big stuff in ten short days

Tired.  If life allowed, I would sleep for days.  

Just ten days ago we were in the company of lots of doting grandparents, fun cousins, great shopping, yummy favorite restaurants, dear old friends, and a touch of a true fall season.

Then we hopped back on a plane and headed back to another kind of paradise.  It amazes me how both kind of paradises make it worth it to go through the trouble of packing, loading, getting rides, going through security (my least favorite part when I have kids with me), almost missing our plane (because it seems like we almost always do), hauling our circus down the narrow isle (where the tiny space and my big family suddenly makes me feel like Duggars), somehow surviving the ten plus hour journey (where kids that are incapable of sitting anywhere for longer than five minutes are required to sit for five hours)...

A little star (anyone that has anything to do with SYTYCD is a star to me) sighting helps make the trip a little more exciting.  Can't help but laugh at how we were trying to be discreet while taking a photo.  

 Not too long after we landed, we were joined by my in-laws.  And once again, my kids were in the company of doting grandparents.  

and great-grandparents.

 We had to get some beach time. 

We also had parent teacher conferences.  And there it was crazy how much Karl and I's strengths and weaknesses were magnified and shown through our kids.  

Along the way, Baby Maximus turned one.

And since we already did a big Maximus celebration in UT, we kept it simple with dinner at Bubba Burger and our favorite pie (Lilikoi chiffon from Hamura's).

And it just may be Maximus's favorite pie, too.

There were also church meetings, hula lessons and soccer practice.

 

We also decided not to buy a fixer upper.  We will call this one Husband's Hawaiian Jungle Farm Dream.  It was too much work.  One of the many projects that we would have to tackle is to get some cupboards that I could see into.  They were hung way above my head and the fact that I would be using a ladder or a periscope and a grabby thing to get my dishes every time I needed them was not the only reason why we pulled out.  There were many.  

Just as soon as we decided not to buy the Jungle Farm Dream, we found a house on sale.  I love sales.  This was the first time that we have found a move in ready house that was in our budget.  I have started calling this My House.  This is so different from the Husband's Jungle Dream.  But we take turns.  The last one was his and the next one can be his.  This one is mine.  So, to add to our crazy week, we dropped a house (I still feel so rude about that), found a house and made an offer on it.  Two other people made offers on the house, too.  Because it was on sale :).  But we were the first.

 And after we stopped over and bought a house, it was time to get ready for Eva's ho'ike (hula recital).  The preparation was INSANE.  We had to pick enough yellow plumeria (which are hard to find) for two leis, two wrist bands, two ankle bands, and three rosettes.  This meant driving around calling to find the right trees.  This meant climbing trees, being bombed with poisonous white stuff that oozes from the flowers, breaking branches, and then driving around for more trees.  Whenever I think about it, I chuckle at what we went through.

And then we had/got to make all the stuff.

 It took about 120 flowers per girl.  

After all the flower nonsense, grandparents were so nice and took the kids and we had our first nice dinner our with just the two of us, in months.  These two ravioli were amazing.  

Early the next morning Samuel had his last soccer game.  He is wearing the goalie uniform here.  I get all immature when he wears it because it is so stinkin' cute.  When he is goalie, I keep thinking, "He looks so cute in his little striped costume."  And Eva had school choir practice.

Come ho'ike time, turns out all that work was so the the girls on first row would look good.  We got a couple of glimpses of Eva.  She is in the very middle of this photo.  She is dancing to Puka Puka Pants.  Puka means hole.  That's what the patches on their pant are for.

There she is!  

 Look carefully enough and you can see here in this one, too.  The girls in front have danced for years.  Eva has only danced for 9 months.  I wonder how long it will be before we feel like we actually got to see Eva dance.  With all this complaining, I do have to say it was a lot of fun.  And Eva was adorable.  

The day following the big performance was an even bigger day for Eva.  For that big day she wanted to make chocolate dipped bananas.  And when I had agreed to this, I had no idea how crazy the week would be.  But with two grandmas here, we pulled it off.  

Here is princess Eva, freshly baptized, well celebrated on quite possible the biggest day in her life so far.

 Here is the crew that enjoyed and experienced and survived this week together.

 All of this in ten days. Ten days!  So many great things in so few days.  

Good night.