Matt and Becca

2011-12-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

So I am having technical difficulties: my computer crashed and i wiped the c drive I haven't managed to fix the initial cause of the problem, and I haven't been able to save any new pictures or reduce any favorites, blah blah blah, so long story short, here we are in December and I've no new pictures for you.
So instead, an actual update.
The children are -- no surprise-- hilarious and cute and challenging. They both have strong minds-- a trait that I figure will be a wonderful asset as an adult, but I found myself saying to Rosie yesterday, "Just say 'yes, mom.'" But no, we have mini lawyers. Even Maile, even though she can only make two vowel sounds (d and m), can renegotiate the terms of any parent-kid contract. Don't underestimate the fury of a 20 month old wielding her arched skeleton and her syllable: NO!!!!!!!!
My time lately has been taken up with 1. tutoring Rosie and some friends in a makeshift homeschool kindergarten group. We've studied food groups, tastes, the scientific method, the senses, reefs, sharks, whales, rainbows, color theory, princesses of the world, continents, horses, classes of animals, types of horses, 4 times tables, the clock, five times tables, 10 times tables, 12 bar blues, 4/4 time, phonics, many sided polygons... It has been fun-- possibly more for me than for the children, who are sometimes unimpressed by the many rows of whale-shark teeth or by heptagons.
And 2. packing. We are heading on an adventure-- we are going to Utah for a semester. In the dead of winter. And for some reason, I am really excited about this. I like that we are going to a new-to-us place. And I get to show my kids snow and cold, and fire places, and we get to spend time with grandpa and great-grandmas and aunties and cazouples... and maybe this will scratch our wanderlust itch for a couple of years. And allow us to return cheerfully to the balmy swaying palm trees and elephant-eye-high-grass without ire.

Children are cute and some other mildly interesting stuff.

2011-10-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

This post will be in English, the language of America. This poster is from the Kauai museum-- notice those forward moving arrows-- or are they downward moving? And those chummy plantation kids, about to volunteer for the 442nd.

This is a Rosie art-shot.

baby sings country.

This is math. Go Tutu and Me Traveling Preschool!

Putting the chillins to work cleaning up...

This pretty much sums up my kid.

When you ask Maile for a joke, this is what she does. She is a comedienne.

Cute little china-town shoes! worn once by Rosie and now once by Maile.

Smoothy art.

Dear Tip Top/Ichiban Sushi. I love you with my whole heart.

Rosie's favorite.

Maile's triumphant first climb to the top of the playhouse.

We have entered the era of epic trantrums. First, she goes horizontal. Legs and arms batter the ground. Then she lies still and tense and angry. I think it is sooooo funny. Here, note the pickle.

The Kauai Museum (no photos, please!)

pigtails make me happy.

2011-10-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Life on our kinda farm. Or, life on kinda-our farm. Pastures of thick palm-slicing grass higher than our roof, laying hens, house cats, goats, egrets, pheasants, rock doves, kolea plovers, wild chickens, wild dogs, wild pigs, abandoned and rusting out farm equipment, coffee stands, pineapple, awa, noni, papaya, coconuts, bananas, baseball bat squash, taro, bitter melon, sleeper grass, sweet potatos, wild guava, passionfruit, ti leaves, arrow root, and a scraggly garden of endangered native plants. It has an eerie, Ray Bradburian feeling-- space station meets tropical island meets ghost story.

these escaped hunting dogs were so bony and dehydrated they flopped right over where Matt found them, by the chicken coops.

Like father like daughter.

starfruits the size of watermelons!

Starfruit are so excessive- clumps of them right on the branches. Forget grapes, Bacchus.

White perfumy mountain apples

No idea what this is, if it was ripe, or how to eat it. Tasted like rubbery chalk.

Mmm, guava. Just don't look too closely at any -- is that movement?-- seeds.

Uluwehiwehi-- bountiful breadfruit!

our demented carrot crop.

For the love of poles

2011-10-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

Some kids go to the grocery store and get excited about the animal crackers or gum. Maile went nuts for this post.

The Big Trip Part 2: Boothbay, Maine

2011-08-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

We went to the Aquarium of Maine. It was the Deliciousness Museum, clearly funded by lobstermen of Maine. mmm, made us hungry.

Why does Maine, a cold place, have so much good ice cream?

I had to make an emergency Salvation Army run with my two tropical-blooded children. We were freezing. We found a little track suit for RJ and a football sweatshirt for MP, and Rosie found the love of her young life: the sexy, the flexy, Barbie. I fought it, resisted, but she bargained me with a full day of delightful good behavior so I gave her a dollar and she went in and bought this alarming, sexist, naked, anatomically warped thing, that she loves with all of her young heart.

Auntie Annie taught RJ how to sew, and they created an apron together. I also snuck and made a frock for Barbie-- Rosie was irate that it impeded her flexiness, but I sewed it on forever.

Jammin at Mexicali Blues, a store so awesome I was paralyzed and couldn't buy anything

The children frolicking under the peach tree

Cooking with Auntie

Celebrating with KJ

I love this significant glance...

At dinner, Rosie snuck my camera out of my purse and took about 35 candid pictures of Ivan chewing.

And her own toes.

And our delicious TB raw milk, yum.

Homemade raspberry jam-- really everything in boothbay was hyperhomemade: you want bread? Let me grind the wheat and voila! Breakfast time? Go get the bacon from suzie the sow!

Bedecked by auntie...

It was so so lovely. Words can't do justice.

