Trick or Treat

What a successful Halloween. Gavin was earless Spock, Leif was a cowboy, Holly was Shaun of the Dead. I was whatever people thought I was. People were all like Oh! Your that guy from whatchamacallit and I was all like Yeah. Thats what I am. I even scared a few kids by jumping out of a coffin that was set up at a friends house. It was great.

The kids all had a blast. They were very excited and happy. We were joined by some friends and their two girls, both about Gavins age. They ran to all the houses, some more than once, spouting trick or treat and collecting hans full of candy. Despite being so tired by the end of the evening, Leif stayed awake for everything and mumbled trick or treat to the very end.

Candy was dumped all over upon arrival back home. They made one pile for each of them, then started a fifth pile for the rejected, unwanted candy, which was mostly made up of tootsie rolls.

The rest if the evening consisted of sampling and/or devouring as much candy as possible while us adults chit chatted and did boring adult things like drink eggnog.

The kids eventually came calling asking to go to bed stating that their tummies hurt. I think that constitutes a successful Halloween.

Things Are Changing

This has been a long month. Things are going to be very different. Holly and I are splitting up. We gave it a shot after we divorced and things were really good for a while. Unfortunately, it looks like I still have things I need to work out, and Holly ends up suffering from it. So I’m moving out. I still dont have a job and I havent been able to find a place to rent here. There’s just nothing available right now. So it looks like I’m going to be heading back to Oahu, where it will be easier for me to find a job. Holly’s mom is kind enough to let me stay with her. I hate the thought if being away from Gavin and Leif. That is going to be hard to deal with. Definitely not something I want, but with everything going on, it seems the best path to take. So there you have it. Things are changing.

Gavin’s First Soccer Game

With the absence of Tai Kwan Do, Gavin has started playing soccer. There are a lot of his friends that play with him and he has been enjoying it. Unfortunately, he missed the first game because he was in NY. Then he missed his second game because he was feeling sick and the game was on the other side of the island. This last week was the third game and Gavin was excited to finally get to play. It was a good game and the kids all had a great time. Here is a recap of the game from Gavin’s point of view.

Ok. There’s the ball. Chasing the ball. Must get ball.

 Ooh. There’s the ball again. I’m getting closer.

Yes! I reached it. Crap! I got tripped.

Oh well. It was a good run. What shall I do now?

I know practice…

…my air-bending. Sweet.

 

Yes, the game was still going on, but this was the last few minutes of the game. And being down 3 – 1 and the ball being at the other end of the field, he’s just doing what I did when I played little league when I was his age. Well, I didn’t have air-bending, but I did have dandelions.

Greeted by Pigs

One of the great things about living here in Hawaii is that there are pigs. Pigs to greet you when you arrive home from picking up your son. Pigs to bathe in your kiddie pool behind your house. Pigs to torment the neighbors dog that is tied to a tree. Pigs to taunt you as your making smoked pork chili. Or something like that. See?

Happenings of late

Believe it or not, things have been good. We took our trip to New York which was fantastic. We spent time with my family, the kids all had a wonderful time playing together, my brother and I interacted probably the most we ever have, the bachelor party was a grand success, and Lorenz had an absolutely wonderfully beautiful wedding. Maybe I’ll even write a whole post for that.

Back home, things returned to normal quick enough. I got a call back from a job I applied for before the trip. It was on the other side of the island and would be a crazy commute, but it was a full job with benefits and all that. I set up and went for an interview last Thursday. It seemed to go well, but I guess I was wring, because they have yet to get back to me. Its a good start though. In the mean time, I’m continuing work on my iPhone app and looking for work.

Than there was the whole business of the tenting. That was just all craziness. Our land lady scheduled a house tenting for ten days after our return from NY. Our friend who works at some rentals said she would see if there were openings that night. Of course there weren’t. So I called the landlady about a place to stay since she preciously said she could arrange something. When I asked her about our cats, she said it wasn’t her problem. She did rent us a night at the rental place across the street. Fortunately we have some awesome friends who said they would watch the cats for us over night. They couldn’t stay inside the house over night though, so they spent the night in little cages. In the morning, when I went to check on them, I found that Moira managed to escape during the night. Not good. The rest of the cats though, were let out to stretch their legs and relax a bit in our friend’s yurt. They were nervous, but happy.

I hung out there for the rest of the day with the cats and Sam. It was a little stressful, but could have been worse. When the kids got home from school (Leif and Sam’s son go to the same preschool) they accidentally let the kitten out. She didn’t go far. I found her with Moura just off the porch.

Shortly later Gavin arrived home from school with Sam’s other son. This marked the time to get ready to head back home. At 4 o’clock, I grabbed the kids and the cats and headed back home. The fumigation sign that marked our house as toxic and deadly was now gone. We cautiously entered the house to find it looked exactly like we left it. I think I was expecting devastation. For the couch cover to be eaten away, the floor to be lined with termite bodies, and the air that came out of the door for the first time to be green. None of that happened. There were two dead cockroaches in the kitchen and a dead rat on the porch.

I spent the rest of the evening putting away all the bagged goods back to their respectful places. I made the kids some mac and cheese, then went to the library to pick Holly up from work. It was the next day I noticed the withered up tomato and hop plants. So much for that. That is the end of the tenting story.

This past weekend was really nice. Saturday, the kids were a bit stir crazy at the beginning of the day, so we decided to get out. We went over to the Ranch Store to get a snack and kill time and figure out what to do. We called a few friends with kids that Gavin and Leif could play with, but it turned out they were busy. Either in town, or just had something else going on. But that didn’t stop us. We were determined to do something. We decided we would go down to the beach to swim, but when we got there, there were “No Swimming! Jellyfish in water” signs posted. From there we went to see how Koki beach was. There was a surf competition going on, so it was a bit overcrowded. Luckily, we drove around to Hamoa, where the beach population was low and the water was beautiful. We spent the afternoon there splashing in the waves and digging in the sand. The waves were perfect for a bit of body boarding. I got to spend some time in the water with Gavin which was a good change. I often spend my time in the sand with Leif. This time, I got to do both.

On Sunday, we hung out with some friends in the afternoon and played dominos and drank some Sunday Margaritas. The kids played some Wii, trains, cars, and all kinds of fun kid things. We ate Thai food for lunch. We had a really nice time. Towards dinner time, we went down to Hana Bay to let the kids play in the water and watch the sky turn colors as the sun went down. It was a very relaxing, and quite wonderful day.