Hugs to Heather!

Once upon another life ago my friend Heather was a graphic artist for a government contractor. Then she was promoted to Domestic Engineer. Well lucky me, I have friends in high places. Guess who redesigned my header? I LOVE it. So leave a comment and tell her you love it, too.

I last saw Heather in the flesh two years ago. She and her Hubs came six thousand miles just to visit us. They see Hubby more often, though. He sees them whenever he is back East.

Lucky him. Sad me.

Because the Celebration Is Worth It

So it was a cold week in November. Three of us got pregnant, and our kids were born within days of each other. My friends at T.E.A.M. Althouse found two pictures of me, Melody, and Mama Eekhoff at my baby shower and a picture of our three babies at our Farmers Are Desserting Us party (our going away dessert party). Go here to see.

Their daughter, Erin, was born three days after Son1, and four days before little A. over at the Eekhoff's Plain Life. So in honor of Erin's birthday here are the kids at Cox Farms at just 2 months old. Oh, and girls, get ready. Son1 wants to know when we get to visit you little cuties! He's been visiting your birthday posts with me!

An All Time Favorite Photo

My friend over at The Eekhoff's Plain Life posted an all time favorite photo of mine here, in honor of Son1's birthday. She doesn't even know how much Hubs and I love this photo! See how B.I.G. I got? I even got BIGGER than this! Son1 cooked for 16 more days, and I was induced. I had another ultra sound a little over week after this picture. Baby looked much bigger on the ultrasound than he actually was at birth, and the doctor called TIME!

The second we knew I was pregnant with Son2, Hubby pulled up tons of pictures of this very poker night at our old house. He was so proud I was going to be hugely pregnant again. I am only 5'1", and I carried both babies straight out. Impressive I could walk, I know.

Little A was born seven days after Son1. Which means little A's birthday is tomorrow! So I'll be by after the birthday post to say hi. But for now, here are two sleepy babies after their baby dedication at church. I think it was October 16, 2004.

Contrariety contrarie-TEA!

con·tra·ri·ety (From Webster's)
1 : The quality or state of being contrary.

con·tra·ri·eTEA (From Farmer's) 1: The quality or state of having a totally different experience at a tea house that you have been to a handful of times.

Our Bible study ladies spent girly time at the Wai'Oli Tea Room, located in Manoa Valley. Manoa valley is three miles east and inland of Honolulu, is lush and green, and has beautiful thick, mature vegetation. The Wai'Oli Tea Room, now privately owned, is located on property owned by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army once ran an orphanage here, and the tea room facility was built to teach orphan girls how to cook, in the early part of last century. There is a beautiful chapel on the grounds, tiny, with stained glass, often used for weddings. A wishing well is at the bottom of the property that was used in Elvis's Blue Hawaii.

For a long time, the Wai'Oli Tea Room has been my favorite tea room on the island. I was first introduced to the tea room by the Queen Mum of the Royal Poinciana Princesses Red Hat chapter, from Virginia. You can read all about our tea adventures three years ago, here. Since then, I have brought many visitors to this tea room, and I have loved it, loved it, loved it. I still love it. This day, though, the tea room was particularly crowded, and we had a contrarie-TEA.