The Big Trip Part 2: Portland, Maine

2011-08-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's painful but also delightful to realize that I am a country mouse. Things like, local salami at a wine bar with local music sent me into a moony fit of delight. If I didn't live on a rock in the pacific with no wine bars and even less live music then I might think ho, hum. So, see? Deprivation is character building. Or, binge-inducing. Ho, hum.

An actual dandelion, like a unicorn!

Really, truly, lovely.

What if mermaids only had pointy seashells?

The Lobster Shack: worth the wait.

Lobsters: thumbs up.

Matt hates stuff like this. Thanks for humoring me, dear.

LL Bean capital of the world...

You can put the kid in the trout tank.

I love me a retail outlet with taxidermy.

The Big Trip part 1: Boston

2011-08-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

We flew, over about 20 hours, to Boston.

We went to the aquarium and terrified the children with sharks...

And although our original plan had included no Boston city driving, somehow we still managed to spend about 2 days hopelessly lost on under-costruction bypasses and clogged city arteries...

But where there is Dunkin Donuts, there is a way:

Rosie formed a surprisingly intense attachment to this basketball coach statue...

In Boston they've recently finished burying all the city traffic underground, resulting in this amazing swath of public play space: open air markets and fountains, benches and gardens... stuff like this reminds me why people from the mainland complain about Hawaii. we have a garden with fountains too.... but its 25 dollars a person to get in.

Little Italia-- strawberry cake ice cream for breakfast is not a sin. "When in rome..."

Maile was on an absolute Gawp-gawp search for the whole trip-- if there was a ducky withing 50 miles, she'd spot it.

Handmade squid-ink pasta, chucked from tiny kitchen onto your table by the chef.

The anticipation of the wrapped pastry box:

Oh boy....

the reveal!

Bonding with Grandpa

And the merry-go-round

Boston weather was crazy-making: in one day we went from cool and drizzly to hot and sunburns and then frozen downpour to hot again... here maile has just been rain drenched and is telling auntie lizzie about the gawp-gawps in the water.

Live music, folks. Real, actual, live, wonderful music, at club passim in Boston.

Vacationland is rough on babes-- no naps, lots of restaurants...

Rosie wanted to kidnap uncle Andrew for her very own, watch out auntie liz... my kids put up with a whole morning of museum feet and european ceramics.

the instrument room was fascinating and serious.... but we got church giggles when kate impersonated each sackbut and zither...

These folks have a karaoke stage in their basement. Rosie was indignant-- I WANT OnE. sorry kid, you can have a rooster...

on a lighter note, the beach is nice.

2011-08-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

Popsicles are nice too.

So is sitting in the toy box.

A Sad Story

2011-08-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a cute little chickie, that auntie Grace brought to playgroup just for RJ. The chickie spent all of her time playing, watching Diego, snuggling, sliding, eating bugs and cheeping.

rj: once upon a time, when we were in a story, I brought my chickie, my chickie pecked the bad guys, and the bad guys put her in a jail, but the holes were just right for her body, so I reached in, picked her up, and took her out. the end. That's a pretty happy ending.

But one day chickie was acting a little weird.

The next morning she was acting really ill.

Then she died.

RJ and daddy buried her in the garden and put a big rock on the spot. The end.

Way too many pictures.

2011-07-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

This post really deserves to be about five small ones, but I don't have the patience for that.

Theoretical post one: Fishing Day

Matt wanted to go catch a fish, and had heard that this beach was a good place. He went out onto the precarious, razor-sharp lava rocks, balancing against white-water swells, and caught us a gorgeous dinner. The girls and I played in the sand and explored. We saw this 'outsider art' structure, and when i was hesitant to let rosie play inside, she reassured me with, "it's okay mom, there's nobody sleeping inside!"

Since we are on Kauai, there was naturally a drumming circle on the bike path near the beach. We had to go check it out and dance around.

Rosie brought her own fishing pole, too.

Dinner!

Girls in tide pools.

Theoretical Post 2: North Shore Fieldtrip Day

Our friends convinced us that Na Aina Kai botanical gardens in Kilauea are worth visiting-- once. So we shelled out the big, big, big bucks and got to play in the fountains, explore a fake Navajo village full of bronze Indians, and see some really lovely lotuses. The kids were tired and hot and dehydrated... so we took them to the beach to play some MORE. And --such luck-- the whole fleet of polynesian voyaging canoes was in the harbor. These canoes are amazing-- double-hulled, a marvel of ancient wisdom and modern technology. They navigate by the stars and power their iphones with solar panels. They give me hope for the future of humanity: we are capable of not only respecting the knowledge of the past, but expanding it into something redemptively meaningful.

As we were walking along the beach, admiring these beautiful vessels from a distance, two of the crewmembers from Fiji waves us into their raft and invited us on board! I threw all of the kids in-- Rosie did not appreciate the sudden, unexplained change of direction, and maile was in the backback wailing. Then we all scaled a ladder from the raft onto the canoe and wobbled on the pitching deck. The kids got to climb around the bunks belowdeck, and I admired all the hand-carved wood and harassed the crew about their stories. They told me that Fiji has been reintroduced to celestial navigation from Papa Mao, the master navigator who brought the art back to Hawaii.

There's the aft-- the solar panels and the hand-carved details and the bananas...

Here is Ben, one of the crew from Fiji, explaining the inner workings of the canoe. This was their first landfall in five months. And they still have months to go as they circumnavigate the globe.

Our friends joined us-- you can see the kids in the raft coming over.

