The girls watching Russ work on a tree in the yard.

Kyleigh caught a chick

Kyleigh caught a chick just a few weeks before we left Hawaii. She caught it on a rainy day while she was playing indian in the front yard. She quickly returned it to it's family but loved it for the minute she had it.

Giles come to visit

In early March the Giles came back to Kauai to visit. They stayed with us for the first 5 days they were here and stayed with the Keeps for a few days also. Unfortunately for them it wasn't a perfect trip. They started their trip with a 24 hour delay. They arrived to the airport in Las Vegas on time, spent about 8 hours in the airport with their kids waiting for a flight and were then told that their flight wouldn't leave until the next morning around 10 a.m. The only solace I can think of in that situation is that they left their 2 year old with Grandma. We were disappointed on the other side waiting for them, but that just doesn't compare to being stuck in an airport. When they finally did make it the weather was a bust. The island was flooding. It rained the entire time they were here. We did have one fairly good morning at Poipu beach and the rest of the trips to the beach were a freeze out. Besides all the not so good things, it was still great to have them on island. The girls had a great time. They played their brains out. When John and Wendi left they brought us a ton of stuff they didn't want to move. One of those things was three bottles of wash out spray color for hair. We still had it in the closet and didn't want to move with them ourselves. The girls took them outside one afternoon and had a fabulous time spraying each others hair. We also had muffin madness morning, which is always a hit. Every morning the girls were playing with the fuse beads. I swear that was the best $16 I've ever spent in my life. They even set up a roadside stand and tried to sell them to people passing by, with no luck. The Keeps had a barbeque the last day they were here. It is kind of ironic that the night they left after the bbq was a good-bye party for us (mostly Mike and Russ) at Shaun's house. We watched dumb and dumber. Shaun made it clear that was in honor of Mike and Russ. Dumb or not, we are on the mainland now and the Giles are only 5 hours away. Yeah!

See above. All kids know Russ is super fun. Here he is being the horse for 5 kids at the same time. It's not his record.

Ridge's Walk

Every day at about 10:00 a.m. Ridge gets restless. He has had enough of his cars, balls, and books. He needs to run. So we go on a walk. We call it Ridge's walk. Usually it is just Ridge, Katelyn, and me. Kyleigh stays at home and does schoolwork. I think she likes the alone time. Our walk starts in the yard where we play with the hila hila. This cool little weed closes up when you touch it. We all love the hila hila. We stop to say hello to Sandy and Annie, the dogs that live next door. Chickens like the next house so we are always on the lookout for chickens in that yard. They also have a row of flower bushes. We always have time to stop and smell the flowers. Then Ridge and Katelyn race up the street. We go around the corner and head down the hill. Ridge collects rocks on his way down the hill. At the bottom of the hill we can usually find a puddle of water. He throws his rocks into the puddle and usually splashes through it for a minute. If there is no puddle he throws his rocks into the storm drain. As we head up the hill there is a house that has rocks on the front of the lawn. The put them there so noone will park on their lawn, which is an area that is widely considered a parking lot here. They are also perfect for jumping. Ridge climbs up all of them and jumps off. One of the rocks is particularly wide and flat. That is the stage rock. Ridge stops on that one to dance while he sings either a song about Santa or red solo cup. On the way up the street he stops to collect more fun things like dirt. At this point Katelyn gets bored and runs home. I can usually coax Ridge up the rest of the way with the promise of checking the mail. We currently have two rocks in our mailbox that he left there this week. We have found other great things to do on our walks like talk back to the birds and name the noises we can hear. One day we saw a piece of fruit sitting on the curb with bugs eating out the inside. We pointed and said ewww. Ridge stops at that spot every day, points and says ewww even though there hasn't been anything there in months. This week we spotted a spiderweb on someones roof with a string attached all the way down and on another roof. That was kind of cool. It might be "Ridge's Walk" but we all like to get out.

Murder Mystery Party #2

We have wanted to have another murder mystery party since the last one, but we wanted to wait for the Giles and they finally came! It was a murder luau. I got the part of the Nadia, the swimsuit model shooting in Hawaii. My first thought on that is, really??? I live in Hawaii, everyone has seen me in a swimming suit. Well, I couldn't be a swimsuit model without the right equipment, hence the large balloons under my shirt. I didn't even know how to fold my arms with those things. Under or over, that is the question. Rusty was Chief Wikiwiki, a native Hawaiian chief who had been accused of stealing artifacts from the museum. You can't see it in the picture but he is wearing a towel around his waist. Holly was Holly, the wife of an older, jealous husband. They were living on a houseboat off the shore. As it turned out, her husband had been dead for four months. Mike was a scuba diving instructor who had recently saved the eventual victim from drowning after he had been pushed off of Holly's house boat. Dawn was Leilani, a hula dancer who had "accidentally" pushed her fiance off a cliff the year prior. Jeff was the victims right hand man, a die hard surfer who was ready to branch away from his boss and start a business of his own. John was a tourist. A tourist who had just broken out of prison and was making a quick stop in Hawaii before moving on to Australia to avoid the law. Wendi was a golf pro. She happened upon the murder just after it happened while coming off the golf course.

We attempted a 4 course meal. We started with pineapple spears, then had coconut shrimp with sweet dipping sauce. Our main course was kalua pork from Da Imu Hut, along with hawaiian haystacks (Hawaiian haole food). For desert we had lava cakes. Yum, that makes me think of lava cakes and I want one right now.

We had so much fun with everyone. I can't wait to do it again.

By the way, Jeff was the murderer. I am 2/2 on guessing "who done it."

Update

Our root beer tasted more like just beer. We were supposed to refridgerate it as soon as the bottles were inflated and tight. That should have taken about 4 days. I forgot and left it atleast double that. It smelled a little fishy and tasted just like beer (Oh wait, I don't know what that tastes like). It tasted like what I think beer might taste like. I'll watch it closer next time.

Making Root Beer

I have always wanted to make root beer. It seems like any time I think of it or look up a recipe I can't find dry ice. I found a kit that didn't need dry ice and it was a Christmas gift for Russ. We made our first batch on Monday night. We have to wait 4-7 days, or until the plastic bottles are hard. Then we have to refridgerate it for 2 weeks. We are waiting not so patiently to try our root beer.