard about the horrible things that some of the Japanese people did during the war and so she doesn't really feel bad that these Japanese Americans were put into Topaz.  It made me sad to think people actually think this way.  All day, I just tried to come up with reasons (admittedly most of them were mean and the word ignoramus came into my thoughts more than once) why she would feel okay with taking everything from a person because someone of their same race did something horrible.  I think the thing that hurt the most was that in those situations when I felt so awkward when WWII came up, I would give myself pep talks so I wouldn't worry about what people thought.  Most of the pep talks included something about how people aren't that ignorant anymore.  And here she was proving me wrong.

Sadly, there isn't much to see out there anymore.  Not much of a memorial, not much of a monument, not much of a museum.  A few people have made an effort, but it takes money, And to get money, it has to be popular.  And, well, the topic just isn't that popular these days.    

Later that day we took a tour through the Lehman caves.  They were cool and very... cavey.

 Beautiful in a dark, damp, creepy sort of way, I kept thinking of the Dark Crystal.  Does anyone else remember that show.  I need to watch it again.  All I remember is being scared and confused.

 And to think, people used to go through these caves without tour guides, without flashlights, without cement paths...

 This little cave feature was cave bacon.  After 90 minutes in a cave, something silly like cave bacon all the sudden seems super clever and totally interesting.  

 My compliments to the snack stand there for having great chocolate ice cream.  I would know, I had two.

 And after seeing Topaz and feeling so grateful that I was born when I was, I still couldn't be grateful for our single wide of a motel.  Just remembering that place makes me want to cringe and go put my flip flops on.  

 My kids didn't mind.  That is because it had a TV.  They were happy as can be.  Even the baby was pleased.  This picture makes me want to kiss those little fresh-outta-bed bed head kids (and check to make sure nothing is touching those gross floors).

On this part of the trip I learned:

-That a sleepy little town can have an quirky awesome place like Van's Dance Hall.

-That maybe it's just human nature to not want to remember the bad.  But maybe we don't learn from it if we don't remember it.  

-I am glad I am not a cave person.

-That I should never take comfort when I hear the phrase, "It's the nicest hotel in town."

-A good chocolate ice cream cone can drown out many a sorrows.  

Trip to Topaz and Lehman caves... recorded.

fossil hunting in delta

Summer adventure started out with a trip to Delta.  Adventure and Delta in the same sentence.  Ha.  Actually, my kids probably had as much fun here as they do anywhere. You wouldn't think that summer and puffy coats went together either but the weather was crazy.  Spring was basically non-existent.  It was kind of like winter over stayed and then slammed into the middle of the summer heat.

I love road trips less than I like flying with three kids.  If you haven't read my previous post, let me fill you in.  I hate them.  But a little In-N-Out and a Dunford Donut helped ease the pain.  

This is a shoe tree.  This tree shoes how boring the road is.  Someone threw shoes up in a tree for entertainment.

We checked into the nicest hotel in town.  *Insert comment about the world's tallest midget here*.  What I didn't know was that this hotel was going to feel like the Grand Hyatt compared to the place that we were staying the next night. 

My older two kids love to hold my giant baby.  It looks so funny and always makes me a little nervous.  It makes other people even more nervous.  I know because I see them fighting the urge to step in and help my kids.  They fight the urge then look at me like I am careless.  Maybe I kind of am.  I tell them my kids hold him all the time and it is okay and I pretend like I'm not nervous.  

Samuel packed his backpack for the hunt.  A grabby thing, a Curious George notebook (which soon fell apart because I bought it at the dollar spot at Target), a pencil and some other stuff that I can't remember.  Kicking myself for waiting so long to post because now I can't remember what else he had.  All I can remember is that it was funny and I never wanted to forget how cute it was.

The kids and the men went trilobite hunting.  They had a blast.  Big mountain, sharp rocks, pointy hammer things to split the rocks to expose the fossils... who wouldn't have a blast, right?

 I remember saying a lot of, "Samuel, don't go too high!"s and...

 "Careful when you throw stuff so you don't hurt anyone!"s 

But mostly I tried my best to let them have a good time because beside falling down a mountain and hurting themselves on all the sharp rocks, not much could happen.  Funny funny.  

 They found some cool stuff.

And I applaud their patience (and mine and my mom's for holding Maximus and keeping him safe the hold time all while trying to get comfy on the piles of sharp rocks). 

 Their reward?  Cool fossils.  My reward?  Good Mexican food.  Kauai doesn't have much of that.

If you are a fan of finding fossils (you may find this hard to believe but not everyone is), or maybe just enjoy splitting rocks, then I suggest you head over to good old Delta, Utah and find yourself a trilobite.  

flying with the end in mind

There was a time in my life when I really looked forward to flying on an airplane.  The snacks, the window seat, the books that I could read, the magazines I could flip through, the naps, the excitement of seeing somewhere new...

Then September 11 happened.  Security check felt like we were waiting in line to enter a prison camp, we had to pay more for less, and we couldn't even carry in a bottle of water anymore.

Then kids happened.  Strollers, taking a sleeping baby out of the stroller to go through security, figuring out how to get the car seat/luggage/kid from point A to point B, getting all nervous that my kids are bugging all the other passengers, being worried I will forget one of the 382 items that it takes to raise a baby these days, kids asking, "are we going to have to run again?" because their parents are inevitably and annoyingly late every single time they fly, running out of entertainment for the kids, running out of threats so the kids will listen, being amazed at how a kid can stay awake the entire red eye flight only to pass out 15 minutes before we land, having to decide if it feels worse to be hungry or to feel disgusting after eating all the stuff in the $15 box of processed snacks, kids crying, kids throwing up, me wanting to cry, me wanting to throw up, and on and on and on...

