Flat Stanley Visits Oahu

Have you ever met a Flat Stanley?  I've met three, but I've discovered that many people have never met a single one.  If you've never met a Stanley, let me explain.  Jeff Brown wrote a book called Flat Stanley about a boy who wakes up and discovers he was flattened by something that fell on him during the night.  The book (books actually, I think there's a whole series) goes on to describe the adventures he has while he is flat, including traveling by mail to a new place.  Many classes use this as a fun way to do a geography lesson, with each student making a Flat Stanley and mailing him somewhere.  So, on with my story.

Flat Stanley came to visit us from Louisiana.  When he arrived we got him a flower lei and I made him sunglasses and he was ready for some island adventures. 

Flat Stanley went to Nature Hour at Ho'omaluhia with us and we got some pictures of him on the nature trail there.  He also went to gymnastics class where he got a sticker for good participation for jumping on the trampoline with my boy.  

We wanted to make sure that Stanley's adventures included some uniquely Hawaiian things so we took him to beautiful Bellows Beach and took pictures of him digging and being buried in the sand.

We also took him to get some shave ice at Island Snow and of course got some ourselves too.

We had fun hosting Stanley and my boy even got a little nostalgic at the post office when mailing him back.  I think he enjoyed showing Stanley the sights.  What a fun way to learn about geography!  Which reminds me, I need to get out a map and teach my boy a little about Louisiana so we can get in on the learning part of this experience too!

Mahalo to SteadyMom for hosting the Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge again this week!

Disney!

Sorry the blog has been so quiet lately. We were enjoying some vacation time in California and since this is a blog about life on Oahu I decided not to do much blogging about the trip but I wanted to share this picture of Pluto flashing the shaka. After getting his picture taken with Pluto, our island boy's goodbye wave was the shaka and Pluto returned the gesture. Too cute!

We went to southern California at the end of our trip. We spent a day at Disneyland and a day at California Adventure Park and although we didn't get to see and do everything, we fit a lot of fun into those two days.

Our boy rode everything from Dumbo to Space Mountain but his favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride "where you get to shoot those bad guys." Our girl didn't get to go on as many rides because of her height, but she's young enough she didn't feel left out. Although she isn't talking enough to tell us, I would guess her favorite rides were the carousels at each park.

We also went to a character breakfast one morning where our boy loved dancing with Goofy

and our girl liked giving a high five to each of the characters she met.

Much fun was had by all!

To see travel photos from other bloggers, check out the Photo Friday links over at Delicious Baby.

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!

Oregon Coast

I haven't updated this blog as much recently as I would like to. Our adventuring took us off-island to the Oregon Coast for a long weekend to attend a wedding. That side of the Pacific Ocean is quite different from this one and we enjoyed the scenery and the time with family and friends.

We weren't gone that many days but the trip prep, trip itself and resetting after the trip cut down on our adventures closer to home for awhile. We're finally unpacked and caught up on our sleep (mostly) so I should have more fun times on Oahu to share soon. We did go see the Thunderbirds perform at Hickam Air Force Base this weekend but I forgot my camera so decided not to devote a post to that outing, but it was fun to see them!

Have Kids, Will Travel

A post about a trip to the Mainland might seem out of place on a blog about life on Oahu. However, for most of us who live here and for all those who come here for family vacations, airplane travel with kids is part of the experience.

Until I traveled with my first child I never knew how quickly I could consume the drink given to me by a flight attendant. But I quickly realized the high risk of having my entire drink end up in my lap with a squirmy child next to me, or especially on my lap, and the easiest way to avoid this seemed to be to guzzle the drink in one breath. On our last flight I did this so quickly that before I knew it the flight attendant had given me a refill before moving on to the next row and I had to do my speed drinking trick a second time.

With kids our hand carry bags are filled with books, toys and lots of snacks. Oh, and of course the compact DVD player too! My favorite travel toys were both given to us as gifts and we've since covered a lot of happy miles with them. I highly recommend them both! Here's more info if you're interested:

Matchbox Pop Up Adventure Set. We have the fire station but there's also a barn, harbor, auto center, construction site and a few others. Ours is one of the compact ones that folds in half. The deluxe ones tri-fold and look like they might be a little big for taking on the plane.

Aquadoodle Travel N Doodle. Works great for lots of ages - both my kids enjoy it.

What are your favorite tricks or tips for traveling with kids? We travel several times a year and I'd love to borrow/steal your ideas!