June 11, 1997. I met my best friend and partner for life. I wish we could have spent the day together. I wish we could have enjoyed the Maui sun together today. I miss you Peter! 

He sent me flowers... 

I took the older two to a birthday party at Wahikuli. The water was gorgeous. Ryenne played with her friends Taylor and Nicole. Kai watched all the boogie boarders. He started out with his board shorts but ended up nekkid, as usual.

I was very proud of him. There was a bounce castle and if you know him, you know that he wants to jump on a trampoline or bouncy toy, but hasn't gotten the courage to actually do it. He'll go up to it like he's going to do it and then freeze. He stood at the doorway to the bounce house for a good 10 minutes today. He would leave and then go back. And repeat. And then.... 5 minutes before we left, he went inside. He jumped. He yelled, "Mommy! Look a me! I jumping! I jumping!!" and he had a smile from ear to ear. It was definitely one of those special moments.

Ryenne is a little fish. She is amazing in the water. She played in waves and in the sand. She laughed and giggled and was beautiful to watch.

It was a really wonderful day.

Happy 14th Peter. I love you babe!!

Train Day

Today we headed to Kahului to visit Kaahumanu Center where they now have a mall train going from one Macy's to the other - a 10 minute ride.

Cruz was excited to see the train pull up

Kai was beside himself with excitement. He and Ryenne chose the yellow car as ours and we had a really great ride.

After the train ride we played in the playground area. All three kids took off to play. I have NEVER seen Kai so brave on a playground before. He was running around, climbing, and interacting with other kids really well. Cruz rode the dolphin slide all by himself!

Ryenne was riding the dolphins.... she had so much fun! Ryenne stayed in Kahului with Pat and Lisa and I took the boys to Whole Foods and we headed home. It was a great afternoon!

I think he learned...

One of the hardest things about being on Maui right now is our eating habits. I've been fighting with Kai for a week now about how he eats Kashi cereal and Landon eats Fruit Loops. Kai has wanted those Fruit Loops something fierce.

Today I gave in and let him have the Fruit Loops. Know what happened? He got horrible diarrhea. We talked about it today - how certain foods are toxic to his system and this is why he got the pains in his tummy and had to go to the potty so many times today. He went back to the Kashi.

Feeding him has been hard since we got here. For one, the Westside stores don't have everything I need. Whole Foods is an hour away and I should really go more often. He isn't used to a lot of foods and is out of his comfort zone. I've started spiking his coconut milk with whey protein concentrate. The boy just isn't eating. I know that he's healthy and fine, he's just so tiny and I'm really struggling in feeding him - especially in keeping him away from toxic oils and ingredients. He is definitely the most sensitive to them.

There is such a huge variance in attitudes with food in Hawaii. On the one side there's really horrible for you stuff - all the tasty stuff of course - Spam, Mac Salad, all the fried foods. And then on the other side there's amazing natural things like fish and fruits. So far Kai hasn't liked mangoes and papayas or fish. I've been buying him Ulupalakua strawberries and mainland grapes. For lunch I got him to eat greek yogurt with sliced strawberries, coconut oil, and raw lehua honey.

For all my readers.... please comment on suggestions... I'd sure appreciate it.

On the complete opposite spectrum, Ryenne is eating everything in site. I'm trying to point her in the direction of choosing wisely - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Tomorrow I'll be experimenting in the kitchen a little bit. Wish me luck! 

It's taken me a few days to post because I was still recovering from Ryenne's birthday party. It was (of course) bigger than I had expected and we all had so much fun. The kids were up WAY late and we were all tired the next day. I had two photo shoots on Monday and it was a wonderful peek into a busy photography life. I loved it.

Here's a video of Ryenne blowing her candles. And Kai got to blow candles, and Landon too. It was a ton of fun.



Nickle Pickle and Kai Boy

 On Monday morning I was heading from Napili side to Paia for my photo shoot and I had always wanted to stop at this one cliff on the Pali and I never, ever had. So I was running a little early and decided to stop. I'm glad I did. It was breathtaking.

