Staycation

After returning from my trip east, Chris and I promptly headed to the westside for a little staycation for the 4th of July weekend. At first we wanted to stay in Kona, but I wanted to do some activities in Waikoloa, so I ended up booking a little room in Waikoloa Village. It was $55/night...not bad :)

OUR LITTLE BEDROOM AT THE LAUGHING GECKO & THE DECK OF OUR LITTLE STAYCATION ABODE

From our house it only took an hour and a half to Waikoloa after a little detour to the Hilo Saturday Farmer's Market and a short stop in Waimea. After unloading some luggage at the Laughing Gecko, we promptly decided to spend the rest of our afternoon at the beach. I unpacked my trusted "Big Island Revealed" and we picked Mauna Kea beach. Since it was late afternoon, we pulled into the resort's tiny public beach access parking but found parking since everyone had mostly left the beach. I wasn't sure what to expect, so after trekking a few minutes down the pathway the vista opened up to a gorgeous white-golden silky sand beach with beautifully clear water. Ah! What a slice of heaven! How did we not even know that this existed on our miserable island? (Yes, I still hate living here to a fair degree - better, but not nearly close to consistently happy)

CHRIS TRYING TO CONVINCE ME TO GO FOR A SWIM

THE LOVELY MAUNA KEA BEACH (DOESN'T THIS MAKE YOU WANT TO COME VISIT???)

After a fabulous afternoon luxuriating on the beach, we headed out for dinner in Kailua-Kona. We went to a random bar we had never seen before and had a pretty not-great prime rib dinner. Before calling it a night, we headed to Safeway for some snacks for our beach day. At Safeway I discovered on sale...

CHOCOLATE WHIPPETS!

Being the good little girl that I am, we did not buy these, even if they are chocolate cookies at not nitrous oxide for huffing (or a showdog for that matter...I may not like dogs, but I watch those dog shows on Animal Planet!)

Tea Time

One our quasi "traditions" is to go to tea when I'm home. This past trip we tried a new place and it was pretty cute.

I wasn't too crazy about the food, but I really liked my tea. It was a white tea (Called a "Wedding Tea"...which I picked mainly because I was feeling wishful!) that tasted like vanilla and rose and just YUM! Only problem was...drinking all that tea and I barely made it home before I had to use the restroom!

NANA WITH THE FOOD

She absolutely put me to shame and ate her half. Me, I just nibbled on things and was bummed there was no clotted cream to go with the yummy scones.

MOM AND LINDSEY

FAMILY LADIES

I'll have to find my pictures of the tea my sister and I had at Kensington Palace in England. That was really fun.

Those Crazy Shakers

One of the day trips I did while back home was to head to the Berkshires to visit the Norman Rockwell museum. I had no idea how prolific an illustrator and artist he was. I really enjoyed the museum, but alas...no photos allowed so all I have is this picture of his favorite work studio.

NORMAN ROCKWELL'S STUDIO

The whole time I was there I kept thinking how lovely it would be to move to the Berkshires. It's quasi rural and in the summer it's got lovely green hills, flowers everywhere and just has a nice rustic community feel to it. So besides wanting to live on Maui, Alaska, Cusco (Peru), in Italy, Hanover (NH), I guess you can add the Berkshires.

At the Rockwell museum they had discounts if you went to other area attractions. So nerdy me picked the Shaker village. As a religion major I know...

absolutely nothing about Shakers other than they apparently shake during their religious ceremonies. Well I learned a lot.

First, Shakers were really into being efficient. So they are not to be confused with the Amish as they embrace technology. An example of their love of being efficient is that they are credited with inventing the flat broom. Betcha didn't know that, didya?

NO, WE AREN'T IN SALEM...WE'RE IN SHAKER TOWN!

And they invented a script so as not to waste ink when writing. That's why some fonts have a dot at some point in their letters... Although I will say as an educator that I am pretty shocked they only went to school for 3 months out of a year!

SHAKER SCHOOL

Second, Shakers don't have sex. If you are married and convert to become a Shaker, your marriage is dissolved and you become "brother and sister"...huh...go figure. They believed in equality between gender and races, but the "brothers" and "sisters" were kept pretty separate. Despite their puritanical views on sex, they dormed together. But the buildings were basically split right down the middle - men on one side and women on the other. They were designed so that men and women would have no reason to touch each other, even in passing through a hallway.

Sometimes they had rocking meetings in their dorm in the evenings...they'd sing, enjoy refreshments like lemonade and popcorn....and of course make sure they were at least five feet apart from each other:

MEN ON ONE SIDE, WOMEN ON THE OTHER...THOSE CRAZY PARTY ANIMALS

Some other fun pictures from our trip:

MY MOTHER MILKING A FAKE COW :)

MY SISTER GETTING READY TO THREAD SOME WOOL (AS LEARNED FROM A MR. ROGERS EPISODE)

A NEAT ROUND BARN

SHAKER GRAFFITI

The lamp oil was stored in this cabinet. However, one resident kept spilling a little oil every time their filled their lamp. Finally a Shaker woman got so fed up with this waste (That efficiency thing coming in to play again) she wrote a note in the cabinet that essentially says, quit wasting oil. If you can't do it right...leave your lamp and I will do it for you!

