Taste of Hilo

You'd think with Christmas break, I'd finally have the time to catch up on my blogging. Well after: finding out that apparently people READ the blog + a blizzard + a need to kill time while I wait for Chris to drive up from PA = Catching up with the blog.

So...let me take you back....waaaaay back :) We begin our journey back in time in October. October was a lot of fun. I missed my mother's and sister's birthday - as usual (I can't let people down...must keep up my excellent track record of forgetting birthdays and sending cards late). October also saw fall break, but that's another entry.

I'm going to ease back into blogging with something easy: October 24th's Taste of Hilo. I have always wanted to do a "Taste of..." - not sure why since I eat like a bird and will surely be a waste of money. Taste of Hilo sounded like something me and my pea-sized stomach would handle.

I bought the tickets at a restaurant where I was confused for being a high school student. The well-meaning cashier's line of questions went like this:
1. You moved here to go to Keaau High? ("No, my boyfriend teaches there and I teach at Mt. View")
2. Oh! You are married? ("No, but I am patiently awaiting a ring." With an emphasis on patiently)
3. Oh! You have kids? ("No." All the while thinking it's so strange that it would follow that if I am unmarried, I must have illegitimate children)

That Sunday Chris and I merrily set off. Chris asked if I had directions and I assured him that I had an idea of where it was. For whatever reason, this did not reassure Chris. In truth, I really didn't know where it was at all, but kind of figured that if I drove around I'd find it. Well...

Ta-Dah!
I managed to drive us right to the location. I mean, COME ON...it's Hilo. For a small place like Hilo, this was an event indeed. It was sold out!

SOLD OUT!

We got this nifty tray that had a little insert for your wine glass. We got to keep the glasses, which were inscribed with the date and logo for the event. As we wandered around and tried food we unfortunately came to the conclusion rather early on that we were not exactly in a culinary hot spot :( The food was ok at best and my favorite thing was made by high school students for a career prep program (Marinated chicken on a little medallion of rice, furikake, scallions, etc). We had blueberry lager which I liked and boar sausage which I did not. There was lots of food that tasted and looked blah. I guess all those cooking shows are having some effect.

I did get excited about this bakery shop that had some cool cakes:

I probably could only do the top one with some effort, the other two are above what I can do at this point...but one of these days I'll get there!

Chris accidentally cut the line for sturgeon - which was the feature of the Taste of Hilo. He wasn't so impressed with the taste, but chatted up the purveyor for a bit. It was totally ugly for a feature:

STURGEON ON DISPLAY

STURGEONS HAVE SNOUTS

Apparently they take awhile to mature (5-10 years). That's all that I remember :)

We didn't stay long and after mutually agreeing that it wasn't so great of an experience, we skipped out. I was happy because Ben Franklin (my favorite crafts store) was across the street and Chris agreed to let me go shopping afterwards.

Life in the countryside...

Kristen's Latest Crafting Adventure

Work has been really crazy and I continue to feel less and less enthused about my job. Last weekend I was shopping at my favorite place in Hilo - Ben Franklin Craft Store and saw that they were having a sale on Hello Kitty things. Most notably, the Hello Kitty head cake pan that I've been eying since we moved here. So of course I, with my limited impulse control, bought the pan. I noticed one tiny poster in the store for a cake decorating contest. There were two categories - cupcakes and cake. The rules for the cake were pretty simple, you had to use the Hello Kitty cake pan. A perfect excuse to use my newly acquired pan and plus something to look forward to!

Friday night I did the bulk of my baking and decorating. I created a body for my Hello Kitty. It wasn't perfect, but cute enough. I wasn't expecting a ton of competition, so I definitely cut corners out of laziness. Saturday morning I was up early for some final detailing and then with some help from Chris getting it into the truck, I set off for the store. I was surprised to see some competition...when I got there, 2 cakes were already there and I was on the heels of 2 other contestants holding their cakes. I was not so pleased to see that they had done bodies too. Here are the other cakes:

HELLO KITTY WITH FLOWER POWER

HELLO KITTY WITH A CANDY CANE (?)

HELLO KITTY AS A MERMAID

SCARY HELLO KITTY

NERDY HELLO KITTY

The competition was by customer votes. I drove home in attempt to get Chris to rally and come with me so I'd have at least another vote, but he was set on fixing my car. Torn between the measly vote and possibly getting my car fixed, I opted for car. I was not so reassured by Chris telling me that the mermaid might beat me. I was resigned to losing, which really annoyed me because I'm really competitive.

