The Clampets come to Hawaii

Last week my family came to visit. We used to have a small family but of course due to marriages and babies we now have a good size squad. My parents rented a beautiful house in Kailua just yards away from where Obama stayed with his family over the holidays (which is I'm pretty sure why my dad elected to stay at this house). Our week together was simple and we spent most of our time hanging out, playing on the beach, chair bowling and of course...Yahtzee. Being the eco-friendly family that we are we always recycle old score cards and it only seemed appropriate that we would give my mom the scorecard that read "Dickcheese." She won of course.

On Monday we took a family trip to Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona memorial and the Missouri battleship. Man, I thought I had big guns. It was incredible! It was fun to experience it with my dad as he loves history just about as much as he loves a cold Mirror Pond on the Deschutes River, which is A LOT.

Tracy and Trevor took a night off from parenting and the four of us hit the town where we showed them some of our favorite hangout spots in downtown and Waikiki. We wrapped up the evening at a local bar back in Kailua called "The Palace" where Tray rocked some Meatloaf on the jukebox and we shot a round of pool. (yeah, she loves Meatloaf...weird).

Nic and I also had a blast hanging out with our nephews, Thatcher and Tristan. Tristan is now speaking so well and he cracks me up every day. My new title is Uncle Kim. I must be my size 12 shoe that throws him off, or maybe that I am taller than his dad. As long as he says Kim I'll take it.

The hardest part of course was saying goodbye. I wasn't expecting to cry but I balled like a baby when I had to drop them off at the airport. If there is one thing I have learned by living here is how special our family is to us. If only Portland had more Asians we might consider moving back home.

Here's One For You Fishgirl

For those of you who don't know Hawaii has a grand total of 13 letters in their alphabet. Yeah, try reading street signs. They all sound the same! When you only have 13 letters in your alphabet there are only so many words that you can come up with until you have ran out of damn letters to choose from. And because of this I am pretty sure that when they run out of words to create, they just take an existing word and add more letters at the end. Last night I found out that our state fish is called the Humuhumunukunukuapua`a. "Um, can you use that in a sentence please."

December Recap

My apologies for not keeping up with my posts. December has been a blur packed with travel, friends, holidays and course the four letter word...work. We started the month of by celebrating Nic's birthday on the Big Island. We had a blast exploring waterfalls, rainforests, lava and cattle farms. I also took my first and last ride in a helicopter. That was a bad idea. It pretty much panned out the same way deep sea fishing did for me. My favorite part was exploring the exotic waterfalls and getting rained on in the rain forest (odd).

This month we also had some special guest appearances. Kipp and Jason came to stay with us for four days and of course the Three Amigos had fun being boys and nerding out. Neither of them had been to Hawaii before so it was fun showing them around and so good to wake up to their company. Just a couple days after Kipp and Jason had to fly home we got to spend four more exciting days with our partners in crime, John and Shannon. And yes I did nerd out with Shannon. The first night our mouths couldn't move fast enough to catch each other up on everything. We spent most of our days snorkeling, playing in waves and laying in the sun. My little Indian was darker than me after the first day of being here. Bitch.

Amongst all the excitement and travel I also got my first promotion at work. I have already hit the ground running with new tasks and duties which has been keeping me very busy. Not to mention this is our busiest time of the year. I am a slave to furniture I have decided.

And due to my heavy work schedule right now and not being able to be with family Christmas for us was about as exciting as Groundhogs day. The holiday is just not the same in 80 degree weather and without family. Plus, Santa walks around in a Hawaiian shirt with his belly hanging out which pretty much ruined it for me from the beginning. I keep telling myself that my Christmas will come in January when my family comes to visit. I cannot wait!

Thanksgiving '09

We finally experienced our first holiday here in Hawaii. Although we live in paradise sometimes it's not paradise without family and your closest friends, especially on holidays. We decided the only way suppress our desire to be home was to do something we knew we couldn't do at home. We decided to snorkel Hanauma Bay. If you have never snorkeled this bay before, please put it on your top 20 things to do in your life. It is beautiful. I am pretty sure I saw a mermaid too.

