The Pumpkin Patch

Donovan and I went on an adventure all of our own this time. Well, we went with some friends, but no other brothers, no Dad, and no baby sister. Just Donovan and Mom. The spouses club has a keiki group (that's Hawaiian for kid/child) that gets together once a month. This month being October, they decided on a group trip to a pumpkin patch. We went to Aloun Farms.

For a pumpkin patch adventure, it wasn't that great. But Donovan didn't know any different, and he had a great time. The farm opened up for our group. They are usually only open on the weekends. Because of this, none of the "attractions" were open. Normally there is a petting zoo and pony rides and a tent where to cook food from the farm.

For our group, we started with an educational class about the farm and what they grew there. They grow onions, pumpkins, corn, apple bananas, cantaloupe, and watermelon. Maybe more, I can't remember. It's a family run farm, so that' pretty cool. They next gave us a demonstration on how to pick a pumpkin. They invited the kids up to try. Donovan liked the bumpy gourd the best.

Next we got to go on a hay ride. The tractor drove us around the farm and showed us all the different foods they were growing. I learned something new. It's not a banana tree. It's a plant! And, it only produces fruit one time. After they harvest the fruit, they cut the plant down to make room for the next one. And, it takes a year for the plant to get big and start producing it's fruit. Who knew? Not me!

After the hay ride, we got to go into the field and pick out a pumpkin. We got to pick one big one, or four small gourds. At first Donovan wanted the four small ones, but he ended up switching to one large one. Here are our pumpkins!

As part of the group tour we did, we were able to purchase a bag of produce for $10. It was a great deal, so I bought it. It came with 6 ears of corn, 2 eggplant, 2 zucchini, a bag of green beans, and a watermelon. I made a casserole dish with the eggplant and zucchini for dinner. Yum! 

Here is Donovan being his goofy self while I take a picture of him.

After the pumpkin patch, we had lunch at Subway and then Donovan got a new haircut. Fun day!!

The beach

We did it!! After 4 months of living in Hawaii, we finally made it to the beach as a family. About time! I got a few pictures on the phone, I'll have to get them uploaded later. We went out to Ewa Beach. Kyron and Porter brought their boogie boards. David hung out with Jocelyn while I went to teach Kyron and Porter how to boogie board. Kyron started to get the hang of it, but Porter still needs a bit of practice. We took Jocelyn into the ocean. She didn't care for it too much. I ended up just sitting on the sand with her in my lap while the waves lapped up on us. She was okay with that, but still a bit nervous. Donovan never got into the water. He was happy to play on the sand. David got in for a little bit, but the sand was way too rocky for him. We wont be going to that beach again. Just as we were about ready to leave, the gray clouds started rolling in. Perfect timing!

The greatest adventure ever!

We sat around the house late this afternoon, and we weren't sure still what we were going to do for our family fun day. Somehow the topic veered toward flying a plane, and how young you could be to get a pilots license. So we started googling. Then we found information about gliders. David thought they were pretty cool, and there was a place not too far away were you could take lessons at. We decided to head over there and look at the gliders and talk to the people there and see what the cost and time commitment was to getting a gliding license.

We headed down and met with Mr. Bill. Right after we got there, there was a glider that was landing. So cool! I wandered down the field with the boys to look at some more of the gliders. When we got back, David let us know he talked to Mr. Bill, and we were all going to go up for a ride!

First up was Kyron and David.

Woo-hoo! Getting ready to take off.

We fly though the air with the greatest of ease!

View out the canopy of the runway and ocean

Look at that long wing!

 When they got off the glider, they both had big grins on their face. Kyron said it was, "Awesome!".

The next flight caused a bit of contention, as both Porter and Donovan wanted to go next. In the end, I went up with Donovan next.

It's a very tight fit, even with just me and little Donovan.

Getting ready to take off

Look how high we are Mommy!

Donovan was convinced that we could control the glider. There were my two controllerss. One for over the ocean, and one for over the land.

This was Donovan's controller. He flew the glider almost the whole flight.

Yay!!! This is so much fun!

View of the ocean and Haleiwa.

 Donovan talked the entire time we were in the glider. He just wouldn't stop. He thought it was a lot of fun, but as you can see, he couldn't see out of the canopy very well, so most of his focus was all on what was on the inside of the glider. He said his favorite part was  flying the plane and talking to the other pilot, Captain Mike. I thought it was cute that he thought the pilot was a Captain.

