03-03-12 thru 03-10-12

Here is the picture of rainbow eye that I mentioned last week's post.
We received a big package full of goodies from my parents and there he was munching his favorite Japanese snacks and was in heaven :)

私の家族から届いた小包に大好きなスナックや本を見つけ、天国にいる彼。
そうです。先週投稿したあのレインボーアイ、よく見えるでしょう？

 お友達の誕生日に作ったチョコレート／チェリーケーキ
Baked a birthday cake for my dear friend. I was in hurry so I cheated by using chocolate cake mix.. but hey, it looks pretty good, don't you think?! I'm in love with COSTCO's organic frozen cherries. Those of you who haven't tried them, try them! Those are great.

 Tuesday, I had a doctor's appointment for Sean in Kealakekua(south of Kona) where it took us about 1.5hrs drive from where we live. There are limited resources here in this island so wherever anyone recommend for autism therapies, I need to go and check them out. I took both boys this day and knew it would drive me nuts. So, I decided to make it as a day trip with them and tried to have fun.
火曜日、ショーンの自閉症のお医者さんに会いにケアラケクア（コナからさらに南）まで一時間半かけて子供たちと行ってきました。ここは島だからあまり沢山の選択肢がない分、勧められたらどこへでも行ってみている。子供たちを連れての旅は大変になるのは分かっていた分、この際一日旅行ってことにして楽しもう！と、がんばってみたワタシでした。

 After the doctor's visit, we stopped by at a nice big park called "Kamakana Playground".

 whale riders!

We went doctor-park-COSTCO(yes, we had to!)-beach all in one day!
I fell asleep so quickly that night.

 Wednesday, our family friend took us to a nice dinner at Kahua ranch where they had entertaining musics and talks while we had dinner. One of the highlights was that they had a big pig coming in to our dining to dance with us. The kids had a lot of fun. This photo didn't capture the pig too well... but oh well, it was fun.

 Friday, Sean wanted to go to school being a dinosaur. And there he was riding his balance bike with his dinosaur outfit in the front and backpack on his back. It totally looked ridiculous but for sure he got everybody's attention at school!

 My first tres leches with blue berries!! yum!

 Saturday, we drove down to Pauilo to visit our friend who owns a huge land full of fruits and macadamia nuts trees. There we got some bananas and coconuts. On the way back, we stopped by at a state park called Kalopa state park. We randomly found Ian's favorite fruit on the way in.
土曜日、パウイロというところにフルーツやマカダミアナッツの農園を持っている知り合いのところへ行ってバナナやヤシの実を頂いた。そしてその帰りにカロパ州立公園へ寄ってみることに。行きに偶然イアンの大好きな果物の木を発見！

 Here they were! "loquat"
そうです。ビワの実。小振りだけど味はちゃんとビワでした！

 シダ植物って不思議ですね。ゼンマイの部分が大きい！

 found a wild boy.
野生児発見

 the coconut that our friend gave us. Sean loooved the juice. It was very sweet.
The meat was good, too!
頂いたヤシの実。ジュースが甘くて美味しかったから、ショーンは吸い付いて放しませんでした。笑　果肉も美味しかった。

 Sunday, we visited our friends' house for dinner. They are from Morocco and the food was very tasty.
The wife is a great cook and makes tagine chicken so well! I'm looking forward to learn it from her!
日曜はお友達のお家で夕飯。モロッコから来ている夫婦で奥さんは料理上手。タジーン鍋でつくるチキンがとっても美味しかったので、作り方を教えてもらうの楽しみにしています〜

week of 02-24 thru 03-03

 I need to say that I am very happy that last week was OVER!!!
It was very stressful week.
Monday-went to our friend's house for dinner since they wanted to clean up their freezer full of fish they caught a while ago. we were all happy going there and were having a wonderful time with them. After the dinner, Kyle came to my lap and sitting there. I noticed that he was eating some of my left over on my plate(I know, he is like a dog!) so I told him to spit it out and not to do it. But it was too late. He ate fish bones and started to scream!! Ian who was sitting right in front of me was trying to get the bone out by putting his finger in Kyle's throat but nothing worked. He threw up everything he ate with some blood. We decided to take him to ER. It took good four hours for him to finally get home from the hospital. They took x-ray and couldn't see anything so they didn't do anything.. He would wake up once in a while screaming and not taking any liquid so I couldn't sleep. I went online and searched EVERYWHERE!
And here is the thing that I found that worked.
Have him drink vinegar. yes. VINEGAR.
In the morning, he wanted to eat some rice but was hurting so much that he couldn't eat.
I gave him vinegar. Lo and behold, he started asking for more rice and juice and all kind of things to eat.
He was fine after all!!!!!   It was stressful enough to have your child go thru this kind of incident and on top of it, I had another person in my house to scourge me for this. I was in wreck. I know a lot of it was my fault but it just simply happens. Hope it counts that at least I learned the trick and the prevention..


