Christian Turns 10!!!

Hard to believe Christian is 10!!! He turned 10 yesterday and we celebrated with a:

• french toast breakfast
• fruit-by-the-foot school celebration where he graced his class with Sonatina by Clementi on Rowan's keyboard :)
• Panda express dinner with Safranski family
• BR cake - rainbow sherbet, white cake and (inexplicably) chocolate icing

Early morning riser. Nothing has changed since his days as a tot.

Battle Bots from Mal & Didi

Birthday Party

Christian asked if he could have his 3 closest friends (Broc, Zachary, Henry) from school over for Fujiyama lunch and playing with homemade bows and arrows. haha. It was a nice time and they ended up 'partying' for 5 hours.

$4 cake from a box with frosting. And delicious!

Fujiyama. Two of the boys had never been so they were really excited. All kids ordered the kids' filet mignon + shirley temples. :)

I made this up for them and it was pretty fun. They were faster than I thought they would be - I thought it would take them some time to find something 'alive' or furry but they were pretty creative.

Broc - backward. I didn't make them do pants.

Neighbors - Britney, Jackie, and Chris Bond!

This was Sunday morning after we went to our school's auction and won this kids' cooking basket. The kids made a strawberry-peach smoothie on their own. They said it was as very good.

First place!

It was an epic day for these boys. They both won first place in their grades in yesterday's chess tournament! Christian actually scored a perfect 5.0. Olin scored a 4.0 (he lost one game). They were beyond excited. 

This was after 4 rounds.

Also after 4 rounds. This list includes second graders and kindergarteners, which is why he looks like he's in 4th place.

Sleepin

Early 10th Celebration and Special Friends Day

Puops came in for an overnighter to celebrate Christian's 10th birthday early and to attend Grandparents and Special Friends Day at Olin's school.

Scrolling down memory lane and looking at photos

Opening gifts. He got the Hulkbuster Lego and "Cut the Wire" game. He goes "how does puo puo always know exactly what I want? She gives the best gifts!" I told him she just knows..... :)

Aki Sushi for dinner

Frost Me Sweet red velvet cupcakes and ice cream!

So excited. 

Special Friends Day at school. Puops and Olin ate a brown bag lunch and then played outside in the 67 degree weather.

Lower elementary teacher Samuel

Flu

The flu, and two other illnesses, has swept through Sagebrush Montessori like wildfire! Olin came down with it this past weekend and he was down and out for 2 days, so we stayed at the condo and did pretty much nothing.

His comments have been sad/dramatic/funny. Like he told Dae "this sickness has changed me. I don't smile as much anymore" and told me he had the worst headache like his head was exploding and "this was the most sick he's ever been" and "he feels like he has been sick forever" even though it had been 24 hours.

Pre-flu on escalator to DTF

Sick Days. Christian benefitted greatly from Olin's sickness with all the iPad and TV time.

To add insult to injury, the poor fellow broke out in full body hives (he was mad that I took a photo so I'm only posting the half body one) two nights in a row. 

Jo nicely brought over a care package once we got home.

When I picked up the kids yesterday Christian said "I have the best news. My nail fell off". This picture was right before the nail fell off. The remnants of old nail were hanging on the tip, attached by the smallest amount of soft tissue. His new nail has a pretty significant ridge right down the middle.

Updates at Home

1) Olin reported that his lettuce in fact died.

2) First day back at work after Hawaii.....and it's a 3 hour snow delay. I honestly think I am cursed. There was not one snow delay the entire time we were gone! So I brought the kids to work for a couple of hours, left work to take them to school and came back to work. They decided to go upstairs this time in the unused office space.

3)  Christian had his first intermediate tennis lesson at CRBC with two of his friends, Henry and AJ. Although he's signed up as an intermediate because the time worked better for us, he is not in fact an intermediate player. Anyway, he caught o

Maui, Day 5

Before I forget, a considerable source of worry for Olin during this trip has been his lettuce at school. Before we left for Hawaii, he told us he had planted a small lettuce seed and it was beginning to sprout and he was very worried because "I won't be at school to water it!".  He has mentioned it so many times (like 5) that I actually considered 1) e-mailing the teacher to have him water it or 2) texting my friend to have their kid who is a classmate water it! But Olin told me I didn't need to do that even though he continues to mention his lettuce daily. He is very excited for us to see it when we come in for conference observations next week. In addition, every time we pass a succulent or small plant here in Hawaii he will say he "really hopes his lettuce reaches that size", or "that's what I want my lettuce to look like!" 

Morning jog, in to Makena (fancy) neighbood. I have jogged every other day. I did 3 miles, then 4 miles, then 5 miles. Today's 5 miles was at a 13 minute mile pace. hahaha! (Wednesday's 4-miler was at a blistering 11:30 pace. :)

Hair

Hair II - looking nice

Lunch at the pool cafe (Volcano cafe). It was good - we ordered lava fries which are these fries with a special sauce on them. We were outside at pool and beach the entire day and my back got burnt unfortunately.

Went to the beach after lunch and kids made 'food' for me. This is Salmon Nigiri. It actually looked kind of like nigiri and I thought the little leaf was a nice esthetic touch.

This is lobster tail.

This is shrimp, complete with eyes

This is cheesecake. Dishes 2 through 4 all looked quite similar :)

Did some lighting effects with my phone. This lighting reminded me of 1950's photos.

Wanted to remember the name of this restaurant - Izakaya Ganbe in Kihei - followed by Maui Pie Company. Dinner was good - the ramen was really good and the place was seemingly full of locals. The pies we ordered: Raspberry Peach (the best one), Strawberry Mango (pretty good), Lilikoi (pretty good - key lime consistency and tartness, but with lilikoi flavor)

Hotel fireworks at 8pm right outside our patio! What a nice surprise end to our trip.