This was the first time I sat inside at the tea room. Sitting outside emits a completely different atmosphere. You sit outside, under a covered lanai, with a view of palms, tropical flowers, and feel you are part of a lush jungle, all the while feeling dainty and girly. The trade winds blow through the open lanais, and you are seated under open beams with old fashioned chandelier bulb lighting. But instead, our party of six sat inside, alongside a small metal tri-fold screen. On the other side of the screen, two thirds of the room (more like a hall) was occupied by several Red Hat chapters for a large gathering, in all of their redulation. I love the Red Hat society, I really do. I used to be a Pink Hatter in the Royal Poinciana Princess chapter, with a few other pink hatters. But this seating arrangement wasn't really fair to these Red Hatters, or to us. They were a large party, of nearly 100 women, I would guess. They were expectantly, extremely loud and having a ball. At one point, a Queen Mum stood on a chair to get the large party's attention. They were having so much fun they made it difficult for her to speak over them. Finally they quieted, and she announced to the large party that she also had competition with some Pink Hatters. Um, that would have been US. A pink hatter is anyone having tea under the age of 50. We were speaking at a normal volume, but Chair Stander did not like that. She kept speaking, still competing with her own ladies that would not quiet down, in a booming voice. We continued with our little tea party, but Chair Stander turned, glared down over the screen, paused dramatically with an evil eye that screamed, "YOU ARE TOO LOUD IN YOUR LITTLE VOICES!!" Yikes! We looked at one another and shrugged meekly. Our service wasn't the best. The hostess and waitress were helping us and this other large party, and one other little table. One of our tea pots was broken, and it took awhile to refill our pot. More than anything, I was sad my friends were not having the best tea experience I know the Wai'Oli Tea Room can put forth. We were snapped at when the bill came, too. I was so sad. Since I have been here so many times before, and have adored my time at the tea room, I will forgive the Wai'Oli Tea Room, and come again. I hope my friends will, too.

Our table was dressed with eclectic place settings. All were pretty and floral, but each different. Every place setting was set with a cinnamon favor ornament, too. The hostess and waitress brought a tea cart with over 20 loose leaf teas. We passed them to smell and make three selections. We chose Berried Treasure, Almond, and Green Tea. I was surprised how much I liked the almond.

Now this right here is why I love this place. We were served three tiers of sweets, savories, and scones. Along with the devonshire cream for the scones and cranberry bread came mango butter. The Wai'Oli Tea Room's pastry chef makes their own guava bread and lilikoi bread. This is the only tea room on the island that makes these special breads. The savories included a veggie wrap, chicken cranberry spread on guava bread (pink), a fish spread on lilikoi bread (yellow), and a little open faced cucumber and tomato spread.

We finished tea just as the Red Hat tea wrapped up. Our conversation was still rich, regardless of the tea experience. Every single one of us traveled this summer, and it was the first time we had caught up, all together, in months. I couldn't let us escape without a group photo on the outside lanai. This was also the last time we were all together. Kristen moved this past Friday to California.

Waimea Falls With the Harveys AND Falling Asleep Laughing

We spent some of the second day with the Harveys at Waimea Valley Audubon Center. It is a 3/4 mile trek, one way, to the waterfall where Kate and Sawyer swam, on LOST. Parts of the walk are steep, other parts are flat. Wild peacocks roam the grounds. We usually see male peacocks. This day, we saw a mama peacock hovering over her babies. It was quite a sight, and quite a treat. Later on the walk, we found a large cluster of bamboo. See in the middle picture how tall these sun shelters were?! The bamboo towered over the shelters. See how Son1 and I are walking straight toward the bamboo? The best treat was hearing the wind blow the shoots into one another and hear them knocking hard toward one another. We could hear the hollowness of the shoots.

Parts of the walk the trees rose several feet in the air and created welcome canopies of shade.

Everywhere we turned there were flowers. Some of these pictures on this post are ours, and some are the Harvey's. So eat them all up!! The red flowers are a type of heliconia. They kind of look like flamingos. They cascade down from green palms. The yellow flowers grow up in a rectangular prism shape, and then taper into a cone top, with white flowers. The purple ones were just starting to open.

This banana tree is flowering while producing fruit. I had never seen such a thing! Well, not as pastel as this flower! This banana tree is a totally different variety than the kind we have in our back yard. On the left is another type of heliconia. This type shoots up out of the palms. We have this in our back yard. The last flower is ginger. These are common in the Hawaiian islands, and I wish we would have planted these in our yard, too!!

The middle picture is a flowering hibiscus.

We followed the trail to the waterfall. Now I am not sure how we were absolutely shocked. As we walked along the paved road from the entrance to the waterfall, it was completely apparent there was no water flowing into through the creek beds thirty or more feet below. This was so different than when we were here in March for the tea and with our family. We arrived and found no waterfall. The pool below was nearly empty. Summer heat and less rainfall took their toll on the waterfall, swimming hole, and running creeks. It was a little anticlimactic.