After snorkeling we went and had Thanksgiving brunch at one of our favorite hotels, Kahala Resort. This is where all of the celebrities and famous people stay at when they come to Oahu. One time when we were there everyone though Nic was Tito Ortiz so we got extra special treatment. The spread was unbelievable and of course the view was stunning. They also have a big dauphin pool here so we got to hang out with the dauphins for the afternoon. My favorite part though was their living room. They has fresh noble pine
Christmas trees that they imported so the whole room smelled like Christmas. The the trees were stunning. I am quickly learning how fortunate I was to grow up in the Northwest. I am probably going to bring my sleeping bag next time and wait for Santa underneath these Christmas trees.

Our First Visitors, the Fritzwalds

We had our first visitors last week, Larry and Phyllis. We were both so excited to see them and of course our week together went by too fast. Saying goodbye almost was just as hard as the first time. They hadn't planned on coming as early as November but we encouraged them to do so as it was their 26th wedding anniversary which sounded like a good enough excuse to come to Hawaii as any. I am pretty convinced that my parents and Nic's parents were separated at birth because being with them always makes me feel so much at home with my family. And I am sure you could image the amount of incredible food and booze that we consumed in last week. I am scheduled for my kidney transplant tomorrow.

Our first day together we took them to our favorite beach, Ko'olina where we snorkeled and swam. Phyllis refused to go in the water without her floatie which of course became the gateway of "let's make fun of mom" day. My favorite scene was when she tried to sit in her inner tube and of course went ass over tea kettle. Not once, but twice. It was perfect. We also got a good laugh at Larry in his snorkel gear. We named him "Great White" like a giant beached shark. Later that evening we came back to our apartment to play a few rounds of Yahtzee before catching the fire works. I proceeded to introduce them to my house rules of for every full house rolled results in a social and points for a Yahtzee can only be received if the roll is followed by a dance. You will be surprised as to how many full houses are rolled in a single game. Needless to say we didn't make it to the fire works.

The remainder of the week was spent site seeing, introducing them to our new Hawaiian life and creating unforgettable memories together. One morning Larry volunteered to drive me into work. I told him that if he is going to be taking Nic's position then he also has to cook me breakfast and make my lunch too (yes, Nic really does this for me every day). I woke up the next morning to eggs, toast and coffee and a lunch menu. Nic got demoted when Larry picked me up from work the next day with a cold cocktail ready to go for me in the car. I have revised this job description.

HNL Halloween '09

Sometimes I forget how big this city is until everyone comes out for events like Halloween. Or maybe this city really isn't that big, we are all just confined to one small area. Whatever it is small spaces + big population all trying to achieve the same thing = chaos. I have never seen anything like Hallloween here in Honolulu. We started off in Chinatown as word on the street was that was the place to be. Plus, it is only three blocks from our apartment so we walked there. They had the streets blocked off, five stages of music, endless beer gardens and of course all of the bars packed with people as well. Our goal was to eventually make it down to Waikiki however cabs were not even driving there due to the chaos. It was a blast but we spent a lot of our night just trying to navigate through the sea of people. I am glad we did but next year maybe we will settle for a house party.

I ended up recycling one of my burlesque costumes and went as a pirate. (No, a sexy pirate in effort to keep up with Shan.) Nic went as a Greek god. It was something we threw together at the last minute and of course he looked awesome. Three of our friends met us at our apartment where we all got ready together and got our prefunk on. Leena went as a 50's housewife, Liz went as a flapper and Olga was a glamour girl. We finally called it a night at about 2 am and stumbled back to our place. Sunday morning was a little rough.

Hawaii, meet Nicky Croon.

As many of you know Nic has swooned half of America with his dreamy voice. Okay, well maybe not half but pretty close. Back in Portland he was known as Spank Sinatra. We had a standing gig at Hawthorne Theatre as Sugar Q where he was our host and he would sing crooner songs in between our acts. He killed it.

When we came to Hawaii in June for my interview we thought how fun would it be if Nic were to get a singing gig in the fancy restaurant and wine bar at my work. It was a little bit of pipe dream but fun to think about. Well kids guess what. He has a standing gig now there. I swear there is nothing he can't do. Starting next Saturday he will be singing there every Saturday night as Nicky Croon. Although we loved him as Spank, we knew his former name might not be appropriate for this type of gig. Also, have to give a shout out to my friend Leena who has made this happen for us. High five girl.