THE INFIRMARY'S ADULT CRADLE...APPARENTLY TO "COMFORT" THE ILL AND FEEBLE

SO MY QUESTION FOR THIS SHAKER COMMUNAL (?!?!?!) TOILET IS...UH WHAT'S THE CORN FOR???

ME CONTEMPLATING CONVERTING...AND THINKING, "SHEESH, A MUUMUU IS MORE FLATTERING"

Our New Pet

Things have been very busy lately and I have much to catch on! Our latest adventure is that we have been adopted by a nene!

For those of you that follow Real Housewives of Atlanta...no...Nene Leakes did NOT land in our backyard (but could you IMAGINE if she had???? Now THAT'D be a blog entry). Rather, the nene is a Hawaiian goose. It is the world's rarest goose and is considered endangered.

So Chris and I were just hanging out in our living room when out of the corner of my eye I see this:

"Chris! I think there's a goose in our yard!" say I.
"What?!" says Chris.

We leap up to investigate...keep in mind my dear readers, I LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE. And now to add insult to injury we have no TV. So yes, a goose landing in our backyard is pretty darn exciting by our current living standards.

"I think it's a nene." says Chris. This now kicks our excitement up a few notches. We take a few pictures and then after staring at it and watching it (I wish I could say I was exaggerating) for a good hour or so, we call the local rescue people.

THE NENE UP CLOSE

As the nene is endangered, we don't want to mess too much with this thing. So imagine our surprise when they tell us to feed it and give it water. Keep in mind that there are signs all over Hawaii not to feed the nene.

The lady Chris called needed to get in contact with the nene biologist (or as Chris calls her, "the federally licensed nene messer with-er"). In the meanwhile we were to watch the nene and of course feed it. This was not a difficult task as it was the most exciting thing to happen to Chris since I'd been gone on my trip back to the East coast.

WE TAUGHT IT TO BOW FOR BREAD (I'M KIDDING)

GAVE IT WATER

"PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE"

AND FED IT LETTUCE

Apparently nene go gaga for lettuce. But on a more serious note, we had noticed that it was missing a foot. This is another reason we had called the rescue folks. The poor thing just hobbled around like it was sensitive to bear weight on it and it was pretty sad to watch.

The rescue lady called Chris back and this is what I heard on my end: "Uh-huh. Really? Wow. How? Have you ever done this before? Okay, my girlfriend can help me."

So what did we have to do? Oh, nothing but CATCH AN ENDANGERED SPECIES and put it in a box. And had the rescue lady done this herself? Yeah, once....with a turkey!

Well, we came up with a stellar plan. I'd lure it with bread or lettuce and then Chris would pounce (not literally) with a towel and scoop him up so we could place him in a box. Unfortunately, they may be endangered, but nene are no dummies. It knew what was up.

So this was a perfect time to get friendly with the neighbors. We called them down from their balcony (Connie and Aaron/Alan?) and with the four of us we basically chased the poor thing into a corner on our porch so that Chris could do his towel and grab maneuver.

DUCK IN A BOX (HA HA...CHRIS THINKS THIS IS HYSTERICAL)

The rescue lady came to pick him up shortly thereafter and after a short lecture on folding the box flaps as we had (Apparently some chicken had gotten it's neck stuck in the gap and had accidentaly hung itself), we thought that'd be the end of Nene S&$*ts as we've taken to calling our nene since it had managed to poop EVERYWHERE in the short time it was with us (Chris again being "punny" on the Real Housewife's name).

Later in the afternoon we get a call from our rescue lady. Our friend was deemed fine and his foot was not needing medical attention. So they re-released him into our backyard and he's been there for the last day or two.

We can't have a pet on our lease, but it didn't say anything about us being adopted by an endangered species....now I wonder what it would take to get a giant panda to land in our yard....

Appreciation through Crafts

The past two weeks have been very busy and fun on the crafting front. First I was asked to make gifts for the clerical staff appreciation day. It didn't come out the way I wanted to, but I learned a lot of lessons for next time (I just got asked to make versions of these for a girl's ballet recital to give to her friends).

SUGAR COOKIE FLOWER BOUQUETS

Then I had to make 60 cupcakes for our teacher appreciation day. I made a German chocolate cupcake with a light lemon buttercream (I personally didn't like the chocolate cupcake, but the lemon buttercream was yummy!), vanilla with vanilla buttercream for my less adventurous staff, and strawberry cheesecake cupcake with cream cheese frosting (Yum!).

