Holiday slip n slide

Today is November 18,2007. It is Katelyn's first birthday!!! We are waiting to celebrate until Merrill and Nancy (Rusty's mom and dad) get here for the thanksgiving holiday. I can't believe she is a year old. Unfortunately she is spending her first birthday with a high temperature and a runny nose. Hopefully she will be ready for a party by next week. I just wanted to send out some fun pictures of Hawaiian life in November. I bought a slip n slide before we left because our back yard has the perfect slope for a good slide. The sharks mouth raises up and down as the water pressure switches from the shark to the side of the slide.



This picture is from a week or so ago (before Katelyn was sick). It seems so weird to be out playing in the water when we should be raking up leaves and making leaf houses.

We have turned KyKy into an avid slip n slider. She asks if we can just please slip n slide and sometimes chooses this over the beach.

Da Da Da Da Da Da (think JAWS!!)

Hawaii house tour

Welcome to our house in Hawaii. Now everyone can get an idea of how it looks and what we get to look at from it's location. Once again I couldn't get the pictures in just the right order, but bear with me. This is the living room. You walk into it when you come in the front doors. Little Vanna in red is standing near an unseen couch and toy basket (her favorite.)




Here is the Lanai(deck), just out the back door. We found these chairs at ikea in Salt Lake and brought them with us. The girls think it is so fun to have chairs of their own that look just like ours. You can see the swing set in the back yard and just to the left of that is our orange and lemon trees. The neighbors behind us have an avacodo tree just over the wall and said we can have avacodos whenever we want. Our fruit picker reaches them and we enjoy avacodos and fresh squeezed orange juice on a regular basis. Mmmmmm!

This is a view of the ocean. I took this picture today and it isn't the best of conditions, but you get the idea. The whole front of the house is windows so we get this view from the kitchen, dining room, play area, and living room. You can barely see the change in shades of blue but that is where the clouds stop and the ocean starts.

Upstairs is where all of us sleep. The girls' room is on the left. You can see Kyleigh's bed. Our room is on the right and there is also a bathroom upstairs. We really like sleeping so close to the girls and the view of the ocean from both rooms is fantastic.

The kitchen and dining room are connected by a bar. Through these windows is a great mountain view and you can see into the back yard. The lower windows open upward and there is a small covered path all the way around so when it rains, which is frequent, you can leave the windows open and nothing gets wet. There is no air conditioning in this and most houses. Luckily Kalaheo is known for it's great breezes and we have lots of fans. It really doesn't feel that hot unless it is a windless day.

The dining room connects with what we use as the play area which connects with the living room. I thought I'd better show the play area as it usually looks, strewn with toys. What kind of play area would it be if it were always spic and span?

Not shown: The guest bedroom, which has it's own bathroom where we want everyone to come stay. No really, we aren't kidding. We are expecting our first visitors this month and look forward to more.

Halloween

Happy Halloween Everyone. Welcome to our maiden blogging voyage. We decided to do halloween first and catch up on the Hawaiian life later. This year halloween is a two day celebration. Yesterday Rusty came home early so we would have time to carve a pumpkin. Here is a picture of me and the girls with our pre pumpkin. Katelyn was a little hesitant to dive into the pumpkin guts, but her fearless big sister showed her the way. Kyleigh mushed and schmoogled the pumpkin guts until the newspaper underneath was so wet it mixed with the pumpkin guts. She even made us a pumpkin gut pizza!
Oops, wrong picture order. (Hey, it's my first time to blog, give me a break). Rusty and the girls decided on the jack o lantern face. Daddy is a good pumpkin carver. (Kyleigh still mushing pumpkin guts).

Katelyn, rolls and all, eventually started doing a little mushing herself.

We went to our ward's trunk or treat. They had dinner before the trunk or treating and games afterward. One of the games was a cupcake walk. Kyleigh's cupcake was stashed underneath Uncle Mike's chair. Katelyn went over to visit uncle Mike on his chair and when he looked down she had already devoured a majority of the cupcake. It took a while to get her cleaned up but it was well worth this picture.

After the trunk or treating Holly came over for the annual Holly and Kyleigh candy separating. Katelyn wanted to join in the fun. Ward members warned us that in Hawaii any hard candy has to be put in a jar or something airtight or it will go soggy. Who knew?

Kyleigh dressed up as a bride and Katelyn's last minute costume was a bunny rabbit. She cried on the way to trunk or treating and rubbed off her whiskers before we got there.

Kyleigh also got to go trick or treating at Rusty's work after preschool, where each office had candy for the kids. They fed us pizza and soda for lunch. Tonight we are going trick or treating in Mike and Holly's neighborhood in Poipu which is, according to the locals the best place to go on the island. Then we are having our annual dinner in a pumpkin with Mike and Holly. This will be the third state we have lived in and had dinner in a pumpkin. Happy Halloween everyone.