Happy New Year!

This year we are missing out on the fun and craziness that is New Year's Eve on Oahu.

Instead, we are in northern CA and took the kids up to see the snow. Heading to the snow was right up there with Christmas on our boy's list of things to look forward to this month. We begged and borrowed and got everyone in the family outfitted for winter and headed up to the mountains.

We had planned to find a nice spot not too far off the road to play in the snow, but my uncle offered to take us all out in his snowcat which was quite the adventure. Definitely not your typical day of playing in the snow.

We took turns riding in the snowcat, riding on top of the snowcat and riding on his snowmobile. The first time we stopped to play in the snow our boy plopped himself on the snow and made a snow angel. This is the first snow experience he is old enough to remember so I asked him how he knew how to do that and he said, "I don't know. I guess I saw it in a book."

Wishing you peace and joy in 2010. Happy New Year!

The Reason for the Season

A live nativity seemed like the perfect way to finish off our holiday events, and we went to one at Faith Baptist Church in Kailua the weekend before Christmas. It was complete with live animals, Christmas carols and even some hula.

Merry Christmas to each of you!

Catching Snowflakes in Hawaii

We went to Windward Mall last week to hear a musical performance and see the snowing Christmas tree.

At the beginning of every hour the tree "snows" for 15 minutes. The "snow" looks exactly like big giant flakes floating to the ground but it's really little bunches of bubbles. It was amazing how authentic it looked!

It was neat to see and all the kids (mine included) loved playing under it and trying to catch the "snowflakes," which quickly evaporated after landing. We were there long enough to enjoy two snow flurries.

If you live on Oahu and want to see the tree, it "snows" hourly from 1-8 PM daily, except Christmas Eve which will be from 1-5 PM. If you live on the Mainland somewhere that has recently been covered in snow, you can laugh at us and our fake snow or be jealous that we didn't have to bundle the kids up to play in it.

This 25-minute post is part of the Mom's 30-Minute Blog Challenge at Steady Mom

Trolley Ride

We have been busy this month with one Christmas activity after another! Our most recent Christmas adventure was a trolley ride to see the city lights. This year we went on a trolley chartered by Hawaii International Child. Our ride began and ended at their office where we had hot chocolate and cookies and got to take pictures by the Christmas tree.

Our city lights tour took us through downtown, past Iolani Palace with its beautiful glowing paper lanterns hanging on the palace and throughout the grounds, past Honolulu Hale with Shaka Santa and the other decorations there,

past the Board of Water Supply and their lights and Washington Place with its multiple trees inside -- twice. Yep, we had a very basic route and we did it twice, but that way anything we missed the first time we got to see the second time around.

The trolley was playing Christmas music and our girl (who was supposed to be on my lap the whole time, shhhh, don't tell) stood next to me and danced for most of the tour. Our boy enjoyed shouting Christmas greetings to pedestrians we saw and both kids enjoyed waving at people and seeing all the lights.

Do it yourself on Oahu:

As I mentioned, we went on a chartered trolley, but anyone can book tickets and go on the Waikiki Trolley's City lights tour. Information can be found at the Waikiki Trolley website. If you are military, tickets are available through the MWR tickets and tours offices and their prices are lower I believe. Call your MWR office and ask about the City Lights Trolley Tour.

This post is part of the Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge over at Steady Mom.

Zoolights

Last weekend we went to Zoolights, the zoo's Christmas event for those with zoo memberships. (I'm a little behind with this post. If chronology is important to you, we actually did this the day after the light parade, but I was so excited about the big waves I had to share them right away.)

After the zoo closed, they let members in a side entrance for the Zoolights event. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned or expected. I thought we'd get to walk around the zoo in the dark and see lots of Christmas lights everywhere but they roped off most of the zoo and we were pretty much confined to the central lawn area. They had some exhibits set up there including an "animal encounter" which was a tortoise, a small iguana and a couple other little reptile like animals the kids could touch. They also had food for sale and a program which included the Royal Hawaiian Band and a dance/music troupe called The Shooting Stars.

As I told friends who didn't make it to the event, if you had to miss a Christmas activity/event, this was the one to miss. But that said, we had fun because we met up with friends and had a nice picnic on the lawn and enjoyed the music. At the end of a busy weekend though, our tired boy was being more naughty than nice so we skipped seeing Santa who was there and headed home a little early.

I think the next time we go to an evening activity at the zoo we'll go early and enjoy the zoo itself, then have the entertainment and a picnic supper on the lawn as a nice way to end the day.

Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Contest

We got to watch part of "the Eddie" in person yesterday! We didn't really plan it but things fell in place and there we were.

This surf contest only happens when the open ocean swells on the north shore reach a minimum of 20 feet. This means that when the waves break in Waimea Bay, where the competition is held, they have at least a 30-40 foot face. These conditions don't happen every year. In fact, the competition has only been held 8 times in the last 25 years.