This canoe was entirely hand-made out of natural materials, and was in a place of honor on the beach. There was a large offering of fruit and ti leaves, and long streamers of roped ti leaves marking it off.

We were all tuckered out. And i didn't even take any pictures of the free lapperts ice cream cone we stopped to get, or the steak we grilled, or the o-bon festival we went to late that night. It was a full day.

Theoretical post number 3: Beaches are nice

Theoretical post number 5: Staying home is fine too

The cat-in-a-box. You're welcome, interwebs!

this was Rosie's art installation. I called it: Shelob in Yarn. Maile was the first victim to become entangled.

Rosie loves her pea patch.

Here Matt is trimming Rosie-goat's hooves and Maile is "wearing" her sister's new swimsuit, which she pulled off of the laundry line, all by herself.

Who needs to pay 200 dollars to enroll in gymnastics when you have derelict structures by your compost bin?

These shoes, "Haru shoes" as RJ called them, lived a long and useful life. Rosie threw them in the rubbish without turning into a pillar of salt but I had to fish them out to take a picture. They were well-loved. We will never forget you, Haru shoes!

Helping daddy with the chicken cages is good fun.

Theoretical Post Number, what... 6? Ganesh's chickens

It was actually chilly enough to put sweaters on. Thanks grandma M!

We took a walk to our neighborhood sacred Hindu forest to say hi to Ganesh and pat the dairy cow through the fence. To my surprise, someone had abandoned a whole flock of really big, fat, gorgeous farm chickens in the forest. They are about three times the size of the wild chickens-- big juicy rhode island reds and blonde buff orpingtons.

They were nesting pretty happily in the sacred trees. But when one of the monks drove by to tend to the cows (in his PRIUS) I asked him about the chickens. He said that for some reason the forest has become a popular live-stock abandoning location. Too bad, this sect does not allow the use of eggs! So he said I could take away as many chickens as I wanted. I complimented him on the dairy cows and he said, "yes, they are a TRAYsure." I couldn't help myself and asked where he was from. He got very closed off and said, "well, the mainland..." and I pressed: "My grandma from Utah says TRAYsure just like that. You must be from the intermountain west." He admitted he was and then jumped in his prius and drove away through the pasture. Sorry monk for distracting you from your detachment, oops. But I loved how incongruous it was. And suddenly I could transform him into your Provo Bishopric member-- shaved head to parted thinning hair, flowing bright tunic to suit...

Anyway, Rosie played in the cherry tree while I tried to lure the chickens in.

In the end, a big truck pulled up and scared them all away, and I had to resort to "chicken-chasin'" Which is undignified and ineffective. But I caught one! I was quite proud of myself until I realized that she is blind in one eye. Hah-- didn't see me comin'.

Theoretical Post Number 7: SHEESH! Cute Rosie Photos

Rosie did a series of navel-gazing photos:

Post number... pi: 4th of July! We go to bed before dark so we did some broad-daylight sparklers.

At first it was fun all around but pretty soon Rosie became quite unhappy with all the noise and fire...

Willing to suspend her doubts...

Less willing. Maile was cautiously curious.

We've finally reached the end of this mammoth post! If you got this far, you deserve a cookie.

I love to see the Temple

2011-07-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

We got to go to Kauai's Hindu Monastery-- I gave Rosie the camera and told her to take pictures of

everything that was interesting to her. I might betray her artistic vision by doing this, but I am not posting the 35 pictures of her own backpack, her own skirt, and the back of the stroller. Even though realizing that those things-- not, say, a giant bull being anointed with smoke, incense and water by shrouded swamis-- are the most important to her is a great insight. Kids are more interested in the trees than the forest.

It is a truly beautiful place-- shrine/botanical garden/ monastery/living garden of religion. And it was humbling for me to encounter an entire galaxy of thought and history and belief that I know absolutely nothing about. In college you are reminded constantly that you know nothing. Every 101 course is a shock of new knowledge. Out of school, though, it's easy to pick up the couple of familiar library books that snag your eye, and avoid entering into completely unknown worlds. Anyway, I'm thrilled we got to go, it was lovely. This is what my kids saw:

Lord Ganesh, remover of obstacles.

Our tour guide's legs. The photographer is only 3 feet tall after all.

The photographer's favorite shot-- the peacock's jewel.

Hi Ganesh! Apparently Ganesh is approachable and loving-- called "Mother Ganesh." He loves children and learning and is the one to address when you start on anything new-- he removes the obstacles.

The temple-in-progress

My camera lens was all smudgy. It made for lovely diffused light.

This stone is hand-quarried, chipped away with chisels and coconut husks.

Pasture Perfect

2011-07-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day and More Family Delight

2011-06-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

It's summer here in Kauai, which means even more beautiful light, early sunshine and late warm evenings.

Walking through the Banyan tree to the beach.

Even cowboys hit the beach...

My car has hit that point of bussup-ed-ness that I can start patching it together with oversimplified philisophical statements! Also, by wearing my values on my bumper, I can consider my work done. I can drive like a jerk --"My Religion is Kindess!"-- and shop at Walmart --"Buy Local!"--. Maybe stop at Starbucks with my "RULDS2."

Matt went fishing and brought home the bacon! Or, more specifically, the Papio.

It was delicious.

MP is thinking, "I bet this succulent pig had a girlfriend..."

Happy Father's Day!

Beachwear meets eveningwear.

Okay one last thing

2011-06-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

strawberry guavas

Best Day Ever.

2011-06-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

May: not too shabby.

