Hawaii: Honolulu

The best part of our Honolulu trip was these pictures with the birds. And the cute Hawaiian matching dresses I bought there for the girls (that they're wearing in those family pictures of us). We started at Chinatown where Tom and I bought some yummy things at the Asian market and drank sugarcane juice. Other than that, Honolulu was not that great. We drove around for an hour to find parking. Then we ate at the mall food court. Walked around. Spent 45 minutes on the super crowded beach. Then went home and Celia threw up all over in the car on the way back. Luckily, she had a towel in her lap so it wasn't that big of a mess but it just made the whole day kind of a joke. She enjoyed the movie she got to watch on her bed afterwards "because I'm sick."

Cooking with Kids: FAIL

Let me just start by saying that last week, I was Super Mom. It was the first time that I was capable of getting up before my kids and working, playing in the snow, grocery shopping, doing school time with Celia, and straightening up the house and all without feeling tired. Well, Super Mom left town this weekend. This week has been long, hard, tiring, and my patience is gone. Awesome time to decide to make cookies with Celia. (Let me also add that me in the kitchen is not that great anyway. Unless there are no distractions, something major gets left out of the recipe.)

I decided that no-bake cookies (my favorite) are quick and easy. Celia and I could whip up a batch during Sabrina's short morning nap. And we did. Turned out perfect. But they looked a little odd. And just as Sabrina woke up, I realized we forgot the sugar. Yup - main ingredient left out. I got Sabrina out, put her in the Bumbo with toys and set out to whip up another batch while the girls entertained themselves. Nope. Out of oats. At this point, I would have claimed defeat... happily. But you can't do that when you've promised the 3-year-old of the house cookies. (We tasted the other no-bake cookies and learned the word "bitter.") So a Trader Joe's mix (thank you Sue!) of Christmas cookies (Super Mom was not around at Christmastime) had to save the day. By the time I got the dough mixed and rolled out, Sabrina was screaming and Celia was whining about cookies. The mix came with three cookie cutters. Celia made one of each shape and proclaimed she was done. In the chaos, I stomped on one of them so hard I now have a bloody star shape on my foot.

In the end, Celia ate three cookies (enough to entertain her while I wrote this) and I ate enough dough to make me sufficiently queasy. I'll put Tom in charge of baking the rest of the dough after all us girls go to bed tonight.

Super Mom, please come back.

Hawaii: Dole Plantation

We saw some pineapples, rode the Pineapple Express, took pictures of the girls as Pineapples, and enjoyed delicious Dole floats (as is usually the case with notable food... eaten to quickly to be pictured).

Hawaii: The Pool

Here's that one-foot sand-bottom pool I mentioned. We spent lots of time here. It connected to a real pool with sweet leaf chairs you could lounge on in the water. It was great.

Celia loved to roll around in the sand and then go back in the pool to wash it off.

This also marked Sabrina's first pool experience. She was not amused until she fell asleep in Tom's arms.

Celia Dailies: Popular sayings

Celia's just a little bit off...

- All day she's been saying: "I'm just kidding and dying. That's all."

- Yesterday she was playing with Sabrina's toy (see earlier post on said toy) and was spinning one of the beads around. She looked at me and said: "When this goes around and around, it doesn't hurt your feelings or your ears."

- "Genius means I'm smart. Genius means you're smart to feed Sabrina." (is this really all I'm good for?)

Hawaii: The Beaches

I should mention that the whole Hawaii trip happened because of the generosity of my parents. Thank you parents.

Most of the time, we spent our beach time on our little lagoon right outside our condo. It was a great place for Celia to practice being a Hawaii princess and jump waves with Papa (in the background of the umbrella picture). It was also a fabulous place for Sabrina to hang out with Nana. Albeit a bit windy, our little lagoon was perfect. Not too crowded. Nice warm water. Snorkeling. Then we have proof that Tom and I went swimming at Waikiki with some strangers (where Tom gashed open his toe on coral... more on our day to Honolulu later...) and the sweet surfers we watched on the North Shore from our car while we were eating shave ice. Mmmm.

Hawaii: Where We Stayed

The greatest part of this trip to Hawaii was where we stayed. It was a 3 bed 3 bath condo on the ground floor right on the beach and with a fabulous 1-foot sand-bottom pool. Here are the pictures. There's a porch on which we could Skype Tom's parents. Then the dining area which Celia would set up every morning with coasters and apples. There's also the gourmet kitchen and the giant opening lanai which connected to the yard. Celia would run down to stand on the rock to look at the beach every morning. The views of the sunset were also fabulous from our little porch/yard area. (We're the second opening in the last picture.)