A hui hou

We came back from Hawaii this past Sunday. Though we managed to get out and see quite a few sites, a lot of time was spent in the condo, just chilling with the kids. Kai loved stacking or arranging his matchbox cars in various configurations.

And Kai absolutely dotes upon Sora, so whenever he saw her lying nearby, he would try to get as close to her as possible.

There was also plenty of time for R & R.

Passed out on papa's back

But backing up a bit.. on Friday, we had an unpleasant surprise when we found out that our rental car had a flat tire, but we managed to get it repaired with relative ease on Saturday morning and then spent a rainy afternoon visiting the Ala Moana Shopping Center. We then headed off to Chinatown to eat French dip banh mih at a Vietnamese fusion restaurant.. hipster central, but pretty tasty. We also saw some lion dancing in honor of the upcoming Chinese New Year, unfortunately the loud cymbals and lion costumes scared Kai.

I commented to Nik that before we had kids, we would always try to catch the sunset on our Hawaiian vacations, but now it seemed that with the kids, we watched a lot of sunrises instead. So on Saturday evening, we hustled out the door with the kids and tried to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the colors weren't spectacular that evening, but we still managed to get a few good pictures. :)

Before heading off to the airport on Sunday, we made one last stop to Rainbow Drive-In and Waiola.

We then headed over to Tanioka's for some tasty take-out poke and fried chicken. On Sunday afternoon, the line was absolutely insane, but it moved quickly.

The flight back went smoothly; Kai behaved himself and Sora was asleep almost the entire time. All in all, the trip went quite smoothly although it was, as David put it was a true "family vacation". We're grateful for David's help and this trip certainly wouldn't have gone as well without his help. We're sad that our little vacation is over, but we'll certainly be back again.

Nik's mom is back with us and I want to wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year, but I'll write more about that another time.

"Welcome back, Grandma Ben!"

Aloha, baby!

Writing from our condo in Waikiki. We're on the 30th story of the building and you can see Diamond Head and the turquoise blue ocean in the distance. In the mornings, we have a beautiful view of the sunrise. Thus far, we've had a surprisingly smooth trip. We brought David along to help us with childcare and it's been working out well. It took a little while for him to adjust to the rigors of babysitting, but I think that he's getting the hang of it.

Panorama of a sunrise from our condo

Our condo has one bedroom and a common area with a sofa bed. David sleeps on the sofa bed while Nik, Kai, Sora and I are all sleeping in the bedroom. Originally, I thought that this might be a recipe for disaster with all four of us in one room, but the nights have been amazingly quiet. The hum of the air conditioning unit is loud and keeps Sora practically sleeping through the night, Kai has been behaving himself as well; we plan on investing in a white noise machine when we get home. ;)

We arrived on Monday. On the way to Honolulu, Sora slept most of the flight and flying is one of the rare times that we allow Kai some tablet screen time, so he was also well-behaved. Once we arrived, we got a late lunch of udon--delicious, but difficult with eat with two cranky, jet-lagged kids. We tried to get out to the beach, but Kai was getting tired and cranky, so we had to cut our beach time short.

The next day we started off at with a trip to the pool. We got poke for lunch and then got shave ice at our favorite spot on Oahu.. Kai was also a fan (must be in the genes). :) We then drove to the Pali Lookout and then on to Pearl Harbor. Kai loved following around the wild chickens at the Pali Lookout.

Kai loves his shave ice

Kai and Sora tolerated the visit to Pearl Harbor well enough, though it was difficult to pay attention to the exhibits with the kids in tow. Kai wasn't interested in any of the displays, but had a blast running around, chasing pigeons and enjoyed the boat ride to the USS Arizona memorial.

The sunken USS Arizona

We met with our friends Kelly and Lee for dinner at a bowling alley. We skipped the fine dining prix fixe meal, in favor of some tasty fried chicken and ox tail soup, but it's an interesting concept: fine dining at a bowling alley.

On Wednesday, we drove up to the North Shore, stopping for for some take-out Hawaiian food along the way.. absolutely delicious Kahlua pig and haupia (Kai loved it all), though nobody was really fond of the poi. We also stopped at the famous Matsumoto's Shave Ice since we were nearby.. unfortunately, it doesn't really live up to the hype as the ice is relatively coarsely shaved and the flavors are just syrupy with no distinctive taste.

There was high surf advisory, so we contented ourselves to just watch the waves, while Kai played in the sand at Waimea Bay. We then went to Turtle Bay where the waves were calm and we could actually get in the water.

Chillin' at Turtle Bay

We had a "fancy" dinner on our way back from the North Shore and luckily for us, Sora slept through the entire meal.

A sleeping baby equals happy parents

Yesterday we visited to the Honolulu Zoo with the kids while David hiked up Diamond Head. The gibbons were putting on quite the show, swinging around and howling back and forth to one another. We also saw lemurs, a tiger, elephants, giraffes and zebras, but Kai's favorite (by far) were the turtles. :P We had a picnic lunch of onigiris and musubis, while Kai ran around the small playground on the zoo grounds. Kai loved the Spam musubi.. apparently, Kai seems to love all Hawaiian foods. :P It was an exciting day and on the way home, Kai completely knocked out while sitting up in the stroller.

Today was more low-key and we dedicated the day to going to the beach and had a lot of fun playing in the sand and surf.

Sora on the beach

Father of the Year :)

We're heading back home in just a few days and it's hard to believe that our little vacation is almost over. :( Sad to be going home so soon, but we'll be back!

Snow trip

This past weekend, we headed up to Tahoe for the Valley Crew's annual snow trip. Nik and I used to attempt at least a run or two down the slopes (that's all we could manage, because I'm so terrible at snowboarding), but these days, it's more of an excuse to just hang out and eat. It was great to see everyone and there were plenty of kiddos this year.

It was relatively warm out and the only snow to be seen was man-made and icy, but it was still fun to have Kai walk around. He wasn't very interested in touching the snow, but he was curious and wanted to walk around and explore.

A rare picture of all four of us

"Snow? meh."

Kai has also since recovered from last week's stomach bug and thank goodness, his appetite has returned. He spent a lot of today amusing himself with his Mega Bloks. Whereas he used to just attach the blocks whereever they fit together, now he appears to assemble them with a more deliberate pattern in mind. Interesting to see him figuring these things out...

Sora is as social as ever and getting cuter and cuter. Even if she's vigorously sucking on her pacifier, she can't help but smile or coo when you smile at her.