Home on Sunday

On Sunday morning I awoke early to pack up...we were down at Kapiolani Park at 8:15 to watch Mom finish Tinman (she, incidentally, ate too much at Willows and had a difficult time of it, but I remain impressed that she can even finish such a race much less get on the boards...).



We got on the plane at 1:15. Boarding was early, the plane was delayed slightly to load more baggage, and Toddlerness threw a fit of near monumental proportions before we even began to taxi...but also passed out before we even began to taxi. After a fairly short nap she was back to being a pretty decent little human being. Bribed her with M&Ms to keep her quiet and seated during descent.

Got to the house around midnight, my dad spent the night and we left for the airport at 6:15am. Came home, slept some more, had a lazy day, reintroduced ourselves to Pine Lake Park:



The kids wondered why the water was so much colder than the last time we were there. It wasn't. They just got spoiled :).

Meanwhile, there was a full-on vegetable rebellion on our hands. First Niki's garden, then THE WORLD!!! The tomatos are growing heartily right on out of their beds...the currant tomato plant must have felt particularly imperialistic, as it now occupies a vast space some 10 feet-ish in diameter and shows no signs of letting up in the quest to claim more ground. We also felt a strange need to pick like 5 of these, even though I'm not quite sure yet what to do with them:

Saturday

On Saturday morning we headed out to Waikiki fairly early to hang out on the beach while Mom did a short workout. Kids really enjoyed a monkeypod tree. Went back to the parents' house, met FIL - he brought some great dim sum and manapua to share.

Spent the afternoon on the beach.



And the evening at Willows, which is where my sister wants to have her wedding reception. The food was great and so was the restaurant, which had some really wonderful features. The kids really dug one water feature in particular - located smack-dab in the middle of the pathway to one of the banquet halls, it shot choreographed bursts of water straight up from the pavement. Toddlerness (who was quite a handful) got to be an expert at running through them without getting wet. Alas, but our reservations were for 7:30, which is after sunset in Hawaii, and the restaurant was quite thankfully not interested in attempting to recreate daylight. No really good pictures, but eh, here's one to share anyway:

North Shore on Friday

On Friday my mom was off again and we headed around to the north shore. We found an abandoned beach. Formerly known as Pounders, it had some other name I don't remember anymore on the signs...it's in Laie. For a while, my tutu (grandma) lived on the next beach over, and when we came to visit sometimes we'd follow the shore around the bend that you see in the first picture to get to Pounders. And then try to time our departure so that we could get back to Tutu's beach before the tide came in and cut us off.




Tony found out why this place was nicknamed Pounders:



While Becca practiced her diving skills going UNDER the waves, and never did get pounded:



She even got brave enough to use the boogie board (she did catch some waves!):



And Nomi got used to being pushed and pulled by the waves:



Then we stopped at Giovanni's shrimp truck (OMG that was wonderful shrimp!):



And left our names:



Before heading to Sunset Beach:



The sand was great entertainment, which is a good thing since the drop-off at that beach is vicious. My mom took me swimming and I just about freaked out. Mom and Dad both made fun of me after we came in for sticking so close to Mom, but DAMN that was some freaky rock-fissure-murky-water shit we were swimming over. The weather turned slightly sour as we were swimming and the water got seriously spooky. Here sharky, sharky...do I look enough like a tasty sea mammal for you yet? What's that - oh fuck, a rock... Next time I swim with my mom there will be lane lines involved.