Travel Log: Legoland and Wedding #2

We had a busy day today.

First, we made the pilgrimage to Mecca trek to Legoland.


It's a good thing we checked the Legoland website before we went. If we hadn't done so, then our trip to Legoland would have been very much like Clark Griswold's trip Wally World to in Vacation. It turns out, they're CLOSED Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the off season. (Aside: Actually, the reason why we went to see the Sequoias on the way south was because we couldn't go to Legoland on Wednesday.)

I was really glad we went. They had a lot of the old stuff we had seen before...

Lego Mt. Rushmore
(Yes, that's a giant Q-Tip coming out of GW's ear)

...but they also had a lot of new stuff, too. Here's some of the stuff they've added since the last time we were there.

NY City with the new Freedom Tower added

Las Vegas

In case you've never been to Legoland before, the displays above are by no means static. They have a lot of moving parts - cars driving around, helicopters with blades spinning, trains running, breakdancers dancing, bands playing, etc.

They've added a whole new section called Land of Adventure which is sort of an Indiana Jones themed place set in 1920's Egypt. Flashback to Disneyworld: Our favorite ride at Disney is the Buzz Lightyear ride where you actually get a laser gun to shoot at targets through the ride and rack up points. They added a very similar ride here at Legoland where you ride in a car and shoot guns at targets in an Egyptian archeological type theme.

Jeeps N Guns
YEAH!

(Okay, so it's not a Jeep. Someone tell me what a better name for them would be.)

When we came off the ride the first time, the air rang with a loud and repetitive,

"AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!"

Then my wife told me to calm down and be quiet and so she could ask the boys what they wanted to do next. I bolted and ran back to the entrance and the boys followed me, so we went on it again.

Aside: One of the nice things about going during the off-season: No lines. There was only one ride we had to wait in line for (because they had it operating at reduced capacity due to expected low usage). All the rest of the rides we could ride multiple times in a row if we wanted.

Did I mention the ride keeps score?

LW beat me BOTH times we rode!

Oh, I know what YOU'RE thinking! NO! LW's score on the first run had absolutely NOTHING to do with my desire to go on the ride AGAIN. (Nice shootin' Sweetie! :-) ).

We went on the boat ride...


We went on the log ride...


We went on the safari jeep ride...


ES said he wanted to go on this roller coaster, but chickened out at the last minute. I let him walk back down the exit ramp to LW while I went for a ride.


There was nobody else in line, so the operator guy let me ride it

3 times in a row.

He asked if I wanted to keep going, but I said no, I should get back to my family. Each time I flew past my family sitting on the park bench, I made sure to scream like a little girl so ES would think it was horrible and he wasn't missing out on any fun. ;-)

We went on a bunch of other rides, but I won't bore you with more of the same.

We made a few pitstops...


Oh, there's also a 10-stage geocache in Legoland. We found all but one of the clues and I'll have to email the owner to ask about that one.

Each Treasure Chest Icon is a Stage of the Geocache.
The dotted lines are a "breadcrumb" trail that shows
where we walked in the park.

Then we made the mistake of walking into the store. Oh man, they had a LOT of REALLY COOL stuff in the store. I actually contemplated breaking out the roof-rack carrier to take home a Death Star and a Millenium Falcon.

Me checking my empty wallet to see if I can afford a Death Star.

Overall, a good time was had by all, and the boys even said that Legoland made the long car drive from Oregon worth the trip. Hooray!

Wedding #2

Tonight I went to Rich and Jasmine's wedding in Fallbrook. That was actually the reason for our excursion south to San Diego before heading east. Unfortunately, our friend Jen who had agreed to watch the boys for us came down sick with strep throat today. (Aside: I'm sorry you're sick, Jen! We're sorry we didn't get to see you today and I hope you get better soon!) So my wife stayed back at the hotel with the boys while I went to the wedding.

Rich was a stateroom mate of mine on the 725 Battle Wagon and we've been through a lot together.

They picked out a beautiful location for the wedding.

The happy couple.

The sword arch.

The cake was delicious!

Because I know some of you are interested in such details, here's the centerpiece. I think it was like a glass flower thing on the inside. It was really pretty - this photo doesn't do it justice.

Reunion of SSN 725 Shipmates

It was good to catch up with old friends and shipmates. Unfortunately, I missed the memo about the choker whites. No, actually, Rich called me to ask me to be in the sword arch about 3 days after the movers took my dress uniforms and sword away in a wooden crate bound for DC. DOH! I was disappointed not to be part of the sword arch, but I was glad the timing worked out for me to attend the ceremony en route to our next duty station.

Statistics for today:

399.99 Cost of a Lego Death Star

5.02 Number of miles walked at Legoland today (by GPS).

5,002 Number of calories in one of those pieces of wedding cake (probably).

