November part 2- Thankful for our Hawaiian Adventures

 Audrey has homework every day, that takes about 5 minutes. Every day she practices writing a letter, we go over her letter flashcards, and I read her a short book the preschool sent home. She grips her pencil with all her fingers but has great control. We need to work on holding the pencil better.

Our ward had a swim party one Wednesday evening at BYUH. Brent was teaching class so he only caught the very end of it, but Ava and Coen swam and swam! Audrey didn't want to get in because it was kind of cold, and I didn't blame her. The ward also served something called cocoa rice, which was like hot chocolate with rice in it. I believe it is Samoan. It was really yummy- almost like rice pudding mixed with hot chocolate. This is a very typical treat here, along with a thick slice of bread that you dip in the cocoa rice.

There was a duck at the pool swimming with everyone that was making people laugh. The lifeguards said the duck had arrived like 3 weeks prior and just made the pool his home. 

Brent came to a doctor appointment with me. Afterward we went to lunch together to make it a better day! Mini date while the kids were in school- yes.

I got home from the doctor and there were so many of these white sea birds in our yard! We usually see these all around campus but this was a first for our backyard. When Audrey first saw this kind of bird when we arrived, she shouted "Eagle from Little Mermaid!" It made me laugh, but now we all point out "eagle from Little Mermaid" when we see them.

A little boy who lives across the street started coming over to play with Coen.

It was a beautiful evening so we went to Temple Beach for a stroll. We had to leave Ava home due to a big tantrum and her not being in the mood to go. 

The beach brings so much peace.

Look how pretty! 

Our neighbors next door in the green house brought home a kitten one day. The kitten is named Rocket (since he can zoom around so fast) and they rescued him from the shopping area behind our house, where he was malnourished and almost dead. They nursed him back to health and he started getting braver to come into our yard sometimes. 

One day Rocket came over and wanted to play with the kids. 

I showed them how they could use a stick to let Rocket chase something.

After this, Rocket started coming over a lot to play, and started to become our backyard entertainment.

That evening was Ava's turn to get her pictures taken at the beach. Here are my favorites of her:

I curled Ava's hair right before we left for the beach, and after about 30 mins at the beach her waves were almost all the way gone. The humidity here just makes it so hard for our hair to hold curl!

Sunday morning walk at our beach. 

We invited our friends, the Moncurs, over to dinner. She is my ministering sister and they're cute newlyweds. They offered to come over and all cook dinner together, so the kids had fun making rolls with Brother Moncur and homemade pineapple salsa with Sister Moncur. The kids had been wanting to make s'mores and so we did it on our grill hot plate. 

Audrey's preschool had a turkey trot at the beach. It was pretty cute to watch the tiny kids running as fast as they could. Here's Audrey:

Audrey and her friend Jake. She's a year older than him, but you can see that Audrey is super tall for her age!

I went to the temple one evening. I feel like we cannot let this opportunity of living so close to the temple go to waste! I've been trying to go twice a month- once to do a session and once to do initiatories. In the last 10 years we have typically gone to the temple like once or twice a year, and I always struggled with going. I felt nervous and claustrophobic in a session and just never super loved going until it was the part where you go to the celestial room. When we went to the temple here in Laie right after we moved here, I felt the Spirit tell me, "This is where you will learn to love the temple." As I have gone through some hard health issues and loneliness in adjusting here, I have made it a priority to get to the temple. I have found peace and healing in the temple and already am really learning to love the temple the more I go.

The kids love to go to Brent's office with him. They spend some quality time together, working side by side- Brent working on his classes, and the kids working on coloring :) Sometimes Audrey stays late enough that she falls asleep there!

Thanksgiving Day- we found the parade to watch -like 5 hours delayed!

Brent and I went on a walk at the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day!

We were going to have dinner with our friends but they got sick, so we still cooked our same food and swapped the food. I was happy that I was able to find the ingredients to make the yummy sweet potato casserole I love.

Our friends made the turkey, and how they did it was awesome! As a Young Men fundraiser, their ward roasted people's turkeys or meat. They dug a huge hole the night before out at a farm then made a fire and heated coals up in the hole.  They then put everyone's turkeys (encased in foil & stuff) on the coals and used banana leaves to steam all the meats, since banana leaves give off a lot of steam. They added all the dirt back on top of the meats to cover up the hole, and just had this massive pile of turkeys roasting all night. 

We invited our friend Megan to come eat with us. She was in our ward in Texas and was in Young Women when I was in there.

