Hawaii : part two, Waikiki Beach

When I imagine Hawaii I picture the serene, peaceful, quiet and empty beaches from scenes on "The Bachelor".
I'll admit that it's cheesy and embarrassing, but it's true. I thought Waikiki Beach would be one of those quiet, serene places out of a scene from the show. For some reason the fact that our hotel was located on a street in Honolulu didn't register. I thought serenity. Peace. Calm. Empty.
Here's Waikiki Beach:

The beauty is undeniable. But the quiet and serenity, well, not so much. It was busy. We were staying in Hawaii's capitol city. It felt like a big city with gorgeous scenery.


I took this picture from across the street, where there are lots of shops and restaurants. It's the craziest thing really; there are stores and then a busy four lane street and then a sidewalk and then a beach and then the ocean.
Being in a city versus a desolate beach has its advantages of course.

Morning walks to Starbucks being my favorite one of them. Once I realized how close this Starbucks was to our hotel, this became my morning routine. Either the boys and I would walk there, or just William and I or sometimes all four of us. The boys ordered the kid's hot cocoa and I got a grande iced coffee. Perfect for a warm, summer morning. Everyone talks about things being much more expensive in Hawaii and they were, but oddly at Starbucks they were about the same. {Maybe they are already so overpriced...}

I didn't take any pictures that very first evening at the beach. I was still so sleepy from the flight and envisioned myself laying on the beach and falling asleep (this did not happen), so I left the camera in our room.

The thing I can remember most from that first, sleepy-feeling evening is dinner. Patrick's company, at the time, sponsored a few different theme meals throughout the week. We decided as a way to save money we would go to all of them.  Dinner started around 6:30ish and we didn't get to the beach until 5 or 5:30, so logistically we would never make it to the dinner on time {there would be showers in the room and changing into different clothes, etc} so Patrick suggested that we just go straight from the beach to the dinner. For some crazy reason I thought that sounded good, after all the dinner was in an outdoor beach side courtyard. So here we are, four tired travelers, all in our swimsuits {albeit covered up}, covered in sticky sand and carrying a fluorescent pink inflatable raft, sand pails and shovels, walking into the company "welcome to Hawaii" dinner. Once we got there I thought I would die of embarrassment. Everyone was dressed. Ladies in sundresses and men in khakis. Casual, but dressed. But it was too late. Someone spotted us, we were already there and the food was free. So we stayed. We ate fast, thanked everyone, quickly left and I said a silent prayer that we'd never see any of them again.
These pictures are from our very first morning at Waikiki Beach. We were there and playing in the sand by 8:00 am! Our bodies were still adjusting to the time difference; they are 6 hours behind and we felt it for the first day or two. We were doing things like waking up way too early {our boys always wake early, but this was earlier than early} and eating lunch by 9:30 in the morning. At 8:00 in the morning there were just a few other people at the beach; most of them having their morning walk or jog.


William got right to work digging.


and Henry made a huge hole to sit in.
Our hotel room had two queen beds and that first morning the boys had so much fun jumping on them and jumping from one bed to the other. Until William fell off a bed and landed on his cheek on a car. He ended up having this huge scratch turned bruise on his cheek the whole week.

As the day went on, more and more people filled the beach.



Sitting this close to so many people is way outside of my comfort zone and wasn't in my vision of those quiet, deserted "Bachelor" beaches.
Enough complaining though, right? It was an absolutely gorgeous place and we had lots of fun.


I don't know how to describe shave ice except to tell you do not be deceived. This is not your average snow cone. It's a melty, icy, sweet, delicious, better-than-ice-cream (on a hot day) treat. And sometimes it comes with ice-cream on the bottom. Pure bliss. Another of my favorite treats, the icy place was just a short walk from our beach spot.