WARNING: I probably won't write a blog post tomorrow and might not over the weekend. Tomorrow we're heading to my cousin's place in St. George, Utah, with a stop in Las Vegas for dinner with some friends. I expect we'll get in pretty late tomorrow night and be busy with family activities over the weekend. :-) Will write more when I can. In the meantime, I hope you all have a good weekend!

Twice in One Weekend

I really love weekends.

Especially holiday weekends.

Even more so when I wake up to the sound of Star Wars laser blasters at 6:45.

(Just a wee bit of sarcasm there.)

My wife and I always dread the morning after we've had some reason to keep the boys up late. It doesn't matter what time we put them to bed at night, they always wake up before 7 a.m. If they were up late the night before, then that equates to tired and cranky boys crying and whining and fighting in the morning.

Friday night, my CO and his wife took us out for a very nice dinner at Orchid's to celebrate the end of decom. That was the fanciest restaurant we've been to on the island. I actually had to dig khaki pants and closed toed shoes out of my closet. I don't think I've worn pants since we moved to Hawaii, with the exception of my uniform at work. Even then, I normally wear shorts and a t-shirt in to work and then change into my uniform at work, so I'm never NOT in shorts outside of work. Anyway, Orchid's was truly extraordinary. We really enjoyed both the food and the good company. (Thanks W & L!)

LW and me outside Orchid's

The four of us enjoying Mai Tais at Orchid's.
(No, I'm not really THAT pasty white, I think it just
looks that way because of the white wall behind me).

While we were off at dinner, we left the boys with their best friends J & M across the street. We got back home around 9:30 and they were still up watching movies. By the time we got the boys to bed it was around 10 p.m. Saturday morning was a lovely cacophony of whining and fighting and general crankiness. I had both boys in time-outs for fighting by 8 a.m.

My former XO and Weps from my previous boat are both stationed here in Hawaii now, too. Last night we all got together for a barbecue to say farewell to LW and me as we head off to DC. They all live right here in the same housing area we do, so we went over to their house and took the kids with us. Once again, great food and good company, but we didn't put the boys to bed until like 9:30 again.

Alright, I need to go. We just had a fight over Lego Star Wars and the X-Box that ended in ES stomping upstairs screaming "I HATE YOU!" and slamming his door. Besides waking up to the sound of Star Wars laser blasters, there's nothing like a temper tantrum before 8 a.m. to really make my morning.

I need coffee.

...and maybe some ear plugs.

...or some duct tape.

Lego Indiana Jones

I'm surprised I've gone so long without yet writing about Lego Indiana Jones. ES got it for his birthday from Grammy. It came in the mail just before we left on our vacation to the Big Island, so we got to check it out before we left.

Now that we're back home and the kids are on summer vacation, that's almost all the boys have wanted to do all day everyday is play Lego Indiana Jones. LW has had to ration them and kick them out of the house to play and make a disaster area of our yard building forts and whatnot.

Lego Indiana Jones (LIJ) is AWESOME. Much like Lego Star Wars (LSW), it does a similarly hilarious job of telling the story of the movie without any dialog - just grunts and gestures and physical comedy. Through exploring LIJ, it dawned on me one of the reasons I liked LSW so much was the puzzle aspect of it. You have to figure out which pieces go where to unlock or remove the obstacles and progress through the game. LIJ has continued that puzzle-solving aspect and even improved on it a bit more. For example, there are more tools that you have to find and use in LIJ. Sometimes, a monkey will be sitting up on a wall holding the tool you need, so first you have to find a banana. If you throw the banana to the monkey, then he'll grab the banana and drop the tool.

Like LSW though, LIJ is very forgiving and playable by small children. You may not unlock all the bonuses or get the highest score, but you can still progress through the storyline just fine.

You can check out the trailer for the video game on my previous post here.

The new secret codeword: JUNIOR

Both boys had been outside playing with the neighborhood kids. ES and our neighbor J decided they wanted to come inside to play LIJ. They didn't want to say it out loud so YB would hear, because then he would want to come in and play, too, and unfortunately it's only a two-player game. So instead, they made up their new secret codeword for LIJ. They came in the house and declared they wanted to play "Lego Junior."

LW and I were perplexed by this and didn't know what the heck they were talking about. (The secret code worked then, right?) Can any of you figure out how they came up with that name?

In The Last Crusade, Indy's father (Sean Connery) calls Indy, "Junior." So instead of saying Lego Indiana Jones, they replaced "Indiana Jones" with "Junior" and called it "Lego Junior." I thought that was pretty clever.

Kapow! Oof! Bam!

We haven't even picked up the new Lego Indiana Jones video game yet, and now I see Lego BATMAN is coming out in September! Turn my blog music off at the bottom of the page and then click play on this trailer:

Aside: Of course, before we can play Lego anything, we need to get our X-Box fixed. We got the "three blinking red lights of death" that all the X-Boxes have been experiencing. I was pleased to read that X-Box will repair this problem even if your X-Box is out of warranty. I called the repair number and they sent me a box via UPS. All I had to do was open the box, put my X-Box in, tape it shut (they even provided the tape!) and slap on the return UPS shipping label. Hopefully it comes back quick.

