Gallop Pony

Here's a little video clip of Sophie's First Piano Recital Ever last Saturday. The piano music, "Gallop Pony," and "Tambourine Party," is from Faber and Faber's piano method. Sophie's long red dress, complete with rhinestones all over the bodice and skirt, is from Ross. The occasional blinding flashes from the audience are, of course, from Ryan (using the new camera lens that Darcy brought him from New York).

When Darcy and Cris Came to Town

No, that's not them. That's a crab we saw while at Turtle Bay with Darcy and Cris, our former housemates, best friends, and Sophie and Daniel's godparents. They were in town for a whole week - Darcy was on his way back from a missions conference in Thailand and Cris on the second leg of a vacation that started in Seattle. We took them everywhere . . . and fed them everything. We're all on a diet now. (We didn't see any turtles at Turtle Bay - that's what the crab is doing here. He's a placeholder.)

On Friday, we hiked the Makapu'u trail, on the southern Windward Coast. (It's name reminds me of "maka pia pia," the Hawaiian word for eye boogers.) Sophie was having a great hair day.

The view from the top.

Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's Market at Kapiolani Community College. Daniel got a strawberry mochi. You can't tell from his face, but he liked it.

Saturday night we went to see DeShannon play with his band, Bop Tribal, at the Dragon Upstairs in Chinatown.

The next morning, Darcy preached at our church. He doesn't look like a man who'd been out partying past midnight, does he?


On Tuesday, Ryan fulfilled his longtime ambition when we ate at a famous North Shore Shrimp Truck. We waited almost an hour for heaping plates of freshly-caught jumbo shrimp scampi, served with rice and mango-pineapple and coconut smoothies.

Because we hadn't had enough for lunch: dessert at the historic Matsumoto's shave ice stand on the North Shore. The passion fruit shave ice with a scoop of ice cream on the bottom was the best: tart and not too sweet. Sophie had a combination of bubble gum, cotton candy, root beer and coconut cream flavors. Sound disgusting? It was.

That's it for this round of photos! We have more that we'll put in a later post. We hope you can visit us soon, too!

Bingeing on Birthdays

With Aunty Cris and Uncle Darcy in town, Sophie had a week solid of birthday celebrations and birthday treats. Birthday Party No. 1: The Old Spaghetti Factory. Sophie slurping up her Super Refined Sugar Bomb Oreo Shake (or something like that). Definitely a once-a-year treat.

Sophie with her brother on her actual birthday morning. The pink fuzzy pillow is a gift from Mom and Dad. I think the two of them look especially happa (half Asian, half haole) in this picture. But maybe that's just because of the thing Daniel's doing with his eyes.

That afternoon, we met Aunty Jan and Uncle Ron at Waikiki for a birthday picnic (Birthday No. 2) We had malasadas from Leonard's (Portuguese) bakery, in honor of the Caires. Right after the beach, Cris and Mom took Sophie to a Honolulu Youth Theater production of A Midsummer's Night Dream. It was a shortened, kid-friendly version, generally faithful to the original, except for a bizzare interlude called, "Halibut: The Fish of Denmark," in which the only things rotten were the puns.

Tuesday night, DeShannon took us to Tanaka's, a very yummy Japanese restaurant, for yet another celebration. Who's the birthday girl, and who's the queen?

Besides the parties and goodies already mentioned, Sophie also had a brownie and pink buttercream frosting cake with our fellowship group on Friday night, cupcakes with the children's choir on Sunday, then more cupcakes with her class on Monday. And that's not counting the two trips to Yogurt Land (a place where you can buy self-serve frozen yogurt and toppings by the pound) on Tuesday and Wednesday, shave ice from Matsumoto's the following Tuesday, Japanese sweet potato and haupia pie on Wednesday afternoon . . .

Did I mention that we're all on diets?

Fun in On-oh-lu-lu

This week's blog title is in honor of Silas Wade, who brought parents Brad and Angela and his sister Violet to visit us this past week. For a nearly two-year old, he did an excellent job of pronouncing his vacation destination. While in beautiful Hawaii, his favorite outfit was not his swimsuit, but Daniel's Sesame Street bicycle helmet, worn backwards and with not much else.

The gang on the Pineapple Express at the Dole Plantation.

Daniel, Sophie and Violet with a genuine Dole pineapple. One pineapple per plant, and some of the varieties are pink!

Brad and Silas by the coi pond at the Dole Plantation. The pond was literally seething with coi. The kids got to feed them, and the little suckers are so aggressive that they flop on top of each other in huge piles to compete for food pellets.


One of several North Shore beaches where turtles come on shore to warm themselves in the sun. This one made several attempts to land, but found the surf too rough and turned back out to sea.


Sophie and Violet at the Old Spaghetti Factory. They were "twins" that day and "sisters" for the week.

Violet and Silas at Waikiki

Did we keep them busy, or what?