Fall Festival and Pizza Night

Day after arrival was kind of a wash.  Kim, Chuck and Andy went off to get Andy's flu vaccine, which is a little complicated when you have an egg allergy.  He was a brave boy though and did well.  

Friday was Fall Festival at the boy's school and Grandmother and Granddaddy were there to help out.  

Zach's teacher dressed all the kids up as rock stars and put orange gel in their hair.  Kinda varsity.  Otherwise he and Granddaddy worked on becoming a cat.

Green cat?  Sometimes I wonder.

Andy in his pumpkin hat.

Pizza and Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin.

Too much apple juice? Game gets a little out of hand some nights.

Boy can eat an amazing amount of pie.

First Family Visit

Just hours after the liquor cabinet was stocked Chuck's parents arrived.  They don't do visits without liquor and some nights we don't do children without liquor - this must be related. Anyway, on 28 October, the not-too-worse-for-wear Grandparents arrived at Honolulu International direct from Atlanta.  

Boys, leis at the ready, waiting VERY impatiently.

The big moment.

Didn't take long for Grandmother and Andy to find themselves in a game of solitaire.

Andy was winning - just ask him.

House

It took about five days to get the house at roughly 95%.  As everyone knows it's the last 5% that's so tough, which is why husbands go back to work or deploy.  

Happily everything fit (with a little nontemp storage gimme by the Navy) and the only things needed to round out the place were a new TV (gave the old one away) and some patio furniture. Patio furniture should be easy to buy in Hawaii?  Yeah, no, it's "winter" here so almost no one was carrying patio furniture.  Costco was selling mittens though!  

We almost got the TV too late to catch the outrigger races!

Lanai post purchase of the cheapest patio furniture to be found in Hawaii.

Wow! Need to Catch Up

The blogosphere is alive with chatter about the five weeks since a new post on The Stickney Family Blog.  We run the risk of losing our half dozen or so followers.  So much to post and we're recovering from a bit of digital disorganization.  

Don't know how much catching up we'll get done tonight, but we'll throw a couple of items up for entertainment reasons.  

This is not Chuck!

First, in a severe form of flattery, Zach has decided to give himself a bald spot just like his Daddy. This comes from hyperactive hands always twisting the hair on the back of his head. He's not having an easy go at it right now with constant threats to shave his head.

This is our yard 'Iole manakuke, Hawaiian for Mongoose, on our front door walkway.  The picture isn't great because these guys are fast and don't spend a lot of time in the open.  We had to go to National Geographic lengths to get this picture.  Just as well, I prefer them to stay busy controlling our cobra problem.  

New House - 14 Oct

The big day finally arrived and we started our move into our new house.

The house is located on the Makalapa Compound across from Pearl Harbor Naval Base and the Arizona visitor's center.  The house is an old shaded neighborhood and a half mile from Chuck's office.  It was built in 1942 and restored about a year and a half ago.

Here it is.

No garage, but a two car carport with interesting canvas shades on three sides.  They are opened and closed through ropes and pulleys.  Very nautical.

Backyard.

Lanai.

Den and playroom looking out back.  As with the last five places we've lived the couch and love seat don't fit again.  Might have to finally breakdown and replace.  Ouch.

There is no central AC so the house has split AC.  Each room has it's own unit built into the top of a wall.  You can see the unit in this room just to the left of the door.  They are actuated via remote control.  

Some features from it's pre-AC days - windows that open from the guest bedroom to the stairwell.

Ah, the fun of moving.  Storage is a little tight so we're crossing our fingers this stuff will fit.

Making Grandparents shiver - a young family with a garage full of moving boxes.

Come visit sometime.

Trip to Kauai - Columbus Day Weekend

We spent a quick 48 hours on Kauai to check things out.

Can't get the pictures off one of my cameras, so this post is a little lacking for our better pictures.  I'll try to update it when I fix my camera.  

Chuck had a four day weekend so we flew out early Friday morning for the town of Lihue.  We spent the afternoon roaming the eastern and northern sections of the island before finally making our way back to our hotel in Lihue.  

Checking out one of the hidden beaches on the northeastern coast.

That evening we attended the Smith Family Luau which is apparently a big event on Kauai. Smith family doesn't sound too Hawaiian, but they go back a good five generations.  The event was very well put together and everyone enjoyed their first of no doubt many luaus (boys call them lulus). 

Chuck and the boys checking out the Polynesian flora and fauna.

One of the Tahitian dances during the show.

We got up Saturday morning to a torrential downpour and made our way over to Blue Hawaiian Helicopters hoping the rest of the island wasn't as socked in.  It was and they canceled.   Oh well.  Trip got less eventful and a whole lot cheaper.  

Undeterred, we drove up the Waimea Valley, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific" and the supposed highlight of the helicopter flight to see if we could get a glimpse for ourselves.  We couldn't.  

This was the best view of Waimea Canyon we came across....

or maybe this was.  Hard to say.  It was raining so hard I used the waterproof camera for these shots.

Still in the rain we made our way to the town of Poipu for some lunch and the rain finally stopped.  So, back to the hotel pool.  

Boys had a good time in the shallow, sandy bottomed kids pool.  

With the overcast and windy weather it wasn't warm.  Andy stayed in the pool until he his lips turned purple.

Zach scores the window seat on our return early Sunday morning.  We'll attempt a reattack on Kauai.

Quiet Weekend

Not much happening this weekend.  

On Friday Andy was honored as a Star Keiki at school for his birthday last month.  

Star Keiki at morning Flag Ceremony.

He also had his golf lesson on Friday afternoon.  We did better this time after a shaky start on lessons 1 and 2.  So far, tennis lessons are greatly preferable to golf lessons.  No doubt Grandmother implanted something in the subconscious.  

Unhappy this is not putt putt.

On Saturday Zach had his first soccer practice at Pearl Harbor.  This practice was very Aloha as the coach apparently lost or forgot the soccer balls.  Zach rarely worries about details and had a good time anyway.  

The Dude.

Post practice carb recovery.

It has come to light Zach has a new 'special' friend at school.