Getting back to video game reviews...

One of the reasons Lego Star Wars was such a big hit in our house was that it's very easy to control and it's very forgiving of mistakes. You may not get ALL the bonus features or the top score if you aren't playing it with the precision of an experienced hand, but small children can play and have fun and progress through the basic story line without dying and starting over at the beginning. If your character does "die" then you just pick up right where you left off.

A new game we found for the Wii that YB really likes is the Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue. Like Lego Star Wars, Safari Rescue is very forgiving. It won't let you jump off any cliffs or into any danger. When you paddle your boat on the river, you're supposed to dodge the alligators and hippos, but if you bump into them, they just say, "That's okay, Diego" and you keep moving along.

Before this, YB hasn't played much Wii because he doesn't really have the motor skills or understanding of the controls to do much besides play Wii Boxing. In addition to being a forgiving of mistakes type of game, Safari Rescue really helps YB understand the Wii motions by the little orange window in the lower left hand corner of the screen that shows him how to hold the controller and what direction to move it. YB just has to immitate the motion of the character in the orange window and it guides him through each stage of the game.

YB in his cockpit playing Safari Rescue.
(Notice the little orange character in the
lower left corner showing him how to
move the controller.)

A couple of other cool things worth checking out:

My Dad sent me a couple of pretty cool videos this week. The first one (click here) is of a local newspaper reporter riding in a Blue Angels F/A-18 and passing out multiple times. It's pretty funny to watch. The second one (click here) is a Natioanal Geographic special on USS TEXAS (SSN-775). It's pretty long (45 minutes), but it's fairly well done. I like how the oxygen generator is "revolutionary" as if it was something NEW built JUST for the TEXAS. Actually, we've been using oxygen generators on our submarines for decades, but... It's still a pretty cool show.

Waimea Falls Hike

I know, I know, LW already scooped me on writing about Waimea Falls. Still, I want to provide my standard hike summary here for others considering going on this hike.

Family Photo at Waimea Falls

I'm sorry it has taken us this long to go to Waimea Falls. I guess I thought it would be a tourist trap, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a really easy hike through some really pretty botanical gardens. It wasn't overly crowded or overpriced, either. In fact, we decided to buy the annual membership. We figured we need to go 3 times in order to get our money's worth, and we thought this was a nice enough place to visit and uniquely Hawaiian that we were sure to come back a few more times with visiting family and friends.

We saw some BIG trees.

And we saw lots of peacocks and roosters.

In searching for information about it before we drove all the way over there to the North Shore, I was disappointed not to find a one-source website FOR the park. I did find this blog very encouraging that it was doable with children (note one of their pictures shows stairs - those are on one of the side paths, you don't have to take any stairs on the main path out to the falls and back).

YB at the Welcome Center

This is where you buy your tickets.

The path is mostly paved like this.
(Yes, YB is watching me with his binoculars.)

After swimming in the 70 degree water under the waterfall, ES offered this assessment: "Awesome" and "I don't ever want to leave here" and "I want to come back here EVERY DAY." Later, during the car ride home, I asked if this was better than the Makapu'u Ridge hike, and he said he liked them both, but he confirmed that this was also better than Lego Star Wars.

On our way walking back down to the car, the boys didn't want me to lose out on an opportunity for exercise, so they created some "drag" for me.

Oh yeah, watch out for the sentinel that guards the restrooms.

The map they give you at the welcome center.
(Click on the map for a larger view)

Update 4/26/08: Waimea Valley Grill. On our third visit to Waimea Falls, we actually ate lunch at the Waimea Valley Grill at the welcome center. Although the prices may seem a little high, the food ingredients were very fresh and delicious. I had the ahi sandwich, some fries, and a smoothie, and they were all excellent. My boys enjoyed their hot dogs. Here's the menu if you would like to see what they have and if you want to plan ahead to eat there.