On Sunday the papers said there was going to be extra big surf Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. There was speculation the Eddie Aikau Contest would be held Monday, but our schedules were lighter on Tuesday so we decided we'd go see the waves Tuesday afternoon.

On our way to the North Shore we called the surf report and heard the surf was indeed big and that the Eddie (which had been scratched Monday) was on! We figured traffic would be terrible, but we had a full tank of gas, lunch to eat on the way and a bunch of toys and entertainment for the kids so off we went.

There were cars parked miles away from Waimea Bay. We didn't want to walk that far so we kept driving, figuring we'd just see the waves in passing. We crept along with the traffic, being passed by tons of bicycles, skateboarders and even some of the faster pedestrians. We crept closer toward the bay, around the bay and not too far beyond it we actually found a parking spot! We walked back to the bay which was rimmed with people. The atmosphere was great and there was excitement in the air.

The vantage point from the side of the road would have been the best, but not the best place to hang out with a four year old and a 19 month old, so we kept walking. We ended up on the beach, directly in front of where the waves were breaking and right behind where the surfers entered the water when their heat started. (That's just the shore break in this picture, the big waves were further out.)
The waves looked big, but when a surfer would drop down on a wave it really put them in perspective and you realized just HOW BIG the waves were. We got to see some amazing rides. It was also fun to watch the jet skis navigating the ocean. They would fly straight up in the air just going out over the smaller waves closer to shore. We saw a couple broken surf boards but thankfully no one was injured yesterday.

And what did the kids think of the competition? They weren't terribly impressed, but they had fun playing in the sand.

My little camera could never do justice to the waves and the surfing. If you want to see more, there are amazing pictures here (they take a little while to load but are worth the wait) and a pretty good youtube video here.

Honolulu City Lights Parade

Last night we went and watched the Electric Light Parade downtown. A group of us met up in Chinatown and watched the parade there. This was our girl's first parade and she was very wide-eyed, especially at the beginning. She noticed that in addition to waving , lots of people were flashing the shaka and it was cute to watch her try to figure out how to do that herself. She loved eating the candy they passed out and by the end her white shirt was dotted with sticky sugary sweets in multiple colors.

Speaking of candy, our boy's collection rivaled his Halloween haul. You can see his stash behind him on the blanket. He had even more by the time the parade was over!

My favorite part of the parade were all the bands playing Christmas music. There's just something about live music! The bands were dressed in everything from PJs to marching uniforms. I liked the aloha shirts and Santa hats this band was dressed in.

No Christmas parade would be complete without jolly old St. Nick and he and Mrs. Clause were on the last float, wishing everyone a Mele Kalikimaka.
Seemed like the parade stopped a lot more this year than it did last year, and there weren't that many actual floats, mostly just decorated vehicles, but we still had a great time and it got us in the Christmas spirit!

PS: Do blog posts have PSes? Well, this one does! A thank you to the hostess at Murphy's who let my boy use their restroom. I just wouldn't have felt right about letting him pee on the street corner.

This blog is linked to the Moms' 30-minute Blog Challenge over at Steady Mom. It actually took me 35 minutes to write this, but I had at least 5 minutes of interruptions by my boy who was supposed to be having rest time in his room, so I think this post still qualifies.

Christmas Tree Lighting at Castle

We took some time off from extra activities to get organized for Christmas. Spent a few days (yes, with my little helpers it takes awhile) getting the tree and the house decorated and now it's all done, except for the stockings. No fireplace to hang them on so I have to find a spot for them and I'm still looking.

With decorating the tree and house checked off we moved on to the second thing on our list: attend Christmas events/celebrations. First up, Castle Medical Center Christmas tree lighting.

The Marine Corp band was there again this year and they played one Christmas favorite after another for about an hour. We walked around and got all the free goodies that were being handed out: glow sticks for the kids, kettle corn, gingerbread cookies and hot chocolate and then sat and listened to the band.

After the band concert they did a countdown and lit the tree!
But the evening's festivities were not over. After the tree was lit, Santa and Mrs. Clause arrived by horse drawn carriage and then the Honolulu Boys Choir performed. We got to hear them a couple times last Christmas season, but I have to admit I spent more time chatting with friends than listening to them this year. Their music is excellent though and I enjoyed what I did hear.
We skipped pictures with Mr. and Mrs. Clause because the line was really long (and skipped the free trolley rides for the same reason), but got pictures with the lesser known Christmas character Nana Bear instead. What, you've never heard of Nana Bear? Yeah, me neither (maybe it's a Castle mascot or something) but we got cute pictures. Our girl was very intrigued with the bear and wanted to look at it but not get too close. On the way home our boy figured out there must have been a person inside the bear and so we told him who was inside since it happened to be a good family friend. We know quite a few people who work at Castle and I don't know if it's because of that or because of the way the program is designed, but the Castle tree lighting just feels like a big block party celebration to me.

All year long our boy has been asking when we were going to go to another tree lighting at Castle and I think it lived up to what he remembered from last year. Next event - Honolulu City Lights parade tomorrow night!