2011-06-17T02:23:00.000-07:00

Not sure where I was for the month of May. Good thing I take pictures! Or else we'd have no memories at all. So, here's what the camera said happened:

This is MP at Genki Sushi. She is genki.

"This miso soup is so delicious, I'm going to work on my atitude."

200th post?? And other stuff.

2011-05-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends! So we just got back from a nice long hike up a new-to-us trail-- right up towards Mount Waialeale, so we could hear river sounds in the valleys on either side of the trail, and happy cows mooing under the ohia lehua trees, and we snacked on thimble berries and wondered about a single foundation stone next to a mid-jungle stand of banana trees and ti. Rosie managed all 4 something miles without a single complaint, as long as we kept up the scary-encounters-with-animals stories. We ranged from the actual (the chihuahua that traumatized baby Maile and the mountain lion that jumped on Dr. Brotherson's horse) to the fantastical (that time I was transformed into a were-cougar). And also, she made up a story cycle about a creaky tree who only wishes he could be friends with some other creaky trees, and then he is, and they make a whole creaky forest! And there lives a nice tigress named Ellemena, who hunts rabbits, is scared of spiders, and who carefully stepped over the Tiny Rock which makes anyone who touches it tiny.

Last night, on a long drive home from dinner-at-the-beach, Maile fell fast asleep, all sandy, and Rosie wanted to hear every three nephite story I could remember or invent. Mysterious hitchhiker does good and you turn around the thank him/them... and they're gone! And also Jesus stories which tended to fall apart for me: Noah and the Ark: And then God, uh, killed all of the people, because apparently he is prioritizing the survival of many species over the survival of individuals, and then He kind of says sorry and paints a rainbow...? Or the Good Samaritan: This guy was really hurt, and, nobody helped him, except for this guy that nobody else liked because he was mixed-race, and he, uh...wait, what? The best was Jesus Healing the Leopards. I'll stick with that one.

I wish I could faithfully record every charming thing these charges do and say, but all I've got is little mini-moments and the hope that it's all recorded somewhere, that I'm not really forgetting all this wonder and delight. Except for the poop. I can forget that.

Maile has no fear of me. Rosie, as a baby, if I said in a serious voice, "no throwing food!" she would cry and never ever, throw food again. Maile, I say, "Don't bite your sister!" in my scariest mom voice and she just looks at me for a second and then breaks into giggles. And those dimples! Even though she took a bloody chunk out of Rosie's shoulder, she is unrepentant. And she is baby-mad. Her go-to thought is: baby.

Since my last post I had a birthday. It was a nice simple birthday day-- one bite of breakfast in bed, then a lovely fancy lunch at my favorite 22 North. Someday I'll have to do a proper review but I'll just say: tasty. Plus there's a lawn so the maniac children can run within view of my table and my heaping kabocha pie with vanilla ice cream.
Some recent photos!

the children trying to squeeze into the smallest possible space.

Science experiments are exhausting.

Wait, no, they're awesome!! This one was about the strength of paper.

how I found the cheese.

Aww, kids and whipped cream!

Awww, the kids and salad!

Merbuff goat

Daddymatt goat

Merbuff and Rosie-goat

And one of our new chickies! They've already passed through the cute, peeping in the box stage, and are now on to their long slow teenage-hood, where they get chicken acne, demand food, and don't produce eggs in return.

Brr, mothers day brunch was freeeeezing. Like 68 degrees or something.

Happy mother's day to meee, happy mother's day to meee...

One day we made lunch and desert at the same time: cheese, tomatoes, and basil pizza; and yogurt, strawberries and mint pizza.

My favorite kind of day: everybody in the rain, in the garden, muckin about.

my little potato harvest! Potatoes here always get blight, but they still can produce a nice little clutch before they shuffle off.

Putting baby to work.

unsafe swinging practices.

this one's for you, bro!

frog eggs under a rock. Well, I assumed they were frog eggs. A couple days later i saw a mama centipede wrapped around a clutch that looked very similar, but neon green. So...Maybe we should have squished these.

Chicken sh#* slugs. The more chickens you have in your yard, the more likely these slugs are to look like chicken doo. Cool huh! Selective pressure at play! Cuz, um, the chickens won't eat them if they look like, um, you know. So only the really hehe crappy looking ones survive to reproduce, hence, garden full of fake chicken $@#. Everybody with me??

desensitizing baby to furry things.

RJ art-shot.

This is how RJ sees her daddy.

Another RJ.

But Roy's deserves its own post.

2011-04-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

"you're seriously going on a date-- without any children?"

There was lobster inside these succulent little beauts.

This tasted like the platonic fish.

And the platonic rare ahi steak and platonic lamb chop.

oozy chocolate.

Happy anniversary to us!

Big Ole Pile O' Random

2011-04-29T00:07:00.000-07:00

Recent random goodness, sorry, I don't have the attention span to string together a coherent story arch. Arc. Ark. Ack!

The perennial hit at the farm fair: a big soothing pool full of birdseed.

sculpture/playstructure?

My parenting style in a nutshell. She is crying. I am laughing at her. Win-win!

Maile's first dressup.

When you are dealing with a child, keep all your wits about you, and sit on the floor. –Austin O'Malley

Black cherry and chevre popsicles. I love my vitamix! I should get a vitamix ad banner. vitamix, vitamix, vitamix!

tra-la-la, fetching water in my pail from the surging white water.

Mmm, lepto rocks!

Hiking

Rosie's view of the hike

Rosie's cute little leggies, from her view...

Rosie-view fernage...

Easter fruit hunt!