WAIMEA FALLS HIKE SUMMARY: I know when I'm trying to decide on a new hike location, I search for an overview about the hike that will help me judge if it's doable with two little boys. For anyone else looking to do this hike, here's a quick summary:
Map: This hike is not covered by Ball (see this post for explanation). I included a scan of the map they give you at the welcome center above.
Mileage: My GPS trip odometer said 2.0 miles.
Elevation Gain: Approximately 300 feet of elevation gain at a very gentle slope.
Terrain: Entirely paved path, all the way out to the falls and back. There are several little side-trails with dirt paths, but you could easily take a stroller all the way to the falls and back.
Time: It took us 50 minutes walking up-slope (I hesitate to say "uphill" because it wasn't steep) to the falls, and it took us 35 minutes walking back down-slope back to the car.
Facilities: There were plenty, nothing super-fancy, mind you, but suitable for most needs nonetheless.
- At the welcome center is the Waimea Valley Grill (see menu above - $7 sandwiches / $10 plates). It was NOT your standard grease-pit hamburgers, hotdogs, and chicken nuggets. They had a variety of Hawaiian-type things like kalua pork and ahi, etc.
- The bathrooms at the visitor center were old, but clean and had a diaper-changing station. Along the path, there were port-a-potties periodically.
- There is a small snack bar farther out along the path not far from the falls with shaved ice, snacks, and drinks.
- Out at the falls, there are "changing booths" to change into your bathing suits if you wish. These were really just wooden shacks with concrete floors - no bench, no lights, nothing. In fact, if you close the door, you won't be able to see ANYTHING because it's PITCH BLACK inside. So I stood guard at the door with the door open for light while the boys changed into their bathing suits.
- When the pool at the bottom of the falls is open for swimming, they have a lifeguard posted there. Note children under the age of 12 are required to wear a life jacket, and they provide the life jackets for free. The lifeguards are really friendly and will take pictures for you - bring a few bucks to drop in their tip jar. Note that if it's been raining heavily, they will not let you swim due to debris coming over the waterfall.

Gouge, Kudos, and a Rant

Playing Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, I found a lot of great gouge on the internet with lots of pretty color pictures and videos. Now, playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, it's thrown in a few new things here and there, and the internet knowledgebase just isn't as robust as it was for LSW II.

I went on a quest looking for information about the blue cannisters.

You see, for each level of LSW, you have to play the level once through in "Story" mode using the characters that are given to you. After you've played the level once in "Story" mode, then it unlocks the ability to play that level in "Free Play" mode. In "Free Play" mode, you get to choose any character you've unlocked on other levels or purchased in the Mos Eisley Cantina with the points you've earned playing so far. Different characters have different special capabilities that enable you to reach or access different hidden parts of the map.

As you play the game in either "Story" or "Free Play" mode, there are ten white cannisters hidden throughout each level. When you find all ten white cannisters, it gives you like a 50,000 point bonus and a vehicle you can use in some race later on.

So far, everything I wrote above was the same from LSW II to LSW CS. Now in LSW CS though, after the "Story" and "Free Play" it has added the "Challenge." The "Challenge" mode is ALL about finding ten BLUE cannisters hidden throughout the map. You have a 10 minute time limit to find them all. There are no studs (coins) to be found anywhere in "Challenge" mode, but all the same bad guys are there to thwart you that were there in the Story and Free Play. It's pretty... well... challenging.

In my search for hints on the internet, I found lots of discussion forums, and I clicked here and clicked there and through some untraceable series of links, I ended up at THIS site. I don't know why it didn't pop up as the FIRST result on the list when I googled it. It SHOULD have.

Now, this guide is technically written for the Wii version of LSW CS, but it's all good gouge for playing on the XBox, too. It's not pretty and doesn't have any color pictures or other frills, but it is very well organized and logically laid out.

For the sake of anyone who hasn't played Lego Star Wars before, I wanted to share this "hint" from that website, because I thought it was a surprisingly simple synopsis of the game:

Shoot.  Freakin'.  Everything.  If it's made out of LEGO
bricks and not obviously part of the background, gun it
down, or saber it down, or whatever you have to do,
because a lot of stuff to move ahead in the game requires
you to go on a destruction frenzy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

PT Update: I got my trophy back! On my Polar F11 heart rate monitor (HRM) watch, it keeps track of my workouts. I set up a plan for how many and what type of workouts I'm going to do each week. If you reach at least 75% of your goal each week, then it displays a little trophy icon for the rest of the week. I had lost the trophy over the holidays from holiday laziness. Thanks to getting back into my regular weekly routine last week, my watch gave me my trophy back on Monday.

Unfortunately, a shipyard fire drill prevented me from joining my crew with the PT Nazi over at Bloch Arena this morning. I'm really disappointed I missed it. I hear he had the guys running quarter mile sprints out on the bike path.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Proud of my Tiger Scout: Last night at our Cub Scout Pack meeting, ES earned his first awards as a Tiger Scout. He earned his Bobcat Badge, six beads toward his Tiger Badge (there are 15 total to earn the badge), the Geography belt loop, and the Swimming belt loop. I know during the week or so before the pack meeting as I was quizzing him on the Cub Scout Promise, the Law of the Pack, the Cub Scout Motto, etc (all things you need to know for the Bobcat badge), he got a little frustrated or annoyed with me. I think when he got the awards last night though, it really gave him an ego boost and made the effort worth it. Now he's excited and wants to start earning more belt loops.

It was interesting to see the difference in awards last night though. Most of the other boys in his den got the basketball, soccer, baseball, and other sports belt loops. Not only did ES not get any of the sports belt loops that the rest of his den got, he was the only one to get the geography belt loop. I think that's more of a reflection on his non-athletic nerd of a dad though.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CBS Rant: LW and I were REALLY excited to watch the season finale of The Amazing Race on Sunday. We plopped down in our chairs and clicked on the DVR, and... found... nothing... Our DVR did NOT record the finale of the Amazing Race.

