Mele Kalikimaka!

This Christmas was quiet, pleasant, and warm. The girls were delighted to wake up Christmas morning and see that Santa had eaten the cookies they left out for him. They happily inspected his gifts for them, then moved on to family gifts. They moved through the presents so carefully and sweetly! We were all in Heaven.
Melia's favorite gifts were her piggy bank, play makeup set, and barbies, of course. Sophie loved her cars and babies. And I can't forget to mention that Danny and the girls picked out some lovely jewelry for me (and a Snuggie! ). Poor Danny got a yoyo and cologne.
Later in the day we went swimming, talked to our families on Skype, and had a ham dinner. Despite missing our families a lot and being confused celebrating Christmas without snow, we had a really nice time. Our little family is just beautiful.

A Visit from Mark and Anne

We enjoyed a visit from Danny's parents the beginning of this month. It was so great to be with them for a week!  The weather was ideal and we had lots of things to see and do. We got to go to the beach, see Akaka Falls and the Botanical Gardens, eat out a lot, go to a luau, and most important--our kids got to spend several days of quality time with their Grammy and Papa.

The girls gathered Plumeria flowers from behind our condo and strung together leis for our important guests.

Melia and Anne made a gingerbread house together.  Melia enjoyed eating some of the candy and Anne got frustrated when all the pretty frosting drooped and drooped because of the warm humid air.  It is my favorite Christmas decoration we have!  It makes our rental feel much homier.

We got to explore Parker Ranch, a famous cattle ranch. The above picture was my favorite part about visiting the ranch.

Thank you for coming to see us, Mark and Anne! We love you!

Enjoying the morning

It is scorching hot in our house. We all have heat rash! So we try to get out to swim as much as we can.

Strolling

Oh, my little Susan...

Good Friends

Our New Camera

I have always wished Danny took more pictures, until now. He just needed a nicer camera! Bingo!

My Cutie-Pies

This is what my girls are lookin' like these days. Little friends!

Cane Spiders

This spider was in our kitchen sink. We have had two of them in our house now. And even though cane spiders are the size of a credit card, they don't bite.

Fall Update

A friend took these pictures of us on the fly after church a couple weeks ago. We were just messing around, but were happily surprised to see the quality of the photos turned out lovely. So I thought I would post these! Our friend, Nathan, will be taking our actual family photos this coming week, so I will post those at a later date.

Here are our personal updates:

Danny is on the downhill portion of his work here at the hotel. He is mostly bored with work, but enjoys the networking side of it and how his pool design turned out. He has surfed a few times and is looking to do more of that (as am I). He reads a lot, as he often has in the past, but he probably does it more now because we have no TV for sports viewing. When sports geared up in September, he went through withdrawals at not being able to see all the right games, but he is over it! He checks the scores and articles out online, and considers it a bit of a relief not to be distracted by watching games all the time like he used to. At home, he toughens our girls up with games of tigers and pumas. The girls hate it! ...But they LOVE it! I smile anxiously as I watch. On the weekends, we enjoy driving around the island, getting to know new beaches or different terrains. The diversity of country on this island is amazing! And we still have lots to see!

As for me, I am having a good time experimenting with my hair and makeup. I bought a cheap makeup kit at Ross and am trying out a few new things. I even bought my first fashion magazine in over 10 years! I guess I am in the mood to try something new! I am still into diet and exercise, but have been loving on the cookies lately and can't figure out a good exercise time. I either need to get back into paddling in the early mornings, or do exercise videos at night again while the girls are sleeping! I enjoy spending time with neighbors and new friends. I try to journal or read whenever I can. I miss my family. I love this unique and pioneering time in our little family, though. It is very simple, and I enjoy that. It is good for me to be here to evaluate life to this point and make plans for the future.
Melia is beautiful, confident, and a little artist. She colors and draws often, is teaching her 3-d arrangement art forms to her little sister, and she still loves to sing and play barbies! I signed us up for a free playgroup preschool, which she enjoys. It provides five lessons for us to do each week, and then the girls get constructive and free playtime with the class on Wednesday mornings. I still feel like she is ready for much more than this socially, but do not have many options. Oh and I can't forget to mention that she is in love with our upstairs neighbor, Gigi, who takes her to ballet class during Sophie's naps on Mondays and treats her to tea parties and noggin watching some afternoons. Melia loves the attention and the independence. Gale loves to be with her. Melia is also a good little swimmer now and she loves it when their neighbors come over to play. She enjoys church and primary songs very much. The past couple of weeks she has grown bossy and defiant, though; Danny and I are a little stumped. Any suggestions would be great. She is a wonderful big sister. And still a bit of a Mama's girl. She makes me want to be more feminine.

