BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Noah's Last Day at Hale Kula Elementary

Noah finished his last day of school at Hale Kula Elementary School on Friday, December 19th. He is really going to miss his friends there, and he is especially going to miss his teacher Mrs. Tomita. This has been a good year for him so far, as she is a great fit for him. He will also really miss his friend and counselor Mr. Matsuura. He has been a great confidant for Noah the past couple years.
















Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Moving Days . . . Fun, Fun, Fun!

Well, the movers have been our house the past two days and will be back again tomorrow to finish off the job. I will be so glad when it is all done. It is quite stressful for me to trust all of our earthly (and mostly replaceable) possessions to the hands of strangers. Not just the strangers that you can be nice to and feed and give beverages and snacks to in hopes that they will pack your things with care, but all of the strangers that will unload the crates off the truck and into a warehouse and then from the warehouse to the shipping yard and onto a boat and then off the boat and then to storage again and then finally to you where you again treat the strangers nicely in hopes that your things will be handled with care. Needless to say, I will just be glad when it is over.









Pictures with Santa ?!?

Well, Noah's school had this cute little event called Breakfast with Santa. We had a nice little breakfast in the cafateria, could make an ornament to take home and then had Santa to have your picture taken with. So, off we went last Saturday morning to get some cute pictures of the kids with Santa.

Let's just say things didn't go like Mommy would have like, but the pictures we did get weren't all too bad. See for yourself!



Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Surf Season

About a week or so ago, Jerry and some of his soldiers took a break from work and spent some "morale-building" time together watching part of the Reef Hawaiian Pro surfing competition, which takes place on the famous North Shore of Oahu and just happens to be only about 20 minutes from our house.
I just recently got a snazzy new camera, so Jerry decided to take it along and see if he could get some good shots. Following are a few of the pics he got. Hope you enjoy!











Monday, November 10, 2008

Noah Makes a Difference!!!

We are so proud of Noah! This past week at his school, he was awarded the Principal's Make a Difference Award. Noah received the award, because he is a kind and helpful young man. He is always the first to help out his classmates or welcome a newcomer to his class. We are so proud of the kind, gentle and caring person he is!

NOAH MAKES A DIFFERENCE!!









Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Haloween!! Motor Cross Racers & Cows . . . Not Ghosts & Goblins

We hope everyone had a fun and safe Haloween!

I am a bit delayed with this post. I intended to get it out over the weekend, but that obviously didn't happen.


Anyway, I thought you might enjoy some pics of our pumpkin carving and the kids in the costumes.


Noah's school had a pumpkin carving event in the cafeteria, so we carved our pumpkins there. Much fun to be had by all.





And didn't the pumpkins turn out great?!?!










Haloween night we went out Trick or Treating with friends around one of the neighborhoods here on post. It is always fun Trick or Treating on post, because you run into all kinds of friends, that is if you can recognize them in their costumes.




Noah's friends Alex, the Ghoul; Tommy, the Clone Trooper; and Reese, the Fairy!






Noah and Paige with their other Momma, Miss Michelle (She's the mustard!) and Chachi. We still like him even though he is a Dolphin's fan. Go Vikings!




Noah was all about getting the candy in his Motor Cross Racer get-up.






Paige on the other hand, was not so happy to be the cutest little cow around!




Monday, October 27, 2008

The Pumpkin Patch

Yes, even Hawaii has a pumpkin patch! Mind you, there is only one on the entire island, but there is a pumpkin patch. It is even complete with the hay ride, a petting zoo, pony rides and small carnival rides. We simply go for the hay ride and the pumpkins.


This past weekend we went down to the pumpkin patch with some friends to pick our pumpkins for carving later this week. Trust me, carving a pumpkin too early in Hawaii leads to a rotten and saggy jack-o-lantern!

I thought I would share a few pics from our trip to the pumpkin patch!

Paige found hers!

Noah couldn't quite decide between a few he had gathered!

Everyone enjoyed the hay ride!

Everyone with their pumpkins!

Front - Thomas, Lizzie & Kimmie / Middle - Reese, Alex, Noah & Josh / Back - Paige & Daddy







Paige vs. The Rice Krispy Treat

Paige is now an independent eater! She eats normal food, and the only indication of her infancy that still remains is her bedtime feeding of Gerber oatmeal cereal and a bottle of Vitamin D milk. She is not too picky, although she does have her preferences.

Over this past weekend, she was sitting in her chair in the kitchen with Daddy, and she was finishing off a box of yogurt covered raisins (one of her favorite snacks). I guess she was looking like she still wanted something more, because Daddy proceeded to give her a rice krispy treat from the pan that Mommy had made earlier in the week.

