Tofurkey Day

We started out our Thanksgiving Day with an early wake up by Gordy.  He had gotten himself dressed in his running gear, and had started making his own breakfast in preparation for the community turkey trot.  He was afraid that we were oversleeping and, more importantly, he wanted Todd to make him a coffee (foamed milk with cinnamon) to "give him some energy".  

After a quick breakfast and hydration, we hopped on our bikes and headed to the start of the race.  No preparation occurred in the weeks leading up to the race due to Gordy being sick for the last few weeks, so we took it out slow.  Apparently we found a good pace because Gordy was able to keep it up for the full 5k which he completed in 31 minutes.

Gordy loved the race and is pretty sure that he's going to do it every year.

We spent the rest of the day being fairly lazy and then had a delicious vegetarian dinner (baked breaded tofu, green salad, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, etc.) with Nana, Rik, and Aaron.  We are very thankful for so many things in our lives, especially our friends and families.  We love you all and we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

1st swim meet

Since July, Todd and I have been coaching a free swim team at the Waialua District Park Pool.  We have approximately 16 kids on the team who range in age from 7 (Gordy is the youngest) to 16, all with varying swim abilities.  Yesterday, our team participated in their first swim meet!

The kids all did super well - lots of them won their heats, and many of them placed 1st-6th overall.  Gordy swam in the 7-8 year old 25yard kick race and also in the 7-8 year old 25yard free-style.  He won 3rd place in the kick race and he won 5th place in the free-style, both of which he was pretty happy about.  

Our season is about to wrap up for the holidays, but we'll pick it up again in February to start training for the next swim meet in April!

happy freddy-ween (x3)

Happy Halloween from all 3 Freddy Mercurys!

portland for a week

We all just spent the last week packing as much as we possibly could into our days in Oregon.  We are exhausted and happy to be home, but we had a wonderful time.  We stayed in a cool little airbnb in NE Portland which had a full kitchen, an outdoor firepit, and an outdoor cat named smudge.  The weather was hot and sunny the first 4 days and more Portland regular the last 3.  And most importantly, we all checked everything off of our lists that we wanted to do:

Gordy laid in a pile of leaves.

We hiked to 7 of the 10 waterfalls at Silver Creek Falls and actually got to walk behind a few.

We drove out to Hood River where we picked apples off trees, met an alpaca, and petted some very friendly farm animals.

Gordy visited the Hood River Fire Station.

We went to a fall festival with Gordy's cousins where the kids wandered through a corn maze, rode a cow train, and played in a nut house filled with hazelnuts.

Went to my 20th high school reunion.  Had lunch with the Foster Family.

Took a family photo with my Mom's side of the family.

Stopped for donuts at Voodoo.

Went to OMSI and got a tour of the submarine from an awesome guide.

Visited the Portland zoo, Powells Books, Grocery Outlet and Trader Joes.

We all had a great time and will definitely be back for a visit again in the near future.  

bullpup all-star

About a week ago, Todd and I got an email from Gordy's school inviting us to attend the end of period assembly where Gordy would be presented with a bullpup all-star award.  Gordy has gotten this award in period 1 of both kindergarten and 1st grade, but we've never been able to attend the assembly (away on a trip, or out sick).  So, this year, Todd and I kept it a secret from him.  We rode with him to school and dropped him off like normal.  Then, instead of biking home, we rode over to the district park and waited for 30ish minutes before biking back and surprising him at the assembly.  Once he saw us enter the auditorium, his eyes lit up.  He got his award and proudly stood on stage with a few of his friends while the rest of the school and parents cheered for them.

We are so proud of our kiddo - great job Gogo!

Goodbye Fiji

After two more days in Fiji, we finally made it home.  But, not without getting "Fiji'd" a few more times...

For example - on one of the days, we decided to drive into the mountains to do a hike to a waterfall.  Google maps said it would take us just under an hour to get there.  The first 30 minutes of the drive was on semi-paved roads and then it changed to gravel, which then changed to dirt and random boulders, which included random river crossings.  After about an hour of off-roading, we arrived in a small town and saw a sign pointing to a lodge and hiking trails, so we took it.  We made it about 10 minutes in before the road became impassible for our poor budget vehicle.  So, Todd VERY CAREFULLY backed down the mountain and cliff edge to a place where he could turn around and began our trek back down the mountain.  Once we got close to the main road, google maps offered up an alternate route with a "similar ETA", so we decided to be adventurous and try it since our first plan hadn't worked out.  This road very quickly turned from paved to gravel and so on, but we really didn't want to turn around and have to backtrack, so we kept on.  Another hour later we found ourselves at a locked gate and some very unhappy Fijians telling us we were trespassing and to go back the way we came.  We did.  4+ hours later, we finally made it back to the main road and decided our day should be finished.

All in all, our Fiji trip was not great.  None of us have any plans on returning and we've been very happily enjoying our garden, beds, clean floors and counters, delicious healthy food, pools, clean air, nice vehicles, and potable water.

Fiji - day 7

Since we weren't able to go home early, we figured we might as well do the tourist thing and pay to go to another island.  So we booked a half day on Malamala island.  

Our boat left Denarau Island at noon and arrived at our destination 30 minutes later.  We had 4 hours until the boat returned, so we spent our time snorkeling, jumping off the pier, 3-person kayaking around the island, stand-up paddling, swimming in the beach club pool, walking around the island, and bumping a volleyball around.  The snorkeling was not spectacular, but there were a few areas with some cool coral and quite a few fish.  We even saw some squid that inked at us and sped off.

The day was fun, but definitely as manufactured as we thought and there’s weren’t a lot of places to hide from the sun, so we’re all a bit cooked. We finished off our day by going to dinner at an Indian food restaurant near our hotel.  The food was ok, but we are all pretty done with Indian food for awhile.