for our first few days on oahu, we stayed at the hilton hawaiian village in honolulu.  it was a nice room, but sienna and i thought it was small.  i guess we were expecting a big house or 2-BR villa like the places that we’ve stayed at during other hawaii vacations.

after a few days in honolulu, we checked in at disney’s aulani resort where we met up with matthew and jeffrey.  it was UH-MAY-ZING.

since i was missing 6 days of school, mommy and i had to sign an independent study contract.  that means that i had to do homework every day.  a boatload of it.  i had to practice writing upper and lower case letters and numbers, draw and caption a detailed picture of what i did each day, draw 16 pictures that started with the letters A, B, C, D, create simple patterns using objects that i saw each day, identify items in groups of 1-12, find things that start with each of the letters of my name, read for 15 minutes and and re-tell the stories, and do jumping jacks and sprints.  and that’s on top of my regular homework sheets.  TK is intense.

anyway, here’s a recap of what we did each day.  (if you want to skip the words and just go straight to the photos, click here.  mommy and daddy took some of the photos, but most of them were taken by the aulani photogs.)

FRIDAY (11/14):  arrived on oahu.  walked around honolulu.  dinner at 678 hawaii.  shopping at walmart to stock up on homework supplies.  pearl tea at tea boss for daddy.

SATURDAY (11/15):  headed to northshore.  breakfast at kono’s.  played at laniakea beach (since there was a surf competition at haleiwa ali’i beach park).  visited the dole plantation.  picked up food at yama’s fish market.  swam at the hotel pool.  watched “wreck it ralph” at movie night on the lawn.  toward the end of the movie, i stood up and said “i’m hungry”.  so we went and had a late night snack at CJ’s NY style deli.

SUNDAY (11/16):  malasadas at leonard’s.  we looove malasadas.  they are deeelicious!  coffee break at glazer’s.  lunch at sushi king.  pure aloha shave ice.  aloha stadium swap meet.  checked into the aulani.  dinner at aloha salad.

MONDAY (11/17): character breakfast.  fish are friends (we made fish food and fed it to the fish in the rainbow reef).  eruption disruption (science experiment simluating a volcano eruption).  dinner at monkey pod.  starlit hui (luau without food).

TUESDAY (11/18):  water slides.  water slides.  water slides.  hula lessons, stich’s goo (science experiement where we made goo).  dinner at plantation tavern.

WEDNESDAY (11/19):  scuba diving with hawaii nautical with for mommy and daddy.  eruption disruption.  menehune mix up (interactive music show).  surf’s up with chip and dale (we decorated mini wooden surfboards and had a dance party with chip and dale).  grown ups had a fancy dinner at ama ama.

THURSDAY (11/20):  toddler splash and play (built sand castles and dug for treasure in the sand).  kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming.  canoe race (decorated and raced mini canoes).  menehune adventure trail (ipad-led scavenger hunt through the resort).

FRIDAY (11/21):  lunch at teddy’s bigger burgers and yama’s fish market (again).  on our flight home, daddy and i sat separately from mommy and sienna.

oahu highlights:

• the food.  OMG the food.  our faves: leonard’s malasadas (honolulu), yama’s fish market (honolulu), shave ice at uncle clay’s house of pure aloha (honolulu), monkeypod (kapolei), thai lao (kapolei).
• perfect weather.  warm, nice breeze, and it wasn’t even humid.
• pressing the elevator buttons in the hotels
• aunty’s beach house.  this is the kids’ activity center where we did so many cool things.  my favorites were stitch’s space goo (stitch said that the goo we made were his boogers) and surf’s up.
• performing in the starlit hui.  sienna accidentally stole some coconut shell “instruments”.
• swimming (for me), water slides (for sienna).  sienna especially loved the tube slide that was super dark and fast.  i was too scared to try it, but she went over and over and over again!
• wreck dive, including plenty of giant turtles (for mommy and daddy)
• paddle boarding and kayaking (for mommy and sienna).  sienna got to stand up on the board and hold her own paddle on the kayak!
• menehune adventure trail.  the magic of the menehune lives on!
• hanging out with the lims all week.  matthew and i were BFF’s and did everything together, which was especially awesome because sienna and jeffrey still nap every day.

oahu lowlights:

• homework
• homework
• homework
• no shiny yellow race car.  it would only fit 2 people.
• no turtles.  we even went to the northshore beach nicknamed “turtle beach”.  false advertising.
• our only complaint about the aulani is that the food is just meh, and the food in the shopping center across the street is only slightly better.  good thing we had cars so that we could go into town to find good food!