Sad easter fruit klingon. (sad story: starts with elaborate butterfly facepaint, takes a turn for the worst in the safeway chocolate aisle, ends up with klingon-face. And no chocolate.)

Since we live on a tropical island, our exotic easter fruit includes apples, pears, and strawberries.

MP signing, "baby"

Kid's Eye View

2011-04-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

So RJ needed some distraction so I showed her how to use the camera. She busily went around taking pictures for an hour. I love how they are all three feet off the ground, how they are objects that fascinate her; her own feet, the locks on the cabinets, the outdoor cat asleep in her bed, and about 45 photos of photos, most of those Daddy. Here are some of my favorites, captions by RJ:

mountain mountain mountain

dress dress love love

Daddy Daddy quite contrary

baby baby rosie rosie you are really two

waffle waffle, eat eat eat

five numbers, five numbers

messy hair messy hair

kitty kitty sleep sleep sleep

spinspinspinspin baby and baby mom

bike ride bike ride bike ride

dress dress

cardboard cardboard cardboard cardboard cardboard

foot foot foot step step step foot foot foot step step step

worm worm worm worm. basil.

Green things

2011-04-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

monger. fish monger.

2011-04-17T01:11:00.000-07:00

My friend encouraged me to overcome my prejudice and buy some fresh fish on the side of the road. A few days later, I noticed a hand-printed cardboard sign just around the corner: FRESH FISH. I found the guy, shirtless, cutting the blocks of sweet-smelling pink meat right off of a 20 pound yellowtail. I bought three pounds and he gave me the carcass. It turned into tangy ceviche, hearty tuna steak, and seared tuna salad and about 8 quarts of fish stock. The fish stock is so gelatinous that it's basically an aspic. A deep sea jello! Here, friends, is the result:

the noble carcass

lemon cooked ahi ceviche.

Fish Stock in the Making.

Foamy, frothy, fishy goodness!

How has it taken me 5 years living in hawaii to ever buy fish from the side of the road?

rosie's birthday cake. And a party.

2011-04-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

So my eldest recently had her birthday (okay almost a month ago but in geologic time that is VERY recent) and we eventually had a party for her. But I will admit to base motivations: my friend Kristin is a pastry chef and I wanted one of her cakes for my very own. So we had a party.

It was beautiful and delicious-- enjoyed by all, young and old. I wish I were eating some right now.

Recent goofiness

2011-04-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Someone very nice sent us this tent. If it was you, thanks! RJ has moved out of her room and into the tent permanently. It doubles as a puppet theater. Here, Rosie is rapt as Matt performs Joseph Smith's First Vision with Sharks and Hamlet with Sharks.

Hearts. Isn't it odd how if you asked a kid to sit down and draw 700 tiny hearts and a dozen big hearts, there's no way you could get them to do it. But if you leave a stack of paper and some permanent markers on the table and go do something else for awhile, great deeds of focus are accomplished?

Maile may be a spelunker in her future-- she loves wedging herself under small things.

And... true bff love-- the two little blondies.

Princesses scrub floors. Everyone knows that.

Potty party!

Rosie drew Daddy's favorite-- a sunflower.

Rosie found capes for all of us and we were transformed into superheroes.

The babies watching Blues Clues. Maile dances along with the theme song: "sit down in your thinking chair and think, think, thiiiiiiiink."

Really, is there anything funnier than oversized accessories on small babies?

RJ and the kids

2011-03-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today Rosie has been on a quotable roll.
This morning we went for a bike ride/stroll/jog (Rosie's new bike is mostly fun, some white-rage-shrieking) and there was a big gray cloud over the mountain.
RJ: that cloud is brown. When the cloud is brown, it means thunder and lightening... I think the sky will crack!

---
RJ: I wonder if that haole guy will be there.
me: huh? What haole guy? what's a haole guy?
RJ: a guy who dresses all weird.

---
RJ: baby goats are cuter than real babies.
----
speaking of baby goats...

A couple of weeks ago we went on a field trip to Kunana Goat Dairy and met these very cute little dairy goatlets, one day old.

The farm apparently put the children in a posey mood.

Look at all that chevre!

We got to sample some of their truly tasty products. My favorite was the lilikoi chevre.

Well, look who we got to take home! Three of those same baby goatlets that we met were available, and so we were able to adopt them. Rosie has named them Rosie (the white one, because she has white hair), Maaaarideth, and Daddy. Yes, Daddy is a she-goat. :)

Princess ballerinas love goats.

I love their little camel noses.

Maile does not enjoy them. She spasms, legs kicking and frantic whining, when animals are around, even birds. Also, they defy description, she doesn't know what to call them. The sign for goat is a little complicated, so she signs "DOG" and makes her pig noise at the same time. But our little pig-dogs are pretty charming, hopefully they'll grow on her.

Rosie is FOUR!

2011-03-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Huge Kid!

::sigh::

Maile is ONE!

2011-03-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

Subtitled by Rosie. Again.

2011-03-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

\\car! Maile, Car! Maile.

Baby ride, baby ride

maile kee, maile kee

sick rosie, sick rosie

goat! rosie, Goat! rosie

Beach with rosie, beach with rosie

Maile watch, Maile watch

Maile glasses, Maile glasses

Dog tongue, dog tongue

(This needs some context. We have a wild dog problem-- they ate all our chickens, ravage the cat food, and knock over the garbage cans. And one day, this guy was poking around. I thought I was very tough and got him tied up. Turned out though that he was the cutest puppy on the planet. And then i almost killed him. Girl scouts with keen eyes will probably realize that my knot sucks. I tied him up, then went to grab him water, came back and he had wrapped himself around a ti plant and was choking. I was wearing Maile on my back, like always, and did that movie thing where you try to run and then fall down and then run again-- I ran inside and grabbed some scissors, ran back out and cut the rope off of his neck. I sat there, cursing and commanding the dog to live and rubbing him. I stopped for a second to see -- and he lifted up his head and thumped his tail. Freaking idiot dog.