So you say to yourself, "Self, WHY on EARTH would the DVR NOT record the finale when it has recorded EVERY Amazing Race episode before this?!?!?" Well, I'll tell you. Some IDIOT at CBS decided to change the official NAME of the show in the electronic listings that go into TV Guide and Dish Network and everywhere else. Our DVR was set to record every episode of "Amazing Race 12," and that worked for the entire season, because that's what it showed up as in the Dish Network guide. For some reason, they changed the name to "Amazing Race: The Season Finale" or something like that. So NOBODY's DVR recorded it if they had it set up as an automatic "record-all-episodes" function. Turns out the same thing happened to my Mom, too. She isn't using Dish Network, so it's not a problem unique to Dish.

I read the recap of the final leg of the race, and it sounded pretty intense. It's a real bummer to have missed it. Why do they offer to let you watch full episodes of all their other shows on their website, but not Amazing Race? To CBS, I say, "Thbbbbbbt!" >:-P

Weekend Recap

Oh so much to write about, where to begin?

Chapter 1. If offending babysitters were an Olympic sport, we'd be GOLD MEDALISTS.

It's been an expensive weekend with two babysitter nights in a row. Friday night, LW and I went to a social for the Dolphin Scholarship Foundation. We invited back the same babysitter I wrote about last time with my open-mouth-insert-foot maneuver on gaudy Christmas lights. She didn't seem to hold it against me, so that was good. She said at least the boys didn't handcuff her this time. ...Um... I'm sorry, they did WHAT???

Saturday night, we had our boat Christmas Party. Tangent: I know, it's a little late for a Christmas party. It's a bit of a challenge figuring out logistics of something like that when you've just arrived on the island, but the families are still working on moving to Hawaii through the course of the fall. Most places were already booked by the time we got here, and it just worked out better to make it a "Happy New Year" Boat Party instead. Besides, this way, we were able to present a bunch of end of year awards like Sailor of the Year, Junior Sailor of the Year, Blue Jacket of the Year, and Junior Officer of the Year. Plus we got to pin on one guys' dolphins and CAP another sailor to E-5. [Aside: The Command Advancement Program (CAP) gives Commanding Officers the ability to hand pick a very small number of sailors each year and promote them one rank.] It seemed like everyone had a great time. There were a lot of cool door prizes, and a lot of guys were getting up on the microphone singing karaoke. I'll be interested to see what videos end up on YouTube later.

Anyway, back to the babysitter story. The babysitter we used Friday night was busy Saturday night, but she told us she has a German exchange student staying with them and she would be willing to babysit for us.

Now, ES has been rather obsessed with military history, and WWII history in particular since we're surrounded by WWII history in Pearl Harbor. We keep having discussions with ES about the fact that yes, Japan and Germany WERE our enemies back during WWII, but that was a LONG time ago and they are both our FRIENDS now.

Ahem... So LW and I returned from the boat party and asked the babysitter how it went. She seemed a little sheepish and embarrassed. She alluded to ES asking her questions about Germany and WWII, but wouldn't tell us specifically what he said. I figure she didn't feel comfortable telling us about it because it was the first time we had met her that night and she didn't know us well. This morning, we tried interrogating ES to find out what he said that offended the babysitter, but he essentially plead the 5th and wouldn't tell us anything. YS in his 4-year-old confident innocence came right forward, proudly and cheerfully informing us that they handcuffed the new babysitter last night - as if it were a normal right of passage and an achievement ANY babysitter would be proud to share with her peers. We've told them that it's NOT OKAY to handcuff the babysitter anymore... if any babysitter ever agrees to come back to our house.

Disclaimer: Mind you, these aren't REAL handcuffs that would incapacitate her from taking action in an emergency. Our boys "handcuffs" are usually made of zoobs that are easy to pull apart. Still, if I were a 17 year old German girl being symbolically handcuffed and interrogated as if I were a WWII spy, I think I might be a little offended and might not go back to that house again.

Again... My mind is wandering back to the The Ransom of Red Chief for some strange reason.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter 2. Okay, clearly, I was gone for some vital portions of ES's upbringing during some very sensitive and impressionable years.

Saturday, we went to the Hale Koa Pool. This was offered up to ES as a bribe for going to the dentist earlier this week. Plus, I wanted to knock out the requirements for ES's Cub Scout Swimming Belt Loop. One of the requirements was to, "Play a recreational game in the water with your den, pack, or family." I googled "swimming pool games" before we left the house and had a handful of games up my sleeve to play with the boys when we got to the pool. One of them was called Categories. You can click on the link if you want an explanation of the game, but the point of my story is that we each had to choose a COLOR.

