kokua festival

a few months back we found out jack johnson and a few more people would be playing at a festival here in honolulu. since we dont really get a whole lot bands here we thought, this will be a lot of fun....and since its an outdoors family oriented festival we can take little miss. little miss loves jack johnson, mostly because she loves the curious george movie, but after listening to the other songs she likes them too. plus it was going to cost us about the same for a ticket or a baby-sitter so why not. although josh's mom did end up being in town, but we still wanted to take her with us.

so late saturday morning we dropped alexi off at a friends house and headed to waikiki to check into our hotel room. we decided to rent a room downtown so that barbara wouldn't be stuck at home with nothing to do while we were at the concert. we had lunch in town and then headed over to the waikiki shell. we waited in line for a little bit and when we got in, walked though all of the earth day booths, and then finally found our spot on the lawn. we ended up with a really nice spot that was on the opposite side of where everyone was, and it was the start of the shaded area. since our friends also brought their 18mo. old we wanted the shade. and then we waited. there were quite a few local type bands opening first, the concert did start at 4:30 in the afternoon. it was cool because they actually had a keiki (kids) section set up and the kids could make recyclable "music instruments" they were really great ideas and little miss had a blast making them. jack johnson had actually played on the little stage there earlier in the day, but they wouldnt let us take the shortcut to get back to that area so we just sat where we were and listened.

as the day went on little miss kept entertaining the people around us with her dancing and playing but some of that had to come to an end as it got closer to time for ziggy marley to come on and more and more people were coming in. she was excited about ziggy playing, but the real fun started as it started getting darker and it was time for jack johnson. when he did come on to the stage she screamed...its jack johnson!!! she was excited :) she was starting to get tired but didnt want to sit still and when everyone stood up she went up onto our shoulders. she had a blast, im not sure who i actually watched more, sara or jack johnson. luckily she stayed up to sing along to the curious george song and then soon after she passed out in my arms. i was able to at least lay her down on our big blanket and enjoy the rest of the concert without having to hold and extra 30lbs.

and thank goodness we only had to walk a few block back to our hotel room, it could have been a really long walk. sara was such a trooper and was so good that night. im glad that jack johnson got to be her first concert, even though she might not remember it a few years down the road.....but at least we have the pictures to prove it :)

fun cakes

so i was asked by a friend to make some fun cakes for her husbands going away/birthday party. she had the ideas of what she wanted and i helped to make it happen. her requests were she wanted a kayak cake and a snorkeling cake. he loves to snorkel and then there is a pretty funny/mean joke behind the kayak cake. (her husband, who wouldnt wear a life jacket, was out kayaking with a friend when his started sinking. the whole thing ended up under water and his friend had to go get the life guards to come help him pull it out of the water....he was holding just the top handle and the rest was fully under the water sinking) so she thought it would be pretty funny. he did too once he saw the cake :)





so for the kayak cake we had played around with a few ideas. we made a man out of fondant and got the arms and head on him, but he had a funny look to him....could have been the hair and eyes i tried to draw on him....or the nose that we made him :) i had found a few boats at a store and took one of them apart so that we could use just the bottom and then i flipped it upside down and wrote stuff on the sides so that it would be obvious that the boat was sinking. we then tried to put the man on, but he was pretty top heavy and since he was fondant i didnt want leave him on the cake, because he would have to go back into the fridge over night. i had also gotten another boat to use as the life guard rescue boat, so that was on top too. the next morning as i was putting on the finishing touches, josh decided to play around with the ken doll that we were going to try and use for the other cake. kens torso was too big, but josh had the idea of sawing his arms and just using those....and then we popped his head off and it worked out great! thats one of the reasons i keep him around :) i then put a little more icing around his arms and head to make it look like waves and that cake was finished.