Tame dog, tame dog

(so I picked him up and put him in the chicken coop until the cute humane society girl came to get him. About an hour later, a guy stopped by in his lanscaping-business truck (byline, I am NOT joking, 'Call us to trim your bush') and asked if I had found a lost hunting dog puppy. Woops.)

And here
is a dress I made when i was about 18. Yes, I've ALWAyS been on the cutting edge of fashion! Look at those pockets, man! It's like an apron and a dress all in one! Matt calls this my sexy plyg dress.

chicken! with spice on it!

Spagetti eating, spagetti eating!

(not spaghetti, hamura saimin. slowest service ever, crowded, mini stools to sit on, and best noodle soup you'll ever have.)

Baby eat, baby eat

(my kids like the kamaboko-- the pressed fish cakes. probably made of dolphin. meets your daily requirement of essential mercuries!)

Subtitled by Rosie

2011-03-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

Today's titles are brought to you by RJ.

oooh booka dikka daaa

Rose, Mary, Rose. I wanna call it. Rose, Mary, Rose. That's what I wanna call it.

Whip cream baby nose.

Cry, baby, in Towel.

Stand, baby, my, room.

Fall, sleep, baby. (Becca adds, The Ergo carrier ate my baby!)

Rose, heart, rose. Why is there an R right there? Why are there two Rs mummummummum? (Becca: this is a self portrait. Note the poofy sleeves.)

Fall, sleep, baby.

In, a, box, with, two, chillin.

Moving and Hatsuhinode

2011-02-10T01:05:00.000-08:00

So we moved, just a few miles away. Moving is terrible, I always forget. We knew this move was on its way so I had been ferretting things into boxes for months. It didn't make much difference: it was painful. We couldn't have done it without all the help from our friends. And our shows.
Moving day extra-stellar parenting here:
In a fit of madness, Rosie and I tried on fancy trendy clothes at the quicksilver store. I tried on skinny jeans. Then I almost fainted from the laughing. So, I know I'm only 30 which is not so old that I should wear sweatshirts with sequined kittens, but ixnay on the inny-jeans-skay. We didn't get anything because I'm not 16 years old but isn't rosie cute?

I believe in recreating the ancestral environment in my child-rearing. My children have to compete for food with predators.

A nice thing about moving house: big areas of floor open up, and so do box-canvases.

And this is Maile on the day we moved. The mosquitos got her. People avoided us on the street. She looked terrible, but didn't scratch at them too much... I was glad to get out of there.

We have a family tradition of watching the first sunrise of the New Year: Hatsuhinode. We moved to our new place December 31 so our first morning up here we got to see this:

And here are our chickens, on their last day of life, before they were savagely eaten by a wild dog. I HATE having to buy eggs from the store, and even though they weren't our pets, I miss them.

So moving, readjusting to a new situation, it can seem grating. But kids on a farm? What could be better.

It was touch and go with the cats-- they both acted like death at the new house. But after four days of hiding motionless under the bed, they came back to us. Here they are sliding down the railing.

Kids and mud.

RJ and friend T

Brrr, it's so nice to be cold now and then.

MP is a climbin' fool. She loves to escape out the door and climb up and down the porch steps. She especially likes scraping over the rusty rebar.

And here's our Surinam Cherry hedge. Neat, huh?

Some small water issues at first, but most everything is sorted out. As is, now we have water. Even hot!

Long lost blog. Christmas. Yes, it's february.

2011-02-10T00:43:00.000-08:00

Oh, hello.Was my last post really about Thanksgiving? Oh dear. Sorry, sorry. Here's the recap since then:
1. Thanksgiving.
2. Christmas
3. New Years
4. Matt's Birthday

See, this is why we have holidays. Without annual celebrations, we would lose sight of the larger cycles of life-- passage of time, reaffirmation of our connection to our communities, ethnicities, and species. Also, cameras. If I don't have a picture of it, then it never happened.

So here are some pictures of things that, apparently, happened:

Rosie is a very patient big sister and puts up with a lot of abuse. Focused, sharp-fingernailed abuse.

We went to the Kauai Coffee Christmas thing where Rosie rode a horse around and around and Santa creeped us all out, Rosie and Maile both in hysterics but Rosie determined to get close enough to the guy to earn a candy cane from the attending elf-lets. It's enough to turn me into a Santa-hater.

Helping me make bread.

And sinterklaas came! His horse even took a big bite out of a carrot. (Yes, I like Sinterklaas more than Santa. More Chocolate).

Hm, where's RJ? Ah yes, the mini-gaga in green with the orange hood, and the bold intersection of black and purple ribbon. That's her.

A friend has the genius Christmas tradition of a kid cookie decorating party. Sheer sugar-maddened genius.

Oh, and here's our would-have-been christmas card! If we'd ever gotten around to it! Sorry ya'll, merry Christmas!

Maile loves other babies. Sometimes she pats them nicely, but often she gives them wet open-mouthed kisses that turn into 4-toothed chomps.