We deal with it.  Sometimes we enjoy it.  Sometimes husband and I look at each other and one of us mouths, "Some body shoot me now."  Sometimes I swear that I will never ever ever never fly again.  But just like childbirth, I kind of forget the misery and I do it all over again.  

And maybe it's because we are met with sweet welcomes and lots of family time.

Or maybe it's because I think it is worth flying over the ocean to have one of my mom's home cooked meals.

My mom's korokke and gyoza are my two all time favorite comfort foods.  The korokke was waiting for us as soon as we landed.  And here is a little random culture lesson... I grew up with Japanese parents in America.  The two cultures express love in very different ways.  This meal, my friends, is worth a bajillion verbal "I love you"s.  

 Even when I think I am doing it just like my mom, my cooking is never as good.  But most of the time, I don't even think that I am doing it just like my mom :).  I am too impatient and I don't have the skills or the artistic touch.  After being away for awhile, I also appreciate how much vegetables she uses.  One meal almost always has at least 5-6 different vegetables in it.  All tasty, all beautiful.  

Okay, okay, and it's not all about the food.  It's about the shopping, too.  Just kidding, we made a ton of great memories, most of them with family.

We fly because we know (or at least hope) the destination is worth it.

So, here's to remembering summer.  One of the fastest summers of my life...

remembering our visit to the kaui kunana goat dairy

I should be putting laundry away.  I bribe myself to do it by saving all the good Hulu shows for this purpose.  But, I am all caught up on Hulu and so I can't get myself to face the piles of clean clothes (I don't mind the washing and drying, it's just the putting away that I can't stand.  I don't get it, either).  So, until there are new shows, I will blog and the family with still have to pull their clothes out of out of the piles...

Karl's brother and his family visited a while back and we packed in so many great activities.  10 days somehow flew by and we still had things on our list of things we wanted to do (eat more shave ice, cookout on the beach, kayak the river, eat more shave ice...).  

I had wanted to take the Kauai Kunana Goat Dairy tour for a while but it is while the kids are in school and to be honest, I was a little nervous about dragging 11 people up there (waking up early and driving 45 minutes) and not having them like it.  We had planned on letting the kids miss one day of school so they could hang with their cousins and thought this was a good excuse to miss school.

As soon as we got there, we loaded up on mosquito repellent (Burt's Bees makes one that smells so good) because that area of the island is mosquito-ville and Samuel took off to start feeding the goats.  They had a tray of just baked organic treats and fresh squeezed lemonade ready for us.  I think a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie and an oatmeal raisin cookie (the best I have ever had) and a slice of banana bread is a great way to start your morning.  At least this morning. The couple that gave us the tour was all healthy and fit and nature-y looking.  Like they just stepped out of Sunset Magazine.  Sarah, makes all the baked goods and sells them online and at farmers markets around the island.

They brought out the goat babies and let us hold them.

The cousins and the kids minus Samuel and Maximus.  Thanks for this photo, Brenda!

They were very friendly.  In fact, they take the babies away from their mommies right after they are born so they don't bond.  They want the babies to bond with humans.  I guess they are more tame that way.  

After the goat holding came the farm tour.  First stop, the star apple (or cream apple)  tree.  They call it a star apple because when you cut it open crosswise you can see a star shape.  The taste and texture was kind of like a lychee, at least in my opinion.  

Then they showed us where they kept the honey bees and let us sample some.  Samuel would have slurped down the whole bottle if they would have let him.

See these fermenting blobs that look like brain experiments?  Ever heard of noni juice?  I guess it has a ton of health benefits.  They pick the noni fruit, put it in a jar, set it in the sun, after a while a juice starts seeping out, then they let it ferment, then the bottle it and sell the lovely rotted stuff.  Yum, sign me up for that MLM.

They had a bunch of different kinds of goats. And they told us all about them. All very interesting, I am sure. But while they were explaining all this, I just watched this silly goat.

Then we moved on to more tasting of their amazing produce.  I started paying attention again. Eva got to eat a flower.

And we got to see how heavy a bunch of apple bananas are.  They pick their while they are green because the birds get them as soon as they are yellow.  These yellow ones had already been attacked.  Apple bananas deserve a post of their own.  My family eats a ton of them (including the baby.  He LOVES them).

And this little guy was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted and so I was sure that I would never forget the name of it but a little google and I got the whole thing settled.  In Hawaii they call it a poha.  We got to try some other stuff like grapefruit, orange, and katuk, a leaf that contains protein.  We ended at the dairy section of the farms where they showed us where the milk the goats and make the chevre.  We got to sample their different flavors of chevre like artichoke heart and lilikoi (passion fruit).  They also had some tasty pesto made with mac nuts.  So tasty that Daniel ordered a jar of pesto and a spoon.  His mom didn't let him, but it was that good.  

The farm was so picturesque and the couple made it sound so easy.  The farm boy in Karl was loving it.  And with every question that he asked, I got that much more nervous that he will seriously want to live on farm one day.  I kept telling them to tell Karl how hard it was.

It turns out, we all loved this little tour.  It was great to see where our food comes from or most can only hope that their food comes from such a lovely place.  So maybe saying, "I went to Kauai and I toured a goat farm" doesn't sound as cool as "I went to Kauai and I learned to surf" but let me tell you, it was totally worth it.  Sound cool?  Maybe not.  Great memories and a lasting impact?  Very much so.

 The kids also learned about a bijillion times more than they would have in the classroom that day.