the second cake, which also had a strawberry filing, was the snorkeling cake. we were originally going to use the ken doll for this cake, but he was too big and they dont make boy polly pockets. so we ended up making a little man out of fondant and then also making a mask strap and snorkel. i then later added swim trunks to him :) my friend tonya had a sea creature sucker mold and wanted to learn how to play with them, so i was able to show her how to play with those and we used the suckers on the cake. we made some sharks, some turtles, and i also had a mold for dolphins. i really liked the way this cake turned out, and pretty much everything was edible. the strawberry filling gave me a bit of a hassle though. i had never made one before and all of the recipes that i found were more for angle food cakes so i made a strawberry type jam and then added coolwhip...it turned out great, but then my only problem was that i put too much on, so it kept oozing out the side of the cakes :) it was able to block most of it in with some pretty thick icing and what i couldnt i just made to look like waves.

those were some fun cakes to make and i love having a reason to try and play with new things. now if only someone needed another cake with strawberry filling.....

ladybug cake and cupcakes

so like i mentioned in my previous post, i got the honor of doing haley-bug's 1st birthday cake! and i am so excited about how they turned out. i love looking at different examples on the internet and then kind of combining my favorite aspects of what i find to make my own creation. and nothing could have made me happier then the way these turned out.





i got the idea for the ladybug bodies from my soccer cake, i just used regular cake mix this time and then made the batter red, because everyone knows that ladybugs have red bodies :) the rest of it was super easy. i used oreos for the dots, but i took the cremes out of the middles. and i used icing to put them on where i wanted so they would stay until i could get the rest of the icing on. next i had a few extra cupcakes so i used those for the lady bug head. i also attached this with icing so it would stay better too. after i was happy with the spot and head placement it was time to start the rest of the body. i put 3 strips of stars right down the middle and then filled the rest in with red. it was pretty easy. and the reason i put the spots on the cake before the icing was to that the cookies would be even with the icing and the icing around the cookies would keep it in place better.






now the cupcakes, while even easier, took much longer. i placed a small half circle on the top half of the cupcake, i then filled the rest in with red and placed a line of black down the middle. i then used chocolate chip morsels for the spots, just placed those in upside down. but since it was close to midnight as i was finishing up, my wonderful husband stepped up to help me. i think he has as much fun doing some of this stuff as i do :)

birthday party saturday

saturday was another busy day for us-my girls had a soccer game at 9, we had haley's birthday at 10, and sydni's (one of the girls on my team) birthday party at noon on the other side of the island at the beach!






i dropped off the cakes and cupcakes at ann's house at 8, made it to the fields at about 8:20, the girls won and we all attributed that to the red velvet cupcakes they had at practice on thursday :), and then i headed back to ann's for haley's birthday party! i was about 45 minutes late, but the kids were having a blast playing in the pool in the yard. we had some lunch and then it was time for the cake and presents. watching haley tear into the cake was the best part! it took her a minute to get started, but man once she did......it was great. she was covered in so much icing that ann took her out to the pool to clean her off, it went a whole lot faster than trying to use baby wipes :) and haley being such the sweet girl reached for me when ann got her out of the pool and she gave me the biggest hug, unprompted :) and then it was present time! its always funny to watch the little ones playing with the wrapping. it was a very fun party and we all had a blast! 1st birthday haley!




then next up was sydni's party (shes the one i made the soccer ball cake for the week before). since the soccer game of her actual b-day weekend was late in the afternoon she had her party a week later....at the beach! it turned out to be a much needed beautiful afternoon and a lot of fun. sara loves the girls on my team and they are all always so nice to her, so she loved getting to hang out with them. and i have to add that i am very proud be able to say i am one of sydni's coaches. not only does she give everything she can out on the field, she doesnt complain too much even though she might have to play goal and is just over all a great kid. and then add to the fact that for her 14th birthday instead of gifts for herself she asked for everyone to bring a new stuffed animal to be donated to a local hospital for kids to have when they come to the emergency room, yep-an overall good kid. the girls ganged up on me as i was laying on the beach with sara, they grabbed my legs and my arms and drug me into the water, which by the way was freezing!, i was almost able to get away, but they got me in just as a wave was crashing so i got dunked. once i was in, it was fine, but that first initial wave was cold. sara even finally got in with me and played around with the girls. we had more cake and sara got lots of candy from the pinata and some soccer ball tattoos. by the time we left at about 4:30 sara and i were both worn out, but what a great day with friends.