Tuesday afternoon(a few hours after the fish bone incident)
Sean was in the bathroom for his #2 and didn't let me come in. So I was waiting in the kitchen getting dinner ready. He came out of bathroom holding/chewing his fluoride tablets like candies!!! He is supposed to take one per day but I counted that he ate 13 of them!!!!! I quickly called poison control(one of those things I've learned to have this number handy, right?) and found out that it was a safe dosage. But the lady on the phone was super rude to me because I speak English with accent. She treated me like a stupid person(well, maybe I just felt like it since I was called stupid the day before..) and she said that if he ever threw up, then we should take him to ER.
Sure enough, he threw up. But my husband told me that he is not taking his kids to ER two days in a row!
I re-think about it and felt that Sean should be alright since his body rejected the pills and most of it must have come out. We didn't take him in to ER this time. heewwwwww
OK, I didn't store the pills within his reach. I stored it in a high up medicine cabinet with its door shut and the container had a child proof lid on it!! I can't believe what this kid can do..

Saturday
Kyle was taking a nap and Sean was watching a DVD.
Ian and I had to talk for a little bit outside the door and I heard a baby screaming.
It was Kyle..with a huge bruise in his eye lid.
He said "Sean hit me".
It was horrible enough that I'm calling it "rainbow eye" in stead of "black eye"

After all these crazy incidents, they survive..
I feel like a failure but at the same time, these boys need to learn their boundaries!!!!
Anyone has any suggestions?

week of 02-17 thru 02-24

 It's been really wet and cold here in Waimea.
I know I shouldn't complain about it since we can still drive down to beach and have nice weather but I just don't like being super cold in our house!! (for those of you who are wondering why I say I'm feeling cold in Hawaii- we live 2500ft above sea level, on the bottom of Mt.Mauna Kea which is covered with snow now!)
最近ここワイメアはとても寒くて雨が多いです。
少し運転したらビーチに快晴！という恵まれたところにいるのだから文句は言えないはずなのですが、ただ家の中にいるのに寒いのが嫌いな私。（ちなみに、なんでハワイなのに寒いの？と思っていらっしゃる方、ここは標高約８００メートル、世界一（水面から数えたら）高いマウナケア山の麓にあります。そして今頂上は雪で覆われている〜サブッ）


So, we've been working on some projects and the kids have been stuck in the house with their dinosaurs, dvds etc. I do have to admit that I've been a bad mom to let the dvds babysit my children!

ということで私たちは家に閉じこもることが多く、色んなプロジェクトをしてみました。子供たちは恐竜。DVDなどなど。。ただ正直な告白をさせてもらいますと、私、母親失格です。ついつい子供たちの守りをDVDに任せてしまっています。

Here is Ian's gundam figure.

 a healthy Japanese/Korean meal. I just bought a bag of 12grain mixed rice to add to our white&brown rice. It gave a nice pink color to it and got some nice texture to our "normal" rice.

 Speaking of healthy meal.. This guy found a jar full of m&m's that I accidentally left in his room right before he fell a sleep for his nap. It seems like that he ate a whole bunch and happily fell asleep and still holding the jar making sure no one else takes it! So Kyle. He is obsessed with food!!!

 The boys and the baby sitter(dvd). Look how well they behave!

 Ian's been a wonderful gardener planting some veggies and herbs in our little back yard space.

 my knitting project for Kyle. I've been wanting to buy a cute sweater from my favorite kids brands like GAP etc.. but can never afford them! So I knitted it. Almost done. cost $3.50 for the yarn! really, that's it!!!

week of 02-10 thru 02-17

 Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, everyone!

This week's post again starts with our mischievous child's photo.

Neither Ian and I remember taking a photo like this with our devices..

So, yes, this is really a suspicious photo of someone who took his own.

今週も彼の写真で幕開けです

イアンもワタシもこんな写真撮った覚えない

ということで、犯人、バレバレ

少しは隠れろよー

I wonder what he might have dreamed of..

何の夢を見たのやら。。

 Valentine's "bento(lunch box)" for Sean

日本の凝ったキャラ弁に比べ物にならないくらい

地味ですが。。気持ちだけ。。

Sean and I made this tissue pouch for his teachers and aids in his classroom

. I got the idea form Martha Stuart:)

Both boys helped baking the cookies with me. And look closer.. Sean is on the tag! Again, this cute idea is from Martha Stuart. Thanks for her website! I'm loving it!

ショーンの学校の先生やお世話になっている人たちにギフトを作りました。こっちで有名なマーサ スチュア—トさんのアイディアから色々作ってみました。ショーンはティッシュカバーのボタン付け（ホットグルーで）坊主二人でクッキーの上にチョコ乗せ、手伝ってもらいました。まあ、ほぼワタシがしたんですけどね。はい

 EVERYONE here is getting sick except my family(yet).

I quickly went to a store here to get an echnicea herbal tea and made a tea called "flu fighting tea".

Well, I named it.. haha

If you want to try it, here is the recipe I created,

ingredients -2 large ginger roots peeled and chopped

-water

-honey

-2 echnicea tea bags

In a pot, add ginger and water and bring them to boil

simmer for at least 10mins

add honey till it reaches the sweetness you'd like

drop tea bags and put the lid on for another 10mins

DONE!

