Dole Plantation Maze- FUN! Tree through the truck window - not so much...

Jan 3rd was the last day of Winter Break for the kids.  (I go back to school on the 10th).  Dar took the day off and we drove five miles to the Dole Pineapple Plantation to try out the largest outdoor maze in the world.  This is the description provided by their website:

In 2008, Dole Plantation’s giant Pineapple Garden Maze was declared the world’s largest maze. The maze stretches over three acres and includes nearly two and one-half miles of paths crafted from 14,000 colorful Hawaiian plants. Walk through the flora of the islands as you seek out eight secret stations that each lead you closer to the mystery at the heart of this larger-than-life labyrinth, one of only a handful of permanent botanical mazes in America. The fastest finishers win a prize and enter into the history of Dole Plantation, with their names recorded on a sign at the maze’s entrance.

We paid for our entry and took off in different directions, each with our own strategy on how to find all eight stations the fastest.  I ran the maze with Isaiah...and a map of the maze.  Darwin stuck with Caleb and London, and Brooklin went out on her own.  None of the others used a map.

I had to run a lot to keep up with Isaiah.  He kept going through small holes in the foliage and I had to keep calling him back; there was no way I was going to fit through those tiny holes!  At some point, Darwin's group met up with Brooklin (who hadn't found any yet) and she decided she wanted someone to go with her.  (It wasn't very fun by herself, and she kept texting me asking me where everyone was...haha!)  London decided to go with her.

It took Darwin and Caleb 56 minutes to get through the maze.  Isaiah and I took 59 minutes.  Brooklin and London came out around 75 minutes!  We walked through the gift shop and bought chocolate made from cocoa beans grown on the North Shore and had lunch...including pineapple delight ice cream!  It is so good!!

We left the gift shop full and happy...

As we were walking to where we parked our truck, the happy turned to concern.  When we got closer, our concerns were confirmed.  The entire back of our truck had been smashed in by a tree branch that fell from a tree in the parking lot.  The parking security kid came over and told us it had happened an hour before...and that it happened often... =/  Darwin got an iPhone for Christmas and had downloaded the USAA app just a few days earlier.  It was the coolest thing ever!!  We touched "File A Claim" and it walked us through the entire process.  It even had a place that we could take pictures with the phone and submit them with the claim!  That took all of maybe 10 minutes...and we didn't know what else to do, so we called USAA to see if the claim really worked and what to do next.  The guy who answered was able to pull up the claim and view the pictures as soon as I gave him our customer number!  He was even surprised at how well the app worked!  He set us up with a repair shop and a rental car right there in the parking lot!  I would seriously do a commercial for them!  It was so easy and convenient!  Anyway, we drove to the repair place and then Enterprise came and "picked us up" in the rental car.

Overall we had a pretty good day,considering.  Thank you USAA and iPhone!!

Journal Jar #1

My mom sent Darwin and I a Journal Jar about 10 years ago for Christmas.  It is a little jar full of questions on slips of paper.  The idea was that by pulling these slips out of the jar and answering them (in notebooks she also sent) we would have a "wonderful family keepsake".  I pulled out two strips and answered them in March of 2001...and that was it.  The little jar and the two notebooks have been on a book shelf in my bedroom ever since then.  Somehow, when we moved to Oahu the little jar ended up on my desk.  It has been staring at me everyday for the past 5 months.  So.... as it is a New Year, and a time for resolutions... I am going to try and answer one of these slips each Sunday and see how long I can go with them.  If you would like to participate, you are more than welcome to answer the questions on your own blog, in a notebook, or as a comment on here.

Happy New Year!

