spontaneous

The text comes in at 6:30 in the morning.  Wants to know what we are doing.  Before the rest of the family is awake, the whole hike is planned.  All before I have even rolled out of bed.

My mom makes a feast, we pack it up, load up the car (these are all huge feats.  Huge), and we head toward the beach.

We meet our friends, and some new friends, and we start on our way.

First stop, this hole in ground that blows air.  So the kids throw dirt and rocks inside and the hole blows them right back out.  

Here is the crew, nearing the end.  Where I come from, a view like this is very special.  Cool rocks.  Cool people.

 And usually, we would pull out our sandwiches like everyone.  But my mom was here.  So, we kinda had a big ol feast.  Rice, chicken karaage, tsukemono, fruit... Oh, and the little opihi.

 After, we did some playing.  

Maximus and Uncle Jason.  Having a sumo showdown of sorts.

 Hand stand contests...

Playing in picturesque little forts...

 closer...

Closest!

 Mom and Auntie doing a little tai chi on the beach...

 Brothers...

 And sister...

 Done.

 Sometimes the best memories are made when they are aren't all planned out.  

No expectations. 

On this hike we met a few more families.  One family we met, with two kids, once lived on a sailboat for a whole year.  I know it took a ton of planning, but the heart of it is so stinkin' spontaneous, right?  So many reasons why a family shouldn't just drop whatever and go for an adventure.  

And most of the time, the boring day to days win.  These days, the day to day seems to win.  The sail boat family inspires me.  Us, on that day that we woke up and decided to go on the big beautiful hike, inspires me.

  

narcoleptic stretchy pants

Some of my besties aren't on Facebook.  And they're not even Amish.  Hehehe.  They probably just dedicate their time to probably more productive things.  But not me.  I am a junkie.  My last post went like this:

Stuff. We do this thing where I try to put stuff away as fast as I can and they try to get it out faster than I can put away. At night, when they are asleep, I get ahead and do lots of putting away. And in the morning we start this not very awesome at all game all over again.

I have a hard time enjoying all of this stuff moving. But I'm working on it.  I didn't realize it, but it's pretty much what I signed up for.

 

Life is a little crazy in these parts.  When I am not home moving stuff we are running around trying to pack in as much good time as we can.  So, last week, we were picking up Eva and Samuel from their friends' house and we were rushing to the beach.  We backed out and heard a *crunch*!  Karl got out to find a saggy ukulele bag on the ground.  Samuel was kind enough to grab Eva's ukulele for her but his service ends at the car, I guess.  He just dumped  it on the ground, we didn't notice, climbed in, and totally ran over it.  This is where we are glad that we are flakes and never started Eva in violin.  And for some reason this seems so significant to me.  Like this situation paints such a clear picture of my family.  We ran over the ukulele while rushing off the to beach.

So, here's another one that just really paints a picture of me...

I had heard that this book was good and it had really good reviews on Amazon.  I am sick of spending so much of my life moving stuff.  It seems silly.  So I ordered this book.  Seven: On Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.  And then I couldn't remember if I ordered and so I ordered it again.  Again!  I don't even like to buy books but this one is so new that the library didn't have it.  And I wanted to hurry and have less so I had to rush and buy this.  Twice!  Awesome, huh?

I have been in a stretchy pants kind of mood lately.  You know, because I have a lot of stuff moving to do and it seems like stretchy pants are the appropriate attire.  But here is my problem.  Stretchy pants feel like pajamas.  And pajamas make me sleepy.  So, I would be all gung ho about cleaning and start something and then Maximus would want me to do something so I would sit down and read a book and then I would lay down and before I knew it, I was dreaming.  And stuff like that kept happening.  So, not only do decisions paralyze me, so does stuff moving.  And stretchy pants make me sleepy.  Okay, okay, lately maybe being awake makes me sleepy.  

One day, the kids will be all grown up, and I won't have so much family stuff to move around. I understand that.  And one day I won't fall asleep the minute I sit down to do something or put stretchy pants on.  I understand that, too.  And one day, we won't be rushing so much that we do things like run over Eva's ukulele that she uses for school ukulele club.  And one day, maybe, hopefully, I won't order an excessive amount of books against excess.  Maybe.

family photos

Dear Friend That Came and Took These For Us Even Though You Didn't Really Want to But Did Because You Are So Very Nice,

Thank you.  I love them.  They make me smile for lot's of reasons.  

Very Very Sincerely,

Christina

 I won't point out how much I don't like my so-bachelor-pad-esque couches because that would be negative.  And why be negative with such a happy photo?  It takes me a while to make my house my own.  Especially because we live on a little island.  But we will get there.   And maybe it won't be until the day before we move :).

 We are trying to be serious.  

I wanted to get a few family photos in our house (ugly furniture and all) because I love to look back on them and remember.  I wish we would have done this in all our homes.

Same expression.  Same long hair.

