This last Saturday Aiden got to crossover to Wolf Scout. One successful Cub Scout year down, many more to go!
#4
And tooth #4 is out!
Hard to believe. Thankfully there are none loose so we should get a short reprieve from the loose tooth debacle!
Long time no see…
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve really kept up with this thing.
At the same time, it’s been because of, well, life. Life with 4 kids. Life in Hawaii. Life in general. Fair warning, this post is pretty pic heavy, so be warned!
On that note, now that the kids are getting older and it’s not as much of “here’s something cute they learned how to do today” as it is “wow, look at this cool adventure our family went on!” I’m going to be working on moving away from just updates about the kids to more, well, updates about life in general. Where we are, where we were, where we are headed. Thoughts and musings on events and activities.
That said, what have we been up to, you want to know? Well, we just came off of Easter and Spring Break, so I’ll start there. The kids all had egg hunts and parties at school the week before Easter.
Yes, this is the unicorn of Easter Bunny pictures. All are looking, all are smiling. Not a tear in the room. It only took 7 years of trying 😉
Easter was absolutely wonderful, complete with a boat egg hunt the day before, and a sunrise service aboard the USS Missouri. Why in the world would I want to get four kids up at 5 am so that we could go to a sunrise service, you ask? Well, it was sunrise service on the Battleship, why wouldn’t we?!
The kids actually did wonderfully, and it’s not like 6:30am is really any different than our normal morning routine. They just had to be dressed a bit earlier than normal.
The rest of the week was a bit of odds and ends. The kids actually went to “camp” MWF all day long so that I could get some things done. Run, errands, scuba dive, the norm…
Thanks to a wonderful friend, I had a dive camera to borrow and I wasn’t disappointed!
Lots of random appointments filled the gaps that take a bit too long for the normal weekly preschool routine, but aren’t worth booking them into afterschool care to get done.
Now? We’re back to school and the normal routine. Aiden has started back up with karate again on weekends!
And, of course, there’s the pool.
So now on to the near future, hopefully next time I won’t be catching up a few weeks’ worth of events!
Cub Scouts
Cub scout pinewood derby is coming up. It’s a race that gets the parents as excited (if not more) than the kids, and leads to the cleaning off of cobwebs from power tools.
So the 7 year old wanted a submarine. A yellow submarine. With a red bottom, black windows, and black on top of the sail. Okay, mom said. No biggie. So we started sanding. And sanding. And more sanding. To no avail. In stepped some den leaders not afraid to break out the saws and power tools, and two days later I had a block of wood finally resembling a submarine.
Of course, the max weight is 5oz. Any more and you don’t race. Too much less and you’re disadvantaged. We’ll, when you cut off half the block of wood you have to make it up somewhere. After drilling holes in the sail and in each of the window locations and filling with weight, it was still only 4oz. So I gave up. Glue and quarters it is!
I’m sure my husband will pick on me for the windows and improper sail placement (not to mention lack of a propeller and the fact it’s going to race backwards…), but I don’t care. First year of Cub Scout derby, we’re coming for you! Brought to you by two awesome den leaders who cut and shaped it for me, a 7 year old with a vision, and a mom who isn’t afraid of power tools.
Today
… Was the day you learned the benefits of sisters. You already knew how to get Jaina to do chores for you, but today you learned she could do your homework too.
“Jaina, draw this for me,” you said.
“OK!” she said.
Christmas 2014
So for actual Christmas we escape and flew to the Big Island for 5 days of wonderful family time. Lots of hiking, driving, and sightseeing later, we were sad to leave but had a lot of amazing memories.
Active Volcano viewing? Yes, please!
These kids are amazing. 4.5 miles of hiking including 400 feet down to a crater (and then 400 feet back up).
After a long day hiking we were grateful for our huge rental house with space to lay back and relax.
They managed to get two different Junior Ranger badges while there, and had a blast doing it!
Christmas Eve we made Gingerbread houses and read the Night Before Christmas.
Christmas brought more hiking at the waterfalls.
And on our way off the island we finally managed to get to the lava flow. Thankfully, it had stopped flowing towards the housing, but it also made for less exciting pictures 😉
From there it was back to home sweet
home and our wonderful toys.
Race Recap
What do a dozen people dressed as reindeer, four wedding couples, a Japanese man wearing traditional dress including wooden shoes, a lady dressed as a cake, and Darth Vader have in common? They all ran 26.2 miles today!
So I know I haven’t mentioned it lately, but the last four months I’ve been training for the Honolulu Marathon! Thankful for preschool (the most expensive training plan ever! Haha) , an amazing husband, and treadmills when needed, I made it through the entire 20 weeks uninjured and with all toenails intact.
Today was full of logistical craziness (babysitters arrived at 3, had to find a backway to the parking garage, walk a mile to the start line, and then fight the selfie takers to actually make it over the mat – more on that in a minute) but it was worth it and now that it’s over I need to research the races next year.
To start with, it was wet. Drizzly constant damp dreariness. To be fair, it felt pretty good (at first). When we got to the 20+ mph winds later and downpouring rain it wasn’t as much fun. After ditching the trash bag that kept me mostly dry on the walk to the start line, I joined in the selfie taking fun.
Finally the fireworks went off. They say the race starts at 5, and I’m sure for the front runners it does, but no one moves till the fireworks are over, and even then you fight crowds the whole way.
Who knew we were at a race start and not a rock concert with all the phones and cameras out?
From there, it wasn’t until about mile 13 that there was actually enough room on the road to maneuver easily. There were just so.many.people. It definitely would be hard to Boston qualify with the multitudes of people.
The race went pretty well from there, though. The sun came out and warmed us up every now and then (between downspurts), and around mile 17 I even found a yellow submarine. How can you not stop for a picture with a submarine?
And in true Hawaii fashion, we were graced with a rainbow!
From there it was just back up and over Diamondhead and on to the finish. I was actually on target for the time I wanted until mile 22. Someone in front of me collapsed and so I stayed to help until EMS arrived. Thankfully she should be just fine. Once I got up my muscles were not happy about having to get moving again, and it took a little while to get back into it. She kept telling me to go finish the race, and I promised her I would finish for her. This one is for you, Wanda!
And I found Darth Vader! Can you imagine running even 1 mile in a helmet?
Well, that’s all for now. I am eating all the food and researching races for next year. You know that’s when it’s bad is when you want to do another even while you can barely wiggle your toes without cringing 🙂
All I want for Christmas is my…
One front tooth!
He even got a special tooth fairy pillow to put his teeth in!
After a very long week with a very wiggly tooth we got it out way past bedtime last Friday 5 Dec.
I forgot to get a picture the next morning but he got a whole dollar! He was quite excited since most of the books we read only have the tooth fairy give a quarter.
The Holidays are Here
We are very excited getting ready for Christmas. All four kids this year actually get it and are anxiously awaiting Jesus’ birthday party and Christmas festivities. One benefit of living in Paradise is that our holiday fairs are held outside. In December. It’s a nice change from snow suits (though I’d still love a miraculous snow on Christmas!)
We had balloon animals…
Potato sack races…
Egg races…
And, of course, Santa!
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful holiday at home and I think after 9 years of marriage and many recipes, finally found a turkey recipe that is to die for!
It isn’t Thanksgiving until Princess Anna shows up to join you 😉
The pumpkin pie tarts were so good you had to lick the filling out, apparently.
After dinner, what should you do? Watch “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” of course!
Too much excitement for some people, though…
In lieu of traditional Black Friday shopping, we did a Black Friday Fishing Derby instead! Even the triplets got in on the fishing fun. While we didn’t catch anything, we certainly had a good time!