Question #1

How old were you when you got your driver's license and tell about the experience

I was 14 years old when I got my first drivers license.  I went to driver's ed classes in the summer of 1989.  One of my driver's ed teachers was Mr. Janzen (who was also my 8th grade History?? teacher).  We had some classroom time (that I don't remember too much of) and a driving range to practice on (which was a large empty parking lot with roads painted on it...along with places to parallel park and a set of painted on railroad tracks we had to stop at and look both ways) and then once a week we got to drive on the road in a brand new 1989 Ford Tempo!!  The cars that we drove on the range were REALLY old and broken.  I remember one time we were going to practice driving in reverse.  The girl in the car with me was named Audra Booth and she was taller than me.  She went first.  We had to put the car in reverse and drive backwards clear to the other side of the range .  Then when we got to the fence, we could put the car in gear (they were all stick shifts) and drive back to the starting line.  She did awesome.  Then we had to get out and change drivers.  I adjusted the seat forward so I could reach the pedals, put the car in reverse, and waited for the teacher to give us the go-ahead.  (We all had to wear headsets so the teacher could talk to us while we were driving and they were not in the cars with us).  On "Go", I pushed on the gas...and my seat slid all the way back and the car stalled!!  Stupid broken seat!  I was so embarrassed!  hahaha!  I was able to get the seat to stick in the forward position and drive through the requirement...but I was all by myself at that point since no one else stalled their car.  

Some other things I remember about getting my first driver's license are that my brother Micah (who is 15 months younger than me) had to wait until he was 16 to get his license.  Idaho changed their driving age to 16 and I was in the very last group of kids who could get their license at 14.  Another funny thing was my actual license.  I was issued my first driver's license on August 2, 1989.  The woman who prepared my license messed up on my birth year.  She listed my birth year as 1914....I'm guessing because we were talking about how lucky I was to get my license at 14 years old before the law changed!  I have a photocopy of my original license...I'll snap a quick picture of it and share! =)

HAHAHAHAHA!  Do you love the hair?!?  Can you see the birthdate with the year listed as '14?  Oh how I wish I was still 095 lbs!!

The picture above my license is the first time I drove by myself without an adult in the car.  I was driving myself in parent's station wagon about five blocks down the road to a babysitting job...lol!  I think my mom watched me the whole way!

Meeting old friends...and a huge turtle

We drove to Laie today to meet up with a friend of mine from high school and her husband.  I met Jennifer when we were 11 years old.  Her birthday is the day before mine and we had a double slumber party together at my house when we both turned 12.  I don't really know when I met TJ, but we went to high school together too. =)  TJ served his mission here in Hawaii, and this was the first time he had been back to visit.  They were staying with Jennifer's sister Tara, who's husband is stationed here in Oahu with the Navy.  I love being able to see so many people who come here to visit Hawaii.

Jennifer and I in the visitors center at the Laie Temple

Jennifer and TJ

Laie Temple

The family.

After visiting with Jenn and TJ, we drove to Laniakea beach on the north shore of Oahu to see if any turtles were out basking in the sun.  We were luck enough to see one big turtle!  There are volunteers who keep watch over the turtles so people don't bother them.  They put a red rope around the turtles as a kind of safety zone for the sun-bathing turtles.

Happy New Year!

We went to a New Year's Eve party with a few families from church.  It was a disco theme.  Caleb and London spent most of their time playing Rock Band on the Wii that was set up in one corner of the room.  Isaiah and Brooklin played Dance Central on the XboX Kinect that was set up in another corner.  Darwin and I also played the dancing game. =)  It was a fun night and we let the kids stay up (after the party...we left early at 10:30pm) and play Cabelas Hunting on our Wii.  Looking forward to a great 2011!

Bishop Loder on the guitar, Caleb on the drums, and Isaiah singing.

Dar and Brooklin

The funniest part of the night was when Bishop challenged Isaiah to a dance competition!  Isaiah was so cute! =)

Geocaching in the jungle

We decided to go geocaching on the last day of the year.  We drove up to Moanalua and then went on a hike in a lot of mud.  There were some ruins up by the second cache we found that were pretty cool.  When we got to the park we realized that our GPS was out of batteries and we didn't have any in the car.  Luckily we were able to find two caches using Darwin's iPhone with the geocaching app!!  very cool stuff!

