Sure, they look sweet and innocent...

...but look what trouble they get into.

It's two steps forward and one (sometimes two) steps back here. I left the house today with Robbie and Jake and ran down into Kapolei to mail our holiday cards and pick up a few groceries (yay!). As I'm driving back up the hill, I have a sinking feeling that I left the gate to the kitchen down and one or both of our dogs have gotten into the trash again (oh nooooo...). My fears were realized. When I came in, the trash bin was knocked down and the contents covered the floor. It wasn't too bad - in previous overturnings, they managed to drag nasty stuff all the way under our dining table. I don't even notice the gaping hold in the gingerbread house until after I'd mopped the floor and put away the groceries. My mother-in-law is not a big fan of our dogs; I'm beginning to come around to her side! They did leave my favorite wall intact. The placement of the Skittles below is 100% Robbie's artistic vision and implementation..

The Ala Moana Candy Cane Train

The Ala Moana Shopping Center has an annual tradition of its own - the daily production of The Christmas Gift of Aloha.* Every night through the holidays they stage a surprisingly long musical show (for a mall gig, 30 minutes) with a large cast, complete with impressive costumes and prop tricks. At the end of the show, they make it "snow" from the top of the outdoor mall by blowing tiny bubbles into the air for 10 minutes. I'd read a lot about it but hadn't seen it. We braved the shopping crowds one night last week and I came away pretty impressed. Folks take their seats around the show early, and some families turn it into a picnic dinner complete with blankets and food. A theme in the show is the "Candy Cane Train" and the mall runs a Candy Cane Train for kids. We had hoped Robbie would love it so we bought him a ticket for a special nightly affair - the train runs through the mall after the show sandwiched between a parade of characters and props from the show. Robbie of course loved looking at the train, but once we plopped him down in a car and then buckled the seat belt, he lost it. He cried and cried, and when stickers didn't work to calm him down (!) the staff began to quietly hint that we could probably get a refund or re-sell one of our tickets to anyone standing by. As he continued to cry, they politely and firmly reminded us that it was an extra long train ride, and we couldn't be in the train nor alongside the train. OK, OK! We pulled him off. Noel found another Dad hanging out who was willing to buy our ticket and we opted to follow the train and the show from a distance. One of the stickers is shown above. Note it says "I rode..." Well, if my photoshop skills were better, I would have some fun with that, for now we'll leave as-is. Here's Robbie in line prior to the big cry, when we were more optimistic! Note he's tagged like a garment in coat check so that the right people pick him up afterward.
* In a strange and news-making event here, the popular playwright of the annual show was killed in a DUI accident two weeks ago. Around 3 in the morning she got on the H1 freeway in the wrong direction. She drove for a few miles going the wrong way, cars swerving madly to miss her, until she hit someone. She was killed and she severely injured a woman in the car she hit. Authorities say her blood alcohol level was 3 times the legal limit.

Snowflake Ornament

Here’s a beaded snowflake ornament I made from a pattern downloaded from http://www.beadingdaily.com/. I like it! The possibilities for color combinations are endless. And it was easy to do once you got the pattern down. Di, faithful reader and fellow beader, what do you think?

Sunday Birthday Brunch at the Royal Hawaiian

On Sunday we went for brunch at the Royal Hawaiian with Noel’s parents to celebrate Al’s birthday. The Royal Hawaiian, or the Pink Palace, has a great brunch with seats right next to the beach. I’m guessing Nati enjoyed the time with Jake more than the endless seafood or the view. ;)

Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say "Merry Christmas to you."

Noel and I and the two young ones went out to eat at our favorite local Italian place on Christmas Eve, then headed downtown to view the Honolulu City Lights display. By the time we got there, the kids were crashed in the back of the car, so Noel stayed behind while I went around with my camera and tripod. The results are a bit hurried, but fun. Enjoy!

Santa (with his boots off, toes cooling in the water, giving a shaka) and Mrs. Claus are annual traditions in the lights display, along with the Mele Kalikimaka blocks. I think the blocks get more “Kodak time” than Santa and Mrs. Claus - families lined up in steady streams in front of the blocks to take group pictures. I was really surprised as I headed back to the car to find no one in front of them, so I snapped this in a rush.