gymnastics

a few weeks ago little miss started gymnastics. we go once a week for an hour and she absolutely loves it! it also helps that her friends go with her, but i think either way she would still love it.

we normally start off on the springy floor and they run, or jump, or skip, or pretend to be air planes. and then stretch and do straddles to loosen up. from there we break up into groups and work on the equipment. we do everything from the balance beam to the uneven bars and the rings. they also have these big foam things we either climb in or over. the little monkey that she is, she loves to swing on the rings. and even in just the few weeks that we have been going, she has gotten really good. i cant wait to see what she can do after a few months!

soccer cake

this past weekend was one of the girls on my soccer team's birthday. so being the awesome coach i am (thats what they tell me)i made her a soccer ball cake. i have had this cake pan for over a year and for some reason never played with it. so syd actually got to be my guinea pig for this type of cake.

it turned out really cute, but was kind of hard. the directions said to use a thick cake so i used a pound cake mix and dyed it blue. the top part went pretty easy as i started the stars up at the top and did the first round....but the lines didnt line up quite right so i had to improvise some. then that threw off the next set of lines. but in the end it all worked out pretty good.....the hardest part was getting the bottom stars on. i could only get down so far before i had to move the cake over to board that i was going to take it on. and then i had to just try and get some icing on the bottom so you couldnt see some of the actual cake.






as i was playing around with the cake (which i finished after running the ford island 10k and before the girls game at 3) i was afraid that just the cake wasnt going to be enough to feed all of the girls so i had another idea for some cupcakes. i had seen this idea on the side of the cake box about a 6 months ago and never had a reason to make them....so i did. and they were so cute! although i couldnt find my super huge icing tip so they didnt turn out quite like i wanted, but still cute!

ford island bridge 10k

well, i did it again..... i ran another race. this time it was just a 10k (6.2 miles) instead of the 8.1 that i ran for the aloha run. i still didnt really train like most people tend to do when they run races, and so far it seems to be working in my favor. after finishing the aloha run with a good time and having run the whole thing, tonya and i decided that we would try the ford island bridge 10k, and this time we talked josh and our friend ann into it. josh is a runner and was up for the challenge. ann on the other hand took a little bit more arm twisting....even though she did end up mailing in her entry form before us :) but ann didnt go into this totally blind....she walks the loop (our 3.7 mile hilly walk) with us, and for a while we were doing every mon, wed, and fri.....and ann gets more of a work out than we do when we walk. while we all have strollers to push, ann has a double stroller and is pushing 2 kids!!! and she pushes them in a double stroller! and until recently it was not a jogging stroller, but a regular double stroller!!! so we talked her into it..."if you can push that double stroller up and down the hills in the loop, you can do anything" :)

so we met out my house at 5:45ish, dropped little miss and miss k off at a friends house, and the four of us were on our way. this was of course as we all debated about the pouring down rain and the horrible wind, but we were bound and determined (not really) that we were going to do this race. we got to the fields at about 6:15 where it started to rain some more. we decided to stop off at the port-a-potties and then head over to the starting line. as we got over there we found 2 friends, john and katie, who were running the race with 2 little ones in 2 different strollers (brave brave people!). and luckily katie had her camera and was able to take a picture of the 4 of us. josh had taken one earlier, but it just had us 3 ladies :) so now that we had a picture we headed up closer to the start line (strollers had to stay to the back) and waited..... they played the national anthem, set some pink, blue, yellow and other bright colored doves go, and then it was the gun shot! i stayed with ann and tonya for most of the first mile, but them my competitiveness came out and i wanted to take off. they told me to go for it and i was off. miles 1 and 2 werent so bad, i was averaging a little less than 10 minutes a mile and was doing good until part of the way through mile 3...thats when the wind started against us. now, i didnt have my ipod with me, its one of the big ones and i dont have an arm band. so i was singing to myself to keep me going...some killers, some modest mouse, some weezer, and then when i turned the corner and started going against the wind i got the worst song in my head.... "against the wind" by bob seager......and i couldnt get it out, not matter how hard i tried to change songs in my head it just didnt help. i turned out of the wind during part of the 4th mile, but it was short lived and mile 5 was again against the wind (and again the song was there....i dont even own that song!!!!). the fun part really started when it was time to cross back over the ford island bridge (hence the name of the race), this was the beginning of mile 6 and it was not only against the wind, it was also up hill. but i didnt give up and i didnt walk! that was my main goal, to not walk. my other was to beat my mile time from the aloha run, and I did both! once i saw the finish line come into view i took of running and sprinted the last .10 of the race.