I returned to Ben Franklin and wandered around the store for an hour (which was rather easy to do for me). Then it was 12:30 and time for the results. The store employees wanted us to stand by our cakes and only 3 of us were there. Then the manager started talking over the PA system. No one could understand him so when he came down and announced to us that we were all getting gift certificates, I was pretty happy. They handed the 3rd place girl her card (The mermaid) and then they handed me mine. Yippee! $25 dollar gift card that would definitely get used. I overheard the manager talking about how the other people who weren't there would get $5 dollar gift cards so I asked one of the store employees what was happening. She said, "You won!" So here's my winning cake!

MY HELLO KITTY CAKE

I made my little name tag/label too!

There was a little mishap on the drive home. As I was driving through Hilo I happened to look down and Hello Kitty was decapitated! I didn't have the board supported correctly and the bumping of the road kind of bounced her head off the body! I pulled over and propped up the head end and wouldn't you know it...the bouncing of the road bounced her head right back to her body :)

I Survived Going Over the Edge!

Somehow I managed to raise over $1,000 for Special Olympics and as a result on October 15, 2010 I went OVER THE EDGE! Unfortunately, I had class on Saturday so I could only spend the day really.

I spent the night at the Hoffmans and it was SOOO nice to see Jenn. We stayed up late talking and catching up. I was planning on sleeping in, but I guess my nerves got to me. But I will say that I had forgotten how HOT it gets in Ewa. I woke up as Jenn and Makaela were eating breakfast. I came downstairs and got the funniest look from Makaela. I had come in after she had gone to bed so I can only imagine what she must have been thinking having this random person come down her stairs in the morning!

I got to visit my old stompin' grounds, Ilima. And I definitely have missed the place! It was so fun running around visiting people and seeing familiar faces. I wish had more time to spend, but I had things to do and had to skedaddle out after only a few hours. I visited the Weidas + Melissa and got to meet the newest Weida - little Makenzie. She's so cute!!! Of course she cried when I held her...*sigh*...Monica tells me she was just hungry, but I think babies just don't like me :(

After running around, trying to shop for things that I have a hard time getting on the Big Island it was time to get myself over to the Sheraton. I walked in and got myself up to registration.


After signing my waiver (GULP!) and checking in my bags, I went to the next room to get harnessed up.

GETTING READY TO BE HARNESSED UP

READY TO GO...KINDA

I was SO happy that the guy who harnessed me up was able to let me go in costume. We taped the pig hat to the helmet and I was ready to go! Well, kinda. For about the week prior to the event when it became obvious that I might actually have to do this (!) I've been getting more and more nervous. Despite going sky diving, this had me way more nervous.

A LITTLE LESSON

The Army National Guards give us a little lesson before we go up to the 31st floor. When I asked this guy if he'd ever seen pigs fly, he said, "Sure, I have!" He was super nice and made me feel much better about how easy it would be to rappel. All I had to do was squeeze this lever and it would release the rope so I could just zip right on down. He also explained the safety that would bite into our secondary rope if we went too fast or something else happened.

FEELING A LOT BETTER ABOUT GOING OVER THE EDGE

VIEW DOWN FROM THE PRACTICE PLATFORM

They had as practice rappelling down one floor to the ground floor. It was totally silly that I was nervous doing this since I was about to rappel down over 31 floors!!! They offer you more practice if you need it, but it was simple and as nervous as I was, it was so easy that I was kinda ready to just bite the bullet and go over the edge. A volunteer took me up to the 31st floor. I shared my elevator with a group of Japanese tourists who obviously thought I was strange.

RAINBOW ON THE ROOF

SCAFFOLDING

There was a bit of wait time so I chatted with the people around me. The lady going ahead of me was a preschool special education teacher at Queen Liliuokalani El. She had a daughter who she coached in the Special Olympics. I was also joined by the head Athletics Director for the Special Olympics Hawai'i and his daughter. His daughter was going over without mom's permission. They were going to pick her up at the airport and tell her then that the daughter had gone over the edge! Naughty naughty!

DIAMONDHEAD!

LONG WAY DOWN

After watching a few others go down, it was my turn. They hooked me up and told me to climb over the railing (YIKES!). There were a few tense minutes where it took a few guys to figure out my slack, which definitely did NOT make me feel more reassured. Then they tell me to let go of the railing and test my weight. What happens if the test fails? I'm guessing you end up on the ground rather quick! But thankfully my safety caught and they tell me to let go of the ropes for a photo op (@$&$?!). Feeling nervous and sweaty already, I grinned for my photo and then it was time to rappel.