 Nico had gone fishing and caught some fish, so after my photo shoot I headed to Haiku to his house where this fishy was waiting. Pickle steamed this taape with onions and tomatoes. He also made some really awesome fish cake. It was such an amazing lunch!

 I took the kids to Baby Beach the other night with Marissa. It was so calm and beautiful. Cruz had a wonderful time splashing around in the shallow waters.

 Kai was running around all over the place. Gosh he's skinny. I swear he eats!

 Cruz calls Marissa "A-ma" - he loved walking around with her.

 FULL MOON! hehehe

I went on a beautiful walk this morning along the Kapalua coast. I got some really beautiful pictures. If you want to see them, you'll have to subscribe to my newsletter, "Maui Mondays". Subscribe here.

*five*

*sigh*

My baby girl is five today. Five is big. Five is no longer a baby. Five is Adventure, Curiosity, Learning, Growing, Emotions, Understanding.

At five she is such a little lady. She asks so many questions and soaks up all the answers that I can provide her. She’s helping me learn too – for when I don’t know the answer to her questions we go find out together. She’s so curious about the world, about saving and preserving our planet.

She made me a mom. She changed my life – forever. She is a beacon of light for me. Sometimes when I’m sad she comforts and consoles me in such a loving manner. She is strong, she is courageous, she is simply an amazing person. I love being her mom.

Happy 5th Birthday my amazing Ryenne Alicia Grace Waiwaipuhia Dagupion!

Our Fun Day

What a fun day we had today. After the rain passed and the power came back on, Marissa took all of us girls out for pedicures. It was my first professional pedicure in 2 years. It was Ry's first time ever. She got purple sparkley nails.

In the afternoon I got to go for a walk. The tradewinds were blowing really hard and I tried to jog but the wind was just too much to run against, so I did powerwalking. I walked from Napili and all through Kapalua. The Ironwoods welcomed me.

At the end of my walk, I had gone almost 5.5 miles. That is a record for me. It felt so wonderful.

When I got home the kids and everyone decided the day turned lovely enough to go to the duck pond in Kapalua. I had never been there before. Kinda crazy since I lived in Napili so long and never went exploring like this EVER.

We parked at the golf academy and started on the trail to the pond. Cruz rode in his stroller and the bigger kids did an amazing job walking. It was about a 25 minute walk each way to the pond.

 The ducks knew exactly why we were there! There was also a lot of koi in the lake and they liked to eat the stale cereal we brought too.

 Kai got his first guavas - they were growing along the trail. He really loved them. He's wearing his shirt like a hat. He also got to pee on the bushes which he loved.

At the base of the trail a rainbow was waiting for us!

 On the way back to the car we noticed a big mango tree with lovely mangoes (both ripe and green) but they were too high. So we came up with the brilliant plan of getting Jean on Pat's back and I held Jean's legs to stabilize her. The mangoes fell on Pat's head. Then he climbed the tree to get more. We brought home a bag full of mangoes. SCORE!

I headed out for my photo shoot re-do tonight and it was a beautiful sunset and a very lovely family. I am exhausted.... burned a lot of calories today and had a really, really wonderful day. Tomorrow is Ry's birthday. I can't believe my monkey is turning FIVE!

Yesterday Marissa and I went to Kahului to go hunting for things that we need for Ry's party tomorrow and also for me to search for some necessities I couldn't find on the West Side. We hit up Whole Foods in Kahului and I was really afraid that everything I needed would be completely out of budget. I was pleasantly surprised to find that things weren't overly inflated and less than I had thought. The boys' coconut milk is only fifty cents more than Austin. Then we headed to Savers so I could look for a cast iron pan. I do not cook in teflon. Luckily they had one that was the perfect size. YAY! Then it was off to Costco. I was thrilled to find that Costco pricing is also the same as in Austin. So between Whole Foods and Costco, I'm covered.

