Year: 2007

We just got back from the Big Island last night and it was a short compact vacation. This blog entry is going to read more like a travel guide, because it’s a sort of practice.

We reserved our cottage in Volcano Village through Hawaii Volcano Vacations (http://www.hawaiivolcanovacations.com/index.php?inc=rentals). Hale I’wi (http://www.hawaiivolcanovacations.com/index.php?inc=house&id=5) is a cozy 2 bedroom cottage that rents for $140 (+11%) tax for 3 adults. We were lucky this is low season because we booked late and this was the last one available in the Volcano village itself. It has a nice garden full of tree ferns.

Unfortunately, we weren’t so lucky with the rental service. They didn’t give us the Kama’aina discount as promised and we didn’t find the continental breakfast that was included. Several messages to them didn’t get returned, so we ended up buying our breakfasts. And while the house was clean, it smelled of mold when we arrived. Fortunately, the smell went away after airing it out and turning on the gas fireplace, or I don’t know if we could’ve stayed there.

The other cottages I found online are Volcano Village Cottages (http://volcanogallery.com/volcano__village_choice_.htm). The lady on the phone was really helpful and nice, but they didn’t have anything as close or as cheap this time. But this seems like the better agency, which is why it probably books up earlier. I also found Volcano Cottages (http://www.volcanocottages.com/) in the same price range but I never called them.

In the Volcanos National Park, we really liked the Visitor Center movie and information. Last year we saw the Jagger geology museum, which we liked, but we didn’t go back. We did drive around the Halemaumau crater again, stopping at the steam vents and also the rift zone that we missed last time, as well as the inner crater. Then we went in the Thurston Lava tube again with Trude, and this time we took our flashlights all the way to the end of the unlit section.

Then we drove down the Chain of Craters Road to the petroglyphs. Those weren’t as impressive as I thought, but still neat. At the end of the road, we hiked to where the flow covers the pavement and took some neat pictures. The lava there looks recent, with all the cool formations. Unfortunately, we never had the good weather nor the time to hike the Kilauea Iki crater loop-next time.

To top off the vacation (and make up for all the rain) we booked a sight-seeing airplane ride in Hilo on our last day. Since the eruption changed in July, you can’t walk to the lava because it no longer flows into the ocean. The only way to see the flowing lava is from the air, but it’s even more impressive now because it hasn’t made any tubes. The volcano and extent of the flows are really apparant from the air. We went with Island Hoppers (http://www.fly-hawaii.com/above/hilo_tour.html) in a high-wing airplane. It was $155 each +10 tip for the two of them, and then the pilot took me up for free on the next trip. So we tipped him again with our leftover beer from the cottage.

There, do you think I am a good travel guide writer?

My mom is here! We are having lots of fun, and Leilani just loves her so much. Brushing teeth? Going swimming? Going potty while there is a party? No problem if Oma takes her. Oma is also fixing up our garden, feeding the cats, working around the house, and helping us to go to the beach more often.

Lots of other things happening here. Andy got laid off work yesterday. We did have some advanced warning, and he’ll be paid for a little longer, so we really need to ramp up the video business, and have a few keep-us-above-water plans for the meantime. Check out my main site Simplify-Your-Life.com for one of them. The Video business on my side is about 300 hours (very rough estimate) away from making money, my little camera got broken during the filming of a reception, and then completely messed up by an incompetent repair man, without much hope of even getting it back. We need to buy audio equipment, and in a year or so upgrade to HD, which is a lot of investment. Andy considers being part of the video business, and is developing his own business ideas, and he has 2 months to find a job within Sun. He is also actively trying to find a new job or contracting in Silicon Valley and looking for job openings on Kauai.

JoJo the cat got hurt and had to stay a day at the vet. She got all stiched up and needs to take antibiotics now. Mikey seems angry at us again, we don’t know why but at least he comes home to eat. Maybe it is because Leilani and I sometimes smell of other cats, we are volunteering at a cat sanctuary down the street.

Monday we are leaving for the Big Island, we’ll stay 3 nights, so my mom can see the volcano. We’ll see lavatubes, and hopefully some lava flow.

Leilani is addicted to Jamba Juice, and smoothies are becoming a staple in our household. We use them as rewards for being good at Joy’s toddler school, and also drives by the store on Tues and Thurs after “Tutu and Me”pre-preshchool. Leilani now asks for them by name, Jamba Juice is how she says smoothie (I bet some marketing person is cackling somewhere).

Andy and Trude took Leilani to Kalapaki Beach and the Marriott after running some errands in Lihue yesterday:

Leilani stayed the whole day at the toddler school today! Alone!!! She did not cry or whine a single time, and neither did she ask for me. I left at 8:45 and sat 1/2 block away at the Lihue library “on call”, to about 12:15 and then went to picked her up, she was all happy and playing.

Leilani loves the circles

The kids have to raise their hand to request songs. Leilani still requests Heidi and is a little disappointed that Auntie Joy can’t yodel :-) But she is very happy to get her second choice of “Funny Clown”

Sometimes they dress up:

Three girls in a tent:

Joy’s daughter, Elsa, who is good friends with Leilani

Leilani’s vocabulary is incredible, her sentences get better and better, just the pronounciation needs improvement. Andy pulled up the blinds, and Leilani said: “Oh! I can see better now.” One of her favorite books is “Cat Heaven” – she asks for it “Mommy please read cat heaven.” because she can not pronounce it well, and heaven sounds like “…have” or “haben” I never understand, and she then translates for me “Katzen Himmel Buch” (with much better pronounciation). Andy got days mixed up and Thursday he told her she was going to Auntie Joy’s, and she replied “No daddy, going [to] Tutu and Me”. Another one “My hair needs washing” – then she poured a glass of water she was drinking from over her head, “My hair is all clean now. All done.”