The Rappleyes came to visit and eat dessert that night. The Rappleyes live on Brent's parent's street and just arrived to serve as missionaries at the PCC!

That evening the kids were really excited to paint these wooden Christmas decorations my mom had brought for them. They spent so long and did a really good job!

Black Friday- we made it an adventure day! I had been wanting to check out a macadamia nut farm that we pass on the way to town. We stopped and all enjoyed the samples of different kinds of macadamia nuts (like caramel roasted and cinnamon!). The macadamia nut farm is actually not a proper farm- they only have 3 trees and actually ship the nuts in from the Big Island. 

The kids' very favorite part was cracking macadamia nuts by hitting them with a rock. Ava especially loved it and I think it was therapeutic for her to whack stuff and get her anger out haha.

Here are my boys showing us their samples:

After, we went to a botanical garden in Kaneohe. The island has like 6 botanical gardens and we had only been to the one in Wahiawa. If you look closely, you'll see a ton of fish behind them in the pond:

These trees are so beautiful! You can't see so well from this picture, but behind Ava, the thin trunks of the tree are bright red- like Christmas red.

The mountains in this area are so gorgeous! Also, we're standing on a hill which is why Audrey and Coen look so tall :)

Green!

Next stop was Costco. Every time we eat at the food court at Costco because it's by far the cheapest food you'll find on the island. The food courts are outside since it's always nice weather.

On the way home from Costco we stopped at Waimea Bay to watch the huge waves! The beach was blocked off with yellow danger tape, and only some surfers were out there. There were also a couple lifeguards on jet skis to keep the surfers safe. It's hard to capture in this video just how tall and forceful these waves were.

There was a huge crowd gathered watching the waves together. You can't see anyone in this picture because we're facing the part of the beach that was blocked off.

Saturday was time to decorate for Christmas. We only brought our stockings for decorations, but decided we really needed a tree here! I found a tree on Target online for $28 and then a package of ornaments and it was all shipped to our house. We were all excited to decorate our tree!

The finished product- it made our house feel more home-y!

We had a little friend visit our kitchen- a green gecko! You can see it on the drawer to the right of Audrey. These geckos are cute and friendly and welcome in our house because they eat bugs! I've only seen the gecko in our house a couple times though.

Now it was my turn to get my picture taken! Brent took a few around campus.

Tuesday we attended devotional with the Rappleyes. It was all Christmas music from the different groups on campus.

Here's a video of the ukulele class and the hula class performing Mele Kalikimaka: 

Audrey and Velzy (our neighbor who we share a backyard with) play every day if we're both home. Audrey will wake up and run to Velzy's house first thing in the morning- a habit I'm trying to stop since we all need to get ready for school.

We went to BYUH's lighting ceremony and met up with our friends there. 

There was a short program and then we counted down and all the lights turned on at once! 

The lights wrapped around the palm trees reminded me of the lights at the temple in the Philippines when I was young.

The kids walked to BYUH campus, to the basketball arena, to practice for their Christmas program. As they were walking home, they got DUMPED on with rain. The teacher sent this message with a picture, showing that she had all the kids change into their fieldtrip shirts, and we could bring a change of clothes to the school for our kids if we wanted. She also sent a picture of all their wet shoes lined up in the hallway. The kids all went barefoot for the rest of the day, which actually isn't that unusual for Hawaii. 

When Coen got home he said, "That was the funnest day ever!!! We got stuck in the rain!" Ava told me, "That was the worst day ever, we got all wet." Haha. 

The Christmas performance was at the basketball arena, with tons of people there! Each grade performed a number. Here's part of Coen's. He's wearing a navy jacket over his PJs.

Here's Ava- she's second from the right, wearing a pink scarf.

Hawaiian Santa came at the end:

Here are the kids new glasses. Ava wears hers every day for doing homework, but Coen doesn't wear his very much.

Brent with some of his students:

It was a long day where I had worked and been inside, and Brent was at school the whole day and night. So I told the kids I needed to get out and go for a jog. I jogged to BYUH and back right at sunset- so beautiful!

A few funny things that I want to remember from Audrey: 

Audrey's preschool last year was called "Busy Bees." Whenever Audrey talks about last year she talks about her "Zombies" school. 

Every speaker at church greets us with Aloha, and all of us  (our kids included) say Aloha back. Audrey was in a bad mood at church one day. When the speaker said "Aloha" she said back "No-ha!" 

Audrey can't remember how the saying goes and keeps saying "Goodbye alligator" or "Good luck alligator!"