So you ask yourself, "Self, what sort of colors would you think a 6 year old would choose?" Yellow? (His favorite color is yellow.) Orange? Red? Blue? Nice, primary, simple colors? Oh, no, my friend. I guessed EVERY primary color and all I got was a SMIRK in response from ES and LW! LW assured me she did NOT help him and HE came up with the color he chose on his own. The colors that came from my dear little 6-year old SON's mouth were FUSIA (heck, I can't even SPELL fuchsia close enough for my spell checker to tell me what the CORRECT spelling is - I had to ask LW), and TURQUOISE, and CONSTRUCTION orange (not just "orange" mind you - CONSTRUCTION orange) and SCHOOL BUS yellow. When it was my turn, I pulled out the big guns and used PERIWINKLE. I only knew that one because that's one of the character's names on Blue's Clues.

Aside: I didn't even know roughly what color fuchsia was until I asked LW. She gave me an education on where the name fuchsia came from ala wikipedia. It's actually named after the flower of the fuchsia plant. Who knew??? For the rest of you manly-men out there reading this who also had no clue what color fuchsia REALLY is, wikipedia says it's "reddish purple."


Tangent: As LW scrolled down the Wikipedia page, she came upon the section "Fuchsia in Human Culture" where it states, "In the handkerchief code of the gay leather subculture, wearing a fuchsia bandana means one has a spanking fetish." Um... okay... if THAT wasn't ALREADY TMI, LW clicked on the "hankerchief code" link and started giggling and reading aloud what some of the other codes mean. OMG I did NOT need to know any of that!!!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter 3. People have to WAIT in LINE???

Shifting topics, but still at the Hale Koa pool, we observed something new at the Hale Koa this time around. We've been there several times, and almost always on weekends. This was the first time we've seen a LINE of people waiting to get in. There wasn't a line when we got there, so we went right in and went to our usual back corner of the pool. We didn't realize that they limited how many people they let in to the pool until we were leaving about 1:30 p.m. The lady at the entryway who checked our IDs on the way in asked if we were leaving for the day so she could take our arm bands, and there was a line of about six people waiting to get in. I overheard one person explaining to another at the end of the line that the pool area was full and they had to wait for someone to leave before they would be allowed in.

Oh, and in spite of my advice in my last post about the Hale Koa pool, we managed to time our arrival PERFECTLY so we got there JUST as they blew the whistle for the "adult swim period" (no kids allowed in the pool for the first fifteen minutes of every hour).

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Chapter 4. The Birthday Boy

Once again, I don't know WHY our boys are OBSESSED with all things STAR WARS. It's not like we encourage it or anything...

Darth-YS
That little box hanging from his neck plays
either some pre-recorded Darth Vader
sayings, or it will also alter your voice as
you speak through the mask. (LW found
it on sale at the NEX for like 1/10th what
it cost on Amazon).

Sunday, since it was YS's birthday, we gave him his choice where to go for lunch. (You get three guesses what he chose, and the first two don't count.) We went to his favorite McDonald's with the big playground over behind the NEX. Otherwise, we spent a good portion of the afternoon playing Lego Star Wars (despite my efforts to convince him we should go for a hike). My thumbs were actually getting sore from playing so much XBox today.

Since we satisfied YS's daily chicken nugget fix at lunchtime, LW cooked up some fajita steak, sweet potato fries, and corn on the cob for dinner - all things that YS has been known to eat as an alternative to his favorite chicken nuggets. He actually loved the dinner and gobbled it all down. He even surprised LW and me by asking for "one of those taco things" (tortilla) and proceeded to put steak, sweet potato fries, and cheese in it, roll it up, and eat it. I guess it's time to take him back to California so he can get a California Burrito, eh? (California Burrito is like a carne asada steak burrito with french fries inside).

The Birthday Boy
Playing his favorite Lego Star Wars and enjoying
one of his race-car birthday cookies from Grandma.

Thanks to the holiday tomorrow, we're off to do some box car racing with the Cub Scouts. We'll be having YS's actual birthday party next weekend - this weekend we just had too many other plans.

Weekend Recap

Friday Lost and Found. HOORAY FOR WINTER COATS!!! Dontchya love the things you find in your pockets when you put on your winter coat for the first time since the previous winter?

Friday I sat on an Admin Board over at Navy Legal.

Aside: An Admin Board is used to decide how to characterize a sailor's discharge from the Navy after he has already been found guilty at a court martial. We had to review his service record and make a determination if he should get an Honorable, General, or Other Than Honorable (OTH) discharge, and our decision has an impact on whether he gets to use his GI Bill benefits for education or other VA benefits after he is discharged. It was my first time sitting on an Admin Board, and it was a very good learning experience for me. If you're on shore duty or in the shipyard, I recommend telling your JAG you're available to sit on an Admin Board whenever he needs somebody.

