week of 03-17 thru 03-24(spring break春休み)

 一週間半の春休み開幕！　ということで普段なら前の日の残り物弁当で済ませるはずの昼食がちょっと手がかかる。。が、がんばって春らしい一品に。

庭でとれた香菜、ワイメア産紫芋と人参と牛蒡、マウイ産玉ねぎのかき揚げうどん！ 

ベジタリアンなり。そして美味しかった。健康的な幕開けです。

A week and a half long spring break started! What I usually do for lunch is to pack left over dinner for the next day lunch but since everyone is home, I felt like I needed to cook something warm(and spring-ly). This is what I created. I named it "Vegetarian Kakiage Udon". It's made with cilantro from our garden, purple potato&carrots&gobo(burdock) from Waimea, Maui sweet onion. It looked pretty and was tasty. Good healthy start for the break!

  

ショーン一発でコロ無し自転車に乗れるようになる。

（動画がなぜかアップできません。すみません。）

２歳半の時に買ってもらったバランスバイクをマスターして以来、

普通の自転車に乗せてみたことはなかった私たち

ガレージセールで５ドルで手に入れた自転車に乗ってみた彼、

バランスバイクの成果あってか一発でマスター

自閉症の診断のときはバランスがとれてないと言われていたが

７歳でコロ無しマスターした私に言わせれば

これは快挙！なのだが。。親ばかか。。

Sean masted riding his "big boy bike" on his first try.

(sorry, I can't upload the video for some reason!)

His grandma bought him a balance bike when he was two and a half years old and since then, we hadn't tried getting him a new bike until we found $5 bike at a garage sale the other day.

At his autism evaluation, the doctor said that he has an issue with balance 

but for me(who mastered riding on a bike at age 7), I felt like he was doing super.

 

 Our friend at church invited us to go to a beach and they let us use their paddle boats.

We didn't know this pretty beach existed so close to our house.(it only took 20mins drive!)

We had a lot of fun!

教会の友達がビーチに誘ってくれて、パドルボートもかしてくれた。

こんな奇麗なビーチが我が家から２０分のところに存在していたなんて！知らなかった私たち。楽しかった！！

  

 そして次の日は、違う友達にカヤックを借りてまたこのビーチに行ってみた

初めてのオーシャンカヤック。大して遠くまでは行かなかったけど、子供たち二人とも良い子してました。このまま海に浮かばせておこうかと思ったくらい。笑

その行きに道路からクジラ発見！でもしぶきしか映ってない。まだまだダメなカメラさばき。情けない！

Next day, we borrowed a kayak from another friend and went to the same beach. It was the first time for our kids to get on the ocean kayak. We didn't go too far but both boys were pretty good in there. I even got tempted to just let them float on the ocean just to keep them calm! haha On the way to get to the beach, we spotted whales jumping. But as you can see, I only got their splashes.. gees! I need to get better with my camera skill!!

久〜しぶりに（強調）イアンが作ってくれた男の料理

トマトと豆のトルティーヤスープ

美味しかったです

子供たちにはティラノサウルスとステゴザウルスのトルティーヤつき。

ま、飾り付けは私がやったんですけどねー

Ian cooked! yes, he did!! I enjoyed not worrying about cooking for a night.

It was tasty, too. It's tomato, black beans and corns tortilla soup.

Our little dinosaur fanatics got T-Rex and stegosaurus shaped tortillas on the soup!

Well, Ian wasn't girly enough to decorate them.. so I did :)

 Sunday-We had a big change in our ward

Our ward was split into two wards

Even though we have been here for such a short time, it was a bitter and sweet moment for everyone

I personally feel like I don't fit in to a big ward anyways so I am happy with having a smaller ward now.

Anyhow, speaking of our ward, Ian found a you tube video about this boy who comes to our ward that has been helping us to have hope and faith.

I will just copy/paste what Ian wrote on his facebook here.

This is an incredible young boy from our ward here in Waimea. He has stunned and touched us many times because of his humility. He also has given us hope for Sean, that there may be some gifts of his own hiding amisdt his disability. Bravo, Kuha'o!

この人は私たちのワイメア第１ワードの会員の一人です。彼の信仰と謙遜さに私たちは何度も感激させられています。また障害を抱えている我が子ショーンにも隠れた才能があるかもしれないという希望を抱かせてくれる存在です。頑張れ、クハオ！

03-10-13 thru 13-17-13

水曜日と木曜日は去年の夏に広島で会ったママ友が子連れで遊びに来てくれました

水曜日はコナとワイメアと夜のマウナケア星観測、木曜日はヒロと、大忙しの二日間でした

ここワイメアの人気スポット、ハワイアンスタイルカフェにて朝食

噂のハウピアパンケーキの大きさにびっくり

 Wednesday and Thursday, our friend who we met this last summer in Hiroshima came to visit us.

She came with her son so Kyle and I spent some fun time with them when Sean was at school.

We went out to eat at a popular cafe called "Hawaiian Style Cafe" here in Waimea.

We ordered the famous haupia pancakes and was overwhelmed by how BIG they were!

 My friend was lucky. She barely missed the wet days that came after those two days.

It was so cold and I did not want to get outside..but, the boys wanted to keep running.

Here they were in the paddles.

Sunday-We went to church in the morning and after church, my friend's five kids came over to make pizzas with us. 

 

 monster?!

 clover(yes, it was St.Patrick's day!)

 smiley face:)

 Dinosaur

 Whale

 Skeleton with lots of eyes

 Truck!

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!!!