(L-R) GERMAN CHOCOLATE, STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE, VANILLA

Then I got to make these special cupcake wrappers with stars and that said "Shine." I used the wrong kind of paper, but it still looked nicer than regular liners. I got a lot of really nice emails from teachers even though technically, I was just the baker and it was from the admin :)

NIFTY WRAPPERS

Of course, all this baking wasn't without some drama. I used royal icing to "glue" the lollipop sticks to the cookies and they didn't harden up like normal because of the humidity. Then there were damages in the transport. As for the cupcakes...I was up very late making these cupcakes and then in the morning as I was loading my car, one of my cupcake carriers upended onto my gravel driveway...frosting side down! :( I lost half a dozen cupcakes. Already late for school, I quickly grabbed all the fixings to make more frosting, salvaged the cupcakes I could (The ones who had only flown around the inside of the carrier - not off the ground, silly) and then dashed to school. At school I frantically make frosting in my office (very bizarre experience) and had them all ready for the admin to deliver classroom to classroom.

Finally for Mother's Day, someone paid me to make these little purses for her to give to the mothers in her life. It was a lot of fun decorating these! They open and I think she was planning on putting little goodies from Big Island Candies in them.

MOTHER'S DAY PURSES

MY FAVORITES OF THE PURSES

Kris and Chris Take On Exercise

So Chris has recently been bugging me to get on some healthy living kick. Ugh. He's been wanting to go for walks (and according to him at some point I'll be expected to actually go running...right, I'll believe that one when it happens).

The other day I actually got home early enough and with enough motivation to actually be willing to lace up my shoelaces and go. We started walking and as we turned out the driveway I mentioned how we should've brought umbrellas since it looked like it was going to rain. Well, about a block later it started to rain. Chris told me to chase the blue sky and I just followed, grumbling all the while. We hadn't even gone a block and a half from out house when it started POURING.

I think God is on my side and even He doesn't want me to exercise ;P

TWO WET WALKERS

Chris has recently been excited about something called Parkour. He was even excited enough to CALL ME on my cell phone to tell me about it. (a) He never calls me and b) He's really trying this exercise thing. He misses wrestling.) I don't really understand it, but Wikipedia has this to say:

"Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) is a utilitarian discipline based upon the direct, successful, swift traversing of one's surrounding environment via the practical application of techniques, based around the concept of self-preservation. It is a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, using only their bodies. Skills such as jumping, climbing, vaulting, rolling, swinging and wall scaling are employed. Parkour can be practiced anywhere, but areas dense with obstacles are preferable and it is most commonly practiced in urban areas."

So...when I heard he wanted to jump off things and scale walls, I was completely not supportive. Anyone who know him knows that if anyone is going to find a way to fall/get hurt/have a freak accident happen to them...it's Chris. He kept telling me he hoped by doing Parkour it would train his body to be less accident prone. (Do I even need to comment on how skeptical I was when I heard that???) But then I realized I was being a jerk and decided to just let him pursue it. And by this I mean - I am not mentioning it at ALL to him and knowing him, he'll forget all about it...sometimes his forgetfulness is REALLY USEFUL ;P

New Cake Technique

This weekend was really busy. I was asked to make a cake for a baby luau for Saturday and a cake for a 5th grader at my school for Sunday. The baby luau cake was supposed to be a Hello Kitty cake, but nothing went well for me - my frosting didn't cooperate, I had a headache and I just plain didn't want to do it. Needless to say, it didn't come out so well. It was cute, but not something I want to brag about.

But I was totally inspired for the second cake. Ironically, this child is one that I met the family when they requested that I test her for special education eligibility. She loves Scooby Doo and boxing. I've heard of this pattern transfer technique awhile back and wanted to test it out. It requires that you trace the image using a clear or white frosting and then you transfer it to the cake. I didn't have the right frosting for the transfer, but decided to try it anyways. I first tried my hand at Scooby. He didn't come out so well and I'm not posting pictures of that attempt. I had to use toothpicks to manually scrap off all the black icing I had used to try the outline. What a colossal pain!

I decided to give the boxing gloves a try since there wasn't as much detail. Here's the final result:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MT!

I happen to TOTALLY love it :) Of course, they didn't seem that impressed, which really bummed me out. Chris thinks that people just don't realize how much work cake decorating takes. This cake took me about 3 hours, not including the baking (Although my hands are out of practice, so I had to rest them a few times).

I made a fun little cake a month ago...nothing special. A teacher requested I make a class cake for their achievements on the second round of the Hawai'i State Assessment. Peeps had just come out in the stores, so I call this my "Peeps" cake. (Although really, I think Peeps are just gross)

WAY TO GO...PEEPS CAKE

My mother and sister spent this past weekend in DC checking out the cherry blossoms and grad schools for her. I forgot to post these cards, but since I remembered:

(L) OWL CARD; (R) SAKURA or "CHERRY BLOSSOM" CARD

I took a card making class using sakura punches and Distress Ink stamping (amazing). The teacher was a retired gentleman who apparently loved to make cards! He did have a distractingly long nose hair that totally bugged me the entire class though...awkward.

And just because I'm obsessed...my fancy-schmancy peppermint Cricut Expression that I got for a steal on eBay :)

THE CRICUT PACKAGE