Well, the JAG warned me that the courtroom we would be in was extremely cold and I would want to bring a jacket. I dug my black Ike jacket out of the closet to take with me to the board. It didn't take me long sitting in the board to get goose bumps from the cold. Even with my jacket on, I was clenching my teeth to keep from shivering, and my hands were slightly numb from the cold. I was overwhelmed with joy when I stuck my hand in the pocket and found a special pen that I've been "missing" for over a year now.

This is a geocaching pen that has a customized stamp in the back for stamping my name into geocaching logs. When I couldn't find it for quite a while, I went back to the manufacturer's website and tried to order a replacement, but they don't make them anymore. So I was VERY excited to finally find my lost geocaching stamp-pen when I put on my jacket.

TFTC = Geocaching abbreviation for
"Thanks For The Cache!"

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Saturday morning, I got up and went to the training for Cub Scout leaders. I had expected to get up, pack my lunch, make some coffee, and go before the boys woke up. Much to my surprise, both boys were already downstairs when I came down at 6:45, and I got the barage of "I want apple juice!" and "I'm hungry!" So I tried to get the boys settled so they'd leave LW alone and let her sleep a while longer, got my lunch packed, and headed out the door sans coffee. So I went through the Burger King drive through on the way and got some coffee.

Burger King was not at all helpful to me and my time constraints. I ordered a medium coffee with ONE creamer. I got to the window and paid for it. The lady tossed four creamer cups in the bottom of a bag, tossed a stir stick in the bag, then picked up my cup of coffee and put the coffee in the bag. Why on Earth would that make sense to anyone? So first, I took the cup OUT of the bag and put it in my cup holder. Then I had to pull over on the side of the road to open it up, put the creamer in, stir it up, and put the lid back on.

Aside: Unforunately for Burger King, I had high expectations from my trips through the drive through at the McDonald's on base. The first time I went through the McD's drive thru, it totally threw me for a loop. It's totally computerized and robotic and high-tech. When you pull up to the drive-through menu, you aren't talking to anyone inside THAT McD's. You're talking to some dude sitting at a computer in Texas. He enters your order (including exactly how many creamers or sugar packets you want) and it shows up on the computer screen in the menu. You pull up to the window, and you see a robotic arm pull out your cup size, hold it under the spigot to pour the coffee, pour in the creamer, and put the lid on. The only human involvement was the girl who took my money and handed me my coffee.

Anyway, so I get to the address where the Cub Scout Leader Training is going to happen... and it's a Mormon church. I didn't give it much thought until I got out of my car and started to walk into the building holding my big cup-o-joe. Some lady accosted me and said, "They won't let you bring that in here. This is a Mormon church. NO CAFFEINE ALLOWED!" Common! You gotta be kidding me! (AND, I had a Diet Coke in my lunch bag, too.)

Some of you may be surprised and / or disappointed with me for how I reacted... I hadn't yet consumed any of my precious caffeine to put me in a better mood, so I was a little flippant and like, "Yeah, whatever," to the lady on the steps and just headed on inside to training. What's next? Are they going to make us read the Book of Mormon at Cub Scout training? It's not like I was making the Mormons drink MY coffee or violate THEIR rule about consuming caffeine. If I were the Cub Scout leadership choosing the training location, I would NOT have chosen that facility if they were going to impose restrictions like that. If other factors dictated we use that facility, then at the very least I would have warned the people coming to training NOT to bring caffeinated products.

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Saturday afternoon - an aborted hike...


I tried to take the boys for a hike Saturday afternoon in the Waimano Valley. Some friends of ours told us they did the hike with their kids and they enjoyed it. It's a short (2-mile) loop, so not even half as long as the Makapuu Ridge hike last weekend, and it's a lot closer to our house.

We got a late start due to a traffic accident that caused a major traffic jam on Kam Highway. We parked and got all geared up and headed out.

This hike is covered by Ball Chapter 20. When you get to the sign in the picture above, you're supposed to take the path to the left down into the valley, and you return via the path on the right.

Well, not long after we passed this sign, we started heading down into the valley and could hear the running water of a stream below. Suddenly, the little black beasts with wings descended upon us in force. There was this black cloud of 783 DOZEN mosquitoes in the 10 cubic meters of space around each of us. (Aside: Did you know that 87% of statistics are made up on the spot?).

YS wasn't at all deterred by the bugs. He seems to have this belief that the magical word, "Shoo!" will cause ALL BUGS to cease and desist at once. He kept saying, shoo! Shoo! Shoo! But the mosquitoes weren't listening. He needs to learn to swat at them with his hand when they're guzzling down his blood. After about 10 seconds of trying to swat at the blood-suckers on ES's neck and arms, plus the ones on YS's neck and arms, AND the ones on MY neck and arms, and determined that I didn't have enough hands to cover all the square inches of exposed skin on the three of us, I said to myself, "Self, it's time to ABORT. "

RUN-A-WAAAAAAAAAY!