i ran the race in 1:01:31. which made my mile time 9.54. by far my best time. i ended up 62 out of 342 for my age group and 1041 out of 2602...not too bad for my first 10k. despite the wind and the rain, the scenery was beautiful, i mean we did run on a tiny island that is in pearl harbor, and it was a good experience and i look forward to running it again next year!

easter

today is easter sunday, and while its fun to hunt easter eggs and eat candy, the true meaning of easter is to celebrate that jesus gave himself up and died to save us. we did actually make it to church a few times during lent and i am hoping to keep that going. little miss has been pretty good in church the last 2 sundays and if we keep going, i think she will get better. she tired to pay attention to what was going on, and of course loves to sing....even though she doesnt know the words. the part that touched my heart the most though was when it was time for communion. i always take her with me, but now that she has gotten older, she wanted to go on her own. I told her she had to put her hands together and hold them at her chest and walk like a big girl with me. she did such a great job, walking down the isle like a big girl and waiting on me while i received communion. and then coming back to kneel with me and say our prayers. the funny part was today she wanted to go back up front because, "i want some of that too!" i told her she had to wait because she wasnt old enough yet, she waited a few seconds and then told me she was older now. i love this little girl.

today also had another reason for being close to my heart. my grandfather passed away 24 years ago, and even though i was only 6 and didnt fully understand at the time what was going on, its still a day that i say an extra prayer and remember him...normally the picture that comes to mind is of him sitting in his big green recliner in the family room.

so now for the funny stuff......little miss never fails to make me laugh, and today i had my video camera out to capture it....a few times. the first one is of her coming down the stairs to go look and see what she got from the easter bunny.....the second is of her hunting for easter eggs. the easter bunny had to hide the eggs inside our house this year because of all the rain we have been getting...sunday morning we had some pretty heavy down pours.





In other news: i had a soccer game today (yes a soccer game on easter) and my team won 3-0....and the most exciting part....i scored the first goal!!! it was awesome! my friend krista had the ball but was marked, and i was wide open at the top of the penalty box with no one on me. i called for it, she dropped it back, and it was a nice left footed chip over the keepers head into the back of the net. awesome!

dying eggs and the easter bunny bash

one of the fun things about easter is of course dying eggs and the easter egg hunting. we got a chance to do a little bit of both this week. we went over to our friends tonya and miss k's house to have some lunch and get the fun started. dying eggs with one 3 year old is fun....dying eggs with two 3 year olds is even more fun! they started off pretty good (we did this outside and put bathing suits on them), with each of them coloring 2 eggs at a time. little miss kept making blue ones and miss k just wouldnt leave hers in long enough. after about the first 6 eggs they started to loose interest and started to get a little silly. of course they didnt want to use a spoon to get the eggs out...they used their hands. then instead of using the spoon for getting the eggs out....they started drinking the dye. now its just vinegar and mostly some water and they dye is non toxic, but still....who wants to drink vinegar water? apparently they thought it was tasty...luckily we were able to put a stop to that pretty quickly and get them back on track, you know, just putting their hands in the colors. but that had fun and thats what matters most.







then on friday we had the easter bash! every easter the asymca (armed services ymca) puts on a shindig out at the barber's point stables that the kids love. not only do you get to hunt easter eggs and have lunch, but you get to ride some of the horses! sara did okay last year....after much coaxing. but this year she was ready to go! she has really been into horses this year so i think that helped. she got right up on that horse and was ready to go! his name was eragon and was very nice and gentle with the kids. she also got her face painted, and since we always seem to be talking about crocodiles and how they snap people when we pass any sorts of murky waters (there are crocodiles in there mama and they will snap you and eat you!)or even just pretending when we are on the couch....can you guess what she got painted.....yep. a crocodile.