29 years +1 year = A Fun Birthday!

I started this post a few weeks back, but due to unforseen falling-asleep-while-at-the-computer-ness, the pictures uploaded and then I didn't have a chance until now to continue what I started. 

Those 3 weeks ago happened to be my birthday, as well as Hunter's. 

He didn't really understand what the big deal was...

"You get presents and we're going to go play today!" 

That got his attention!

Here's an action shot of "unwrapping" his build-a-bear. ;-) This time, courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt since we couldn't do one ourselves for him. Hawaii is a barren wasteland of bearlessness...

Why, yes, I do have an adorable little boy!

Dump truck!

Wearing the shades from his new bear :-)

Daddy went and got some doughnuts and then we took off to Lexi's soccer game. Afterwards, we packed up the family and headed up to Waimanalo Farms' pumpkin patch. They had plenty to do, but everything also had a price, so we did not do everything. We grabbed a bite to eat, then waited for the hay ride.

Had a wide variety of pumpkins to choose from.

This is a shot to show how close to the shore the farm is. 

Birthday Persons!

Trying to get a cute picture of the kids among the pumpkins...

"Don't worry, Mom! I got a good one!"

We also went through the corn maze...though it wasn't much to get all excited about.Definitely didn't match up with the mazes back in AZ. Those were a blast! All of the "wrong" turns were blocked off with caution tape, making it more of a walk through dying corn than a maze.We did meet this scarecrow:

And finally, after much begging and pleading, the kids got to ride the cow train before we headed out.

Down the street, we stopped for a little ice cream:

And started our trip back toward Honolulu for dinner...

...which was enough to lull all the kids to sleep!

Dinner was a great Japanese steakhouse, Tanaka of Tokyo. Hunter loved all the action and fire. Then he was all over the food...

and his food was all over the floor!

They sang to us and gave us some yummy cake, which I had the following day since we had ice cream included in our meal!

"Ice Cream, again! This truly is an awesome birthday!"

We were so dirty and exhausted when we got home, but boy was it a great day with the family!

The Smashing of the Cake

The cake

My visiting teacher is an aspiring photographer. She has a pretty fancy camera and great photoshopping skills, and is anxious to learn how to become better and better. She took our family photos back in May, so she's really doing pretty good. Since I wanted to get some shots of Hunter with his 1st birthday cake, I asked if she could take a few with her nice, fancy camera. 

He wasn't really interested in the cake. Not in the least. We were next to a playground for lighting purposes...which was too distracting for him. Hunter poked it a few times, then ran away. 

I gave him a taste...then he ran away. 

We moved to another location...and he ran away. 

So this mom - who spent a whole 30 minutes decorating this cake for this very purpose - grabbed a handful of cake, smashed it in his face, and told her just to get any pictures she could. 

So there you have it. 

I got to smash a cake in my 1 year old's face. 

And it was fun.

Navy Ball...Second try was a charm!

On the 13th, we tried our luck and snagged another babysitter and took off to another military ball. This time it was the Navy Enlisted Ball, which was a much more fun experience! It could have been that it was much smaller and we were able to hear our conversations with others at our table. It could've been that we actually   had a decent meal for our money. It was buffet style, which meant our first plate was twice as full as the one at the Air Force ball, with food of our choosing...and we could go back for more. And it tasted so much better! Here's Ed enjoying said meal:

We even were sitting right next to the food tables... it really helps one's mood when you get to eat at 6:00 instead of 8:00.

The ceremony was brief and not extremely boring to anyone who is not versed in military whatever...such as myself. And I wasn't freezing my bejeebbers off the whole time :-) And we were up and dancing by 8:00! Woo hoo! There's a just a few things that made this night enjoyable.

 This time, Kristi and Mike were able to come. (Mike was outta town last time), which is always a party :-)

 And we had the lovely Alicia and Will to keep us company once again. We sat by them at the Air Force Ball as well.

 The only actual Navy person at our table, Matt and his awesome wife, Andrea. Don't they look like they could be models for some "Navy Couple of the Year" promotion or something. Dang! My friends look nice!

 And some strange couple that was there...oh wait...

 That would be us. I didn't put much effort into my dress and makeup. I was bound to just have fun regardless!

 And the last couple, Alan and Jerilynn... looking Fab!

 The Girlies... Laughing at our husbands. You know, same ol', same ol'...

 And our husbands. 

Yes, mine is the shortest one, yet again. What's your point?

 The whole group... look at how Matt's hand is placed to make it look like I'm totally feeling up Andrea... Awkward!! And everyone of us that has this picture...same thing! *face palm*

So we learned that fancy shmancy doesn't equal better. This was way more low key and was SO much fun! I'm glad I didn't back out...and then Hunter even slept all night for me so we were cool in the morning for church! Thank you, Babysitter!

Update on our Garden

When we planted our garden back in July, we had 2 different tomato plants, 2 identical cucumber plants, a strawberry plant, and a golden zucchini plant...because it seems everyone has zucchini coming out of their ears because it's easy to grow, and I wanted to feel successful. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

Since we needed to get more soil for the pot that the strawberries were supposed to go in, I just planted it with the others until we could make it back to Home Depot. It died within 2 days. I put it back in the original container with the intent on taking it back when we went to go get more soil. It's been 3 months, and we've never made it back to Home Depot. It's still sitting in the container, dead. {Laziness, you may think. Maybe. Or maybe the inability to find a time in which Eddie could make it there that was not during rush hour...killer here. But I can't lift those bags of soil. Fact.}

First out of the gates were the cucumbers. They went crazy! Before I knew it, I had a couple full grown cucumbers, that we cut up and enjoyed. But that was the last the family had any interest in them. Pretty soon,  we had 2 more, then 4 more, then more and more and more! So I've just been giving them away as fast as I pick them. I did hold onto 2 a few weeks ago, but no one ate them and they went bad :-( The plant itself had  reached out of the box and was all the way to the trampoline and intertwined in our A/C unit. Next time, I think one plant will suffice! A couple weeks ago, I finally bought some trellises to contain them so we could mow the lawn. I'm trying to think of how many cucumbers we've picked so far and I think we've picked a couple dozen...and they're still growing.

The zucchini didn't fair as well. I think it's been choking itself or something. There are still living parts on it, but most times it starts to bring forth fruit, it grows a couple inches...then slowly shrivels up and dies. We managed to get one full grown zucchini. I didn't even get a picture because I thought there would be many more...but none so far. I'm not sure if any more will come. Definitely not what I expected.

I got the tomatoes with the expectation to not have a high expectation. Many veteran gardeners in the ward have just not had success with their tomatoes here, mainly because we are restricted to container gardening here on base. I thought I'd try anyways. I'm glad that I did. We have at least a dozen, of varying stages, growing right now, and today, this guy was ready to leave the vine!

So for our first family garden, in our little 2X8 box in our backyard, I'd say we did pretty good!

See the small red box in front? That's the strawberry corpse...