This is probably one of my local faves and I loved seeing it represented as garland on the downtown tree. School children make paper leis for visitors, with cut-out construction paper flowers, separated by an inch or two of a plastic straw. I’ve seen many folks on the TV news wearing these. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve seen Jack Johnson alone donning one! Coincidently, out of the shots this evening, this is one of my favorites, too.

My Favorite Gingerbread Man

I picked up a special holiday sleeper for Jake to attend all the festivities in. I put it on him today, but we ended up cropping most of the cuteness out. Plus the three of us didn't dress with any holiday flare, so he didn't really fit in the end! Oh well. Here's the best crop of the bunch with his gingerbread suit on. Note Robbie's infamous smirk here.

First Kiss

One of my ideas for the doomed photo card shoot was to have Robbie kissing Jake. Well, we just couldn't get the right angle. These are cute, but didn't make the final cut.

Rejoice!

The Tipon family attempted today to take our holiday card photo(s). It wasn't pretty. Above is one of the better shots! We managed to get one that I consider good enough for the annual mailing, but it is only "good enough" to be the secondary, smaller shot in the multi-photo card. In the end, the criteria was, "Which one is best of me?" (No kidding.) Noel looked great throughout, Robbie squirmed or smirked in most, and sadly, Jake was just a blob in all. Please be patient for the final results, our cards will be winging their way to you around New Year's.

Cows in Suburbia

I guess it's not as uncommon as I tend to think...as new homes encroach onto previously undeveloped lands, all kinds of creatures still remain to give those an idea of how things used to be. Our little subdivision of ~4+ years has cows. (And a rooster I've named Lincoln. But I'll save that story for another blog.) The homes in our area push out as far as can be developed. Matter of fact, there's an open space just across the street between two homes merely because it was deemed too unstable to build on. So next to us we have a gulch. Whoever owns the gulch and the land west of it still keeps cows there. When heavy rains hit (and we've had a lot of rain lately) the cows come down closer to us to graze and drink the water running downstream. This afternoon Robbie and I walked up the hill to get the mail and enjoyed looking at the cows along the way. Once home, Robbie ran into the backyard and I grabbed the camera to get a few shots. The shot below was taken directly across the street from our lot (on the "unstable" land), shooting to the right up the hill. The shot above is a tight zoom on the cows closer to where I was standing. I tried unsuccessfully to get the calf and the mom (brown and white, respectively) while their heads were held up. They were very cute!

Rose Report

In a previous post I promised more pictures of the roses in our backyard, specifically the red roses I was excited about. It bloomed about three times and I missed them all. Then Grandma McMahon came to town and she put her green thumbs to work. (Yes, Diana, some has worn off on me, but not a lot! I had a pretty high kill rate with plants up until moving here, and sadly, even here I have probably lost about 5-10% of the things I've tried to grow.) So Mom was determined to help me with my roses and proceeded to do a Sopranos-style whacking in my side yard! She cut two plants nearly to the core, was kind to two and just did a professional "removal of the cross vines" or something, and even pruned the just-planted red bush. Well, as hard as it was to look at for a few weeks, my faith in her never waned, and our roses are looking good. Except for the pink variety, which took a hard fall in the recent rains and winds. It's nearly knocked to the ground and covering the red bush. Looks like more pruning in our future! Here's Robbie this afternoon between the bushes in the side yard. I'm standing just outside our fence in the street, coming back from taking pictures of the cows.

New pics of Jake

Here are a couple tightly-cropped pics of Jake, hot off the camera. A record for me. These were taken in a rush around 6:00 PM tonight as Noel was in a hurry to go pick up a friend at the airport who is just getting back from Iraq. Our quasi-studio setup on the couch wasn't that great (note harsh camera flash!) and we couldn't get Jake to smile. Seems that the best smiles are always in the mornings, so I'll just have to sleep with the camera on the nightstand! His face looks a little roughed up. We have only managed to trim the nails on one hand this weekend, so his right cheek is taking a beating. I've got no time to touch him up!

