My friend Rebecca wanted to try and bleach her hair and dye it. I had the dye, but no bleach and so we tried a few different gentler bleaching methods with no luck. We had fun though. Then she put on crazy makeup for her roller derby team photos and off she went.
The kids love to run to the falls. It's right by the house and they can run right down there, jump a few times and come home. Sometimes they go with one of us adults, and sometimes they go just the kids.
The Owen's, a family from our church, invited us and everyone from our ward to have a pool party at their house for Easter. They are so generous. We went the day before too, to help with the imu, which unfortunately was a very sad experience. Solace and Lullaby were the most upset about seeing the pig before it was cooked. But the next day at the party, everything was fine. But we did skip the meat.
April renovations were NUMEROUS. Prepping the bathroom for Paul's friend to come out and tile for us. We were quoted $13,000 to put up the tile in this small stand up shower, so Paul called a friend in Utah who came out, made more than he wanted and we kept $8,000, yes please.
Removing the old tile was really hard on the walls, so we reinforced everything and made sure it was really sturdy.
Paul moved the pipe to the side so we could add a linear drain, and poured the concrete so it would be ready for J.C. when he arrived.
We used a grinder to get rid of the last remnants of flooring glue left from the linoleum in the laundry and bathroom. When you did this job, you left with a very fine dust EVERYWHERE. Even on your eyelashes.
J.C. got straight to work, and he and Paul got SO much done!
I got to work on the mural in the living room and hallway.
Easter egg hunt and egg dying at Rebecca's house. So fun. I brought cookies. Solace and Hawk both found eggs with money in them.
Egg hunting outside in Hawaii is my favorite. There are so many great camouflaged places to hide things.
It was a free-for-all, and some of the eggs were filled with glitter! So much fun!
Lullaby made some chocolate chip cookies. She tried to shape them into Easter shapes but it didn't really work. They tasted great though!
Sunday morning basket hunt is always a hit. Solace found the first basket, then Lullaby, then Matix and then Hawk. We opened cards and treats from Grandma Kim and Grandpa Louie and Great Grandma Berg. Thank you!
Later on they hunted for eggs just in the house and had a blast. Hawken got the golden egg.
Easter dinner on Great Grandma Evie's fancy dishes. So fun. I loved these dishes as a child, and I'm so so grateful that I have them now.
Pictures by the newly finished walls.
I posted something funny and right away Erik said not to show it to Erin, but too late, she saw it. Made me laugh when I looked at my phone. I don't remember what it was anymore.
The floor tile is black penny tile and was down already and dry, so J.C. started with the wall tile. Since the tiles were so huge, they went up rather quickly! It was an amazing transformation!
Out for a shave ice break, yes please. Paul and J.C. had been on a mission together, and it was so fun to hear them reminisce.
Curiosity Kids did a fun tie-dyeing day. It was so much fun to watch each group work on their shirts.
We went to see Matix and Hawk's friend, Jedai, in a boogie board competition. There are so many great events for kids here. Matix and Jedai went out for a bit afterward too. So fun. Solace and Jensen, Jedai's little brother played in the waves a little too.
J.C. got the tiles up fast and asked if we would rather him help on laying the floor tiles, or grouting the shower. I think laying the tiles takes much longer, and can be trickier for me, so I picked for him to do that instead. It was great! I wanted these tiger tiles facing different directions and black tiles in a checkerboard pattern. SO so fun.
Break to the beach, always appreciated. But then the rain clouds came rolling in. Thank goodness Amy was there to shield us a little bit.
We took the sister missionaries out to Kenji for dinner.
I got the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, finally. They looked really good, and fun, but over time they broke, and were replaced.
Sunday shoes from Laurel. Still one of my favorites.
Kids Club had grown! We had several more kids each week. The kids were really excited!
Big breakfast with J.C. Lullaby made chocolate covered strawberries to add to our pancakes. Yum!
Farmers Markets are so much fun to go to.
We went this very windy day to the beach for Matix to try to catch some waves on his boogie board, but no such luck. Lullaby dug in the sand and Hawken and Sully hunted for jellyfish on the beach. So many treasures.