I started walking down the overhang, which was fabulous, but then as I got to the bottom and had to keep lowering myself down "until I was almost upside down," was not so fun. Now dangling at least 300 ft above the ground I was supposed to squeeze my lever and just go. I squeezed...and I didn't go. Through the walkie clipped to me, I was told to squeeze the lever. I replied I was squeezing as hard as I could. I could see the guys up top conversing and then I hear..."It's because you weigh like 90 pounds...you're going to have to feed the rope through." Well I can tell you that 300+ feet of thick rope is kinda heavy! But the lower I went, the easier it went and soon I was zipping along!

MY SHADOW...MY PIG HEAD MAKES MY HEAD LOOK LIKE I HAVE ENCEPHALITIS

SELF PORTRAIT...IT'S HOT!

The view was AMAZING. I saw at least 4 turtles about 20 ft off the beach, just swimming in the water. The sun was shining and the ocean was blue and gorgeous. We just had great conditions. But it was really HOT! The sun shines directly on you and the wall behind you has been baked from a long day in the sun (It was about 4pm) so it just radiates heat behind you. Before I knew it, I was on the ground!

I SURVIVED!

VIEW FROM THE GROUND

I wish I had stopped and taken more pictures, but I was so self-conscious of spending all that time at the top being stuck. When I was coming down I could hear the host say, "Kristen teaches at Mt. View Elementary. Kristen's sister, Lindsey, it watching online and says, 'Kristen looks spastic.'" Thanks Linds... Nevertheless, I was very popular and had lots of requests to take pictures. I got to be interviewed online and I'm sure I sounded like an idiot because I was hot, tired and hungry. But I had a ton of fun. I was so excited that my friend Alice had come to watch. My other regret (besides taking more pictures on the way down) was that I had to go so quickly. There was a really nice setup at the bottom. They had a little lounge area set up for friends and family. Special Olympic athletes and their families were hanging around, thanking you and whatnot. I hurried over to Ala Moana to spend a mere half an hour with my friend Michelle before it was time to dash to the airport.

As I was waiting in the airport I saw people taking pictures with this guy. I texted Chris and said that I thought UFC fighter, BJ Penn was on my flight. He texted back repeatedly that I should get a picture with him. So, oh-so-coolly I went up and ask him if he was BJ Penn and if I could take a picture with him. He was super soft-spoken and seemed almost shy, which is kind of ironic since he makes a living beating up other people, but was really chill and nice. It was a cool way to cap off my whirlwind visit back to Oahu.

ME AND MY FELLOW HILOAN BJ PENN

There's a video, but it's not that great of quality. You can see me in the last video segment at around minute 51 on this page: http://www.hawaiiirl.com/blog/2010/10/12/mix-it-up-hawaii-live-from-over-the-edge-sohawaii-on-friday-october-15-2010-from-800am-to-500pm-hst/

Practice Makes Perfect

Somehow I got asked to make a wedding cake from a co-worker at work. No one at work has even seen my cakes except through pictures! Her sister is getting married in July 2011 and she requested a relatively simple cake:

THE CAKE THEY WANT

She didn't care if it was square or round, but the bride does want it to have a brown ribbon rather than the purple/gray in the picture. She also wants real orchids - these exact kind and color. Finally, she wants the cake to be chocolate. Apparently KTA (the grocery store) would charge her at least $500 for this cake!

Although the cake is simple, there are 3 huge factors to consider:

1. I've never made a tiered cake before
2. I've never worked with fondant before
3. I've never been paid for my cakes before

But, seeing that the wedding isn't until the summer, I felt confident that I could be able to make the cake with enough practice. So 2 weekends ago I decided to practice. I wanted to start with round cakes since a) those are the pans I have and b) I've heard from the Food Network/WE shows I watch that round cakes are easier to cover.

First, I made the Wilton marshmallow fondant recipe from scratch. With my Kitchenaid mixer, it was super easy! However, I will say that while it tastes a lot better than the Wilton pre-made stuff, it does taste like straight up sugar. Next time I will be trying to flavor it. So that's my first lesson learned...flavor the fondant.

