Whale Watch

Rob took the kids on a whale watch.

They saw baby whales---
Whale's backs---

and even synchronized whale's tails.

Joelle got bored of the whales, but she loved the wind blowing through her hair.

Other goings on........

Adam has gotten quite good at playing the guitar which he received for Christmas. One day, Joelle decided that she wanted to take up the guitar too.

Bi, Bryant and Anna came to Hawaii and spent some time with us. The three little girls had a great time playing together every day. They especially liked reading books.

This happened back in November, but I didn't get the pictures up yet. Someone at church had tickets for but couldn't attend the Maui invitational where none other than our UNC TarHeels were playing. The tickets were offered to Rob who ecstatically accepted. He and the boys spent a great day watching Bball and cheering for UNC--dressed in UNC's baby blues.

The arena was very small and so they could see everything very well. They were sitting right next to the players part of the time.

Adam got the coach, Roy Williams, and two players, Tyler Hansbrough and Deon Thompson, to sign his poster. He also shook Tyler Hansbrough's hand.
Notice that the toes are making Hawaii's "hang loose" sign.

Hole in the Head

Aria has lost her first tooth. Isn't she cute with a hole in her head?

This is Aria in her 100 days hat which she made in kindergarten. Her class had a celebration for the 100th day of school. Each of the ten flaps on her hat has ten stickers. There are 100 fruit loops on her necklace. She also took several bags containing 100 pieces of cereal, raisins, M&M's, skittles, etc. to mix with the treats her classmates brought to make a huge bowl of "gorp."

She also had to create her own 100 project, so she spelled out her name and then decorated it with exactly 100 buttons.

This is the hula turkey Aria made for school back at Thanksgiving.

Jairin's 11th Birthday

Since Rob had to go to Arizona for the week of Jairin's birthday, we had two birthday parties. The first celebration was Friday night before Rob left. We had margarita pizza and lava cakes. In case you can't tell, this is Jairin with a very very yummy lava cake. Several of us prefer lava cakes to traditional birthday cake. In fact, this is such a favorite in our house, that we have it several times a year. After all, there are a lot of birthdays. You can find the recipe, which comes from Paula Deen, the plump southern chef who uses real butter in many of her recipes, below. I include it, not for your sake, dear reader, but for mine. I don't want to lose it, so I have to have several copies located in various places, my blog being one of those places. The key to an ooey gooey middle is to NOT overbake them. When the recipe says 13 min., it means 13 min. As we say in our house, "No fat, no sugar, no good!!"

Paula Dean's Molten Lava Cakes

Ingredients
6 (1 ounce) bittersweet chocolate squares
2 (1 ounce) semi-sweet chocolate baking squares
10 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 large eggs
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425°F Grease 6 (6-ounce) custard cups.
2) Melt chocolates and butter in the microwave or in a double boiler. Add flour and sugar to chocolate mixture. Stir in eggs until smooth. Stir in vanilla and Grand Marnier. Divide batter evenly among custard cups.
3) Bake for 14 minutes. Edges should be firm but the center will be runny. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and invert onto dessert plate.
4) Top with vanilla ice cream or raspberry sauce. (Topping optional).
5) Enjoy!

(We leave out the "Grand Marnier," of course.)



Jairin opened 3 of his 5 presents on Friday. This is a picture of excited? ecstatic? evil? Jairin with his favorite and longed for present, a Nintendo DS. Actually, it was so expensive that it is half of Adam's birthday present too. This was Adam's idea, for us to get the boys a Nintendo DS to share. Adam swore he wanted a Nintendo DS so badly that he didn't care if all his other presents were small. So, we let Adam open the accessory pack, 1 1/2 months early. Jairin also received a year's subscription to National Geographic Kids, and a gift card to use towards the purchase of a Nintendo DS game.
Jairin's next party was on his actual birthday. For breakfast he chose toaster strudels. He opened his other two presents before school which were 1) a huge roll of Tobblerone bars (six in all) and a huge package of Japanese gummies, and 2) a two-month subscription to Roblox on the internet as well as unlimited computer time for the day. He took brownies to school to share with his class.

This time he chose Nachos for dinner.