Time for grout. I did the white grout for the shower walls first, then orange grout on the bottom of the shower second. Our dirt here is red/orange, so it's been really great for maintaining that orange look! Plus the orange plays on the eyes of the tigers.
I find so many of these type of selfies on my phone, and sometimes silly videos.
Date night with my favorite guy! We loved that these smoothies were served in little glass tiki faces. So much fun. And of course, we ate dessert first.
Birthday party for Shy, a friend from our homeschool group.
Curiosity Kids classes sometimes included Cooking, which changed from week to week. The kids loved it when they had it. I got to teach the youngest class and was happy to be back in my element.
The Young Women's organization asked if I could teach a cookie decorating class. It was a lot of fun to see what they came up with.
After just a short while with the garage door, we decided to fully enclose the carport, split it into two rooms, and make it living space. Taking down the door was a project by itself! We stored it under the house until the person who bought it from us, came to get it.
Lullaby and I went with our friends Lea and Dorothy to volunteer at Malama Kauai to help put labels on the food donation bags they were putting together. We worked for a few hours and did quite a lot.
Paul caught a giant spider in the tub and rescued me.
J.C. and Jess planned their beachside wedding and asked us to come and take pictures for them. It was so much fun. What a dreamy little wedding. I made ti leaf leis for the boys
Our field trip to Poipu to learn about sea turtles and monk seals was a hit! We learned so much and the kids had a blast. Afterward, we went swimming.
We found this little plant when it washed up on a beach. We didn't know if it would survive but thought we could give it a chance and planted it near our mailbox. About a week later and little baby leaves started sprouting from it again. Woohoo!
Lullaby's best friend Sophia came for a visit, and it was such a lovely reunion. We ate at Bubba's, then headed to the beach and they worked on remembering their best friend handshake.
Grouting the tiger tiles was even more fun than grouting the shower, because I used purple grout. It turned out really good!
Sophia and her family invited us to her pool to go swimming and even the boys came to play. It was about half swimming and about half photoshoot.
Shave ice treat at a new place, Matcha-Ya. It's so good, it's my new favorite.
We built the frame for where we were going to pour the base for the new wall enclosing the carport. Paul had to drill into the cement to add metal stakes and rebar. It was a lot of prep work for a fairly fast job or mixing, and pouring the cement. Everyone helped, and it was another thing we can all add to our handyman repertoire.
With the extra cement, the kids stamped their hands into the blob that I poured.
Time for Sophia to leave and we met at a farmers market to get some new fruits to try before they left the island. Her family was pretty adventurous and tried lots of new things.
Kids Club was a success again!
More work on the house.
Play date at the park.
Erik sent Paul this shirt and he loves it. He wears it all the time now.
Out to eat with more friends who are visiting. This time is was the Alvey family. Paul and Dallas went on a mission together and have stayed in contact. This was my first time meeting his family and we all got along great! Even the kids. We ate a very expensive dinner, then went back to their hotel for a night time swim.
I went to a girls art night and we tried to figure out how to do gel plate stamping. It wasn't as easy as the tutorials made it look, but it was super fun.
Feeling sad about my dad again, and tried walking around his neighborhood using google maps to see if I could find him walking... No such luck. Grief is such a sneaky thing.
One of the families in our ward needed dinner, so Hawk helped me make this out of what we had in the fridge and freezer. Worked out great!
Solace got a really bad sunburn and one day before it peeled and turned into a nice tan, it blistered up and looked like this. Yikes!
Adding the finishing touches for the shower and toilet installed. Hooray!
We ran into Uncle Phil and the kids were SO happy to see him again! He was their Hawaiian Studies teacher when we lived here last time.
Solace is the biggest snuggle bug in the mornings. I will never be tired of these morning time loves. Sometimes he wants to send lovey videos to Paul too.
Matix's specialty is Sloppy Jo's. He makes it really well and everyone loves it.
Kids Club was always fun. Mostly Legos and Pokemon, but sometimes board games too.
Sometimes Sully likes to wear his hair in a man bun, and I love it so much. Such a cutie boy.
Here is a video of all the April renovations. We've come a looong way!
