The beach and playground wisdom

At Windward Mall

Kakela Beach, (Alligator Rock)

We had a great time being in Laie with my wife's side of the family. We stayed the entire last week there and had fun with another sister in law and her son. The best beach for the kids in the Laie Hau'ula area is Kakela beach, the Alligator rock side which is all the way to the right side of the beach. I heard that by Shark's Cove there is a spot where there's tide pools which is good for the kids also. I heard that Ko'olina Resort is a nice place also for the keiki.

The picture above is my son riding on a mano, a shark. That playground area at Windward mall is the best place for the kids. Except when really dumb parents leave their little kids there and go shopping and have other parents watch their kids. There was this wild kid who was pretty rough with all the other kids. He almost pulled down my son from the play boat area until my sister in law pulled him away and scolded the rotten kid. And where was his parents? Oh no where to be found. The mom just left him there by himself, a 5 year old being watched by strangers. Man, some people no more common sense. As my wife's tutu would say, "Some people they get a nerve, yeah?"

The Little Princess Party

We first had the kids swim in the pool outside. You notice in the picture the Princess Aurora/Sleeping Beauty bathing suit that my daughter has on. Thanks mom. The kids had fun playing in the pool because the past week it had been raining but not during our scheduled time. The pool ofcourse is the little fill up kind that you inflate air for the sides. I broke the water hose while trying to fill up the pool. There were a few kinks in the hose when I turned it on and one of the kinks burst open and I had a nice sprinkler in the middle of the hose. So I had my sprinkler hose to fill up the pool. I better go buy my in-laws a nice good hose at Home Depot. My wife got some cheap water guns so my son had fun shooting his sister and cousin. My niece also got some scuba masks and the scuba air tube. I forget what its called. The pool is like less than a foot deep. But I had nice use of the scuba tube and used it to blow water on the kids.

My wife was very creative for the activities. After the pool, the kids decorated foam visors with these little foam stickers that came with letters, floral designs, and butterflies. As you can see above Mikayla is modeling it well. She was so happy and thrilled to do a little craft activity. She just did everything on her own. My wife bought everything at Walmart.

After the visor decorating, it was...dipping oreos and pretzels in chocolate! My niece and I ate most of the things we were dipping. You just take some chocolate chip morsels put it in a microwave bowl. Then put in the microwave for a minute, then mix it and put it in the microwave again for another minute. Mix. Then dip. Oh yeah, the bowl is hot be careful. You can dip strawberries, bananas, anykind of fruit. After you dip your cookie or whatever, you put it on wax paper. To harden the chocolate just stick the wax paper of goodies in the fridge for a good half hour or so. I forgot that its kind of hard to transport the wax paper of chocolate covered goodies when there is no solid flat surface underneath. Don't forget to put a cookie sheet pan under it all. This little dipping technique comes from my mom. Again this little activity was my wife's brilliant and fun idea! I take no credit. I just had fun doing the activities.

We then ate lunch consisted of hot dogs, spam musubis, and chips. All of my daughter's favorite foods. All really simple to prepare and good on the budget. Soon after was the singing of Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles on the special doll cake. Mikayla was thrilled to see the doll cake and also she loves singing Happy Birthday. What kid doesn't like their birthday? Above you can see the wonderful doll cake crafted by my awesome wife. It was a tradition in my wife's family where their grandma would make a doll cake for each of her sisters for their birthdays. It was one of wife's favorite memories. The dress is the cake. You can't eat the doll. The whole process of making the doll cake is secret so I have to ask my wife.... okay I don't remember how she did it. I was keeping the kids occupied when she was making it...

The birthday girl opened presents and then we headed outside for the pinata smashing.

We were all ready for a nap when it ended. Man, the adults were all tired. There was my sister in law, my mother in law, my wife, and I. My daughter was happy and estatic so that meant we did good. Thanks ladies.

Princesses?

I have a bunch of random thoughts that are circling around in my head. From paper mache to princesses to Google reader and so on. Last night I made a paper mache castle pinata for my daughter's birthday. Paper mache is easy to do but takes forever to dry especially because in Hawaii it is so humid. The castle turned alright. It took a lot of time making the frilly paper. I used streamer paper and had the help of my wife to cut the little strips. I could not do this in front of the kids because they would want to help and it would take twice as long also I guess I'm a control freak with art. I don't know if making paper mache pinatas is art but it took a couple of hours putting it all together. The whole reason I decided to make a pinata castle was because at Walmart they were selling it for $15.99! Ofcourse because it was the Disney Princess Pinata castle it should be worth that amount. Anyways my daughter is totally into Disney Princesses. I thought it was a phase because that was the theme of her little birthday party last year. And it is the same theme this year. I was thinking why princesses? Why does my daughter love Disney princesses? She has never seen all the movies that feature the Disney princesses. She somehow remembers and knows all their names. I don't mind it for now. I think of it that she wants to be a princess and thats okay. She won't be a little girl for long. Next year she goes to school and thats it. Shes going to school for 13 years straight and for 4 more years in college. And maybe more. I guess the feeling of my little girl is going to have to grow up. We don't always get along, she doesn't like to listen to me all the time. I guess its because she has a strong personality. She has a long Hawaiian middle name that means "to honor truth and light." There is a double meaning of the word of "light" in Hawaiian that we used. It could mean "the glow" or "the glow, the light that comes from fire". My wife and I joke that our daughter has the "fire" within her. We love our little fire princess.