It was a little different than I expected. I was expecting a lot of calm floating and silence. It was louder than I expected. We did do a lot of floating, and a few little dips and raises. We circled around the area where they get lift, and we were able to go up a lot higher. This was an experience I would never forget!

Next up was Porter. Because David has flown in an F-16 before, he told me that I could take the last flight with Porter. But, when we got to their turn, the pilot said he could take "both boys". David and I agreed, and Kyron got to take a second flight with Porter.

Tipping the glider back towards the ground in preparation to being towed in the air.

Look at us go!!

View of the mountains and farms.

I was a little worried that Porter would freak out. But he had a great time! Kyron said that it was the best thing that he's ever done! Porter thought it was "cool". When we were all done, we were given "Survival cards" (essentially business cards), and "we did it" buttons.

Overprotective Mom holding onto all the kids while they're sitting 2 feet up off the ground. Ha!

Hang loose!!!

Catch up

Time to play catch up.

We were supposed to go to the zoo, but we just ran out of time. Instead, we went back to the Dole Plantation and did the maze. I forgot to take any pictures, though. It was a lot of fun. At first we just wandered through the maze allowing each boy to take a turn picking with way to go as we came to a junction. It was fun, but I could see that we all were feeling quite warm. So I took over. I had the map, and knew which way to go. We continued through the maze and completed it in 1 hour and 1 minute. We were certainly hot by them! We went inside the store and bought some fresh cut pineapple and two Dole Whips to share. Still just as wonderful as the last time!

It wasn't a family outing, but earlier this week, me and the kids had a little adventure. The boys all needed new slippers (what they call flip flops in Hawaii), so we stopped by Payless. I was also looking for Jocelyn's first pair of "starting to walk" shoes. Instead of slippers, I found some good sandals for each boy (they ended up picking out the same ones). For Jocelyn, we found some great first walker shoes that were black with pink accents. However, they didn't have her size. They called some other stores and found one that had them in the size we needed. Payless has this great program, that if they don't have the size you need, they give you a coupon for $4 off your next purchase. The shoes were on sale for $7, so they were only going to cost $3. Good deal! But even better, when we bought the shoes at the other store, I was given a 10% military discount on top of it. $2.41 for her new shoes. Yay!!

When we got to the mall, we discovered there was a sky tram between two parts of the mall. We found the way to get on, as Payless was in the other section. They were very excited! It cost $1 per person, but keiki (children) 8 and under were free, so I just had to pay for me and Kyron. It wasn't a big exciting thing to do, but the boys thought it was great fun.

To continue the adventure a little, we went to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor and had lunch then shared a banana split.

Kukaniloko Birthing Stones and much more

Todays' adventure started with a very local and close historic site. It was actually the first recognized historical landmark in Oahu, and it was right down the road from us. The Kukaniloko Birthing Stones are a very sacred location to the Hawaiian people. This is where the royalties would come to give birth to the future kings.

I printed out a report on the location and read it to the boys while we were there. It was a very neat experience.

After this, David decided that Jocelyn needed a baby doll, so we headed to Toys R Us. While we were walking around, David made the realization that with all the money we had made during our hotel stay, we hadn't gotten the boys anything. He concluded that they could each have $50 to buy whatever they wanted. What fun! A Toys R Us shopping spree!!!! So many things to chose from! In the end, Jocelyn got two baby dolls, and a ring stacker toy. Donovan got a new set of wooden train tracks, some new trains, and a little kid version of beyblades. Porter and Kyron went together to buy a beyblade stadium, then they each got a two pack of beyblades. Porter also got a three pack of little transformers. David told Kyron that if he didn't use all his money, that he could have it to save it for something else. After a few days, he decided that he needed to earn $3 to put it together to buy a computer game. The chore he did for that $3 was to clean the car. I'd say that was a good deal for me!

We were right by a Sears, so we stopped in so that I could look for some new workout clothes. I found some great stuff on clearance. Yay! David looked at the tools, but didn't find what he was looking for.

Next we headed to a running store to get David a new GPS watch. As we were looking for the store, we noticed a road that lead to a bridge over the ocean. Intrigued, we turned back around after getting the watch to go explore it. Turns out it was the bridge to Ford Island, a Naval base. Yay for being military and getting to go there to explore! We drove around and took in the sights, and then saw a sign saying the Utah Memorial was up ahead. We decided to stop and take a look.

