I took a few pictures of prices in case you'd like to see how much things cost at the grocery store (Foodland) behind our house. We mainly buy our food from Costco and Walmart, and I use Foodland sparingly for the off weeks when we're not going into town for Costco. Costco is priced pretty similarly to the mainland, with a few exceptions like bread and tortillas that are much more expensive. Walmart is more expensive than the mainland, but quite a bit cheaper than the grocery store by us.
OK here we go with some Foodland prices. $6.29 for a loaf of bread, and that's on sale. Normally $8.
Audrey & Coen have seen the presentations at the PCC enough that they'd rather make houses with their shoes and the pebbles.
Brent gave our friends a tour of campus and on our way back to the PCC it started raining so hard. We all got drenched!
The next day the rain came down HARD and fast. This is the field in front of BYU-H. There were students playing with their boogie boards on this pop up lake.
Coen and Audrey built a fort and watched TV for a while- they're good little buddies some days.
Ava and Audrey made a tea party with Audrey's new set she got for Christmas. Then Rocket was invited to the tea party. Haha.
Coen started basketball! The practices were always at Laie park, which is actually the stake center property. It has 3 sets of basketball hoops and a big field where kids practice football. Laie doesn't have a city park or playground.
Our neighbor wanted Coen to read Curious George. She and Audrey play all the time since we share a backyard.
I made a goal to start reading more this year because I love to read and just never make time for it. I read Beyond the Bright Sea in January and then went on to the Orphan Collector. Both of which I really enjoyed! I went outside to read in the sunshine- this was the best January weather EVER :)
Saturday morning snuggles in bed:
Saturday was a Costco day. We decided to stop at a beach park that we always pass. We brought our koosh games but it was way too windy!
This is called "China man's hat"
The mountains are so pretty!
After Costco and Walmart we stopped at the botanical garden for a bit while we waited for the kids' pizzas at Pizza Hut. I thought these leaves were so pretty!
We found a "hobbit house" for Coen- totally looks like it could be in Lord of the Rings right?
I didn't even get everything in our picture that we bought, but since we only grocery shop every 2-3 weeks, we buy a LOT of food at once. It's quite the process to put it all away and prepare it against the humidity (going stale) and bugs.
I took the kids to play at the elementary school before church. This is the playground that Coen gets to play on at recess ONCE A WEEK. Other than that, they play in a big field. Despite the look of the school, the education quality at this school is really good. Way better than our school in Oregon, and I believe this is one of the top elementary schools in all of Hawaii. I think the influence of all the BYUH employees makes it a great school- people care about education in this town!
Scootering to church in style:
I discovered a new way to do my hair in this humidity, since curling doesn't stay. I french braid my hair after showering at night, and the next day I take out the braids and get wavy hair.
Playing at the beach after church.
Coen has a best friend in his class and LOVES him. In kindergarten and first grade Coen mainly had friends that were girls, so this is something new for him. He was excited to have a play date with his friend.
We had Brent's professor friend and his wife over to dinner on MLK day and we had so much fun!
Audrey's learning how to write her name and it's so cute.
I took the kids to play at the beach one Wednesday afternoon by myself while Brent was teaching. The kids are always much happier and better when we get out of the house, but often we just have real life like homework and cooking dinner so we rarely go during the week. This day, the kids found an apple on the beach and put a stick in it. They poked at the apple 'til it was in tiny pieces and then threw the pieces in the ocean and that entertained them for a long time.
In the dressing room my friend asked if I'm just thriving here. I laughed and said, not yet- but a step above surviving! Every day I feel like I'm inching my way closer to thriving rather than surviving.
Ava adores Rocket and acts like he's her cat.
Reading Calvin & Hobbes while we wait for Audrey's tumbling class.
A friend from work came to visit Hawaii. We got her family discount tickets to the PCC and met them there for a bit.
The kids love it when we make pancakes!
Brent went to work in his office on a Saturday so I took the kids on a drive to the North Shore. I watched some amazing surfers, but the kids aren't so interested in watching surfing and instead played in the sand.