When we let her taste a mango smoothie she said “Baah. Dump it out Daddy!” – She loves smoothies, but hates mangos. Usually she wants blueberry – banana, or strawberry. She likes mainland fruit now: apples, strawberries, grapes. Island fruits: bananas, passion fruit, starfruit, lychee and all similar fruit – rambutan, longan. She does not eat guava, hardly any papaya, no figs and oranges, but likes limes and lemons.

Recent hikes: Kuilau with Adam and Jaya

And Nounou with Aditi and Jaya:

Ruby’s Birthday party

Pillowfight

What if… Leilani grew a lot of hair…

…if it was orange…

…until then: hibiscus flowers!

I am sitting at Joy’s Orchids Preschool while Leilani is off to the library with Joy and her daughter Elsa. Joy is nice enough to let me use her computer. We have been coming here 2 days a week together for almost a month, and yesterday was the first time I left Leilani alone with the whole group – 9 kids, 3 adults. During the summer time the preschool turns into a childcare.

She was not doing excellent when I left, but at least reasonably well. I told her 1/2 hour before I planned to go and notified her a few more times in between. When it was time to say bye-bye she requested a hug, held me for almost a minute (longest hug ever) and then just ran off to play with Benjamin and the toy cars. She cried 4 times during the next half hour, every time less than a minute and was easily distracted with a new activity.

To speed up the process – and to make for a smoother start of the actual school year – Joy and Elsa came over to our house for a play date last Tuesday, and today the 4 of us played here and now they are at the library.

Leilani and I really like both, Joy and Elsa, and all other kids coming here are so well behaved and seem so happy, playing, exploring, learning, it’s a great place.

Leilani’s crankieness and cold symptoms are gone!!! No new teeth either. We got a book about “Cat heaven” from the library that I have to read daily, and Leilani points to all the cats in the book that are gray and says “That’s Kiko.” “Kiko sitting angel lap.” and similar things.

Potty training is going excellent. We still use night time diapers, but they stay dry almost always, and during the day there were virtually no accidents anymore. (lessons recently learned: never tell her to just squat down and pee, assuming that she doesn’t wear underwear under her beach dress, and always listen to what she is saying before she runs off towards the bathroom)

She can hold it much longer, and also urinate when the bladder is 1/2 empty (or less when it happens to be late, after bed time and she wants to get up again).

In the home improvement department I finished putting together her bed, decorated her room (with fish, turtles and rays), switched all wall decorations and pictures and moved most of our stuff (stuffed the stuff actually) into other areas of the house.

Andy was really busy and couldn’t help much, so things are slow (Thanks for getting the paint out of the garage though :-).

Saturday I took out our bathroom console table, a little shelf, and several miscellaneous screws and nails, sanded, primed and painted and prepared the area for a huge shelf (48inches wide, holds 1000 pounds or so) that I hauled home from Cosco and intend to build soon.

I filmed Aditi’s brother’s Anthony’s and Alice’s wedding last Thursday, and messed up the sound badly enough that they had to redo the ceremony (I got to remember never to link to the baby blog from my professional websites…). At least having double the footage is going to make for an awesome end product, and I spent a lot more time on finishing the sound up than I normally would because I still feel guilty. I am also still a beginner on Final Cut Pro, but it seeems so much more powerful that I can’t imagine going back to iMovie (which is what I used on all my previous movies).

Andy was busy demonstrating against the Superferry (big congrats on winning the battle), and writing about it and other interesting things on his blog – check it out!

Leilani is sleeping pretty nicely in her bed – she wakes up for nursing (briefly around 2am) falls back asleep within a few minutes, and then comes to our bed around 4 or 5 for a longer nursing. I wake her up at 7:00am.

During weekdays we leave the house around 8am, and Monday, Friday, and from now on Wednesday too we come to Joy’s preschool until 12:30. Tuesday and Thursday we usually go to Tutu and me in Anahola, it’s another preschool-like toddler activity for kids and their caregivers, it keeps us out of the house and Andy gets more work done in the mornings.

This week we didn’t go to Tutu and me, Tuesday the car was in the shop (700$ – maintenance not repairs, another 400 to go…) and Joy and her daughter Elsa visited us, today we are here at their place.

After lunch Leilani is supposed to take a nap (ideally falling asleep in the car already because she eats at Joy’s or at Papayas or Jamba Juice) I have been waking her up at 3:00pm no matter when she falls asleep, because that seems to be the only way to make her go to bed at night. Dinner is around 7:00, after a little quiet play and brushing teeth and putting on a diaper she is allowed to watch 20minutes of Heid, Pippi or Nemo (she always chooses Heidi, or switches after a few minutes to Heidi). Bedtime is between 8:00 and 9:00 (at least we try very hard to put her to bed around this time). Missing her tiredness period usually results in her being up till midnight, a while ago we babysat one of her friends until 9:30, and she had started to ask to go to bed at 8:00 – she was up until 1am, and ultra cranky for 2 days…