Manoa Falls

It was a gorgeous Sunday, so we headed out for a nice breakfast and then to go hike off some of the calories. The hike was beautiful. We walked through a bamboo forest and there were streams all along the path. Makaela kept pointing out the water and saying "wawa". She loved walking along the paths sitting on rocks and posing for pictures. We've been practicing colors so we pointed out all the different color flowers too. After the hike we got frozen yogurt and then headed home for a long family nap.

Greek Fest 09

Today we went to the Greek Festival in Ala Moana Beach Park and met up with a few of Matt's work buddies. Makaela loved the crowds, the fish ponds, the music, but most of all...the baklava. We ended up trying a bit of everything, gyros, greek salad, pasta, spinokopita (my fav), and matt got to try the greek wine and ouzo. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed ourselves. After today, Makaela became an honorary Greek due to her dancing abilities. She marched right up the main stage and started dancing.

our little cultured girl

So tonight I made shrimp stirfry in a soy sauce based gravy. Matt usually uses a fork to eat the stirfry, but I always use chopsticks. It makes the meal a bit more exotic for me. Well, 5 minutes into the meal, Makaela started fussing and we figured out that she wanted my bowl...and my utensils. I handed them over to see what she would do and she started eating with the chopsticks...no lessons at all.

Joining the circus

Lately Makaela has taken to climbing and scaling anything she can. The kitchen stools are always a bit scary, but I walked into the livingroom today to find her practicing her latest trick. Perhaps she remembers too much from watching Barnum and Bailey's Ringling Bros Circus this summer.

Jackson's Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Jackson's first birthday. There was an arts and craft station that you could decorate a construction hat with stickers and markers (the theme was Bob the Builder). Matt and Makaela got a little out of hand decorating the hat, since most of the stickers never made it onto the hat. Makaela was walking aroudn with her arms out so the sun would glitter off her stickers.

Thursday afternoon at the beach

Today a bunch of teachers from my school got together for a beach wiffle ball game. Makaela came with, so I couldn't play, but we were pretty good cheerleaders. Makaela got some bonding time with Brooke while we were there too. They both ate a lot of sand and had lots of laughs.

Bayfest and shrimp

We went to Bayfest today with a bunch of friends. When we got there, Matt found out there was a shrimp eating contest. He and Chris Callisto went up to try to qualify to get into the contest. In order to get into the contest, you had to answer questions correctly about the movie Forrest Gump. Both he and Chris got in and ended up sitting next to each other to compete. They tried there best, but as much as he loves shrimp, he couldn't eat more than 30 in 2 minutes. Matt did come in 4th place though. The concert was fun- Black Eyed Peas were really good and I think they sounded just as good as their CD. Then there was a firework can put any 4th of July show to shame.