Gavin’s good friend MK came over today to help keep Gavin (and Leif to an extent) occupied during the day. Poor kid has been so bored home with me all day long with no car.

They played great all morning and I was able to get a bit of work done successfully. In the afternoon, they requested a walk up the street to ride bikes and pick berries. Wanting to get out for some fresh air myself, I happily agreed. On our walk, we were successful in picking a large handful of delicious fresh red akala berries.

We decided that when we got back to the house, we would make ourselves smoothies with our delicious berries as a reward for having fun. MK gave me a recipe for the smoothie.

1 lilikoi
1 container of black cherry yogurt
1 container of passion-orange-pineapple yogurt
a handful of grapes
1 banana
1/2 apple
1/4 cup coconut water
a few chunks of coconut meat
a handful of ice cubes

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.

When the smoothies were all done, I poured them into small glasses. MK looked at me and said, “You try it first.” She gave me a funny look and then said, “I have a confession to make. I just made that recipe up. I don’t know how to make smoothies. I just thought that sounded good. You try it first.” So I did, and you know what? That is one of the most delicious smoothies I have ever had. Better than anything I’ve ever had at Jamba Juice or Orange Julius. Good Job MK.

Being in the mood to bake and not having any eggs in the house, I decided to bake a loaf of bread. I flipped through my “Baking with Julia” book to find a nice bread recipe and found a bagel recipe instead. Set on making bagels, I prepared the dough. It was too late in the day to finish them, so I placed the dough in the fridge at the appropriate time. That was yesterday.

This afternoon I pulled out the dough, divided it up into equal parts, formed little balls, poked holes in them, made rings out of them, boiled them in some water, coated them in a bit of egg whites, dumped sesame seeds on half of them, threw them in the oven, and cooled them on racks.

It was my first time attempting making bagels and it was a lot of fun. Almost as fun as my first attempt at pita bread. If you haven’t tried doing either of them, I highly recommend it. It’s a good experience and totally delicious.

There are some days in ones life where you just have this amazing feeling that everything is perfect. Yesterday was one of those days.

After a couple of weeks of being without Gavin, we picked him up from the airport and got a sudden feeling that we were once again complete. We took a short family day of eating manapuas, shumai and musubis, shopping for toys and going to the movies before heading home.

The drive home was beautiful as ever and we just got this feeling of happiness and completeness. And just when we thought the day couldn’t get any better, we were greeted with this beautiful rainbow that started out in the ocean and burst out up into the clouds high up in the sky. The rainbow grew into a double rainbow that spread across the sky up over the land and over our house out into the mountains. And it was so bright and vibrant. It was one of the most perfect rainbows I have ever seen. These pictures don’t do it any justice.

I woke up last night sometime around 1 am. I was tired and wanted to go back to bed. I rolled over to get comfortable and saw something most adorable. Leif snuggled up to Holly for comfort. Holly laid on her side facing Leif with her left hand on her forehead, elbow towards the ceiling. And to top it off, Sookie (our sweet snuggly cat) was sleeping most adorably on Holly’s side. It was a sight to be seen. My first thought was how perfect that picture was. My second thought was how I wished I had a camera, and my third thought was …… I don’t remember. I fell asleep.

While looking up some reference for work, I stumbled upon a site called SomethingStore.com. It’s a store where you purchase something. Duh, right? Well what you get is something. They randomly select something from their inventory and send it to you for a flat fee. It’s awesome. I couldn’t help myself. I had to order something.

And here it is. The box arrived only 5 days after ordering. Saweeet.

Now to see what’s inside. Oh, the anticipation. Annnnnnnd…

Tadaaa. It’s a PetZoom. Awesome. My cats will love this.

I wonder. What will I get next?