November seems like an abbreviated month--another February. Really, there were 30 days in November? Hard to believe.I wish we had pictures of our first weekend in November. We left early on Saturday morning and booked it up to Hanalei to hit the surfboard swap meet, held the first weekend of every month. We tried this before, but I didn't like the selection and we went home empty handed. We got there and it was dumping rain. There was a small tent with about 45 people crammed underneath, and we all still got soaked. We kept thinking the rain would let up, and it didn't. We were standing in a field full of water. Finally, the kids had to get out of the car (the drive is an hour and a half), so they came and squeezed in under the tent, too. In the meantime, we eyed a few boards, looked up some reviews on Brady's phone, called our surf buddies, and finally got the one we wanted.
When it rains hard here, the water turns into chocolate milk. It's a recipe for an ear infection, but I did not care. Had to try the new board. We went to Kalipaki on the way home and I surfed in the dirtiest water I've ever experienced. Worth it? Yes. I've been out on it about 5 or 6 times since then, and I like the board more each time.
The second weekend was the Koloa Sugar Mill 10 Mile Race. Brady sprained his ankle playing basketball a few weeks before the race, so he was on kid duty while I ran. With the SI injury still plaguing me on and off, I had not been able to pull my mile times for distance runs below an 8:24, and that was absolutely cruising for me. The weeks before the race, I was upset because the joint was bugging me, and my heel had started to hurt, too. (Yay.) I went in expecting to run 8:30s, and hoping that I could achieve 8:15s. I couldn't believe it when I pulled in 7:34s. Obviously not a PR, but almost a minute a mile faster than my best training runs. I seriously felt like yelling, "I'M BACK!" It gave me a 4th place overall finish (for women), and first place in my age division (which doesn't mean a lot because only 100 people ran this race). It was super to race again--I missed the adrenaline, nerves, and excitement!
Saying "hi" to the kids:
Had to include this picture because I've given Kev and Scott a hard time about pulling a "Nufer face"--the hanging mouth and expressionless eyes more typically seen when staring at a computer or TV screen. Here I display it at the finish. (By the way, all the people around me are 10K/5K finishers, not 10 milers.)
So many young families have moved here recently that hosting a huge gathering for Thankgiving wasn't going to work this year. Instead, we split up into a few small groups. It meant more cooking assignments, but the food was great and for the first time in years, we had leftovers. Zachary and I made little turkey cups for the chocolate covered blueberries. I decided that I am not nearly as anti-craft as I thought. Making crafts with your kids is unbelievably fun.
Zac helped me with everything. Here he is breaking up the pretzels for our Edwards-style Raspberry Pretzel Salad. This "salad" cracks me up because it was the only thing I was ever assigned at Edwards family dinners for about 2 years of our marriage. Haha! No blame or anything...I could barely cook a baked potato at the time. Let me tell you, all that practice paid off: this thing turned out perfectly.
I'm always surprised by how easy things are to cook that I've been intimidated by for years. For instance: stuffing. I've always (mistakenly) believed that store-bought stuffing was just as good as from-scratch stuffing. Heidi was mortified that I was going to cheat, and offered to take on yet another assignment with her brand new baby. Of course that couldn't happen, so I went for it and now realize that it's the easiest thing to make for Thanksgiving dinner except for maybe the green beans.
Chad got up at 5am to start smoking this turkey. We called it our Hawaiian turkey--it looks toasted by the sun. It was delicious, and we abused our leftover rules (3 days and it's OUT) and had turkey in some form or another on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday.
Heidi cooked up sweet potatoes, apple pie, blueberry mini-pies, and perfect crescent rolls.
She also brought along Mr. Turkey Tate.
Kate slept through the entire meal, which would have made me feel bad on child #1, but on child #2, I loved having free hands. She ate plenty when she woke up.
Chocolate cheese!
We've wanted to go to the beach on Thanksgiving since we moved here, and it's never worked. out. This year, the weather aligned and we had a gorgeous afternoon at Poipu Beach with one of the other Thanksgiving groups.
Nic was the cool dad tugging the kids along on boogie boards.
Check out the drool progression:
Chad buried Zac and Olivia to look like sharks (see the fin?). This is his shark imitation:
We caught the sunset, then went to the Kalaheo pool to eat pies and sit in the hot tub. I think there was one pie per adult. Very nice conclusion to the day!
Friday morning, we put out all our Christmas decorations. Each year, it is more and more fun to do this with Zachary. He remembers them and gets super excited with each box. We started an advent calendar and "Elf on the Shelf" this year, and he's loved the new additions. We had to start early, because we leave for Utah on the 16th.That afternoon, we went to a new beach on the west side and had a bonfire. Shawn brought his paddle board and we all had a go on it. The conditions were perfect, again, leading me to claim that this is the best Thanksgiving weather we've had in 5 years.
Kate, Mary, Christina, Kim, Melissa and Shelley:
Zac played with Will and Porter for 2 hours straight without any adult intervention. I'm finally, finally becoming less of a helicopter parent.
Eva:
Brady was the fire man:
I love boys and their sand games!
Which sunset shots are better? Thursday (at Poipu) or these?
Saturday was windy and chilly. We stayed out late on Friday roasting dinner and s'mores, so we gave our kids a break and went out individually. I went surfing and Brady went on a bike ride. Here's his pictures:
Writing this post makes me feel refreshed all over again! Now, we are just looking forward to going to Utah and being around family for Christmas.