our plan has always been to visit a different island every time we go to hawaii.  next on our list is the big island.  but we had such an amazing time at the aulani that we just might keep going back there until sienna and i get tired of it.  it think we’re good for at least another 4 years.  who’s in for aulani 2016? 🙂

every other year, we take a family vacation to hawaii with friends.  when i was 1, we went to maui with the tais.  when sienna and i were 1 and 3, we went to kauai with the angs.  this year, we’re it’s oahu with the lims.

the airplane ride over was uneventful.  i had a little trouble getting my ears unplugged on the descent, but at least i didn’t throw up all over myself like last time.  when we landed, our first stop was the car rental place.  sienna and i picked a yellow race car, but mommy said that our car seats wouldn’t fit in there.  oh well.

we are going to spend a few days in honolulu and then we’ll meet matthew and jeffrey at disney’s aulani resort on the west side of the island.  everyone says that we’re going to love it there.  i just hope that they have real swimming pools with real water — not like the salty water in the ocean.

full report when we get back!

sienna has always hated babies.  well, that’s not entirely true.  she actually likes babies as long as mommy is not holding them.  one time while sienna was in the middle of a swim lesson, mommy was sitting in the observation area holding baby isabelle.  sienna caught a glimpse of them through the window and started screaming “don’t hold baby!!!”  she wouldn’t turn around and get back to her swim lesson until mommy handed the baby back to auntie viki (isabelle’s mommy).

i felt the same way about babies for a long time, but i had to get over it really quickly once sienna invaded our house.  sienna was never forced to get over it.

today, we went to our friend emma’s house to visit her new baby.  her baby brother’s name is bradley.  we figured we would just get to say hi to him because sienna would certainly throw a fit if mommy held him.  but guess what.  she didn’t!  mommy held baby bradley while sienna and i played with emma.  sienna didn’t mind one bit.  sienna even held and kissed baby bradley.  she said that she wanted to bring him to hawaii with us.

mommy asked sienna why she doesn’t let her hold other babies but is okay with baby bradley.  sienna said that he is the best baby and she loves him.  awww…

it seems like we have a lot of friends celebrating their first birthdays this year.  in just the last couple of months, baby isabelle, baby jeffrey, and baby lucas turned one.  and today, we went to baby keira’s birthday party.  daddy and i went first because mommy and sienna were at cousin caitlyn’s cheer showcase.  sienna was so excited to see all those girls with sparkly uniforms flip, tumble, and fly through the air.  she says that she can’t wait to “do that”.   i guess she really couldn’t wait because she did a forward roll onto the mat in between performances.  mommy is really hoping that sienna doesn’t get into competitive cheer because mommy cannot hang with the perfect hair, makeup, and nails that those cheers moms have, even when they’re wearing yoga pants and team t-shirts.

anyway, we’ve found that first birthday parties are often more for the grown ups than for the kid.  that’s especially true when the birthday baby doesn’t have older siblings that need to be entertained.  and since keira’s party was at the clubhouse of her apartment complex, we sort of figured that her party was going to be more of a grown up party than a kid party.  and it was.  but after everyone ate, keira’s auntie brought out a bunch of modeling clay.  what a nice surprise for me and sienna and all the other kids!  we all channeled our inner sculptors.

look what i made.  what do you think it looks like?  i was a little insulted that mommy thought it was a turkey.  obviously, it’s a cake with a birthday candle on top.  one candle, because keira is one!

after keira’s party, sienna took a quick nap, and then we were off to another milestone birthday celebration.  uncle jamie is 40!  that is SO OLD.  we went out for hot pot at little sheep.  we love that place, but mostly we love hanging out with cousin zoey.

hugs to keira for turning the big ONE, and a big FOUR-O fist bump to uncle jamie!

today was the last day of the soccer season.  after an entire season, i can confidently say that i am not very good at soccer.  but i love it!  when mommy signed me up for soccer, there were a few things that she was hoping that i would get out of it.

1) learn some new sports skills.  check!

2) get some exercise.  double check!

3) learn about teamwork.  ummm… does cheering for your teammates count?  i did a lot of that.  but there wasn’t a whole lot of teamwork happening amongst us 4 and early-5 yos.  i didn’t pass much because i don’t have good aim, and the other kids on my team didn’t pass much because they wanted to score goals!