Sophie is no longer a baby! She is constantly talking, shouting, demanding and teasing. She loves being loud. We are trying to teach her not to cry so much or so loudly when she is upset, but use her words instead. She is doing well with this. Each time she is upset, once she gets a hold of herself she says, "I be happy now." Sophie ADORES her big sister, "Ee-ah." She hates to ever be apart from her. Naps are the only separation she tolerates. She wears big kids pants with rarely an accident. She loves to dance and is starting to sing a lot. She is very playful and LOVES her dad. Our kids have chosen clear favorites...Danny is Sophie's pick. She has a lot of boy in her. She loves to swim too, and practices swimming without floaties as long as we will let her do it. She loves indoor water experiments, playing barbies and dollies, and her favorite videos to watch are Dora. She has become very social and enjoys her neighbor and church friends very much. Despite a lot of boy in her, her favorite color is pink.

Waipeo Valley

Our Girls

Sophie is really into band-aids lately.
has all her teeth
no more milk problems
lots of spunk
a great swimmer at age 2
brushes her teeth only while making noises
is a daddy's girl
can't live without Eeyah.
is totally potty trained

Melia has a black toenail and is very sad about it.
loves ballet
loves going to Gigi's house upstairs
loves primary songs
draws all of the time
says very thoughtful prayers
is gentle and sweet.

Little Swimmer

Sophie and Melia are such good swimmers. When we moved here, Melia was barely 4 and could not swim without assistance. She was afraid to put her face in the water. Sophie could not swim at all, though she thought she could.  After three months in Hawaii, they were both great swimmers! Melia learned to conquer her fears. And Sophie learned to swim before she was 2 1/2!

We Love Video Chat

We had such a great time chatting with our loved ones on Skype and Google last week! We want to know who else has a webcam! We want to chat with you!

A New Land

I really want to do a post about Hawaii. Silly Me-- do you know I have been waiting to post all these months because I just kept telling myself that I could start posting again once I got around to taking a few good shots of the town where I live, so I could do a little bio on it? I never took the pictures, and I don't know if I ever will! So I have decided (at last!) to get on with my blogging!
Here are a handful of posts I have been meaning to do. Try look!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a great time. People ask if it still felt like Halloween to us, since we celebrated it in 80 degree weather, parading around under the pink Plumeria trees. I answer, "Yes! It did!" And it was a lot of fun.

Here are pictures of our little Cinderella and Butterfly Fairy, along with our great little neighbor friends, Ryen and Kaelan.

After Sophie was finished sorting out all of her spoils, she stood up, put her arms in the air, and exclaimed joyfully, "Look, Dah-ee(daddy)! eH (it) Ih (is) SO BEAU-i-FUL!"

My Blonde Experiment

I have wanted to try bleaching my locks blonde for several years.
First of all, I can't believe how fast a person can be transformed by just changing their hair color! Second of all, I am so glad I finally did it!
BUT I think I will either dye it back to brunette, for a month has passed now, and the blonde girl looking back at me in the mirror still looks pretty strange (even though I know in the past few weeks she has had some fun!) or I will lighten it much, much more, so I am really, obviously blonde (might as well I'm already half way there!).
Any thoughts?

The Market

Groceries are really expensive here. We pay a lot for shipping. So I try to buy as much as I can from the local farmers market. I'll be honest--it really isn't much cheaper than Safeway-- but it IS fun, usually much tastier, and a cool experience. So far I have experimented on passion fruit, guava, apple bananas, star fruit, avocados (similar on the outside, but they are yellow on the inside, not green), papayas, mangoes, pinneapple (of course), breadfruit, rambutin, lychee, manoa lettuce, and oranges (they look like limes on the outside). Next Up: dragon fruit, jackfruit, jicama, coconuts, and figs.

A Fish Named Chun Li

Notice our new beta fighter fish, Chun Li (named after Chun Li from Street Fighter, by Melia). He will be our friend while we live here in Hawaii. He will also go by 'She' because Melia never intended for the fish to be a boy. Chun Li is a girl fighter, after all, not a boy one. We are all very excited about our new pet!

Kayak Attack

Danny and I kayaked in Kealekekua Bay today. We kayaked to the Captain Cook monument, where the famous Captain Cook was slain by the Hawaiians many years back.  The monument was dumb, but the scenery amazing. We snorkeled, too, and it really clear and beautiful.

Hawi

Ironman was last week. The athletes biked up to this town, 112 miles round trip. The wind blows so hard up there, I don't know how they stayed on their bikes! We felt like we drove through 5 different terrains to get there. Southern Utah, Nevada, Africa, Ireland, Hawaii.  Amazing.