Hawaii News and Notes

It's been a fun month to be in Hawaii if you are a college football fan. The 10th ranked Hawaii Warriors are heading to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan 1. It's big, big, BIG news here! Quarterback Colt Brennan was a finalist for the Heisman trophy and he jetted off to New York City last week. A pic of him in NYC the night before the ceremony graced the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser. They love Colt here. Had he had this season last year, I think he might have been in the running to be on the state quarter. Sadly, they don't drink the Colt punch in other parts of the country and he's not as beloved. Recognized, just not idolized. He placed third in the Heisman voting. Not too shabby! But he will have to settle for simply having his number retired at Aloha Stadium.

They ran the Honolulu Marathon on Sunday and they screwed up the timing on some runners. Not completely the organizer's fault - they were using a new timing system and tried to give the runners instructions not to bend the timing device tied to their shoes or it wouldn't work. Well, if you're running a marathon, I guess the last thing you want is an annoying timing device bobbing on your shoe for 26.2 miles, so many runners understandably tucked it away and in the process bent it. So organizers are going through video footage to clear up the mess. There's also buzz that the owners of this software co. used this year mislead the organizers of how "accurate" the system is!

In a truly inspiring run, an 80 year old woman set a world record with her time. Wow! All those things are amazing...first running a marathon, second running when you're 80(!), finishing when you're 80 (!), and on top of all those, setting a world record for your age group (!!). If she can do that, I can probably lose that little bit of baby weight left, huh?

Update on Dec 15: OK, so she didn't break a record after all. Turns out that the organizer's checked a website for marathon record times, and the website was wrong! But I still think it's an impressive, motivating run.

And finally, Noel came back yesterday from an extended week on the East coast. He recently bought a video camera and spent the week shooting with that and not his Nikon. So, no still shots but maybe we'll have some video posts for viewing here in the future. We were stuck in traffic (yes, on the H1!) heading home from the airport at 4:00 PM in the afternoon. If you're in Hawaii, at least sometimes you're treated to rainbows while you're going 5 mph in the carpool lane! Note the rain drops on the windshield from the pics shot with my camera phone from the passenger seat. I kind of like them.

Fun with Robbie

For all the cameras (very nice cameras, too!) in the Tipon Family household, we sure don't get many pictures downloaded, let alone posted here. So I feel very silly posting pics from my camera phone, but here they are! Shots of Robbie in the fun cars with Sesame Street and Kermit characters were taken while shopping in Waikele last month. The other shot is here at home - Robbie's lineup of all toys with wheels. One of many lineup configurations! Robbie loves his moving vehicles...and loves to line 'em up!

Grandma McMahon arrives to take pictures

I have been getting a lot of heat from family (and it is deserved) for not getting out any pictures of Jake at all. So, a few weekends ago my Mom arrives with two goals: to hold Jake as much as possible and to take pictures for those back home. Success! Robbie and Jake were smothered in Grandma-love as the two Grandmas spent the weekend with me. Here are some pictures! Jake is 3 weeks old.

We headed out to Ko Olina one afternoon for a walk and Robbie had a blast with all the freedom it allowed. The shot above is one of two my Mom was able to snap of him along the beach walk...yes, it was hard to capture him while he was running so fast. This one cracked us up because he's a blur and nearly out of the frame. The other is from another (late) afternoon outing with Robbie to a local park. Note in true McMahon style, I didn't antipicate how long it would take to walk there (Robbie was much slower than I factored in!) and we arrived as the sun went down. We let Robbie run around in near-dark for about 20 minutes, then had to head home!

This last shot is thrown in because I really feel that Jake looks a lot like Robbie. Robbie had long eye lashes from the minute he was born and his eyes may be a bit bigger and rounder, but this "look" from Jake could be a mirror image of some of Robbie's baby pics. Someday I may post more for comparison!