Christmas at the beach! The kids all dressed up and we put on a Christmas pageant at a pavilion at the beach. :) :) :)

Little Mary and baby J

Rosie as an angel

And SANTA CAME!!!! To the beach! In a canoe! With that great beard and those hard core tattoos! All the kids got candy canes and they blasted tinny "rudolph the red nosed reindeer" from an on-board boombox. Best Santa Ever. So much for my, "Santa is based on the story of a man named Nicolas who lived a long long time ago, and who was very nice to a poor family." No, now Rosie knows the Truth.

Thanks Santa.

Christmas morning face:

The boxes are the best part!!!

This is perfect RJ: princess crown and gumboots.

Cats and babies, in the cupboards...

Our newest Christmas tradition: after the morning excitement was done and the green eggs and ham were discussed and not eaten, it was 80 degrees inside. So we drove up to Kokee where it was so cold and arctic that I probably should have brought a sweater! Like, 60 degrees! Heaven! But it was nice to cool down a little bit on Christmas day, we'll try it again next year.

An auspicious sign: Christmas day Fairy rings.

I'm thankful for maui.

2010-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

We went to the family homestead for T-day. We stayed home:

We went and played:

We were curious onlookers as amazing feats of deliciousness occurred:

We saw flowers:

And visited Uncle George Kahumoku Jr.'s farm:

And ate out:

And went to the aquarium:

And stood around hugging each other:

2010-11-17T23:27:00.000-08:00

Lilikoi is fun to eat. You slurp out the insides, seeds and all. Maile had a lovely time squelching this lilikoi and rubbing it all over her body. She is 8 months old and I'm not sure she's ever actually eaten any food. Mostly she smacks it on her plate, holds it in her mouth, spits it out and gnaws on it. Probably doesn't help that I am intensely paranoid about choking and so I end up fishing any food remnants out of her mouth after a minute or so. Slurping up poi.

Taking her bike for a walk...
Packing boxes can be fun!
Yes, I know it's almost thanksgiving. But Happy Halloweeeeen! Rosie was a carrot (I don't know where she got the idea from. But she was very clear for several weeks before Halloween-- she was going to be a carrot. Okay! So I painted a old pillowcase with a carrot on the front and back, cut out neck and arm holes, and sewed on some carrot-tops... I was a rabbit.
And Maile was a Spam Musubi!
Doesn't baby look so cute and happy in the car?

It's a lie and a deception. This is what she does in the car:
And Rosie has suddenly, overnight, started drawing really identifiable things. Sharks, Rapunzels in towers, and here is the whole family. From Left, a cat, the baby, me (with earrings and a bun), Daddy with a beard, and Rosie with her swimskirt on.
One morning I needed my dear sweet child out of my hair so I gave her a bunch of containers and water and foodcolor and... turmeric.
A little light reading...
I finally unearthed "Lazarusa" my poor harp, and Rosie has been plinking away. But I can't find my tuning key! So I haven't been able to really play or fix the broken strings. I'm hoping it shows up as the organizing/packing proceeds.

Monster mask + portrait of Matt plus "DAD"

Bridget rocks, by the way. Anybody who lives over here has heard of these playgroups-- every morning there are free playgroups in different places in the island. And last week Bridget completely outdid herself. She put on a "family fun day"-- completely free-- complete with a petting zoo (two mini bantam roosters, a couple humongous rhodies, 2 piglets, a goat, and a rabbit), horseback rides, three bouncy castles, a water slide, fancy crafts, and hotdogs for all. The woman should be the event planner for the superbowl. And she makes it all look easy.

Bouncy houses are fun.
This is what Rosie chose for lunch at Ishiharas. A quarter pound of raw tiny octopuses. She insisted at the store, but when the time came to actually eat the darn things, she wouldn't even give 'em a lick. So I ate them all. Very tasty! Not on the top of my "buy this again" list, but still.
The horses seemed to have an instant magical effect on all the kids. Rosie rode around and around the arena-- she didn't even look for me. She's had an independence growth spurt, which I love and appreciate, but is also a little sad.

Fall

2010-10-25T23:43:00.001-07:00

Our little naturalist's roadside collection:
serene avocados:
standing up!
blissful sister moment:

Eating potting soil.
7 months!
eek.

our "swimming pool"

Helpful:

reading.
this "aperachute" kept buzzing our house to fill up at the reservoir to put out a fire down the road
preschool!
Craft show!
We harvested our taro!
Rosie's people art-- they are faces in profile, with mouths cut out with scissors and "akeup" lipstick.

Happy b-day miss M!

How was your summer vacation?

2010-10-25T23:13:00.001-07:00

Huh. Where did the summer go?
Well we went to the mainland and did this stuff:

chewed gum for hours on the plane:
Hefted things:

visited nostalgic landmarks:
admired the bounty of the utah harvest:
said oink:
drove:
met grandma L:
chillaxed:
stuffed our little faces:
cooked:
bonded over ice cream
fiddlesticked. fiddlestuck!
slept in new and interesting situations:
entertained ourselves:
learned to sit up:
bonded with Grandma BJPD:
met the chicken:

Shriners and Showers

2010-08-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

Hi!
We went to a parade. And we saw this guy!
And this cool float. It was titled: "Remembering our Obaachan and Ojiichan"
Rosie got her face painted and needed a nap.
How not to safely sleep your baby!

Rosie got herself all gussied up for...
A baby shower!
It was all about the food.

And Maile is big enough to bounce around in this thing now!
crusty.

And yes, she's 5 months now. Unbelievable!