Intellectual Stimulation

One thing that I didn't mention about myself is that I am attending grad school on the weekends. The original plan was that I was to work and go to school at the same time. I was feeling distraught and a little burnt out before quitting my job about 2 years ago. I was ready for a new change. I received inspiration to go back to school and get my MBA. There were weekend programs for working individuals only on the island of Oahu. We were living on Maui at that time. My wife found an interesting job on Oahu from her cousin and thought that we should both apply. The job described itself as an associate investigator for a company that is contracted by the federal government. You could work from home with this job and they will provide a car and a laptop. I thought yeah I could do this job. We both applied and we both received phone interviews. Only one of us got a call back for another interview. Yeah, it was my wife and after a few more interviews she got the job. I felt pretty proud of her because this was her first full-time job after graduating from college, however I felt kind of bad for myself. Maybe a little hurt or depressed because I thought I would be offered the job. After all I had "work" experience, my male ego was shot down. I had to constantly remind myself that I had the most important job of all; being the primary caregiver of my children.
When I found out how much paperwork needed to be done for the job that my wife did, I was glad I did not fit the job profile. I learned my lesson. Never ever apply to the same job as your spouse, you will feel hurt if the your spouse gets it. And a whole bunch of other reasons.

Now for the intellectual stimulation part of this blog. I remember a few friends' wives that were stay at home moms said that they wished they could do something like what I was doing, going to school. They said they would like to have some intellectual conversations and ocassionally learn new concepts here and then. Don't get me wrong when you are the primary care giver you are busy and it can be physically draining. The problem is that you are talking to little ones that still don't understand the concept of tomorrow or aren't potty trained.
Guys remember when you come home from work and your wife talks to you about stuff that you think doesn't matter and all you want to do is sit on the couch or your favorite chair to watch TV and relax? Well if shes a stay at home mom or is with the kids more than you, you got to stop and listen. Really listen, meaning try to understand why this converstion is important to her and why she is talking to you. It may just be a way for her to vent or talk about what happened in the course of her day. This is the way a woman connects with you. Or she just wants to talk to an "adult", she's been talking to kids all day. This listening stuff goes vice versa for women that are working and dads that are staying at home.

How to stimulate your mind?

• Read a book or magazines that interests you. Library, borrow free books. I like to read magazines about business news and trends.


• Learn something new.


• Learn how to do something, buy a do it yourself book or go online to find out how to fix something like your kitchen sink. I still have to learn how to replace a door.


• Maybe take some night courses at a community college to learn a foreign language or learn a new subject or skill.


• Learn how to play an instrument or brush up your guitar skills. Who doesn't like playing music or listening to music? Plus the kids will get a kick out of it.

Free fun

Today was an eventful day @ our local library. Every Tuesday at 10:30am there is a book reading that is free at the library. Today was special, it was a free puppet show. I knew that I had to be there early cause last week we went there at 10:25 and there was no parking in the library. So today we got there half an hour early.
For the puppet show there was this lady that did finger puppets to Eensy weensy spider, No more monkeys jumping on the bed, the wheels on the bus, 5 little monkeys swinging on the tree and Old McDonald had a farm. There was the finale of the marionette puppets. Man there were tons of little kids there I think like 50 of them and lots of moms. And maybe 3 Dads. Sorry no pictures were allowed during the performance. I mean it wasn't that super professional anyways, but whatever. But all the kids there loved it.
Mikayla loved the marionettes because she loves the scene in the "Sound of Music" musical, where the Von Trap kids are doing the marionette play for their father. Mikayla calls it the "Yodel lay he hoo song".
So the library has some cool free entertainment there. Plus its cool there, physically cool, free AC. They had a reading program where you get a little treat if you read a couple of books to your kids. Last week was animal crackers.
Also another note of cool stuff at the library besides the cool free books to borrow is that you can rent DVDs for a week long for a dollar! Man, we get 3-4 at a time everytime we visit! You know we get the Disney classics or some lame ones that the kids want. Okay, I picked out the lame ones...by accident.
Yeah, I don't go to Mother's group. Thats something that the kids would enjoy but I feel weird going there without my wife. I was invited a few times but I felt "unmanly" whenever I attended. Plus what am I gonna talk about? "So you guys seen the game last night?" The real conversation will be, "Oh my husband does the craziest things." Uh, awkward. Yeah so I would like to make a Father's group but I'm the only one I know that is a stay at home father besides my cousin who lives in Laie.
I think that as a stay at home father you need to have time to let out some steam or relax. Its the same for all care takers. My time to relax is volleyball. I'm lucky my wife lets me play once a week. Physical exercise helps my mind release endorphins to help me think better and I just feel good. So I know when we switch roles, when I work and she stays home with the kids, she can have time for herself. She still needs that time now. We all do!