Off to Molokai

One of our goals while we're here was to get over to see Molokai. With the baby on the way, we decided it better be sooner than later. Earlier this summer we began planning our trip and Noel warned me that the cheapest flights from Oahu to Molokai “are all on small planes.” I balked at first and said I wouldn’t go on one, but then he explained that most of the larger carriers farm out flights to small planes anyway, so we didn’t have much choice. Plus we’d save about $50 bucks. So I reluctantly agreed to let him book whatever he thought best, just don’t tell me about it! Of course, we get past security and Noel says, “You know we’re on a pretty small plane…”
Flying inter-island on small carriers from HNL does have a few advantages: parking, check-in, and security are super easy. You’re far from the masses heading back to the Mainland or Japan in an entirely different building across the street from the main airport. Our pilot - who we had to have had five years on - met us at the gate and took our tickets and then walked us out to the plane. His safety speech (issued while the engine was warming up and he was turned around in the pilot’s seat) was, “Don’t inflate your life vest until you’re in the water. Read the safety card for the rest of the instructions.” Our pilot on the return trip - again, we had five years on him - just said, “You can use the [safety] card as a fan.”
Another advantage with small planes is that you fly relatively low, so the aerial views of Honolulu, Waikiki, Diamond Head, Hawaii Kai, and Hanauma Bay were great. Noel got very excited and got out his camera and said, “You can put this in our blog!” And here they are. Diamond Head and Waikiki are below.
Molokai’s airport is in the middle of the island, giving us a good fly over of the area before we landed. I was really surprised it looked like a very harsh landscape. Not tropical at all, a lot of red dirt and flat terrain. I caught myself thinking, “Well, if we go down we won’t disappear into a forest and they will be able to find the wreckage quickly!”
The return trip via Pacific Wings is not for the fearful flyer…after re-tracing our outbound route over Waikiki and Honolulu, the pilot made a tight near-180 degree turn at what seemed like a 45-degree angle, hovering over the airport and adjacent crystal blue bays. Luckily, like the flight itself, the approach/landing didn’t last long. If you’ve got a yearning to see Molokai for yourself and you’re not into small planes, head to Maui first and then book a ticket on a ferry that runs from Maui to Molokai. (It’s not the Superferry. This service has been running many years.) Or do a little homework. Larger planes do fly into Molokai, so you can find out what island they depart from and start your trip there.

The Molokai Ranch Tentalows

There’s not much tourist development on Molokai, so not a lot of hotel options. Not saying that’s a bad thing at all, I didn’t mind. When Noel and I were looking for places to stay, we really fell for the the Molokai Ranch properties via the web site content. And even better, there was a main Lodge and a Beach Village 20 minutes away down a dirt road, right on the beach. Here’s a shot of the tents:

We decided to splurge for two days on the “ocean view” tentalow, versus the “path view” or “garden view” tentalow. Well, here’s the difference - Ocean view from our Tentalow ($218 / night):

Paths and gardens surrounding other Tentalows ($176 / night):

Yeah, a little disappointing, huh? The web site claims that one of the Tentalow clusters is $386 a night! I can’t figure out what you get for the money. I better check with Noel, I hope we didn’t pay that much!! They are also a wee bit more rustic than we thought. You have power to light your Tentalow cluster for about 5 hours. There’s a ceiling fan and many windows / zippered vents for circulation, but no electrical outlets. The bathrooms are across the platform, and the sink and toilet areas don’t have a roof. Surprisingly, the showers heat up pretty well, and it’s not as slimy as I feared. Overall, they were very clean. We didn’t have Robbie with us, but we discussed just how family-friendly the tents were …bottom line, fun for elementary kids and above, no fun for small toddlers and infants. But the rooms are separated, so the kids should be mature enough to be able to sleep in a room apart from the adults. The tents also are not the easiest to access via dirt paths and no ramps. And parking? They make you park a quarter-mile away at night. You can pull in kind of close to get your bags unpacked, but then you have to re-park. And don’t forget to bring a flashlight with you! They provide them in the room but not when you pick up your room key. So if you are checking in after dark you can’t see a thing. (We ran into a couple on our second night who couldn’t find their tent. The female was almost hysterical. As I pledged earlier, I need to keep this family-friendly, so I’ll say no more about what else happened!) Our first night in the tent was really hot, even with windows open and fan on. The mattresses are lousy and sheets were rough, so a good night’s sleep was hard to come by. Saturday night was much better. I think the combination of a cooler day in general and a day to air out the tent helped.