The 2nd half of Maui

2010-07-31T01:23:00.001-07:00

Matt's family's history is in Maui-- the family home, the family graves. Here's flowers from Grandma and Grandpa's garden for them and the great grandparents.

We got to do a little beaching.
And here's my impression of Maui beaches: loud thugs bragging, angry drivers honking, tourists getting burnt and trying, for some reason, to look like they're not having fun. But also, nice waves and nice toasty UV rays doing their job.
There is a whole foods on Maui.

Living on Kauai, I spend a lot of my transplant small-talk time keening with people over retail that exists elsewhere and not here. Most frequently mentioned: Target, Ross and Trader Joe's. A close runner up? Whole Foods.
Well, I went to the beloved Whole Foods on Maui. I warned Rosie that she was going to have to be so patient because this shopping trip was going to take FOREVER.

And it did. I savored every second of it. I walked up and down every aisle, looked at every thing on the shelves, admired the bulk bins and the saintly edenic cosmetics and the gourmet prepared food (take something fancy. Stuff it with something else fancy. Voila.)

I found about 6 things I wanted to lug home with me (for one, sunscreen decorated with cute Eric Carle drawings and with big reassuring letters: "Contains No Bad Stuff." don't panic.) And spent $100. Hah! reminded me of the Simpson's clip when they go shopping at "Wellness Foods" and spend $9000 on a week's worth of food, which all shrivels on the counter because it's organic and lacks preservatives. hehe.
But look at this glistening olive bar... The olive-eating lifestyle this suggests!
Mildred mixing sea salt with the family's legacy Alae clay to make the amazing, delicious, mind-altering red salt. We relish it and hoard it.
Rosie LOVED her cousins.
And they were very patient with her little-kid bossiness, allowing themselves to be pushed and pulled and shushed.
Great art with grandma.
We took lots of walks on the home road-- Rosie found a little broken egg. Also a family of ducks living in an irrigation ditch, a goat, horses, and a fallen chicken nest.

Why dress down when you can dress up?
Immersing themselves in the holy waters of Iao stream...
And here Lukey has just lost his slipper, forever. No amount of dredging, digging, sifting, poking, sloshing, or squishing showed up any sign of the thing.

Cousin love.
It's all about food. Food=love.

This is the moment when Rosie found out that she couldn't keep her cousins with her forever. She was heartbroken and wailed all the way to the airport.

Which, I think, is a sign of a good family reunion! Or, of seriously crashed out blood sugar. Either way, it was a fantastic trip.
(And yes, this is the 2nd half of the trip. The photos from the first half are on Matt's computer, which means I will never see them again, and none of that stuff actually happened.)

Good life Kauai

2010-07-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors have this mango tree in their front yard. It has been a good year for mangoes-- the thing keeps going off. There are still teensy green mangoes coming into adolescence right now. Those are delicious for pickling with sweet-sour-salty li hing mui. And the yellow ones, with a little soy sauce? And the fully orange ones, cut in half and procupined, indescribable. As big as RJ's head, obscenely juicy, and tongue-numbingly sweet.
I've made ,mango jam and pickled mango and mango ice cream and lots of smoothies-- but most of them we just eat as they are, rubbing our chins and cheeks in them.

Same neighbors, different fruit tree. This is a truly nasty fruit-- a surinam cherry. Bitter as acorns. Tongue-stripping bitter. Yurk. Rosie loves them. Blrgk.

But they are sure pretty...

Rainstorm!
Proof: our thumbsucker!
This means, "feed me, you jerk."

Not just ostriches do it.
Surfer girl!

iguana arms
This is our preschool hui! It's been a wonderful weekly co-op all summer, with lots of activities and messes. Such juicy kids.

Watching a mini-o-bon at the museum... Sa, sa, sa, subarashii saaaanday!

girlitas

A whole month went by already? Good grief.

2010-07-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

"Two by Two, hands of blue...!"

Notice the clean white paper and the painted table.
Surprised baby.
A little secret hiding place at the botanical gardens.
Keiki Cove plumber butt.

Arrrrrr.

Rosie Ginger Fairy

Toes! Tasty Tasty Toes!

Gotta try it out:

Reading "Baby and Child."

Too much, right?
I love the rainbow through the trees.
We had a yard sale! It was fun! After selling heaps of stuff for really nothing, I've decided I'm never going to pay full price for anything. Dental care, underthings-- nothing.

Blurbling.
Tub for two

This kid is scootching all over the place!

Playin' around, the first o-bon of the summer, and three month birthday!

2010-06-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

This is an actual strawberry that we found in our actual yard and Rosie got to actually eat!Rosie saw this and said, "She's doing Baby pose!"
Look at those juicy iguana arms.

My absolute favorite thing from our garden: sweet papayas with tart passionfruit. A-mazing.
Matt got kicked by a bull he was castrating.
Pickled mango! Made from our neighbor's mangoes and her "Anahola Japanese Association" recipe. Sugar, water, salt, li hing mui, apple cider vinegar, and green mangoes. Very very tasty.

Neener neener, buddhas.
We missed you, O-bon! Glad it's officially summer!

Thank you Connie for these wonderful cookie cutters! They are a hit.
Tap shoes at the beach.
I was having fun playing with my camera's various settings while Rosie was in her swim lesson.

The three month picture!

hehe.
This baby is rolling all over the place.

luv

2010-05-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

this is the post of one hand typing.

we loved having bill and wendy here!

she was not hit by a car. this, my friends, is a grand mal tantrum.

sorting!
Koinobori! so festive!

Lovely stuff

2010-05-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Passionfruit flower!

painting a truck