Sand surfing

Next up, our quest for that quiet beach. A drive to the North Shore.

two peas

Henry is on break from school until January 5th. Since last week was busy {special in its own right, but busy nonetheless} I want to make this week a special, fun, relaxing week off for Henry. Yesterday we did speed grocery shopping so we could meet some friends at open gym; love that you can leave groceries in the car for an hour in this cold weather! And this morning we picked up Charlie and he and Henry spent the morning playing together at our house.

When Henry found out he was going to come play the first thing he did was get dressed in his Bears #22 jersey, a gift from Charlie for Christmas. Hilariously when we picked up Charlie the first thing he asked Henry was "are you wearing number 22?" and then "cause I am!". They were both wearing their jerseys. So cute.

This is Henry's new-ish smile. A big smile and squinted shut eyes :-)
And what should besties do when they're together for a whole morning?

Play their Leapsters, of course!
This is the first thing they did together. It lasted about 5 minutes.


William likes to hang with the big boys, too.

just a few things floating around in my head

At church today our pastor talked about a "faith at home" initiative {as a sidenote to the sermon, and a sort of way to kick off the new year at home}. Basically it's the importance of being a spiritual leader at home with your children and how statistics show that parents are overwhelmingly the most influential agent in a child's spiritual life. After church we went to Chilis for lunch and Patrick and I were talking about one of the ideas printed in the bulletin, "fishbowl prayers". You fill a bowl with prayer requests and have each child pick one each night. The idea is that you can pray for many different people or ministries without having a prayer time that is too long winded for younger children. Ok, so we're at Chilis and I ask Henry what he thinks would be some good prayer requests to put into our fishbowl. He answered something like our country and the American flag. {Sometime in the past week we had a discussion about freedom being spurred on by his asking me about our flag.} I said I thought that would be a great idea, that we could pray for our President, too. He said, "Yeah, Barack Obama". Right away we asked William what the name of our President was to which he replied, "Barack O-Mommy". Everytime we ask him the name of the President he answers this now. He definitely heard "Barack Omama" or something like that when Henry said it. hahaha; all silliness and misunderstanding aside, I think the fishbowl prayer requests are a great idea and we're going to try that in 2010. We're also going to do fishbowl Bible verses. I don't know whether this will actually happen in a fishbowl, but the idea will be the same.

Another thing I cannot get out of my head is this:


Both glorious pictures are from Bakerella's blog.
I read her "Candyland" post last night just before I went to bed and I could barely sleep, the pictures just kept me up. So amazing, so seriously amazing! You have got to see it. This stuff is in someone's house! Follow the link and once you see those pictures please tell me, can you even imagine? Seriously, can you even imagine that house? Unreal. I thought I was happy with our Christmas decor this year. ha! It's simply amazing and divine and inspiring and also makes me feel completely inadequate for decorating or throwing a party ever again. A quick confession: I once thought of throwing Henry a Candyland themed birthday party. It was going to be for his 3rd birthday. Then I changed my mind and we did circus instead. If it had been Candyland and then I saw this lady's house I would have been terribly embarrassed. His party would have looked nothing like it. Now, even though I still like the theme, I can never, ever possibly think of doing that theme again. And how could I?

One last thing and then it's off to wake the boys, so that they will sleep tonight. I just finished watching Julie&Julia and I love it! I absolutely loved learning about Julia Child and having a small glimpse into her life. What a sweet woman. And her relationship with her husband was just too sweet. I also love Julie's quest to cook through Julia's cookbook and her determination to do it. I feel inspired now. But I don't know what my quest could be. I don't think I could "de-bone" a duck. I'm leery of raw chickens and that's just throwing them on a pan. I don't know what my quest would be, but I think it would be fun to have one. Oh well, bon appetite!

yesterday

I can't believe it's all over. Is it just me or do you also feel a little letdown the day after Christmas?
Yesterday--waking up in our house, waking with the boys and racing down the stairs to see if Santa had come and then having hot cocoa together and opening gifts-it was so much fun.





