Memorial Day

So Memorial Day is a major holiday over here.  I should stop being surprised about this.  Almost everything is a major holiday, complete with presents and lots of food.  I have made gift bags for Xander's day care for Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Easter, as well as Christmas.

On Memorial Day, everyone goes to the cemetery.  We saw some wicked cemetery barbecues, with locals busting out their awnings and portable grills to have a memorial for dead relatives, once and for all proving all of those angry memes wrong.  You know, the ones that remind us that Memorial Day is about remembering servicemembers, not barbecues.  Well, Hawaiians barbecue with their deceased.  So there!  I love how Hawaii combines American and Asian cultures to take the best of both.

Oh, and like this lady, I've had it with this meme.  I live near a bunch of servicemembers, all of whom enjoyed their Memorial Day.  With barbecues.


On a lighter note, here's some "Row Row Row Your Boat."  I love the part around the 27s mark where he admits that he's stuck.

The difference between HI and NC

One of my coworkers, who is a local, asked me what North Carolina was like.  I gave the answer I used to give to non-Cackalakians--"pretty, laid back, good food".  Then I realized that I was speaking to a Hawaiian.  Hawaii has North Carolina beat on two of those things (jury's still out on the food).  I guess they're cousin states.  From now on, my answer is, "more space, low cost of living, bigger houses."

Return to Foster Botanical Gardens

We set out in the hopes of seeing some butterflies.  Apparently, I'm a butterfly neophyte.  They're not out yet.  Who knew that things followed seasons in Hawaii?  Nonetheless, we had a good time.  X got to run around and play with dirt and rocks.  We saw the corpse flower, which has been making local headlines.  X yelled for the butterflies a bit (butterflies?  WHERE ARE YOU?)

We stopped at Palama Supermarket on our way back and went nuts buying all of our favorite Korean foods.  We heard "Let it Go" on the radio amidst all of the K-pop.  I guess Koreans love that song, too. We had kimbap for lunch and bulgogi for dinner.  Huzzah!

Pineapple?

Having a break while Bobby checks out the palm garden

King of the mountain

Compare this shot to the one below it, taken in July of last year at the same tree.  Bonus: he's wearing the same shorts!

He has grown, though he has not yet outgrown his shorts.

The corpse flower.  It smelled like garbage.

Random lizard.

Korean supermarket!

Belated Easter

It's been such a long time, it's hard to know where to begin.  The weekend before Easter, we wanted to go to an egg hunt at Iolani Palace.  Unfortunately, we went on Saturday and the egg hunt was on Sunday, so we ended up wandering around downtown.  We had a remarkably good time.  We found our way to a harbor, and looked at some huge ships.  There was a park with some rocky shoals, and we could see the crabs fighting on the rocks.  X threw some rocks into the water, since rocks are his favorite toys in the world.  We walked past this dock and watched some tropical reef fish glide around in the water.

A maritime museum

Downtown

Back to the palace

On Sunday, we actually went to the egg hunt.  It rained.  X was not very fazed.  He frolicked in the rain, chanting "one more be de egg".  I think that's his approximation of easter egg.  There were six "egg stations", and he got one egg from each station, so we kept having to tell him to put the extra eggs back.  We got to tour the palace for free as part of the event.  X was less than pleased, since I wouldn't let him run wild and play on the 100 year old furniture.

the palace from the front

One more be de egg

making a crown that he refused to wear

I didn't get many good pictures of the palace since I was holding on to x

He's such a big boy now.  We can communicate fairly well.  His repertoire includes three and four word sentences.  He knows his shapes, colors, numbers up to 20, and letters.  He has a new passion for reading, and we go through 10 books a day or so.  He likes to "read" them to himself, since he has so many memorized.  I think he's made some kind of cognitive/imaginative leap, and now he likes to see and hear stories more.  He also loves to make up stories, many of which star Mater and Lightning McQueen.  In the mornings, he likes to hang out in his room and play pretend after he gets up.

We still have regular skirmishes, but he can be very well behaved.  If I ask him to do something, he'll say "okay".  Yesterday, I yelled at him when he was dangling my car keys through the window, and he was very upset that I didn't ask him nicely first.  I guess I need to watch my own behavior.  He certainly keeps me on my toes.