When we got back home I took the kids to the beach again at Napili Bay. I didn't bring my big camera so these are just dreamy cell phone snaps

It was getting to be pretty high tide so we didn't last too long in the tidepool area. We played in the sand a lot. 

It got pretty overcast and gloomy. Cruz explored Grandma and Papa's front yard. 

Uncle Patrick and Auntie Lisa asked if they could take Ryenne out to dinner with them. She was thrilled to go. Here she is with her cousin, Landon.

I headed off to my photo shoot but the weather was too yucky and we had to cancel. We're going to try it again tonight.

This morning it was storming outside and we woke up to no power and some amazing, beautiful rain outside. It was refreshing to wake up to the sound of rain falling outside my open window. That just doesn't happen in Texas.

magical

There is something so special and so magical about a baby's first visit to the ocean. As many of you know, each of my kids has a Hawaiian water name. Cruz's is Ka'ehukai, which is the mist on top of a breaking wave.

Today he had his first visit to the beach. It was magical. It was amazing.

We parked the car and headed out to Napili Bay. He kept saying "Wow. Wow" and when we got down the sand he was pushing away from me - he was ready to go.

Ryenne and Landon took off and immediately jumped in the tidepool area. I couldn't get them near me for pictures. Kai had a mild panic attack, but then started having fun. Cruz was a fish from the get-go. He ran right into the water, smiled, laughed, splashed. It was as if he were returning to a long lost love. He was so immensely happy.

What a beautiful, beautiful evening!!!

We made it

It's been a very long couple of days. 

On Tuesday I took Kai for a haircut. He got trimmed up - she went a little shorter than I had envisioned, but she did a great job and he was really, really good. Ryenne also got a little trim and she got sparkles in her hair. 

We left Austin at 7:30pm. It was hard to leave Gams and Pops and Peter. I told him in the car on the way over that most husbands wouldn't grant their wife a wish like he did for me. I told him that I wanted to go home for the summer with the kids because my soul needed it and he let me go - no questions asked - because it was something that I needed - even though he couldn't go the entire time. I told him how much I respected and appreciated that freedom. 

Here's Cruz checking out the airplanes at the Austin airport:

The flight from Austin to Denver was fine. Kai had a minor panic attack boarding the plane, but once he was on he was fine.

In Denver the plane we were scheduled to take had maintenance issues. Then they ended up taking it out of service so we were delayed 3 hours getting in to Seattle. We ended up arriving into Seattle at 3am (5am Austin time) and we were all exhausted. Luckily I had a free room to use and we all crashed for a couple of hours.

The Hawaiian Airlines flight from Seattle to Maui was long. Cruz was cranky from being so exhausted. Kai and Ryenne did excellent the entire flight.

Cruzer decided he wanted to be a huge pest so he opened my shirt and threw up all over me. Actually I had quite a bit of child bodily fluids all over me - Kai had an accident and pooped on me as I was wiping him, he accidentally peed on me when I was helping with his pants, and then Cruzer puked all over me and rubbed his snot all over my shirt. Needless to say I arrived on Maui looking quite tired and crazy. Not my best look.

Arriving on Maui was wonderful. The funny thing about it was that it seemed as though I had never left. Like moving to Texas was only a mirage... a distant dream.

I had to go to Safeway to get some necessities for the kids. I was quickly brought out of my lala land when I bought groceries. I just kept saying HOLY CRAP over and over again. The boys' coconut milk is $7 per half gallon. I bought some organic things for them to eat and spent $160 on barely anything. Crap, crap, crap. I still need to buy protein powder, diapers, and wipes. Here's a bit of reality stepping in!

But here's the view from the car (just a cell phone snapshot)

The cousins are getting along wonderfully - they've been playing all night. It's midnight in Austin and they're just having a ball with Landon (aside from Cruz who is sleeping). It's off to bath in just a minute and bedtime for us!