There was still the walk back, though. We experienced more of God's beauty all the way back to the car.
We jumped back in the cars, and traveled farther north to Turtle Bay. Even though this smaller beach is part of the fancy shmancy resort, it is a public beach. The waters are calm because they are protected by a reef, and a perfect entry for our small keiki. Turtle Bay Resort also owns most of the land where LOST is filmed for beach scenes and for trail scenes.

Real dads float with their kids while real moms sit on rented lounge chairs that some nice person let us use for their last 30 minutes!!

It got to be "that time." That time, being the time that if we didn't leave, there were going to be some meltdowns. We drove home around sunset, put the kids to bed, and had some adult time.

During our adult time, we laughed, laughed and laughed. We howled. I made promises that I wouldn't blog about what was said to the three other adults. Now don't worry, we weren't talking about any of y'all. It was all about the people sitting in the room.

Finally, we knew we were fading, and gave into bedtime. We said good night, and Hubby and I headed for our room. He finished brushing his teeth, and found me flopped on my tummy across our bed. He asked if I was sleeping. I sprang up into a sitting position. NOPE! I was sitting there with a grin from ear to ear. I explained to Hubby that my heart just felt very, very full. We hadn't laughed like that in weeks. The Harvey visit was just what we needed, right in the middle of the stress of selling our house, and our crazy, no date in sight, move. Their visit was a welcome distraction. We went to bed, sad that the last Harvey day was coming.

Show Some Aloha to the Texans, Y'All!

The Harveys were our very first couple friends in Northern VA. We met them at a church neither of us continued to attend. One Sunday Hubby practically bowled me down a pew to ask J for her number. Can you believe I was shy? (I am a shy, over the top, extrovert. We DO exist!) We exchanged numbers and that was the beginning of our friendship! When J graduated law school in 2003, they both found jobs in Texas, near their families. Since then, they have visited us twice in Hawaii.

Do you love this picture? It was from a different part of their Hawaii trip!!

The Harveys spent their last three days in Hawaii with us. They had already been to the Big Island the week before, and then spent some time on our island of Oahu before arriving at our home. Our babies had met back in 2006 when J and I were both pregnant. I am sure they must have waved in utero. They were comfortable enough...they shared snacks.

The Harveys arrived shortly after our Open House was over. My children absolutely revolted against our clean house, and pulled out the hidden toy baskets. In the mean time, I talked to the Harveys for two straight hours until Hubby got home. They are those friends, you know those friends, the kind that show up and it's like no time has passed.

Hubby came home from work, and the jabbering went on for another hour or two until dinner. And I guess not enough was said, because it went on after dinner, and then after the kids went to bed.
And the kids, well they were kids. My boys were happy for a new playmate, and little A was happy for toys, toys, and more toys. Hmmm....well, she is just happy, happy all of the time. And adorable, too.

She dug our stairs. Every day was a stairs day.

The Harveys were great house guests. They truly engaged our kids, and loved on them. We were overwhelmed. Their primary reason to spend a few days with us was just for "Farmer Time."
Right before we all went to bed the first night, Hubby asked if we had ever taken them to Sandy's. Ohhh J remembered. She even told her mom she hoped we would go again.

The next morning we got ourselves and the kids up and out the door. We ordered our homestyle Hawaiian breakfasts when Auntie made the rounds to our table. She was experimenting with a new recipe for their infamous crater pancake, baked in the oven. Usually it is topped with lemon, butter, and powdered sugar. Today's was topped with baked fresh pineapple in a sweet and sugary sauce. Aaahhh just one more time Hubby and I delighted in cheating on the South Beach. Three of us ate half before I remembered to take a picture for y'all.More Harvey Time to come....

Another Wedding Ten Years Later

Andi was my last college roommate, and a bridesmaid in my wedding. Ten years later, she married a genuine gentleman. His brother's toast at the wedding moved me, and spoke to his character. I leaned to Hubby and whispered that I hoped one day our boys would speak so highly of one another at their weddings.