The cache

At the cache location with the iPhone.

Here are some of the ruins...and Brooklin up in a tree.

This was an oven right in the middle of the "jungle"

A little stream

When you look at this it doesn't seem very impressive, until you see the family in the bottom right corner!!

A couple shots of the muddy shoes...

Merry Christmas 2010

Pictures from Santa Day!  This year for our secret service, we took the kids to the church at 10am on Christmas Eve and we cleaned it for two hours.  While we were gone, Santa stopped by and dropped off some presents!  (If you don't know about our Christmas Tradition of secret service, you can visit this post... and scroll down to where it talks about Christmas).  Darwin had to work all day on Christmas (from 6am to 9pm) so we did our service a little earlier in the day on Christmas eve.


Santa left presents all over the living room, since this year we put the trees up on the plant shelf.  (our living room is kind of tiny).  It was like a little treasure hunt to find them all.

We had two tiny trees this year and we put them up on the plant shelf along with all the snowmen.

Here is a present to London from "a barrel of monkeys"!

More loot

Caleb and his present from "dasher"

Isaiah got his very own Lego set!  He was super excited and spent the bulk of the evening putting it together all by himself! 

This is the only present I asked for... It is a wireless remote for my camera and it is awesome!

He really does enjoy posing for pictures. =)

London got her very own Lego set too.

Brooklin got a necklace from the r house couture.  It says "FAIL" on it and has a little whale charm.  She saw it and fell in love with it!  It is about Jonah and the whale...and listening to God when he tells you to do something.  If you don't want to fail...don't run away like Jonah did!

I surprised Darwin this year.  I'm not sure I've ever done that before!  (Well...except for the first year we were married.  We went to the mall and he tried on a bunch of suits, found one that fit and we bought it for him for Christmas.  On Christmas morning, he opened all his presents and the suit wasn't one of the presents.  I felt like we spent too much money, and I had taken the suit back to the store and didn't tell him...mostly because I didn't know how...but I didn't want to be in debt and we bought the suit with a credit card, so I just took it back.  I felt really bad, but I think he forgave me pretty quickly).  Anyway...I got him an iPhone 4 and was able to keep it a secret from him!  I always get so excited that I tell him what I got him...and it was so hard not to tell him, but so fun to see his face when he opened it!

This is Isaiah's face when he realized that Santa brought our family a red Wii!  He couldn't believe it!

...neither could Brooklin.  She is the one who got to open it!

and London started doing a happy dance right on the couch!

Caleb was super excited too!  He has wanted a Wii forever!

Traditional Christmas morning breakfast of strawberry waffles with whipped cream and strawberry syrup.

Caleb stuck his elbow in his whip cream...  hahaha!

mmm, mmm, mmm!

Kids Christmas Wishlists 2010

These are always kind of funny! =) ...and as always, i type what they wrote, so if something is misspelled that is just how they wrote it.

Brooklin:

1. BIG sketch pad
2. pastels
3. drawing tablet (for computer)
4. ipod (mine doesn't turnoff, pauses randomly & frequently, and have to charge it everytime I listen to it) **hmm...i wonder if that could be because it went through the washing machine....
5. good book
6. big eraser
7. ****little wooden man drawing figure****
8. inking pen (4going or drawings) **i'm not sure what this means...it was kind of hard to read, so that may not be what it said.