4) learning to win and lose graciously.  there is no official scoring in this league (in my age group), but i knew the score at all times.  and since we had 2 ringers on our team, we didn’t lose.  our parents (and coach) sort of felt bad for the other teams and sometimes even made arrangements to feed the other team the ball at throw-ins to give them a fighting chance.

well, 2 out of 4 ain’t bad, i guess.  i also received a participation trophy and i got to keep my pennant section of our team banner.  i’m bummed that soccer season is over, but at least i won’t have to wake up so freaking early on saturdays anymore.

after staying up too late on halloween night, it would have been nice to have a day to sleep in and recover.  but we had places to go and people to see!  first, we went to jungle island to celebrate lucas’ first birthday.  jungle island is right across the street from AVAC (the place where we used to take swim lessons), but we had never been inside before.  sienna and i loved it.  we started the morning in the giant play structure with crawling tubes and a ball pit.  then we pigged out on pizza in the party room.  and after that, we got to play arcade games where we earned tickets in chuck e. cheese fashion.  the games were fun, but it was kind of a bummer that some of them just ate our tokens and/or didn’t work properly. when it was time to redeem our tickets, sienna was busy bouncing around in the jumpy house.  i spent half our tickets to get her a ring and i used the rest to get some fake $100 bills for myself.  score!  happy birthday to lucas!

after lucas’ party, we went to visit grandma since we were already so deep into san jose.  we hung out there for a couple of hours, but we had to get back for another party!

in the evening, my dojo hosted a costume party.  sienna was excited to have another excuse to wear her ariel princess dress.  i was planning to wear my superman costume, but when i went to put it on, i realized that i had put it in my laundry basket and thrown some dirty wet clothes on top of it.   i had invited isaac to meet me there at a certain time, so there we no time to wash and dry my costume.  i had to throw something together quickly!  i put on my mickey mouse construction set and headed out the door.  sienna ended up not even going at all because she didn’t wake up from her nap in time.

once i got to the dojo and saw how elaborately decorated it was, i  felt kind of bad about my lame costume.  (actually it was mommy who felt bad.)  the place had been completely transformed into a nighttime carnival!  plus, the secret theme of the party ended up being superheroes.  i would have fit right in as superman.  oh well.

there were a bunch of different stations set up, with carnival-style games at each.  my favorite was pin the mustache on the jack-o-lantern.  after completing each activity, we got prizes based on how well we did at each station.  or maybe they just gave out bags of candy to everyone.  hard to know.  but it doesn’t really matter because we had fun.  plus, isaac earned a free month of classes, so he’ll be joining me in my martial arts classes next month.  hoo-yah!

it’s that time of year again, when sienna and i dress up in costumes and go around the neighborhood collecting candy for daddy.  yup, halloween!  because “frozen” has been so popular this year (and apparently, elsa costumes have been flying off the shelves), this year has become known as the year of the elsa.   but no elsa for us.  if you ask sienna, she’ll tell you that she dressed up as a mermaid.  but actually, she was ariel the princess, not the mermaid.  no seashell bras for her!  and guess what i dressed up as.  yup.  superman.  for the 4th year in a row.

before we got to trick-or-treating, sienna and i had halloween celebrations and parades at our schools.  mine was yesterday.  out of the 11 girls in my class, there were 5 elsas.  no surprise there.  but what was surprising was that all of their costumes were different!  we played fun games and did some spooktacular crafts, then my classroom got to be line leaders in the parade around the whole school!

sienna’s halloween parade was today.  since it was raining, they just walked around the hallways in her preschool.  boring.  but guess what.  of all the princesses in siennas classroom, there wasn’t a single elsa.  that was shocking.

matthew braved friday night rush hour traffic to join us for dinner and trick-or-treating again.  it rained all day, so we were worried that our candy-collecting plans would be ruined, but there was a break in the weather right when we were ready to head out.  perfect timing!

last year, we really enjoyed knocking on doors and ringing doorbells — we were actually disappointed when we came across a house with a candy bowl sitting outside.  but this year was all about the candy bowls.  it was so exciting to get candy without even having to do anything!  it made it much easier to pick the ones that daddy likes rather than taking our chances with whatever got dropped into our buckets.

sienna, matthew, and i had so much fun trick-or-treating.  jeffrey came with us too, but auntie audrey carried him so he didn’t get any candy.  sienna is much faster now, so we were able to venture farther than we did last year.  but when we hit the houses around the park, sienna tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and sprawled out flat on her face.  her candy went flying everywhere.  she cried and cried and mommy suggested that we turn around and head home.  but all sienna really cared about was putting her tiara back on.  once she did that, she was fine.  so we carried on. 🙂

halloween is so much fun and we are already looking forward to trick-or-treating again!  i’ve already started thinking about what i want to dress up as.  maybe optimus prime — not sure yet.  but this is definitely my last year being superman.  it’s the end of an era.

