our kauai life: may day 2012

The morning starts out lovely.  Then a giant cloud rolls in.  Samuel notices the giant cloud.  

Most people seem to know that this would happen.  We do live in Kauai, after all.  They pull out their umbrellas, the kids head back to their classrooms, and the rest of us just run for cover.  Nice people let me squeeze into the dug out with them.  They don't like seeing a drenched baby.  Not me.  Maximus.  Hehe.  

As soon as the rain lets up a little, the show continues.

Maximus loves this guy.  Uncle Mike.  Uncle Mike show Maximus how to do knuckles.  And that means for the next ten minutes, Uncle Mike has to do do knuckles.  Double knuckles, even. 

Eva's class...

Samuel, gets ready to dance.  Once upon a time, Samuel would dance.  Then he turned about four and quit.  These days we have to bribe him to dance.  It was so fun to see him dance without any bribery at all.  I guess if his entire grade will do it, he will too.  

Here is the video of his dance.  His discomfort is so charming to me.  He ripped off his bottom two buttons on his shirt when he tried to cover his head from the rain.  He seems rip buttons off his shirts a lot.

Here is Eva getting ready to dance.  This is pretty much her thing.  Her grade used poi, the ball things that you spin around.  They had to wear white, black, or red.

Here is the video.  I apologize for my video skills. 

After the performance, sporting fruit snack leis.

Eva and her besties.  Her other bestie was the princess for her grade and wasn't around for a photo opp.  Eva has made some really good friends this year.  It's super cute.  

It is so fun to be a part of something that is unique to Hawaii.  Another May Day means that we have been here over a year.  I still feel like a visitor.  Maybe that will change.  In the mean time... this is a great day to be a visitor.

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.  

luau, farmers market, spam, beach, shave ice, friday...

We went to the obligatory luau.  We just went to the show part of the luau.  Samuel wasn't so interested but during the show I saw him perk up and start pointing at his punch.  A caterpillar was climbing up his drink.  And then that kept him entertained.  If I was ever worried about reaching for a drink in a dark, jungle-y, nature-y place, now I am super worried.  Ew.

 Eva wanted her picture taken with one of the hula dancers.  

 Those cousins again.  Sporting their ti leaf head bands.

Spam. We got Karl's nieces and nephews to eat Spam musubi, a favorite snack on the islands.  Here's the thing about Spam.  It's a "When in Rome" type of thing.  Stuff that you would never consider eating at home, becomes comfortable and even tasty when everyone around you feasting on the stuff.  That is how things like tripe, oxtail, pig ear, jelly fish, etc. have all passed my lips.  People around me eat were eating it and making it look delicious.  And in the situation, it is delicious.  Same goes for Spam.  That square can looks hideous in my home town, but out here, nom nom nom...

 Maximus at the farmers market.

 The kids get excited for the farmers market because they can usually talk us into getting them a coconut and a chocolate frozen banana.  We are suckers.  

 This dude needed to wear protective gear, he had all sorts of gashes on him, I am assuming fro the coconut hacking.  Ew.  We still bought one from him.

My kids got a punch card for the bananas.  For the longest time they thought it meant they get free bananas.  When we would say we weren't buying them a banana they would reply, "But we have a punch card."  It took us about 4 trips for us to explain that it didn't help us to have a punch card.  

 After the farmers market, and a stop at a souvenir shop (and Burns stopped and bought a paring knife so he could cut his fruit at the beach like the goat farm guy), we headed to the beach so their family could get one last bit of beach.  

 Samuel mostly played in the sand under a tree, far away from us.

 Maximus hung out, then took a nap.

 And at Daniel's request, though no one argued, we stopped for some shave ice.

You know when a song is annoying but you can't stop singing because it is so catchy, and then you sing it because it is funny?  Uh, well we do.  The song is Friday and it ended up being kind of our theme song for the visit.  I could pull it up on Youtube on my phone, hook it up to my transmitter thing and then they could hear it in their car, too.  They could also hear anything else we played for them on Pandora or from my ipod.  It was pretty fun.

We never knew who would end up in which van.  Sometimes we would have a car full of little kids, sometimes boys, sometimes girls, sometimes a couple of big a couple of little, sometimes it was whoever would put up with Maximus crying the in the evening, sometimes it was whoever wanted to eat what Karl and I were eating... it was different every time.  I should have taken photos of all the different configurations.