No water-what to do?

This morning I was about to do my Monday morning routine of washing the clothes and washing the morning dishes while the kids watch Playhouse Disney. My wife called me soon after she left from work and reminded me that the apartment management had shut the water off from 8am - 12pm today. Great... what do I do? I then had to go to the bathroom... yeah the one you need to flush. I really couldn't hold it. Then I remembered, we have a 6 gallon water container in our home that I had bought for our food storage. Yes, it had water in it. Sometimes I take it to Scout camps cause I'm the Scoutmaster for the Boy Scout Troop and forget to refill it when I get return home. Anyways, I got to fill the water of the toilet with my water container. Yes, our toilet was saved!
About 2 years ago we had an earthquake here in Hawaii. We were on Maui back then and we were without electricity and running water for only a few hours, maybe 4-5 hours. Everybody on Oahu were without electricity and running water for almost 18 hours. After that everyone in Hawaii were concerned about emergency food and supplies. I wonder if people are still concerned about that now that it is Hurricane season. Here is the LDS website for food storage
http://www.providentliving.org/channel/0,11677,1706-1,00.html the website always has a connecting website to the Red Cross.
We've been trying to build up our emergency food and supplies since we moved here from Maui. I heard Progresso soup is not good to have for a while. You're suppose to rotate out, meaning eat the food of the food storage every few months so you have a fresh supply. Well until next time.

Time out

This is where I put my kids for time out! Nah, they just were playing and followed each other under that end table. Kids just do the most random things. Prepared for the unexpected. Sounds Jedi like...

As for discipline, time out seems like the most effective method. They both don't like it so that works. Growing up in Hawaii, I don't think I ever had time out as a form of discipline. It was spankings. Who didn't get "lickings" growing up in Hawaii? Pretty much everybody did. So time out was kind of a foreign thing to me. So the kid just stands there or sits there for the amount of minutes that are the same for their age? Yep thats it. You gotta give them the guilt talk. "You made Daddy disappointed" or "You need to be nice to your brother because he's the only one you got". Yeah it will evolve when they get older. For example, "Go clean the toilet, then go to your room!" Or my favorite punishment I got when I was in intermediate school was, "Go pull some weeds". That was really junk. Wait that wasn't punishment, that was one of my chores! "No T.V." or "no videogames", that was some of our punishments.

Lupulu is grindz!

About 2 nights ago I made a Tongan dish called Lupulu. My wife was craving it a few days before but we both didn't know how to make it. Lupulu is basically steamed cornbeef with taro leaves, some onions, and coconut milk. So I found out from some friends that all you need is tinfoil, baby taro leaves, New Zealand made corned beef (Palm brand), onions, and coconut milk. You just put it together and put lots of coconut milk, wrap it all up with the tinfoil and put it in the oven for like 3 hours. Maybe I'll do the recipe thing later.
Anyways, it was really good. I had the approval from my wife. I really knew she liked it because she ate more than me! We both are born and raised in Hawaii. She grew up in Laie, lots of Samoans live there. Okay all kind of Polynesians live there. The Polynesian Cultural Center is right there in Laie. I grew up on Maui in Kihei, lots of Filipinos and Tongans. So my wife and I grew up eating all kinds of Polynesian food. I love Tongan food. I am not Tongan but Hawaiian, Chinese, and Japanese. In any of the Polynesian cultures you always share your food. Its the proper thing to do. If you have a sandwich and you are in the company of friends and they don't have any food, you would offer to everyone there if they would like some. Its just being courteous. So yes, I have Tongan friends and I was fed lots of Tongan food! Its an honor if the Tongan people make a dish just for you! Or have a feast just for you! It happened to me more than once. Well to me it is a great honor, kind of feels special. In Hawaii, we don't eat till we're full, we eat till we sleep!