The boys found it fascinating to see the sunken ship, and realize that people had died there and were, in fact, still in the ship.

It was getting late, and dinner time, so we stopped by the shoppette to get a little something for our drive home. It was a long day, as we kept discovering more things to do. But it was a lot of fun!

The Children's Discover Center

David only had 2 more days of his 10 days off of work for moving into our house, so finally, we made an effort to have a play day. We decided to go to the Children's Discover Center. We briefly discussed getting a year membership, but decide we should probably go play there first and see if we thought we would go back. The kids had fun, and they might want to go again, but I can't see spending $300 for it. It cost us $40 to all get in with the military discount. That would mean we would have to go 9 more times to make it worth it. I just don't see that happening.

We started in the Rain Forrest room. It was a new exhibit, and it closed an hour before the center closed, so we thought we should do that first. There was this whole water table/mountain set up thing that the kids got to play with, and half of the room was dedicated to under 3 year olds. So Jocelyn and I went in there. She wasn't very interested in doing anything. I think she was still tired from her nap on the way there.

Jocelyn in the Rain Forrest Room

After that, all the areas were all together, so the kids just took off playing.

Donovan brushes some teeth

Donovan writing on a giant glow board

Kyron and Porter listening to the heart beat of different animals

Porter attempting to navigate in a wheelchair

Now it's Kyron's turn to try!

Jocelyn and Daddy looking in a mirror

Donovan compares his feet to Phylicia Rashad

Judge Porter demands "Order in the Court!"

Donovan drives a car around town

Donovan learns about eye protection while playing baseball. He didn't learn the lesson that well, as he didn't wear the eye protection or the helmet!

Porter learned the lesson a bit better. He at least put the helmet on!

Jocelyn found the Crawler Pool! Ahh, a place just for crawling babies. No walkers allowed!

Kyron, Porter, and Donovan dance on stage

Awesome wooden train. All aboard!!

It was now lunch time, and the Discover Center was closing. Where to eat?! Why, The Cheesecake Factory of course! Yum!

Jocelyn got a plate of bread slices and banana slices. She was so happy!

They brought Porter and Donovan a bread and banana plate as well. Kyron just ate bread from the basket

Donovan is still a little sick, and so he's been taking a lot of naps. He seems to think this is an appropriate time to nap.

Porter got a club sandwich. It was huge!

Jocelyn enjoyed some of Daddy's asparagus

Kyron got the LUNCH SIZED Caesar salad and cheese pizza. That's a lot of food!!!

Donovan also got a cheese pizza. I got a chicken chipotle pasta. Yum! And David got the filet mignon. Needless to say, we had leftovers for dinner that night! And, being as how this was the Cheesecake Factory, we couldn't leave without getting some cheesecake. Kyron and Porter shared a Snicker's one, and between me, David and Donovan, we had a Chocolate cake cheesecake and a lemon raspberry cake cheesecake.

After lunch, the day turned into "Mommy's Day". There was an Apple store just down the street, so we went to talk about setting up our Time Capsule that we just bought correctly. Also, a few weeks ago, I pulled my iPhone out of my purse only to discover that a Hershey's Kiss had melted in it. So my phone and headphone port were covered in chocolate. Ever since then, my speakerphone and microphone wouldn't work. So I was hoping they could clean it and maybe get it working again. I was able to get an appointment with someone right then. But she couldn't fix it, and determined that the issue had nothing to do with the chocolate. Yay! We walked away, quite some time later, with a new iPhone for me, all under warranty, for free! We had to do an update to my cloud, and then restore it all onto my new phone, and it was taking a long time. So David stayed in the store and I walked a little ways down to the Sephora store to check out the make up. I got my eyes and lips done, and David bought me what the lady suggested. It turns out not to be the best look for my eyes. But it was a pallet with other colors that I think will work well. I like the lipstick color, though. I also got some new brushes. I have some really good ones, but I haven't seen them in years, so there's no telling what happened to them. Now I need to find some eyeliner and mascara. But I'm more than happy to get something from Walgreens for that.

We got home and it was already time for dinner. So we reheated our lunch. It was still good!