Monthly Archives: August 2012

The one where I eat out of a trough

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So yesterday we decided to be the most awesome. parents. ever!  and pick our kiddos up from school and go directly to Dave and Buster’s. D&B’s is like a big kid’s Chuck E. Cheese. They have a restaurant and then a huge video game area. We had been before on one of our day date’s we have been indulging in since the kids have been in school, but this time we decided to be nice and take the kid’s too.

We were going for a late lunch but the kids weren’t hungry so they just got milkshakes. And eat the nachos we got as an appetizer (I LOVE their nachos!)

See?! Spoiled happy kids! (pardon the cell phone pics)

So for lunch I decided to get a salad and picked one called The Lawnmower. The picture looked like a cobb type salad with a little bit of everything. My kind of salad. So imagine my surprise when this arrived at our table:

That platter is TWO FEET LONG! You know how when you order fajitas and all the plates and bowls and sizzling platters feel like you are taking up half the table? Well this thing took up half the table!! I think our entire family could have eaten comfortably off of this salad. (Also please ignore Mckenna’s super natural looking surprised face)

Anyways, the salad was good (what I could eat of it) also the stolen sips of Omar’s abandoned chocolate milkshake.

Oh, Also!!! Dave and Buster’s offers a 20% military discount! That is a seriously good discount because they have decent meal prices to start, like mainland prices, not Hawaii prices.

Life size connect four! Mckenna won, she was super excited!

So after eating we hit up the games, which was perfect because Wednesday is half price games, who knew? The kids had a great time, we won a bazillion tickets and ended up not getting home until almost 6pm (love that traffic!)

So I got to skip out on making dinner because we still weren’t really hungry so we did leftovers/scrounge in the fridge night. Perfect!

So, yeah. Don’t order The ginormous salad unless you are starving or prepared to share some of your three heads of romaine lettuce!

 

 

 

Our house… at the moment.

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So I know before moving into this neighborhood I was dying to find out what the inside of the houses looked like. At the moment we still have our loaner furniture, we have hardly any of our own stuff at all and it’s pretty much empty. But! It’s better than a hotel room!

So here are some pictures:

Front of house

 

Side of house, and tiny yard

 

Back of house, garage (two car!)

Dining room and kitchen

 

 

Den, forgot to take a picture of the living room but it’s the same size as this and is open plan to the dining room and kitchen

 

Entry way, front door, coat closet, bathroom, storage under the stairs

 

Looking toward front door, standing in living room, stairs up to second floor

 

Top of stairs, cabinet thing (linens, I don’t even know?) in the hallway next to kids bathroom

Top of stairs, we’ll be sticking a desk here for the kids, also a nice big storage room.

Mckenna’s room

 

Omar’s room

 

Master, please note that the kids bed’s were made and mine isn’t. Wonderful.

 

Master bath

 

Master closet, it’s actually off the bathroom which is nice. LOTS of space.

 

 

So there it is, can’t wait to actually get our stuff so we can make this house our own. I’ve been meaning to get some paint for the kids rooms and get that done before all of our stuff gets here.  It’s nice to go from under a thousand square feet to over 1,700. Lots more room to stretch out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waikiki Aquarium

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Okay hawaii. So far I am digging it here but you have GOT to step it up when it comes to the only aquarium on Oahu!  I knew before coming that it was small, but it’s not small it’s tiny! Do NOT come with visions of Monterey Bay Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium or Shedd Aquarium in your mind (three of the best I’ve been to!)

One thing you can’t fault is the location, right on the water at the east end of Waikiki. Parking is a little crazy, we parked in our favorite cheapo military lot and meandered through Waikiki. It’s about a mile and a half walk and not too bad if you stop for lunch. Which we didn’t do because none of us could agree so we ended up at the aquarium hot and crabby. Fun times!

On with it!

 

 

What is wrong with this boy? Seriously, he can not take a normal picture anymore.

 

And since the posts have been so snorkel heavy I’ll just try to throw some of my favorite fish into a collage so you don’t have to scroll past them. Sorry, I love me some fish!

 

See that wasn’t so bad. So yeah the aquarium is small but they have some of the most beautiful display tanks I’ve ever seen, huge clams, a carpet anemone that was 2 feet wide, a mangrove tank, a tank outside, really beautiful.

 

 

 

The kiddos held some hermit crabs and pet some urchins, touch tanks are always a big hit.
The clam propagation tank outside. Some seriously stunning clams in there. They also have their coral growing tank outside as well. Really cool and makes me want to volunteer so I can play, too!

Walking right out of the aquarium you are right at the seawall along the water, tried again and again to get a good splash but I kept missing it…

 

 

 

 

So out we walked onto the breakwater where Omar (jr.) ended up getting soaked by a wave. Whoops!

 

 

 

 

 

So aquarium, nice but probably an hour tops for most people. There is a discount if you are a local and the tour includes a talking speaker tour dealy to give you details about all of the exhibits.  Make it part of your day in Waikiki and walk around (it’s also right near the zoo so you can make it a twofer).

 

Somebody has a new toy!

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And no, it’s not this guy…

It’s this guy:

 

Spain was super strict about riding motorcycles and would not allow you to get a Spanish motorcycle license unless you’d had your US motorcycle endorsement for two years, which Omar hadn’t. So first chance he got, time to get a bike. This bike was a ridiculously good deal after searching craigslist and the local bike shops for weeks.  It’s a Harley Night Rod and it is in perfect shape. The previous owner babied it.

So while I have been a scaredy baby and haven’t hopped on the back yet, Mckenna LOVES it!

First ride!

 

 

 

While I am glad Mckenna feels comfortable (a little TOO comfortable, Omar says she forgets to hold on sometimes!) The little one and I will hang out in the garage. At least until Omar is feeling really comfortable riding again and is ready for my extra weight on the back!

 

 

 

Also fun times shooting super reflective helmets!

Turtles!

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I totally just swam with a sea turtle!

It was amazing and I can’t wait to do it again! One off the life list!

Guess who got a new underwater camera???

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This girl!

 

My WONDERFUL husband bought me one last night and we couldn’t WAIT to take it for a spin!

So today started out a bit of a disaster.  We planned on going to Hanauma Bay for the morning after dropping the kids off at school (do you even know how awesome that is?!) but guess what? It’s closed on Tuesdays! This is something that we didn’t realize until driving there, so we decide to hit up our other favorite, Shark’s Cove on the North Shore.

Couple things about me:

I have a pretty good memory when it comes to maps.

I am stubborn as hell and don’t like to admit being wrong.

I actually LIKE getting lost/figuring how roads connect etc.

And one thing about my husband:

he highly dislikes being lost and my constant assurance that I ‘totally know where we are.’

 

Unfortunately I had left my Oahu book in the other car and we didn’t bring the GPS because we knew where we were going.  So I suggest we follow the highway around the island instead of backtracking and taking our usual central island route. I knew you could drive around the entire island but I think I may have misremembered (totally a word) quite how large the eastern half of the island is. So while the drive was beautiful, I don’t recommend doing it when you have plans and kids to pick up at 2!

Anyways, a couple snaps from our scenic drive:

 

 

Thank GOD we had an awesome snorkeling day, trust me we needed it!

Shark’s Cove was great, we saw a TON of stuff and I put my new camera to use.

 

I put all of my fish photos here to try and track everything we’ve seen and to help anyone who needs a hand with fish identification!

 

Love this place!