They found a crab claw:
I joined a fruits and veggies co-op! Once a week I pick up my fruits and veggies for the week in the town just south of us, near Audrey's preschool. There's a lot of variety which I really like because I kept buying the exact same 5 fruits and veggies from Costco and was getting really sick of it. Having variety and also not getting Costco amounts of everything has been really nice.
Helping Coen with his homework - I actually rarely help him. He can do it by himself in about 3 minutes. He's often bored at school- not much challenges him.
Rocket keeping me company while I work. I know, I know. Pre-Hawaii Jen would never believe this sight.
Audrey begged me to invite her preschool friend over for a playdate. The day finally arrived and they were so excited! Audrey's leaning over here, but you can tell that Audrey is WAY taller than her friend. Audrey is 6 months older, but still- towers over many kids in her classs.
I scheduled my first mammogram (yay?). Since my family has a history of breast cancer, the doctor said I may as well start early getting scanned. It was on a Friday at the hospital an hour away, so Brent came with me and then we did our normal Costco errands for the weekend, all in one trip. The kids were happy to skip a Costco week. They watched TV and hung out on Saturday while Brent and I caught up on our work that day instead.
Ava loves to hold Rocket while she does her homework at the computer. He usually cooperates and goes to sleep, but sometimes he doesn't want to be smothered.
We left Ava home to cool down from some tantrums.
Brent thought Rocket looked funny with his paw up.
Around MLK day Audrey brought home a paper that said, "I have a dream..." With her teacher's help, Audrey had completed the sentence with "I have a dream that I will see a rainbow." She drew a picture of herself with a rainbow. I thought it was so sweet and innocent that she didn't see anything wrong with the world- instead she wanted to see its beauty.
Her dream came true!
Then guess what- the very next day she saw another rainbow! This is Audrey's preschool- her classroom is the bottom floor of the white building. There are other classes in a couple of the other buildings, and the owner lives upstairs, above Audrey's classroom.
Audrey's preschool class had a fieldtrip to the zoo, and I decided for once I would chaperone! I took the day off work and drove Audrey down to the zoo in Honolulu. It is a little over an hour from our house, so we had lots of time to chat in the car, and Audrey had many opportunities to ask me how much longer :)
I was getting nervous that we were going to flood. It got really close, and then the rain stopped for a bit and gave the earth time to absorb the water.
We discovered Rocket really likes this ball:
Audrey & Ava started their first day of tumbling! They go to a little place in Kahuku, 10 minutes from our house.
The Costco process- we bring insulated bags with ice packs to keep our food cold. Brent's always the pro at packing everything to fit just right in the back of our car.
We typically are gone at least 5 hours on our errands day. We spend about 2 1/2 hours driving, and then an hour or more at Costco, 15 minutes at Walmart, and an hour or more at our tourist activities.
Entertainment with Rocket:
Brent was asked to work in the baptistry one evening for his temple shift. He LOVED it because he could chat more with everyone, interact with the youth, etc. When he got home and was telling me about it, he said, "I think I'm in love." Haha. So he asked the schedulers if he could work in the baptistry the next week, and when he learned he would be assigned there, he made me an appointment to come to baptisms during his shift. I had not done baptisms in many years!
When I arrived in the baptistry, I saw Brent chatting with someone. I did a double-take. It was our friends from our Eugene ward! They were there with their twin daughters doing baptisms, and he was the one who baptized me. It was fun to see familiar faces in the temple!
It's hard to capture just how huge and powerful these waves are. Many of the surfers had helmets on.
I love love love how green it is here.
Ava and Coen cheered Audrey up by helping her be Anna. They put on a show for me and Brent:
The school asked for volunteers to come weed their flower boxes. I kind of miss working in my own yard, so we went to lend a hand!
I took a video because he got the giggles. Coen is funny. He seems to either have the giggles or act like he's mad at everything. Luckily this was a giggles day.
I couldn't find Audrey one day.... she was down the street in our neighbor's backyard, barefoot of course. She really liked that they have a pet turtle. This seems to be a fairly common pet in people's backyards here.