I baked, leveled, filled and crumb coated the cakes in my homemade vanilla buttercream. Nothing too fancy and I definitely wasn't being that careful - Chris kept chiding me to be more careful when I was leveling the cakes. But the objective of this practice was for me to see if I could just use fondant and tier a cake!

Then came the new part...fondant. Our kitchen doesn't have the surface space necessary to roll out the fondant and I couldn't remember if I brought my fondant roller. Chris cleared off the dining room table and found the tiniest wooden roller in a drawer. It would have to do for now as it was about 9pm at night on a Sunday. Rolling the fondant had its challenges as fondant can be quite sticky. But after several tries I had a big enough sheet of fondant to try covering my first tier. Chris helped and I was able to cover the cake with ease! I repeated the process for the second tier.

Then came the stacking. I pulled out my cake decorating reference books and placed cut lollipop sticks in the first tier for supports. Then Chris and I plopped the little tier onto the first. There are definitely imperfections, but I wasn't being that careful and it was my first time making a cake like this!

Next came the decorating. I had bought some silk orchids at the craft store. They weren't the right color, but I just needed them to practice so I wasn't about to shell out big bucks. Chris cut them off their wires and I started sticking them in. Apparently I don't have quite the artistic eye, since Chris got very aggravated with how I was sticking in the orchids and took over arranging them.

I didn't feel like making another batch of fondant for the ribbon since it was late and I didn't have a fondant ribbon cutter anyway, so I just grabbed the ribbon I had lying around for my lei. I used a little buttercream to secure it and voila! Chris got a little nitpicky with his "feedback," but I'm totally happy with this first attempt.

FIRST TIME WITH FONDANT AND TIERING!

THE FIRST PRACTICE CAKE

Obviously there's a lot I need to work on, but I'd say it isn't bad for my first time. I bought a large pastry mat to give me the surface to roll out fondant, I'm probably going to have to get another fondant roller as well as buy a pearl mold to make the pearl chains going around and a fondant ribbon cutter.

The cake was a hit at work...vanilla cake with a vanilla custard filling with fresh strawberries and blueberries - my favorite cake to make and eat! Before I cut it people kept asking me if it was a real cake...of COURSE it's a real cake! Why would anyone bring in a fake one???

Best of all, my coworker sent a picture to her sister, who loves the cake! But I still need to practice. Look forward to it!

I've also been playing with my new diecut machine and it can emboss too. I made this card for a co-worker who's having a really tough time right now.

1 Little Lonely Worker

Today was my first day acting as a pseudo 12 month employee. Now I know all you non-teachers out there will probably want to slap me, but I've been spoiled with breaks and summer vacation. This concept of working year round with something called "vacation days" is still very much a myth to me...like Santa Claus...who I still believe in ;p

Technically I'm a 10 month SSC, which is unusual because most SSCs are 12 month. After my first, hellacious quarter I understand why. However, I can get call back pay if I come in over break to work on my stuff and so for fall break I declared I needed 2 days. Today was my first day working during a break (ESY doesn't count).

I had Chris drop me off at work at my usual time - I'm still woefully carless. It was pouring rain and still is now. I can hear it pounding now as I speak - YIKES, like someone knew I was writing about the rain, it literally started raining HARDER just a moment ago. Creeeeepy. Anyway, I dashed out in my fabulous cowboy rainboots - ask Michelle, they are truly fabulous - and realized there was no one on campus.

So I spent the day being super productive (Wow, you mean I have a desk under all those files???). But I couldn't believe I was the only one on campus...my admin weren't even around! I was rather lonely with no one to talk to, but I suppose that explains how I got so much done.

Nothing eventful happened other than some random lady who was visiting the library screaming bloody murder and death threats (really) because my custodian allegedly went into her car. Seriously, this lady had nothing worth anything in her car. My super friendly custodian, Marvin was power washing the parking lot. In the rain. Looking like that Gorton guy who sells fish sticks.

FISH STICKS

Really! I'm talking yellow slickers (waders or whatever), the yellow rainjacket, AND the floppy hat. I don't know what was more amusing to me - the getup or the fact that he was washing the parking lot in the pouring rain.

APPARENTLY PEOPLE REALLY DO DRESS LIKE THIS

Kristen's Lack of Impulse Control....

Leads to the purchase of a Big Shot die cut machine...which is FABULOUS! But is rapidly (already!) turning out to be a costly new toy. (Is it possible to spend $50+ on paper? Why yes, because I did it this weekend!)

I haven't been updating a lot lately since work is sucking the life out of my life. Really. But I got lots to write about - I never even finished the entries from Michelle's visit!!!