Hawaiian Monk Seal at “Tentalows” Beach

After arriving Friday afternoon, Noel wanted to check in before sunset, so we grabbed our rental car and headed straight to the hotel property. We found the Lodge easily, checked in, and then went down an unpaved dirt road for about 15 minutes to where the tents are. The shocks in the rental were horrible….over the weekend I reminded Noel to slow down many times; it was too bumpy for me!
We finally pulled up near the second check-in area and I hopped out to check the beach. Signs, signs, everywhere the signs warning you about Hawaiian Monk Seals! I got giddy, if there were so many signs, does this mean we were going to see one on the beach? I looked up, and I’m not kidding you, there was one on the other side of the beach. At least I guessed so. It looked like a rock from far away, but it was indeed a Monk Seal.
Hawaiian Monk Seals are highly endangered. Current estimates have the population hovering around 1200. They are also very aggressive creatures and are known to attack when disturbed. So all those warning signs made it clear – do not approach the Monk Seals! It’s not only illegal, you can get hurt. Still, Noel got adventurous while I stayed back. Here he is…yes, approaching the Monk Seal!

After a few minutes of watching this, I walked over (making a wide circle around the seal) to get a better look. We hung out with our cameras for an hour or so, watched the seal readjust his sleeping position a few times, and heard a few good snorts. They made me jump because I was so scared the thing would pop up and run after me and I wouldn’t be able to outrun it, but it was nothing. Coincidently, after we got back home I saw a news story about people behaving badly around Monk Seals. They reported that it is illegal to get closer than 100 feet at any time. But they also said that your behavior in this zone is equally important – you need to be quiet and leave them undisturbed if you find yourself too close. While we broke the law, we did use hand signals to communicate and were very conscious of disturbing them.
We really lucked out on this. I kept checking whenever I could, but we wouldn’t see any more seals on the beach the rest of the weekend.

First Morning on Molokai

On Saturday morning, Noel left me in our Tentalow while he headed back on the road to the Lodge and an appointment to get a massage. I checked the beach for more Monk Seals (no luck) and then had breakfast at the Tentalow dining area. Noel said he had waist-high “huge turkeys” hounding him for his food when he ate earlier, but by the time I arrived they must have corralled them or something because I was pleasantly surrounded by these not-so-timid birds. After breakfast, I grabbed my book and sat in the shade near the beach, waiting for Noel to finish up at the Lodge. Not one to enjoy sitting around the beach, even with a book in my hands, I found myself saying over and over how bored I was, and how Noel better get there quickly so we could head off! Later I realized it had been a huge mistake not to join Noel up at the Lodge and go swimming in their pool. It was a very small pool by Hawaii hotel standards, but oh-so inviting! I blew it as we wouldn’t have time for the rest of the weekend.

Father Damien’s Churches

After reading through a few guide books, I’d decided that one of the few “must dos” for the weekend would head out to Kalaupapa, home of the infamous leper colony. I knew you had to take a mule ride down to the actual colony area and that was not a possibility for me, but I thought the town was at least accessible. But Noel asked around and discovered there were three ways to get there: small chartered plane, 4 mile hike, or the mules. No driving options. Noel tentatively threw out the idea of the hike, but I’m just not fit enough (and coming off a week and a half where I was fighting a bad cold made things worse). We also couldn’t get a good sense of the trail. It sounded pretty difficult in some areas, so it was a no-go. I was disappointed, but what can you do? Luckily Father Damien’s good works were not centered in Kalaupapa. There are two churches he built on the accessible side of the island, right off the main roads.

Halawa Park – Eastern Molokai

We spent Saturday afternoon and evening driving around parts of the island. First up, down the two-lane highway toward Halawa Park, on the eastern tip of the island. The drive is long and windy, but offers scenic views if you stop every now and then to stretch your legs. I also stopped to take pictures of the Nene bird crossing signs (see next post). (The Nene is the state bird . We didn’t see any along that particular drive, but later in the day at a different part of the island Noel spotted one. I missed it.)
We hit Coconut Grove Park just in time for sunset, but Noel was really disappointed with the shooting angles and couldn’t get the reflection on the water (like the guide book said you could!), so we hopped in the car and tried to get back to the Tentalows to catch the sunset along the beach there…but missed it.