Coen's basketball games are always at Laie park, the same place where they practice. He's much shorter than a lot of the kids in his age bracket. He was frustrated because he can't get as many baskets as he did in last year's games. Some games he got one basket though.
Silly girls:
One evening we went for a walk up behind the temple- it was a pretty night!
One evening Audrey went to campus with Brent while he worked in his office, and she fell asleep in the box that she likes to play in.
About a week after she brought home her paper, Audrey came running in to my bedroom while I was still in bed and said, "Mom! I saw a rainbow!!" I told her that was so awesome, as I was getting up and getting ready. Then after a little while, I decided I should go look and see what she saw. Luckily this rainbow hung around, and Audrey was so excited to show us the beautiful rainbow!
As we were driving, I was trying to talk to her to help keep her entertained. I spotted a cross on a church on a beautiful green hill. I asked Audrey if she knows why churches have crosses. She said no, so I told her about how Jesus died on a cross, and told her the whole story. She was listening, and then said, "Mom?" I responded, "Yes?" excited to hear what her little sweet four year old self thought about this. She said, "Did you know that in Peppa Pig they call cookies 'biscuits?'" Hahaha!
We arrived at the zoo and we got one extra buddy to explore the zoo with. There are about 100 kids in Audrey's preschool (5 classes of 20 kids) so there were tons of yellow shirts all over the zoo.
The zoo had a lot of cool animals like sloths, African wild dogs, fennec foxes, rhinos, lions, etc. The zoo was also beautiful and so green everywhere! All of the kids were the most excited about the zoo's cool playground.
The sunset kept evolving and I made Brent go out and look at it. Just look at that sky!
OK to end, here are two videos of Audrey and Rocket. I couldn't decide which one to post. Kinda sorry Rocket took over the blog.
Audrey's favorite animal is the elephant. Also notice how long her hair is!
Now I present to you a few pictures of Coen and Rocket:
Rocket loves it when I pet his chin. Literally the only cat I have ever pet.
After Coen's basketball practice the sunset was soooo beautiful that I had to pull over and get a picture with the temple.
She is telling Rocket, "I won't get you dirty k? You won't get dirty."
"This is mud. It's really dirty. Mud is dirty for cats." As she is barefoot and all muddy herself. Oh this carefree girl!
"This is mud. It's really dirty. Mud is dirty for cats." As she is barefoot and all muddy herself. Oh this carefree girl!
A few things I want to remember:
Coen was so nervous about his library book being overdue at school- he kept talking about it all weekend and asked me if his library has fines. At dinner he asked me if I would take his library book back for him the next day. I asked him why he couldn't take back his own book. He finally admitted that he's too embarrassed because it's overdue and he thinks the librarian is going to know. I asked him how many days it's overdue, and he said one I told him he he could take it back, and that the librarian would just be happy that the book is returned. As Coen and I were having this back and forth and I was trying to calm his nerves, Ava finally interjected, "Coen. My Percy Jackson book is overdue. I don't care. I'm reading it!" I started laughing and said that perfectly demonstrates their difference in personalities! Coen, so nervous about following the rules exactly, and Ava's over here saying, I'm breaking them and I don't care!
A conversation with Audrey on the way home from preschool:
Audrey: Mom, you know we all have a light inside us?
Me: Yes, you told me the other day! (she told me it means you love everyone)
Audrey: We can't hide under the bushes.
Me: Oh? (Thinking we changed subjects and she's talking about a rule from school)
Audrey: We just gotta let it shine.
Me: Oh! Singing, "Let it shine, let it shine!"
Audrey: Yes! We sang that song!
Just to remember what it's like to have an Ava in her pre-teen years:
Me: Ava, why are so many of your socks all over Audrey's room?
Ava (with all the attitude): Here, let me ask you a question that you can't answer!
Me: ..... Are you trying to tell me that you don't know?
Coen was concerned about the chicken we were eating. He asked, "Did someone have to kill this chicken so we could eat it?" We told him yes. Then Coen asked, "Why can't we just eat the chickens that already died?"