i got to go on my very first school field trip last week.  my TK class went to G&M farms, the same pumpkin patch that we went to last year.  (mommy was a driver.)  our family had been making it a point to visit a different pumpkin patch every year, but sienna and i are okay with sticking to this one.  it has a corn box, which is the best thing ever.  we could stay in there for days.

anyway, when i went to the pumpkin patch with my class, it was really cool.  we started our visit with a hay ride through the cornfield, then headed over to an outdoor classroom that was set in a clearing between some giant corn stalks.  there, we learned about the life cycle of the pumpkin plant — from seed to blossom to gourd to seed again — in a fun, interactive lesson.  after class, we explored the play area where we navigated our way through the hay bale maze, played in the corn box, and said hello to the llama, cows, sheep, and chickens.  finally, we got to select some indian corn, gourds, and pumpkins (which we picked right out of the field!) to take with us.  the only problem was that each kid could only take one pumpkin.  i couldn’t get one for sienna.

so today after swim class, we went back to G&M farms with isaac and isabelle.  our main goal was to get a pumpkin for sienna, but we had to get in some play time in the corn box.  of course.  we were in there for over an hour.  when it was time to go find a pumpkin, we had to pull sienna out, literally kicking and screaming.

one of the rules we had for our school field trip was that the pumpkin we chose had to be small enough for us to carry by ourselves.  today, sienna didn’t have any rule like that.  so now, she has a bigger pumpkin that i do!

the last few times that sienna has gone to a sharks game, she went with mommy and auntie judy.  but sienna is too big to sit on mommy’s lap now, so today sienna got her own seat for the first time.  she had a hard time understanding why auntie judy couldn’t go with them.

sienna paid a little more attention to the game than she had before — at least she wasn’t flashing everyone like that one time last season. she did the cheers but she wasn’t into the action on the ice.  i think she was most excited about the continuous ring of lights around the arena.

even though she had her own seat, sienna still insisted on sitting in mommy’s lap.  mommy didn’t mind — she said that sienna is a pretty good lap warmer.  sienna’s seat (and actually, the 2 seats next to hers) were empty throughout the entire game.  what a waste!

sienna fell asleep during the 3rd period, which is crazy because all the scoring happened in the 3rd period.  but the sharks didn’t do enough, and they ended up losing to the sabres 1-2.  they looked terrible.

after the game, mommy and sienna spent the afternoon with miss denise (our former nanny) and her family.  i haven’t seen her in almost a year!  they had a nice visit, and i am bummed that i missed out.  but that’s okay, daddy and i spent the day doing some daddy/son bonding.  i hope to see miss denise soon, though!

everyone has been getting sick lately. apparently, something was going around.  luckily, sienna and i have always been pretty healthy.  sure, we get the sniffles and a little cough once in awhile, but we don’t get sick with vomiting/fever all the time like a lot of our friends do.  i have never been to the doctor for an illness.  and sienna has only been one time when she had a very angry-looking rash.  just last week, mommy told her friend that sienna and i have bullet-proof immune systems.

and then guess what.   yup.  i started to feel sick that night.  mommy jinxed me.

i figured i’d bounce back by the next morning like i usually do, but i woke up with a fever.  i even stayed home from school.  by the following day, i felt better, but i had sores in my mouth that made it hard to eat.  i guess that’s what hand, foot, and mouth disease is all about.  bleh.  it sucked.  i was miserable (and made everyone in my house miserable with my whining) for a few days.  the only upside is that i got to eat a lot of jook (rice porridge) and popsicles. 🙂

by the weekend, i felt well enough to go to all of my weekend activities.  i was promoted to orange belt (hooyah!).  and we went to jero’s and lea’s joint birthday party.  daddy and i only stopped by the park to drop off gifts and watch the magic show, but mommy and sienna stayed for face painting and ice cream.

sienna had a mermaid painted on her arm.  why on her arm and not her face?  mommy asked her the same question.  “so i can see it!”  my sister actually makes a lot of sense sometimes. 🙂

even though i was feeling okay, i didn’t want to spread my germs and get other kids sick.  so we missed out on other weekend plans which involved sharing of food indoors in close quarters.  (sorry for missing your birthday dinner uncle steve!)

lemme tell you… being sick sucks.  thanks a lot for jinxing me, mommy.