So, back to my lack of impulse control. I went down to Ben Franklin Craft store to get three paints (At $1.37 each...this should have been a quick and economical trip). But then they were having their annual Paper Party where you could "Make-and-Take" projects. I watched one table make this really neat box and I decided I wanted to make one. Everything was made on the Big Shot die cut. While chatting with Sandy, the employee manning the box craft table, she recommended I try Margaret's station which showed another technique using die cuts. So then I meandered over to the other craft table. Here are the results of the start on my Big Shot journey:



The Big Shots were on sale, as well as the dies for 20% off. I suppose it was the confluence of all the things I'm trying to avoid in being a fiscally conservative and responsible consumer:
1. Impulse buy
2. "I Want" rather than "I Need"
3. Buying because it's a "deal" (Although, really it was!)

Needless to say, I totally caved and bought one. The sale was only for one day! It was now or never! I know. I know. I'm smart enough to know the truth - it was my lack of impulse control, plain and simple.

BUT, I have already made good use of it. I spent the weekend making little gifts for my faculty to go along with my "leka aloha" or letter of introduction. The leka aloha is something that I learned as part of the Kahua (culturally-based) mentoring program and it seems really powerful. Plus, I'm realizing that after 2 months at my new school - people don't seem to realize I'm a person, not this talking head that's chattering at them about interventions, RTI, documentation, etc. Here's some of the crafts I made:

HIBISCUS CARDS

NEW BLUE FLOWER CARDS

NEW PURPLE FLOWERS CARDS

POST-IT HOLDER

POST-IT HOLDER

I actually made a bunch of the post-it holders, but my exposure setting on the camera was up really high, so I need to retake the pictures and post the others. These aren't even the nicer ones I think!

Everyone at work seems shocked that I made these. At first, I realized people thought I had bought them. Then I had to explain that I had painted and made them all. Now I'm getting told from multiple people that I should sell them at craft fairs. But I find it hard to believe that people would actually buy my stuff!

A Paniolo Experience

Our fabulous friend Michelle flew over for Labor Day weekend as our first ever guest! So of course, she got off the plane and I was ready to run her ragged :)

We promptly packed up her swanky Mustang convertible rental and headed up to Waimea for some good ole rodeo fun times! Oh, you didn't know there were rodeos in Hawai'i??? Well, in FACT we have a cattle ranchin', horse ridin', rodeo loving cowboy (we call 'em paniolos) culture right here on the Big Island!!!

We arrived at Parker Ranch (Samuel Parker was originally from Massachusetts! Wicked cool!) and promptly headed to the rodeo ring. The rodeo would introduce us paniolo novices to a wide range of strangely interesting new experiences.

We started with an event called "Calf Mugging." Upon watching calf mugging, I can say that it seems to be an oddly, but appropriately named event. First, a cowboy on a horse chases down a calf and ropes it. Then his partner comes running in from the sidelines to tackle this poor calf.

COWBOY CHASING THE CALF

After tackling the calf to the ground, his partner jumps down from his horse, runs over and trusses up at least 3 of the calf's 4 legs.

TYING UP A CALF

Then it was intermission. Just like at a hockey game where a Zamboni comes out to smooth the ice, they had...

A TRACTOR OF COURSE...

We watched events like Wahine ("Women")/Keiki ("Childen") Barrel Racing while we waited for something curiously named on the program as "Mutton Busting."

WAHINE BARREL RACE

As we quickly learned, Mutton Busting, was like bull-riding for children!

YES, THAT IS A CHILD ON A SHEEP

Sometimes the sheep were nice and docile...

But more often than not, mutton busting was an accurate replica of bull-riding!!!

The keiki events were very popular. Another keiki event was a "Calf Scramble," where a horde of tiny children chase a terrified calf and attempt to rope it. And they let little toddlers at it!

CHILDREN CHASING A CALF

We also saw some impressive team roping...

TEAM ROPING

But we were really waiting for the highlight of any rodeo....BULL RIDING!

Of COURSE I took some video bull-riding!

At the end of the video clip you might notice a judge getting tossed by the bull. When I saw that happen, I reactively stopped filming, but what happened next was the bull continued to ram and grind that poor man into the fence and ground. An ambulance had to come to get the guy. We all hope he's ok! Who would've thought we'd see something like that at our first rodeo?!?!

The sign as we leave the ranch just says it all...

WHOA!