Category Archives: Kids

Thankful November {November 19}

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Day #19

Today I am thankful for my daughter Mckenna. She is growing into an amazing girl. I know as her mom I have a tendency to give her a hard time but it’s because I know she is capable of greatness! Having daddy be gone isn’t easy but she is still doing great in school, staying busy with her robotics club, doing as best as she can to help with her brother, and is really making an effort to be more helpful around the house (or at least less messy!) I never pictured myself having a daughter, I always wanted sons, and she is the daughter I could have never imagined. How this bright, beautiful, creative girl came from me is a mystery! I do love her so!

Leonard’s Malasadas

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If you ever see this sign or this truck pull your vehicle over and immediately buy some freshly made malasadas. Malasadas are Portugese doughnuts, why they are so wildly popular in Hawaii? I have no clue. But they are delicious, fried dough. Enough said.

We got to sample our first ones at the pumpkin patch. (Also sorry if you hate the filter on the pictures, I was in the mood for an old school look) The line wasn’t too bad and the malasadas were being fried fresh… $1 each, we all picked cinnamon. OMG. Heaven. These would have to be eaten fast, once they got cold there is no way they would be as good. (not that I would know, we had no leftovers!)

Soccer is OVER!

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So Omar had his end of season soccer pizza party. It was a sad day because these boys had an awesome soccer season. We had a great coach and a great team. Unfortunately the coach is deploying so he won’t be able to coach next season. Military member heavy sports teams have downfalls!

So we got the boys together, had pizza, drinks, and dessert. They got to play on the playground and we got to reminisce about the season. One loss!

I felt bad because we hadn’t talked about doing a coaches gift, so at the last minute we picked up a green (our team color) lei. And a card. And then I felt awesome because we were the only family to do anything. (Yes I am such an ass, I know)

Omar got a pretty cool trophy that he can’t wait to put on his trophy shelf (whenever I get one hung up).

We really had a great season with these kids and are looking forward to either playing with them or playing against them next season. (January! When BOTH kids are going to be in soccer!)

So sometimes we sneak into pools…

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Okay, this was an honest mistake. Mostly.

See we knew there was this awesome pool on Fort Shafter, sand in the bottom, great splash area, beautiful views of Pearl Harbor and the ocean..

I assumed that is was the same deal as the pools on the other bases, like Hickam and Pearl and Tripler. They are there for all military to use.

So we get there and there is a sign in book and a sign that says something about a pool pass. Uh-oh. But instead of turning around I act like we belong there, sign illegibly in the book and grab a chaise lounge. It probably helped that it was late in the day and the lifeguards were bored.

I guess the pool is only for the residents of the Island Palm Housing, which totally sucks because we aren’t going to be able to go again and my kids LOVED IT.

Look mom! Sand. IN THE POOL!

 

Seriously, this is a genius concept. It’s like the beach but with clean, chlorinated water. Heaven.

The sandy beach side of the pool is shallow and great for little kids (and big kids, Mckenna loved it).

 

There is this rock wall divider that separates the sandy, shallow part from the non-sandy deeper part.

 

 

It really was a great pool and I’m bummed because we probably won’t be able to sneak in again and it’s the ONLY pool that Omar actually asks to go to. And yes we are spoiled by a ridiculous amount of pools (and beaches!) but dang it! This one was awesome!

Robotics Regionals

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On Saturday Mckenna had her regional competition for her robotics team. She has been working after school for two months with a team of students to program a lego robot.  Finally it was time to see if all that work would pay off…

I had to take her to the local high school where the competition was taking place at 7:45am (love waking up early on Saturdays!) dropped her off with her team and then Omar and I had some time to go eat breakfast and he had a soccer game (to WIN, ’cause he’s awesome!). We ended up coming back to her competition around noon, just when the actual competing was going to start.

The competition, it was pretty cool!

It was pretty exciting. The teams went head to head with a two and a half minute time limit to have their robots perform as many programmed tasks as possible. There were three rounds and the highest score was the only one that counted. Mckenna had two different teams from her school enter, and only the top 5 teams get to continue on to state so there was a lot of pressure.

In the first round their robot didn’t do too well, they had a couple of mistakes and weren’t able to get too many tasks completed. Mckenna was pretty bummed at this point because their score put them in 14th place out of 19 teams. Thankfully there were two more rounds and her team did much better, getting up to 5th place. We then had to wait for the judges to tally the rest of the scores, there was a skit, a teamwork score, and robot design.

Well, Mckenna’s school did AWESOME! Both teams made it into the top five which means that both teams go onto state next month.

Terrible cell pic, sorry, if you look close you can see Shafterbots came in first and fifth!

Mckenna’s team also won a best design! This was a huge accomplishment and I am SO proud of her awesome team!

Go Shafterbots Silver!

So onto State! The teams are excited and determined to do just as well!

Oh and here is a bonus, during some downtime the (incredible!) A/V students at Moanaloa h.s. had the teams come down and dance. It was hilarious!

Hawaiian Pumpkin Patch

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So a couple of weeks ago I got to go on a field trip with Omar’s class to the pumpkin patch. I was pretty surprised that there was even a pumpkin patch on the island but it was a really nice local farm that also grown watermelon, corn, onions, bananas, eggplant and sunflowers.

Listening to our speaker tell us all about the produce they grow as well as how to properly pick a pumpkin. {Twist, twist, pull!}

 

The hayride was great, we got to tour the farm and see the variety of produce they grow. Also? Carpet over the hay? Genius, especially since we were all wearing shorts!

What does your pumpkin patch not also grow bananas?

Sweet corn… I couldn’t resist buying farm fresh corn!

 

“My” kids…

 

I don’t know how I ended up with such a great group of kids. They all stayed with me. And listened! I wish it was because the teacher loves me but it was totally random and I was assigned the 5 kids standing closest to me!

 

Now off to picking. I have never been to a pumpkin patch where you actually got to pick your pumpkin off the vine. It was a really cool experience. Except the fact that I was with a very particular bunch of kids. It took us the longest to get our pumpkins!

 

Success!

 

 

One quick pic with mama to prove I was there!

The sunflowers reminded me of Spain. There are a million sunflower fields in bloom around where we lived. So then I was all sad and nostalgic and missing Spain. But I do love it here so very much.

After everyone had a pumpkin in hand we rounded them all back onto the bus and went to the park for lunch. It was beautiful and peaceful and quiet (well it was until our school got there…)

 

And can I put a PSA out there from all teachers and field trip chaperones? For God’s sake, don’t send lunchables on field trips unless your kid can open them! We spend 10 minutes just opening those!

 

We also got to feed some koi. It was a bit insane but the kids loved it.

And this just because. If this picture doesn’t accurately describe my son I don’t know what does…