Sleep Walking

So Ashlyn has been falling asleep in random places lately. I'm pretty sure it is because of her refusal to nap most days. The other day, she fell asleep on the couch, and then woke up before she was ready, and then came over to the computer where I was sitting. She was being really grumpy and didn't want me to hold her or anything so I just ignored her. Not long after, she was being really quiet so I turned around to see what she was up to and this is how I found her...

A couple of days later, another napless day, Ashlyn and I were eating dinner. She was chompin' away until she suddenly nodded off and just fell asleep right in her high chair, with the fork and bowl still on her hands!

It was Spaghetti, and she was a mess, so I was going to bathe her whether she woke up for it or not. I filled up the tub, and then came back to get her ready. As soon as I took off her shirt, she woke up just enough to take a bite of her toast, and then back to dreamland.

Snowbirds in Hawaii

Anybody recognize this family?

Yup, it's the Don and Sue Sommerfeldt clan from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! Well, at least what's left of the single folk. They came to Hawaii for a vacation, and we randomly saw them at church! Ok, that's not quite accurate, their son Mark is one of my best friends and former roommates at BYU, and in an out of the blue conversation we were having, he told me his family was here on Oahu staying at Jack Payne's condo. Well, I searched for them at church and found them! And a good thing too, because they took us out to dinner!! Bubba Gump's is the place we dined and it was delicious! We also met up with them on their last day in paradise and hiked up Diamond head and got some Malasadas at Leonards. It was great to see them, and hopefully we'll have more encounters with distant friends in the near future!

Maui Chinese Food?

One day a mysterious package showed up at our door addressed to a "Mr. Jason Q Tang of Maui Chinese Food" Now this raised my perfectly manicured eyebrows for a variety of reasons. Obviously my middle name doesn't begin with a Q, and what is Maui Chinese food? My middle name is Marshall, and we live on Oahu.
So I open up the package and inside are two brand new knives; a four inch paring knife and larger 7 inch Santoku knife. So who would send me a pair of knives seemingly out of the blue? Well, look no farther than one Desi Taylor of Mesa, Arizona.
You see, while Desi was here visiting us a couple weeks ago, and as Heather blogged, I made the dinner on mother's day. What you didn't hear was that my sous chef wasn't the usual He-May, instead it was Ms. Desi, and her job was simple -- cut up all the vegetables exactly the size and shape I wanted them.

Hopefully you're beginning to put two and two together by now, because Desi might as well have been cutting with a butter knife or a spatula (our knives aren't the sharpest tacks on the wall if you know what I'm sayin').
So to the Taylor family we say Mahalo for the knives, and next time you come hopefully Brittney won't get sick, and our knives will be as sharp as they are today!

Happy Mothers'...Week!

So on Sunday, May 4th, we had our next set of visitors. Desi and Brittney Taylor came and so did my mom, and we have been going non-stop ever since. On Monday we got up and went to Waikiki. We started off the day at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and then just walked and walked from there.

We stopped and got some delectable smoothies before heading home. It was a fantastic way to start the vacation.

On Tuesday, Mom and Desi shopped all morning at local favorites (Ross and Sam's Club) and then we headed off to Lanikai. The water was beautiful, but it was super windy so we didn't stay for too long. I don't have any pictures because of the lack of camera. Maybe my mom will blog some if you're lucky.

Wednesday we went to the Aloha Stadium swap meet. The tourists bought all sorts of souvenirs, and then we decided to try Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, we were too late and they didn't have any more tickets that day, so we went to the beach.

Thursday the ladies (Mom, Desi and Brittney) went up to the PCC. I stayed behind and babysat a little girl from the ward whose mom just had a baby. That night when they got home after picking Jason up from work, he brought me a birthday/mother's day present...a new camera! Hallelujah! I was so excited to test it out the next day at Hanauma Bay.

Friday we were going to hike to this light house, but we had a hard time finding the trail head, so we skipped it and just went to the Bay. Our car only has 5 seats so Jason and I shared the front while Brittney drove.

The best part about our new camera is that you can take it underwater! It was so much fun snorkeling and trying to take pictures. My finger kept hitting the zoom, so I mostly missed the fish. Maybe after I get more used to it I'll get some better pictures... at least you can see the reef.

I was, however, able to capture one particularly interesting fish.

Ashlyn loved hanging out with Brittney, especially when she shared her ipod.

Mom got all tuckered out from all that swimming and decided to take a nap on the beach.

This picture of Ashlyn cracks me up. I think she is trying to fly away in the wind.

We ate dinner that night at Benihana in Waikiki. It was delicious.

Ashlyn and Jason walked along the shore while waiting for the fireworks to start. They shoot them off every Friday night at the Hilton. We hear them from our apartment, but this was the first time we actually watched them.

On Saturday, Jason planned every minute. We started off by driving to the Valley of the Temples where we saw this Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool. Jason especially liked ringing the gong. Ashlyn's favorite part...the fish.

Our next stop was the Macadamia Nut Farm for some free samples, and then onto the Laie Temple. We walked around the grounds for a few minutes, enjoyed all the beautiful flowers, and then headed off to our next destination.We went to get Acai bowls at this little hole in the wall on the North Shore. There were little green geckos running all over.

After filling up on Acai and getting some snacks for lunch later, we were off to Waimea Bay. Matt and Melissa McIntosh met up with us and we played with the underwater camera some more. And Ashlyn showed off her swimming skills. After Waimea, the McIntosh's introduced us to this beach where the Hawaiian green sea turtles love to hang out. This one was just chillin' on the beach, and because I knew my underwater photography skills were lacking, I handed the camera over to Matt for the under water picture and video.

We had to leave the beach so that we could get to Matsumoto's in time to get some world famous shave ice. It is a must when you come to Oahu.

We ate dinner next door at Haleiwa Eats, but Ashlyn wasn't too interested in sitting in her high chair. After her walrus impression, she just wanted to sit and read magazines. On Sunday morning, Jason and Ashlyn surprised the mothers with fresh flower lei. We snapped this shot after church. Then Jason made us a scrumptious Chinese-food dinner and we ended the night with some card games.

Monday came around again, and all the playing had wiped Brittney out. We decided to take it easy and watch movies all day with a quick trip next door to the Ala Moana Shopping Center in between. Desi and Brittney have to head back to Arizona today, but I still have my mom until Thursday! We'll have to see if there is anything blog-worthy tomorrow!

Our First Visitors!

About a month ago we had our first visitors to Hawaii! We had lots of fun with Andrew, Liew and Andersen and lots of adventures. We drove all over Oahu and went to Kualoa Ranch where we saw several movie sets and learned how long a cow's tongue is, went to the Polynesian Cultural Center where we learned where the closest ER was, and we had several trips to the beach where we learned how white an Asian can be. The most valuable learning experience came when we almost burned down our apartment....DON'T put your oven on self cleaning mode without cleaning as much as you can FIRST!

If you want to see more you can visit Andrew's blog at http://blog.chinesemonkey.com/