Having visitors made it feel like we were on vacation, too.  So, Burns and Brenda and family, thanks for coming out, and thanks for the vacation.

bike ride, water spout, hula, movie, all in one day

When family visits, it gives us an excuse to try out all the touristy things.  This day was jam packed.  We went up to Kapaa and rented bikes and rode up the coast.  For $5 a bike, this is one of the cheapest adventures we have found.  

I am sure we are breaking all kinds of rules here, but looks, he was totally happy sitting next to his cousin Ashley.   

The family stopping for a break.  

 The view on this bike ride was amazing.  If I ever decided to live on the east side, it would be because of this path.  The ocean views went on forever and we even saw some whales breaching.

Sweet little Maximus only fussed for a minute, and that was because he was trying to fall asleep.  

We had to rent the bikes from a couple of different places because the cheap place didn't have enough for us.  So, we dropped off a few of the bikes at one place and I waited with a few of the kids for Karl to come get us.  After what felt like forever, but was probably only about 15 minutes, I called him.  The were all watching this ocean tornado thing called a water spout.    Pretty cool.  Thanks for the photo, Brenda.

Eva's halao (hula school) has a rule that parents can't watch unless there are visitors from out of town.  We all wanted to sit in on Eva's class.  Traffic was horrible and Eva only made it for the last bit of class but we still got to see her dance a little.  It was so cute.

And after hula class, we grabbed some fast food and raced to the Waimea movie theater to see Rango.  It's a little one show theater about 20 minutes away.  And I know I use the word cute a lot, but it is, well, cute.  It doesn't really matter what the movie is (unless it is scary), my family just loves the whole movie experience.  I can do without it, but they are crazy about it.

remembering a couple of beaches: poipu and ke'e

Here's the thing.  These things all happened a long time ago.  But I feel compelled to record this.  The sad thing is, we are kind of getting used to the beach.  So much that the kids kind of whine when it's time to go... "We want to go to the pool," or "I don't want to get sand in my swimsuit."  Can you believe it?

I love it when this monk seal is at the beach.  He is there a lot.  It makes it so exciting.  So Sea World meets real world.  

   

Kids in front of the monk seal.

 Cute cousins, again.  Eva and Sarah must be together a lot, I have a ton of photos of the two of them.

 Their "shave ice."

Looking for creatures.

 One of the sand crabs that they found.

Another day, we headed up north to Ke'e beach.  We tried Hanalei first but it wasn't super exciting that day so we went further to Ke'e.  

I never get tired of photos of Samuel decked out in snorkel gear.  Things I remember about this trip but didn't take photos of:  The guys selling coconuts, one of them holding a piglet, a cave that is formed from tree roots on the beach, and the rain, that kept us from hiking and eventually cut our beach trip short.

 We stopped at Banana Joes on the way home.  But we just call it the banana stand and then giggle because it reminds us of Arrested Development.  They freeze apple bananas and then send them through a juicer.  That's it.  It makes a great little smoothie.  Max was a fan.  He wanted more and more.

remembering the Kilauea Lighthouse

The goat farm was not far from the lighthouse, so that was the next stop.  It is a bird refuge and very beautiful.  Though I didn't really notice it while we were there, apparently it was very windy.

 One of the few family photos that we have.  Samuel isn't even looking but I thought our hair was awesome.

 This one was better.  But we are covering up the lighthouse.  It was under construction anyway.  If Karl would have held Maximus up a little higher he would have wings.

 Cute cousins.

We went to the Kilauea Fish Market for lunch, ordered a bunch of stuff, waited forever and then ate some of my favorite food on the island.  I already talked about the wrap, but seriously, it was so good.  Every I hear someone talk about that town, in my head I secretly start thinking about the wrap.  Okay, and to keep us occupied and a little giddy while we were waiting for our food was Pearce Brosnan and his wife, also there to enjoy the wrap.  We didn't actually say anything to them, we were just dorks and kept taking secret pictures of him.  This one looks like someone is grabbing his head and Samuel looks like he is pulling that face that Michelle Kwan pulled for most of her olympic photos.  

 And here is the crew.  Thanks for the photo, Brenda.  Samuel has the awesome wrap.  It's the size of his head and he ate almost all of it.  I wanted to take it from him but I hate taking semi-nutritious food from that skinny kid.