After dinner, he chose to have a giant, macadamia nut, dark chocolate chip cookie. Unfortunately, in order to put 11 candles on his cookie, we had to use several pink candles. Bad Mommy for not thinking ahead. (With so many girls around, it's hard to remember to stock up on blue things too).

His biggest thrill was the phone call from Rob who told him a new Nintendo DS game was in the mail as consolation prize for Daddy not being here for his birthday. Hopefully, he won't wish Daddy away every birthday in the hopes of getting an extra present :-)!!

Caroline

We were singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" for FHE. Kamri bounced Caroline on her knee every time we sang "beam." She loved it!!!

Carmen

The Hawaii Opera Theater chose Kula Elementary as the school with which to do a collaborative opera. A few of the professional actors/actresses/directors performed in the opera Carmen with students from Kula Elementary where Jairin, Miri, Caroline and Aria attend. Miri tried out for a part (Jairin was not interested and did not try out and Aria was too young). Miri was assigned the role of Manwella, a gypsy factory worker. Not only did she get to sing most of the songs, but she was excited to have a small speaking part as well. There were five performances, and so we took turns going to see Miri perform. It was cute because the professional actor/actress who played Don Jose and Carmen were very tall next to the little elementary school children who were playing their fellow soldiers, gypsies and even lovers.

Miri is the haole in the white blouse with the flowered skirt and black necklace.

Miri in front of Don Jose. (left)

Miri listens to Carmen sing. (right)

A couple of the children even sang duets with the professionals. They did very well considering the strong opera voices with whom they were singing. Miri loves to sing, and she really enjoyed participating in Carmen.

Here is Miri belting out her opera :-)!

This is the adoring crowd cheering for the torreadors.
Other than the play being a shortened version of the real opera, there was one other significant difference. Carmen did not die in the end. As Don Jose told Carmen, "Fate can change." I guess the happy G-rated ending was due to the age of most of the performers.

Math Matters

Jairin was picked as one of two fifth graders in Kula Elementary school to participate in Math Matters (it is called Math Counts where I am from). He stayed after school a couple times a week for over a month to practice. The first Saturday in March, he went to Kahului with the three others on his team (1 other -5th grader, 1-4th grader, and 1-3rd grader) and the four alternates to compete against all the other elementary schools on Maui.

The competition involved an individual test as well as a team test. The scores were then added together to determine the winner. There were also three overall winners from the individual test. Jairin did not win one of the top three places, but he was the top scorer in his school, and he had a great time.

+

I only hope that he learned that math really truly does matter!!

St. Patrick's Day

We left our sparkly green St. Patrick's Day hat in the moonlight where leprechauns come out to dance on St. Paddy's Eve. The next morning on St. Patrick's Day, we woke up to find a trail of green shamrocks and charms, but our hat was GONE!! The children followed the trail hoping to find our hat and maybe the leprechaun who stole it. We thought we had found the little leprechaun in purple pajammies.

But it turned out to be ............ little O'Lana.



Boy, that leprechaun is a tricky fellow. He hid our hat well, but when the children finally found it, it was full of gold and green things: green pixy sticks, green M&Ms, golden gummy bears, twix bars, gold hershey's kisses and gold nugget bars.




We haven't caught the leprechaun yet, but when he comes back for his gold, I'm afraid that he won't find a thing.

Adam McBrantley can't keep the hat on his head because it's too full of candy. Kamri O'Leary is green from head to toe -- no pinches for her. But the smile on her face is because she found someone else to pinch.

Jairin's Scouting Activities/Awards

Jairin has enjoyed scouts the past few months since his dad is his Weblos leader. They built a rocket and participated in a rocket derby in January. Jairin's rocket was the fastest rocket there. (We are glad he got to participate in the rocket derby because he unfortunately misses the next pinewood derby since it is the month after his 11th birthday.) I can understand why most troops don't have rocket derbies, though -- those rockets are really temperamental, not to mention all the sore and bleeding fingers from winding the rubber bands 100+ twists before each race.


















In February (25th), Jairin received his Weblos badge and pin at the Blue and Gold Banquet.

And during March, he worked really hard to finish his Arrow of Light before his 11th birthday.

WAY TO GO JAIRIN!!!!