Da Keiki Blog

We spent the Easter weekend camping in King City, and the Easterbunny came twice, once to our house and once to the campground!

Ferrero Rocher made it to the top of Leilani’s candylist and is now used as the bribe of choice

Counting the loot

Leilani is wearing her Wabi Sabi dress – we recently read a kids book that explained a Japanese concept – Wabi Sabi – to kids. We named Leilani’s favorite, and to her very beautiful, comfortable and totally loved, but also old, worn and a little stained dress the “Wabi Sabi dress

We saw a beautiful swallowtails (many actually, but most were not as photogenic)

Leilani is so helpful, she loved taking down the tent, folding poles and putting the stakes back in the bags

Friday 4/10 we drove down to King City to go hiking with Ray and Carol the next morning. We camped at the county campground, with and integrated farm museum. We were late but finally arrived at the trailhead

Leilani had lots of energy the first part of the hike

All in front of a lupine bush

Blue Dick

Goldfields

The lighter one is either a dark Tincture Plant, or very light China House

Larkspur

Phaceliadistans (they had a lot of different English names)

Ray and Carol

Ray is the butterfly whisperer

Poppies

If you look so serious I will tickle you!

On Andy’s last day we dropped Leilani off at the Little Sprouts Playhouse – a great and much needed addition to Kauai’s childcare

George and Jaddah really did an awesome job. Leilani liked it so much, she did not want to leave

In the meantime we kayaked the Wailua river

Andy built the tent in Anahola,

Papayas for breakfast

We dropped Leilani off at the playhouse again, packed and I brought Andy to the airport. In the afternoon Leilani and I picked up trash on the beach

We made the trash into art: Leilani’s piece

And mine

Leilani still loves to take photos, but since she treats the camera roughly, we don’t let her as often now.

Leilani found a great exercising bench right in front of our tent

There was a water park in Kapaa for the weekend, with lots of bounce houses and slides, Leilani loved it. They also had mechanical rides, when they opened we ran over so we wouldn’t have to stand in line for long – Leilani was immediately drawn to the revolving and rotating teacups – the attendant looked at her and asked me to go with her, but she wanted to go alone. She rode with a 7 or 8 year old, and had a lot of fun. As the next ride I suggested a much slower moving chain carousel – Leilani took a look at the line and said: “No, that’s just for the little kids…” I looked again, and most children there were 4-6 – in her own mental picture she sees herself as older I think. I still talked her into going on the other ride.

In the evening we went to visit Jaya – Leilani stayed with Jaya and Adam, while Aditi and I went to see the Taylor camp movie. I wish I had been there. Well maybe not, because then I’d be even older today (they burned it down in 76)
2 Princesses

Saturday we went to Samantha’s house for an easter egg hunt, before we went for a little walk

What – this is a real egg, where is the chocolate?

The egg hunt was followed by a playdate

Miriam and Delfi visited us at the campsite, and we read books together

We also visited Sandy, and Leilani got to see the Lilo and Stitch movie

She looks like a little angel when she sleeps (I think)

On our last day we visited Kika and Tristan in Kilauea. For lunch we had raw chocolate and fruit from their orchard, I have never eaten so many star apples, and it was really a pain to get the sticky sap off my face.

In the morning on the 30th Karla had a party – a birthday party for Ingrid and me, the kids loved to play: Justin, Ian and Jonathan

Riding a horse with Nova

Happy birthday!

The second party started in the early afternoon at Lydgate. The first game was pin the fairy on the flower.

Adults had to play too…

I loved all the beautiful leis. A few of them I returned to nature, flower by flower, each with a blesssing or a good wish, and one i dried.

Friday we woke up to a beautiful Sunrise at Anini, Andy went on a hike with Randy while I babysat Tristan at Nadya’s filmset, the Hawaiian Village while his mom Kicka took photos at the set. Leilani and Tristan played well and wild together, and again I was amazed how she fits in on Kauai. Kicka took photos of the pair, I hope I’ll get some of them and post them here later…

While I was reading this to Leilani, she reminded me “Tristan smacked me on the head with a stick…”

Anyway – here is Andy’s hike above Honopu Valley:

Randy on the narrow ridge

Open Ceiling Cave (rare view)

‘Awa’awapuhi Valley (even rarer view)

Meanwhile, after a few hours at the set, Leilani and I went to Papaya’s for lunch. We went to our old house and she napped (as almost every day on Kauai) and then went back to the set and played with Tristan for a couple more hours.

We drove on to Saltpond, where I impressed a few locals (and myself) by setting up the tent in high winds. Our neighbors (who kept us well fed with apple bananas and Costco muffins) claimed that a few guys had tried to set up camp just a few minutes before I did and given up… Leilani helped very well, by sitting on various corners of the tent – my self-moving tent rock (and the other rocks I used were about her weight…). I used all the stakes we owned (usually for 2 tents) and arranged all our possessions in the tent so it would not fly off, we had our dinner (soup and fruit), worried a little about Andy as the sun was setting, and drove off to art night. Soon after we got hold of him on the cellphone and reunited:

Leilani took photos and played with Randy, we listened to Hawaiian music, Andy ate fish burritos, and we looked at art and had a good time.

We bought more stakes and the next morning Andy built the shade tent too, but obviously needs to learn how to set the self-timer…

Morning beachwalk

Later we drove to the Prince Kuhio festival in Poipu…

… and had a great lunch of shrimp and gelato (which made me very tired…)

Later we went back to Saltpond for a quick swim and change of clothes, and then to Hanapepe where we met our friends at the Makana concert: Aditi and Jaya

The orchid show:

The winds were so strong that we had to take down the shade tent, and Andy worried about the other tent… When it was dark, Andy and Leilani went to the bathroom and a rain started – when something came into the tent. It was too dark to see, but somehow I knew it was a cat and the cat somehow knew I was a nice person, so I felt around for it and it started purring… it stayed for the night (out of the rain) and we gave it a can of salmon for breakfast.

There was a beautiful sunrise again

The day stayed rainy – which means lots of rainbows…

Adam had given Leilani and audiobook of Lilo and Stitch, (did *not* make the parents happy at all) and Leilani absolutely loved it. She knows that Sandy has a lot of Disney movies and got to watch it a few days later (made the parents even unhappier), too. Hanapepe is where the movie is set:

Funny, I am reading this post half a year later, we are not friends anymore with either of them… wonder if that was the subconscious reason…

We went to glass beach and picked up a lot of beachglass:

Leilani built a glasscastle instead of a sandcastle for a change, she even made the door and window by herself:

Andy imitated Leilani’s feet pictures:

And we drove on towards Wailua, rainbow over Haupu

That’s a zoom into a rainbow in case you are wondering

Rainbow over Wailua beach

We went to visit Randy for Dinner.