Left to eat the treat on her own while Daddy did some other things in the kitchen, Daddy discovered the Rice Krispy Treat Attack a few minutes later when he glanced in her direction.

You decide for yourself . . . who won? Paige? or the Rice Krispy Treat?

Monday, October 20, 2008

Sailing!!! and Camping???

Ok, so I haven't blogged in awhile, and I have some pics from two of our most recent adventures to share with you all.

SAILING!!!

Thanks to some of our closest friends here on the island, we were able to experience a really cool day of Hawaiian style fun. On Saturday the 11th, Jerry and Noah and I spent the day out on a catamaran, snorkeling and enjoying fun time with friends. It was a 40th birthday celebration for Mr. Mark. It was truly a fabulous day!

Noah was a bit hesitant at first being out on the boat. He was really unsure of the netted area of the catamaran, but by the end of the day he was more than happy to be out there and quite relaxed at that! ;)

CAMPING???

Well, we were supposed to have been camping this past weekend. It was going to be our last camping adventure with the Ostbergs here on the island, and it turned out to be a bit different than planned/expected.

We got out to our beautiful, beach-front camp sites at dusk on Friday night. After dividing tasks, we conquering the unloading, tent pitching and dinner preparing processes. So we all sat down to quickly eat our not quite as warm as we'd like it, hope you don't get sand in it, but really yummy dinner. Let's just say that fall in Hawaii is best spent in a walled structure and not in a tent next to the ocean where the wind and waves are quite overwhelming.

After a long, fairly sleepless night of wind, very loud crashing waves and intermitent rain, we woke bright and early to decide that either a cabin or packing it in was in order. So, we packed it up and headed to the registration office praying that a cabin was open and that all of our planning and preparation was not for one miserable night.


Yeah! They had a cabin available. So, we made the most of it. Our camping at the beach turned into a movie and cards in a teeny tiny cabin. We slept 9 in the cabin and I think for the most part it was comfortably. We did manage to spend some time outside, but none of us was brave enough to get in the water. Overall, it was a fun weekend with friends though! And isn't that what really matters?!?


Sunday, October 5, 2008

A Hike High in the Mountains of Oahu and a Few Caches!

Well, we decided to get out last weekend and have a day of one of our newest favorite family hobbies. We went geocaching! For those of you that don't know what it is, check out the link below or go to http://www.geocaching.com/. It is a high-tech treasure hunt using a hand-held GPS. You go out and find hidden caches that have been placed by other cachers. You would be surprised to find that there are thousands of them around the world and probably hundreds right in your area. Check it out! We love it! It gets us out to areas of the island, we would probably never go otherwise. It is great!

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site


Anyway, we took off late on Sunday morning and headed up to a park that is located near the top of one of the mountain ranges in the central part of the island.


We had packed a lunch, so we sat and ate in the park first. Then Jerry strapped on the baby backpack and I grabbed the caching pack and off we went. The trail we hiked was about a 5 mile loop. It was covered by the roots of the trees surrounding it, but it made for some good traction at times.

The trail weaved back and forth through the beautiful tropical jungle and there were many beautiful sites along the way.

Noah brought his friend, Alex, and the two boys did a great job of helping us find the caches as well as completing the whole hike. This was one of the caches that we found.

All in all, it was a great afternoon with a good bit of exercise, some beautiful views and 7 caches added to our tally.



Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Soccer, Camping, A Surprise & Yeah Paige Turns 1 Year Old

What a busy weekend / start of the week we had!

We started the weekend off by finishing up Noah's soccer season with his last soccer game. They stomped the Wall-Es by 3 to ZIP. What a great way to end the season! Noah continued to develop his skills this year, and did a great job on the field. Hopefully he will continue to enjoy sports!

After Noah's game on Saturday morning, we packed up our camping stuff and headed over to the other side of the island (Where else are you going to go when you are surrounded by water?) and set out to camping for the rest of the weekend. We enjoyed some great fun with friends on the beach and in the water. Yes, that is the ocean right behind our tents! Ahh! How wonderful!



And the sunrise on Sunday morning was beautiful!


As if the sunrise wasn't enough, Grandma Pauline showed up to surprise us! Well, surprise some of us! Jerry helped her plan the surprise so she could be here for Paige's first birthday!


And of course, the most important thing that has happened recently is that our baby girl turned 1 year old! Oh My Gosh, where did the year go? We had cake and icecream with some friends over last night, and unlike her brother, she was more than happy to dig into her cake. It was a fun time watching her enjoy the yummy cake!



SHE'S 1 YEAR OLD!! Now Paige has finally reached a real age and we are so excited to see how much she changes and grows over the next year!