So over Christmas, my best friend Jean ended up in Hawaii for an awesome Hawaiian cruise. Lucky her. Also, lucky me. Due to the awesome timing of it all, I was able to spend just about a whole day with her while she was here. We didn’t really do a super lot as far as vacations go, but we took the road to Hana and spent a few hours at my house talkin story and catching up. It was pretty darn awesome. It totally made my year.

Today, I received a delicious thank you package filled with Trader Joe’s goodies and a few photos taken while she was here. To that I say “thank you” back. I was so excited when I opened the box that we opened just about every container  right there in the car. Thank you again. I miss you already.

Remember that Leapster2 that Leif broke just after Christmas? Well, I decided to email Leapfrog about it after hearing about their good customer service. Turns out they were right. After a few back and forth emails with them, they informed me that they would replace the Leapster2 free of charge. Sure enough, a week later, there was a brand new Leapster2 box in the mail for us. Hooray! Now he can play that Wall-E game he never had the chance to play. Leif has his “baby DS” back.

The time has finally come to empty my closet of the many skull adorned Metallica t-shirts I have collected over the years of my youth. They add up to about 16 shirts that fill space in my closet. I just can’t bring myself to give them away, and I can’t justify the use of space by wearing them anymore. So what do I do with them? I’ve decided that instead of storing them away next to my Metallica dolls action figures, I will cut them up and make them into a quilt. Many people have made t-shirt quilts, but mine is going to be way better. Why? Becuase I’m making it.

Today I pulled out all my shirts (minus two that I still wear quite often), cut them up, photographed them, and planned out my awesome quilt. With much layout arrangements and re-arrangements, this is what I have come up with. Wish me luck.

We spent the day in town today shopping and eating and having a good time. We wrapped things up around 6pm with a Subway dinner and headed home.

After about an hour of driving a warning light came on and announced that the rear passenger tire was low. Unusual since our car is so new. But 24 psi is not horrible. That is, of course, unless the 24 psi continues to 20, 18, 15, 10, 0. Crap! Flat tire. In the rain. In the dark. In the middle of no where.

While changing the tire, I realized that our spare tire is not a full tire, and that the space for the spare tire, therefore, won’t fit the flat tire. So I had to store the flat tire in the trunk with all of our groceries. Good thing we now have a large trunk.

So what did we run over? There was a small piece of metal poking out of the tire. Not cool.

This morning, I yanked said metal out of the tire. This is the whole of what we ran over.

I mean come on! Who blows a tire on a key? That’s like cutting your finger with a spoon. I mean really.

We found out a few weeks ago that “Battlefield Band” is coming back to Hawaii next week. We really wanted to go, but they are coming on a Thursday, which is Holly’s late night, and would be impossible to go unless she took off of work.

Mary let us know that she is going to see them when they are on Oahu and would pay for our tickets if we went over for the weekend (they are on Oahu on Friday). That is a really nice offer, but that would increase the cost for us from $25 per concert ticket to $160 per plane ticket. We reigned ourselves to the fact that we just can’t go.

Last night Holly walks in the door all excited saying, “Mike. You’ve got to take a look at this!” She handed me a flyer for the Battlefield Band concert.

Me: Yes. I know. Battlefield Band here on Maui.
Holly: Yeah but look where.
Me: Huh? OMG! There coming to Hana? Oh yeah!
Holly: Look at the price!
Me: FREE? OMG! That is so awesome. Let me see that again. Sweeeeet. That is so awesome. Your mom is going to hate us. We get to see them free and before she does. That is so AWESOME!

A few days later…

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Leif  didn’t make it very long. I don’t know what it is about bagpipes that puts kids to sleep.