We were only one quarter mile from the car when we turned around to head back. This should be added to those bizarre weight loss methods shown on Loping Squid's blog, because I must have lost a pound just from the blood those stinking little blood suckers robbed me of during our treacherous quarter mile hike back to the car.

Fast Forward to Sunday morning - LW scolded me for not aborting the hike and turning back sooner because there are SO MANY little red bumps from mosquito bites ALL OVER the boys' necks, arms, and legs. That was another reason we went to the Commissary today was to look for some anti-itch lotion for bug bites.

I'd still like to try the Waimano Valley hike again, but we'll go back with some long pants and a coat of bug spray next time.

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Saturday Evening - Family Movie Night.

The boys have been asking to watch Indiana Jones ever since they started watching the ads for the Lego Indiana Jones game, and bought the Indiana Jones character to play with in Lego Star Wars. So tonight we had family movie night and watched Indiana Jones. It was rated PG, but LW and I had to invoke the parental covering of the boys' eyes during a couple of creepy parts.

All during the movie, YS kept referring to Indiana as, "Han Solo" and talking about Star Wars. When the girl in the movie put on that white dress for the German bad guy, he said, "Princess Leia!" He clearly doesn't understand the concept of actors pretending to be the characters they play in movies.

After the boys were in bed, LW and I popped in the latest Die Hard movie - Live Free or Die Hard. It was worthy of the Die Hard name. I didn't care for Die Hard 2, but the original Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Live Free or Die Hard were all really awesome action flicks. There were some really spectacular stunts that you know could never happen in real life, but they were fun to watch.

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Blackberry versus Palm Pilot continued...

Sunday after church, we went to Tacos Del Mar to get some lunch before going to the Commissary. They were playing some upbeat kind of pop music in the restaurant, and while YS was eating his chocolate chip cookie for dessert and had chocolate all over his face, he started doing a little chair-dance to the music in the restaurant. It was really funny to watch. As much as I love my new Blackberry, I did miss having that camera in my Palm Pilot.

In my previous post on Blackberry versus Palm Pilot, I had commented that there were a lot of little things that just made me say, "Wow! Why didn't Palm think of that?" Of course, when I was writing that blog post, I couldn't think of any concrete examples at the time. Well, one came to mind earlier today. When you're typing in an email address on the Blackberry, if you push the space bar, it enters an @ symbol, and on subsequent times when you push the space bar, it enters a period. So on the Palm, I would have typed in name, symbol button, @ sign, domain name, symbol button, "dot," com. It's a lot faster on the Blackberry where I just type name, space, domain name, space, com, and it automatically puts in the @ and the "dot" and cuts out two extra keystrokes (and eliminates hunting for which button has @ or the "dot" as the symbol associated with that button).

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UpWords is a big hit. I've been playing it with ES every night for the past three nights. It came to mind tonight that it's not just helping ES learn spelling. It's also helping practice his math skills, too. The way the scoring system works, you get two points per letter for a word spelled all the on the board level (no stacked letters). If the word you make has any stacked letters (like someone put an S on top of the H in HAT to turn it into SAT), then you count one point for each tile - including each of the tiles in any stacks in the word.

So tonight, for example, ES made a five letter word (PIANO) and he counted out loud by two's (two, four, six, eight, ten) to add up his points. I thought that was good since it's one of the skills he's had to do in his homework recently. Then, he laid down three tiles that spelled new words in two directions at once. Like Scrabble, you count up the points for both words. He counted the points for one of the words as 5 points and the other word as 7 points. Then I asked him, okay, what's 5 + 7? He thought for a second and told me 12. So that worked on another skill he's been working on in his math homework - simple addition. So it's a pretty good game all-around for my first grader.

ES has a little trouble looking at the letter tiles in his hand and figuring out which words he could spell, so he needs help with that. I help him out by looking at his letters, then asking him leading questions, like "What type of musical instrument are you taking lessons for?" and he figured out PIANO. I still need to figure out how to incorporate the words that are specifically ON his spelling list each week. Maybe I should pull out the letters that will spell his spelling words and tell him to figure out which of his spelling words he can make.

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Girl Scout Etiquette. Okay, so it's that time of year again. We keep having girl scouts come to the door trying to sell us cookies. What's the right thing to do? Should you only buy one box from each girl scout so that you spread the wealth? Should you place your entire order all at once with the FIRST girl scout to show up at your door to reward her for her initiative? Should you place your entire order all at once with the girl scout who lives closest to you as a friendly-neighbor gesture? Should you tell them they picked a HORRIBLE time to come selling COOKIES when you JUST made a New Year's Resolution to lose all the weight you gained over the holidays??? LW placed our order with the girl who lives across the street from us (she qualified under both the second and third category above - she's both the one who lives closest to us, and she was the first girl I saw out on the street working the neighborhood when I got home on Friday). More of them just kept ringing our doorbell through the weekend, so LW made up a nice little sign to hang on the door and scare off any other girl scouts by telling them we've already been "cookied."