Santa brought Henry a shooter gun afterall.
He was thrilled! {So was Patrick; I should have gotten one more for him.}

Henry also got these new snow boots. He wore them all morning and then to Christmas at Patrick's parent's house.

William also got new boots and was excited to be like his big brother.

These pictures were before.
Before William got sick and threw up all over Patrick {twice in a row}.
We didn't know why and thought of the worst; the stomach flu and missing the rest of Christmas. After a bath, he had some water and saltines and seemed to feel better, and he didn't have a fever. We decided at the very last minute that we would bring him and go to the Vance's for Christmas there. I prayed that he wouldn't get sick while we were there and didn't have anything. He fell asleep right away in the van and after a long nap he was ok. It must have just been a fluke, something he ate the night before or too many sweets. Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully!
Today we've had a lazy pj day. The boys are busy playing with their new Christmas gifts, going out in the freshly fallen inches of snow and watching movies on tv. The perfect lazy-after-Christmas day.
During naptime I felt especially motivated and ambitious and decided to take down the Christmas decorations. Patrick helped me take down the tree and then we rearranged the living room, swept up inches of pine needles and I organized Christmas stuff. {I went through our bins of Christmas stuff and donated tons of it; we went from 5 bins and 1 box to 2 bins and a box of mini Christmas trees. I'm so excited to take our stuff out next year and have it be so easy. None of that sorting through the stuff we don't use. Hooray!}
So thankful for Jesus, and our family and friends at Christmastime. We had a great time celebrating. More pictures to come!

Merry Christmas to you!

That's the "island greeting that we send to you, from the land where palm trees sway."
I was so tempted to make this our Christmas card.
I even had it in the card template.
But,
I chickened out.
Oh well, I'll wish mele kalikimaka to you. This is our family in Hawaii in August.

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

Luke 2:9-12
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

lets make something: caramels

This super basic recipe is one of my favorites to make during the holidays. These caramels are a Vance family tradition. Patrick's mom, Mary, makes the very best caramels. They melt in your mouth. After a few Christmases with his family I was ready to try to make them myself. Now I, too, make caramels every year. And every year they are just as yummy as the year before. The thing about them is that they take a couple of hours to make and they don't turn out every time. The challenge of making them and the surprise at the end of whether we'll actually have caramels (or caramel sauce) is part of the fun. This year was my best yet; I made 5 batches and 4 of them worked. 1 batch was runny and didn't set. But FOUR did! I am thrilled!
If you want, I'll send you some to taste.
Or if you want to try them for yourself and take on the challenge, here's the recipe.
You will need:



and a

Directions:

Mix the sugar, Karo syrup and 1/2 cup of heavy cream together.

Be sure the burner is set on low. Low, low, low. {When giving me the recipe, Mary couldn't emphasize this enough.}

Bring the sugar mixture to a boil @ 238 degrees, slowly.
Add 1/2 cup heavy cream.

Repeat; bring to boil @ 238 degrees.
Notice how the color starts to change:


Add final 1/2 cup heavy cream and bring to 238 degrees.

When the mixture reaches 238 degrees (for the third time), remove from heat and beat with a spoon.
Then,

Put into the fridge to set. Mary's recipe says to leave it overnight. But typically the caramels will be set within a few hours.

When they're ready:

Cut wax paper into 4" squares.

Turn caramels onto a cutting board. This may require some force!

Cut them into bite-size pieces. This doesn't have to be precise!
I let Henry help; I gave him a small cutting board, the knife from his children's silverware set and a row of caramel. He loved making squares!

Wrap the caramels in the cut wax paper.
This last step is the most important...
Do a VICTORY DANCE!
If the caramels actually turn out, this is no small feat. It's a cause for celebration!
{I usually store these in the freezer, but that's another weird Vance thing. They put all of their cookies and goodies in the freezer. That's how they like them best.A little strange huh? A frozen chocolate chip cookie over a soft one? I'm sure the fridge would be fine too.}