Caleb:

1. DS games
2. Maximum Ride #2 "Shools out forever."
3. Maximum Ride #4 "The final warning."
4. Galatic Heros
5. New ipod
6. Legos
7. Creationary
8. Candy
9. A portable CD player
10. A Wii, (preforably Red)
11. Super smash Bros. Brawl for Wii  **wouldn't it be funny if he got this, but not #10?!  hehe!
12. New shoes
13. pants
14. shirts
15. Leven Thumps and the Ruins of Alder
16. Mini Air Hog R/C Helicopter
17. Lego games
18. My own towl
19. My own Personuble cordloss mini alarm clock
20. An animal pillow (Penguin)
21. Mario Kart Wii
22. New Belt
23. Metal Detector
24. Book light
25. Pocket Knife

London:

1. a DS game (picross or cake mainia)
2. Ipod nano (new or old nano)
3. I touch
4. a phone
5. a book (Hunger games #3)
6. a ticket to a real football game (Boise VS Hawaii)
7. lot's of candy
8. Galactic heros
9. a new piano book
10. my own legos (I don't really care what lego set you get me)
11. a movie ticket (any apropreat movie)
12. a keyboard
13. new shoes
14. a quilt (from/made by grandma Jensen)
15. cookies
16. laptop
17. an adopted baby sister
18. a visit from cousins

Isaiah:  (London wrote his list for him and from looking at it...he was trying to get 100 things on his list and just started looking around the house and writing down things he saw.  I will mark the things from our living room in blue).

1. a DS game (my sims or sonic)
2. a nano touch
3. a Ipod touch
4. DS light
5. DS I exell
6. a phone
7. a flat screen TV
8. lego slave 1
9. Alpha and Omega **i think this is a cartoon/movie...but who knows...lol!!
10. a big bag of hershys
11. galactic heros
12. a CD player
13. a 4 wheeler
14. a motorcycle
15. a monster truck
16. a gift from blitzen
17. a pic. frame
18. head phones
19. a bluetooth
20. a shark tooth
21. bucky balls
22. a stufft animal
23. a good book
24. marbles + mashein.
25. a action figer
26. a needle sowing set
27. fabric
28. a motle boat
29. a motle plane
30. a movie ticket
31. 3 football tickets
32. Boise State helmet
33. a "we mess with texis" shirt
34. a blue, soft pillow
35. a playhouse
36. a Pic. of Santa
37. a piano book
38. a clay pumpkin
39. rex costume
40. a stack of paper
41. a gift from all the reindeer
42. origami set
43. a desk
44. laptop
45. crab shell
46. a snitch
47. a catic **from the two other times he tried to spell this one and crossed it out, i think he meant cactus.
48. Dongeballs
49. a football
50. blue turf
51. 3-D book
52. spray Paint
53. a Boise State hat
54. spy gear
55. a tent
56. a wooden bowl
57. tennis racet
58. big bag of mints
59. A big bag of candy!
60. a dimond
61. speacker
62. a Jack in the box
63. picture of things that spell my name
64. 3-D glasses
65. a digetal clock
66. a glass jellyfish
67. a shirt from orgen
68. a tree
69. a chinchila
70. a bowl of fish
71. a monkey bank
72. a lamp
73. a lamp shade
74. a blue ray
75. colorful lightbulbs
76. thumb drive
77. electric pic. frame
78. sand
79. an orange thingy
80. Dragonolegy
81. something squishy
82. egyptiaonoligy 
83. a book of mormon
84. sea monsterolegy
85. remote
86. stainglass
87. hawaii name book
88. blankey
89. wooden sea turtle
90. quilt 
91. statue (minie)
92. Tivo
93. curten
94. eyetoy
95. window
96. ps2 game
97. movie
98. xbox 360
99. speackers
100. a wii
101. pringles
102. new clognes
103. pjs

London's Christmas Concert

London was part of a children's choir this fall.  The kids all had to try out and they have been practicing since August for this performance.  They sang nine or ten songs at the Pearlridge Mall on Dec. 4th and then did the same performance at their school the next week.  London did a good job and had lots of fun.  Isaiah wanted to be in it too...but by the time they got to the third grade, they had enough kids so his class didn't even get to try out. =(  They are doing the choir thing again in the spring, so maybe he will be able to be in it this next time.