 And this picture.  Well, it kinda captured our family at this point in our lives all in one shot.  

easter day 2012

The only holiday that I feel truly obligated to craft, besides Halloween and the jack-o-lanterns, is Easter.  Pulling out the dye, and the vinegar, and the eggs. 

We have done some fancy eggs in the past like in this post clear back in 2009.  Oh man, Samuel was so stinkin' cute back then.  I took two jillion photos of him.  Now I wish I would have take three jillion plus more video.  Oh, right, eggs...

After all the fancy stuff, my kids like the good old fashioned dipping the best.  And this year they were old enough to set everything up.  

 Some creative eggs.  Samuel did the one in the middle.  He really loves chicks.  

 The finished products.

 Easter is still magical for our kids.  I love it.  They still believe.  You can feel their excitement in the air.

 They didn't even notice that most of the candy was stuff that Maximus had found at the egg hunt the few days before.  Hehe.  They didn't even care.  They still believe.

 Taking inventory of their stash.  Truth is, it's the anticipation and the finding that they love.  The candy is still sitting in the bags and has been untouched ever since that day.

 After that, a super duper nice friend agreed to come over and take a few shots of my family in our house.  I really wanted him to because a) I love looking back at photos of places where I have lived b) I am in hardly any of our family photos c) he is an awesome picture taker person d) I knew it would make me clean the house e) we were all dressed up for Easter.  I'll post those later.  

Here are a few shots that I snapped after he left...

The kids on the bed.  My monkeys.

  Even babies know that if you get on a bed, you are supposed to jump. He still keeps one foot on the ground when he jumps.  He'll learn soon enough.

Eva is dancing and I just love these poses.  

And here is Samuel being himself.  He is about to swing that pillow on to Maximus.

 Done.

 Not fighting.  How nice.

 My monkeys.  All settled down.  This year I made Eva's dress out of my chevron stash that I bought too much of.  I also made Maximus's bow tie.  I picked up the boys' shirts and 80's style pants clear back when I was in UT for New Years.  

The day ended by going up to our dear friends' house and eating for like 3 hours straight.  It was awesome.  I love eating for 3 hours straight.  It kinda helped me not miss my family so much.  I miss them on holidays.

Easter went smoothly.  Sometimes I think it is crazy to keep up all these traditions.  But then I look back on these pictures and I remember that it is all worth it.

maximus' first easter egg hunt

Maximus had his first Easter Egg hunt with the play group kids.  All the little kids that aren't in school yet.  The perfect age where the kids put baskets on their heads.  

 Maximus was kind of the youngest.  

 But he held his own.

See that green egg in his hand?  See how they hid eggs in the fence?  Max thought the egg wanted to be back in the fence so he shoved his egg back in.  You know, make sure it was really really hidden so no one else can ever get it.  

 He was super proud of himself.  Cracked himself up there, even.

 You kinda hope they don't realize there is melted chocolate and sticky jelly beans in those eggs.  Just want them to have joy in the finding, I guess?  But it only took a few minutes for him to find the chocolate.  

And the grass and the dirt.  He found that stuff, too, and added some to his basket.  

From the look on his face, I'd say he is a pretty big fan of the whole find the eggs, put them in the basket, hide some of these, sit where you are, open them, eat chocolate (and a little foil), let it dribble down your face thing.  Wouldn't you?

dad, dolphins, whales

My parents were in town.  It was awesome.  We did so much, saw so much, ate so much.  Still recovering from the ate so much part.  But I am okay with that.  I love happy eating.  

We went on Napali Riders so my dad could have an experience like we did last year.  It took a while for the weather to agree with us but, finally, the last day that my dad was here, he got to go.  And I am so glad.

For me, the dolphins stole the show.

So pretty, right?

 It was so fun to see how high they would launch.

 Okay, last one of the dolphins.  I just loved them.

 I thought this was pretty exciting, too.  My kids sitting this close to each other and they aren't fighting.  

 We rode inside these caves.  It was so scary.  But that cool kind of scary where you know that you will be fine.  Probably.

 Yep, the Napali coast is still beautiful...

 ...and majestic.

 The whales were good to us, too.

 Though, not the greatest shot, I likes the coloring on the tail.

 One whale liked us and hung out with us for a while.  I guess most of the action was going on under water.  Karl got to help a little bit with the underwater filming.

To be honest, because I always like to be honest, I didn't see much of the whale stuff.  I was mostly sitting on the bottom of the boat. Napping with my kids.  That's how I handle things when rides make me feel yucky.  I nap.  I love naps, so it's not always a bad thing. 

Here we are at the end of the ride.  We survived.  Well, the kids and I survived.  Karl and my dad thrived. 

 Nothing like a little boat ride to remind me that the ocean is big, we are small, boats can be bumpy (at least in front where we were.  It was so funny to fly up when we hit a bump and then look at the back of the boat and the people were sitting peacefully), our friends are so nice, nature is very very very beautiful, and a few bumps and sleepy times are totally worth it.