The wedding was at a Tuscan mansion in Sierra Madre, neighboring Pasadena. The home is a replica of the Florentine Villa Collazzi, and is to scale one fourth of the original size. I once visited the original when I lived in Italy for a summer. Supposedly it is the only architectural structure designed originally by Michaelangelo. The name, Villa del Sol d'Oro is Italian for House of the Golden Sun. Legally Blonde, The Princess Diaries, and A Walk in the Clouds were partly filmed here.

Jeremy is Jewish so they were married under a chuppah. This represents the home they will build together.

They were married in front of this fountain, below the courtyard of the mansion, where dinner was served.

Rather than assign table numbers, the tables were named with locations. Inside our place card it said University of California, Los Angeles. We found the table card that read the same, and below was the significance to the couple. It reads: Andi completed her B.A. in Psychology and Master of Social Welfare degree here in Westwood. People were excited to find their table and read the fun fact. No one was irritated by a number, like at other weddings.

At the Table:

This is Hubby's plate. Mine was a smaller version. Every known taboo to the South Beach is on this plate. Hubby was in heaven. He is an Italian food man.

The favors were handmade paper flowers with an attached note. In honor of our presence at their wedding a donation was made to the American Cancer Society in each of their grandfathers name. I loved that they spent money on a donation and not on a trinket for everyone. Those little trinkets add up!

Hopefully when we move to CA we will see Andi and Jeremy more often!

The Farmers on DATE alone!

Aloha to Our First Friends on the Island!

Today we said Aloha to the very first friends we made in Hawaii. They also attended our church in VA. When Hubby got his orders to Hawaii, a couple from church shared that a family with three little girls had moved to Hawaii just months ago. We emailed them long before our arrival, and talked on the phone. They helped us find a realtor, and introduced us to island living before even arriving in Hawaii. Our families became fast friends once we met in person. In Hawaii it is customary to celebrate someone's departure with an Aloha party. So today we enjoyed their party and company, and offered words of encouragement to them and their children.

Now here is the trade off with living different places. Sure moving brings the heartache and loss of what is familiar, the distance from family, and the apprehension of what the next place will offer, and what it will lack. Then there are the tasty treats, the yummies of friendships that happen only because of moving. Today we celebrated friendship, listened to their uncertainties, and offered reassurance. We laughed, we hugged, and said Ahui Ho...until we meet again. Fortunately we know that will be in June, when we see them in California.
The little girl on the far right was Son1's first little crush, before he was even two years old. We caught them sharing a lollipop, hugs, and teeny pecks. There was a time when we hovered over our children in the ocean. Now the kids get in the water on their own. That left plenty of time for Son2 to get special attention from his parents.

Single and in Hawaii

One of our groomsmen is in Hawaii for a year. A major Hawaii company is his new client. His NY based company has moved him here for the year. We met B at UCLA. He worked with Hubby and took a lot of classes with my sis. So surprise, B! Hubby literally said, put B on the blog and give a shout out and let everyone know he is single and in Hawaii for the year!Hubby and B went to dinner in Waikiki...don't you just love Hubby's UCLA aloha shirt? Aaahhh, we're up for some serious March Madness!!!

Aloha Apisas!

This week friends stayed with us that we had not seen in nearly seven years. Some of you have heard us say, "The Farmers are your friends for life." And we definitely mean it. I met Tacey eight years ago. We taught ESOL on the same team in Virginia for one year before she moved away. We kept in touch, even after I left Virginia. She saved and planned for the 6,000 mile trip to Hawaii for some time. We are so glad they enjoyed their stay. Son1 just adored his new friend. He would wake up every morning, and either ask for him, or say, "Where is the big boy? What's he doing?" It was time for our friends to say aloha. These moments are sad ones, particularly for Son1.

Fast Friends

Hubby and I took turns watching Son2 in the shade and watching Son1 in the water. Son2 has been a little under the weather with sinus and ear infections. He is pretty good natured, even when he is sick, which makes a trip to the beach bearable.Almost the whole day, Son1 played with his new friend, Adam. I admired how they became fast friends. I reflected on how short a time in life we are uninhibited when choosing friends.

They laughed and jumped through the waves for hours. When a wave would knock one over, the other boy would look for his friend. It went on like this until it was time to go home.