Have a nice week!

 

week of 02-03 thru 02-10

This week was very.. interesting.(let me just put it that way)
See this picture of Kyle, it shows you how this week was for him meaning for me as well.

 

Wednesday: Morning-both boys had an appointment to check their growth.

A lady who checked Kyle's growth chart asked " Are you feeding him junk?"

I said "WHAT?! you mean junk food? NO!" 

The reason why she asked that ridiculous question was that Kyle gained 5lb in 4months, which was a lot for his age. Well, I guess he is hitting his growth spurt. 

Speaking of food, these are some of the things I cooked this week.

Ika-Meshi (stuffed squid)作ってみたかったけどなかなかできてなかった一品！

やっとできたー

Miso soup, fried rice, homemade dumplings and kim-chee

vegetarian tomato and veggie stew, basil artichoke pizza and fish roe spaghetti.

Ok, so Wednesday, appointment went wild just because I had two of my monsters on me and they fought for the whole entire 1.5hrs appointment. Never again!

Come home and Kyle peed on the floor.

While I was cleaning that up, he spilled a jar candle's melted was on countertop. (yes, he CLIMBED up! such a waste of energy!!)

Sean come home from school and broke a ball pointed pen and the ink splashed all over our favorite leather couch and himself. By the time I noticed, I could see his foot steps and finger prints all over the place! I quickly washed Sean in the bath tub but as I was doing it, I got the ink all over my cloth! Taaaaaaa!!!! I was about to kill myself that day.

Saturday, Ian had to go for a training for the whole day. Kyle woke up screaming around 4a.m. and he was loud enough that it woke all of us up. Sean who can't go back to sleep once he is up stayed up since then. What can you think of doing on early Saturday morning? garage sale! 

I drugged them in the car and drove to a couple of different garage sales. I got them some toys for 10 cent each. I think that was my best investment for that day.

Sean with his new toys: blow-up dino and transformer.

took them to walk(or run)) with their new toys. there was no better solution than this for the crazy kids!

Kyle got a fire man hat and a transformer.

They didn't take any nap at home so I drove them around to make them fall asleep. And here they were!

week of 01-28 thru 02-03

 Ian came back to life after having a debilitating 24hrs flu on Monday.

月曜日、イアンが魔の２４時間の病から復帰

I was hoping that no one else would get it..

他の人に移らないといいけど。。と思っていた矢先

Tuesday, I got it and was dead for 24hrs.

火曜日、私に移って２４時間死にました

Watch out everyone, it's really contagious!

Saturday, we went to a big festival here called "cherry blossom festival".

It was a Hawaiian version of a Japanese traditional festival.

We went there with our friends who dressed up in their "yukata".

They were very cute!

The picture below is "mochi tsuki(rice cake pounding)".

It's always interesting for me as a Japanese to find some random Japanese traditional things being carried over to later generations here in Hawaii.

土曜日、ここワイメアで”桜祭り”と呼ばれる大きなお祭りがありました。

ここの日本人のお友達と一緒に行きました。浴衣姿、かわいかったです。

日本のお祭りなのですが、やっぱりハワイの文化が混じっていて、

どっちかというと日系のお祭り？！でした。

下の写真は餅つきの写真。

ここハワイに来て、とってもランダムに日本の文化が受け継がれているのを見て、面白いなあ、とちょっと微笑んでしまう私。

餅つきが見れるとは思いませんでした。

 

week of 01-21 thru 01-28

 I have a friend who sends out their updated email every Sunday night.

That made me realize how rarely I get to talk to my parents nowadays.

I'm such a slacker that I'm so bad at keeping the blog updated regularly..

But I will try this year to be better with this.

I promise!

OK, this week, I went to "PECS trainings" on the 22nd and 23rd.

PECS is a way to communicate with children who are non-verbal using pictures.

I've known this method but didn't know exactly how to use them.

A guy who invented this method came from Baltimore and trained all the teachers in Bid Island.

I was invited to join them as a parent and I learned a lot.

Friday, we all went to Kona Temple where the kids had childcare by our ward member family so Ian and I got to go there by ourselves.  We were able to sit together and pray/meditate. Had a wonderful time.

Saturday, we went to few garage sales and spend half of the day at a beach called "A-Bay".

This beach's ocean has a pretty light greenish blueish color. I love the contrast of that color and the black lava color. Beautiful. 

At night, we went to our friends' house for dinner. We all had a great day.

Today, Ian got sick. He had nausea, chill and fever! 

Hope he gets well soon.

おじいさん訪問 Papa's visit

Ian's dad is teaching in "semester at sea" this year again.

He is going around the world which I am very jealous with!

His ship ported in Hilo for two days so we had him over to our place.

It was a lot of fun (you can see in the boys' faces)

It was too bad that we had to concentrate everything in two days!

Hope he could come stay with us longer next time.

Have a nice trip, papa!