Kauai Cousins: Makai, Grace + Niko 6.28 – 7.18

Aunty Caroline took Grace, Niko and Makai to Kauai. Grace said that Niko cried for 1,000 hours on the flight!

Grandpa and Grandma Crowell taught Grace and Makai to golf at home and at Kukuiolono Golf Course.

They celebrated 4th of July with sparklers.

There was also a ton of fun with water balloons.

Grandpa and Grandma don’t really go to the beach much, but one day Grandma, Caroline, Grace and Niko went shopping in Lihue and Grandpa took Makai to Kekaha to go swimming.

Makai Facetimed us every day, but mostly because he wanted to see KC!

Niko pulled this potato out of the cupboard and chewed on it for a week!

Makai and Gracie developed a sibling-like relationship with all of the fun and fighting that goes with that!

Grace and Makai separated for by grandpa for dinner at Pietro’s Pizza and Pasta in Poipu. Too much arguing, not enough eating!

Some down time.

On July 15, Uncle Jose arrived. He hung out with everyone for a few days. Supposedly Salt Pond was overrun with homeless camps and it had just gotten cleaned out, so Jose and Caroline took all the kids to Salt Pond. Jose, Caroline and Niko then flew back to Arizona, leaving Grace to stay with Makai and Grandma and Grandpa. They had dinner at Wranglers because there were no openings at Eating House 1849 until the end of August!!

Spring Break with Grandma and Grandpa C

We hadn’t seen Kathy and George for about 16 months (since 2019!) and it was great to spend a week with them!

Reading a Korean picture book at bedtime.

Tons of treats from Hawaii!
Kimchi Stew
Pajeon – scallions and crab!
Easter Cookies
Makai has been asking for some time to make Monkey Bread so today we did.
Spring break mid-day sunny snooze outside.
I told Makai not to be so rough with Grandpa C and Makai told me that Grandpa C had put him in a full nelson a couple times that day. Game on!
Opening Easter surprises from Grandma and Grandpa B.
He’s already obsessed with these new comic books! Thanks, EB.
Makai to a neighbor in the park: Do you know who drew all these bunnies? It must have been the Easter Bunny! This must be the “bunny trail!”

Dying eggs with Grandma C

Danny, Caroline, Rory and Johnny came to visit Easter weekend. We hadn’t seen them for soooo long. The kids had so much fun and it was great to see Danny and Caroline again.

Christmas 2020

For the first time in 15 years we did not go to Aunty Gail’s house for Christmas dinner. We had a quiet day at home with lots of phone calls with family. Dallas’s parents had originally planned to visit over Christmas, but at the last minute cancelled to stay safe. Makai still got tons of presents! From us, santa, family and friends. A lot of gifts were mailed and most made it on time. The postal service was soooo overwhelmed with packages because people were staying home and mailing their gifts.

This year makai had a supervisor watching him open all of his gifts!

Makai got the Nintendo starter set. And KC had to be in the middle of it while Dallas explained it to Makai. He also got a few expansion sets from Caroline. They were pretty fancy – iPad instructions, bluetooth scoring, etc.

Fun stocking stuffers – mac n cheese and a giant chocolate coin.

Opening presents from Grace and Niko.

Makai’s big gift from Santa was the Animal Crossings game. It was a piece of paper wrapped inside about 3 nested boxes. On the paper Santa wrote that the game was already loaded onto our Nintendo Switch. A long discussion on how Santa got into “daddy’s office” was had.

Playing the new game.

Makai got a chocolate frog in his stocking and Stephanie got him the 3rd Harry Potter book. We’re currently reading the 2nd.

We Facetimed with mom and dad, Jessica, Dick and Jill. Also Dallas’s parents and sister and brother.

We got an air fryer from Jill and Richard, which came in handy for reheating chicken tenders and french fries for lunch.

Makai got Chinese Checkers. Who do you think is winning? Makai or KC?

KC got some Packers tennis balls from her Uncle Richard.

Christmas snuggles.

Playing Makai’s new Super Mario themed Monopoly game.

More Christmas snuggles… and reading his new Bad Guys books.

For dinner Dallas made shrimp and grits, which were amazing. He did a lot of research into what kind of grits to get and how to prepare them. The shrimp was from our Sitka salmon share.

Makai thought it was so cool that he wore pajamas all day then took a shower and put more new pajamas on. These were from Grandpa and Grandma B.

Niko and Grace in Goodyear, AZ.

Happy Halloween, Luigi!

Makai has been obsessed with video games this year, thanks Covid! It was no surprise when he wanted to be Luigi for Halloween.

Everyone was all over the place as far as trick or treating. The city said it was ok with some safety measures in place. Some people opted not to do it at all, some did the same is all other years, some masked, some distanced with treat bags, some created elaborate chutes. One chute we same came out of a second story window! We decided to set out treat bags of candy on a table in front of our house and let each kid take one.

Liz and Konrad Boo’ed us, by dropping a treat bucket at our front door, ringing the doorbell and running away!

Mom and dad sent a Halloween care package with treats for Makai and KC. Grandpa and Grandma C also sent treats in the mail!

Our neighbor Andy set up a chute and Makai was MORE THAN happy to test it out.

We went to our friend Jill + Decker’s house to social distance in their back yard. We finally got to meet Lockwood, who was born at the beginning of quarantine.

Their block went ALL OUT on Halloween and it was fun to walk around and trick or treat there. All of the houses were decorated and people were really creative with building chutes and other things. I sewed a mustache onto a sort of skin colored mask, so Makai could wear his mask the whole time. The ultimate was to get candy from an adult Luigi wearing almost the same costume!

Caroline and Liz sent photos of Makai’s cousins:

Grace and Niko in Arizona

Mahea and Noe in Washington.

SEVEN

We knew this year would be a strange birthday and that Makai wouldn’t see family and friends, so we tried to make it as special at home as we could. Makai had a lot of anxiety coming up to his birthday that it would be the same as any other day, which was really sad.

Since Makai is obsessed with video games and Nintendo and is going to be Luigi for Halloween, he wanted to have Super Mario as his birthday theme. It’s nice how his birthday and Halloween can always group up with the same theme. We decorated the night before so he would see it all when he woke up!

Makai got so many calls and gifts for his birthday! A dogman book, a handmade blanket, and legos from Grandma and Grandpa B, an archery set from Grandma and Grandpa C, Minecraft from Gracie and NIko, legos from Mahea, and bath bombs, books and Super Mario 3D. We Facetimed with each of them to open the gifts. Makai also talked to his old friend Ezra on Facebook Messenger.

We celebrated with all of Makai’s favorite foods! I surprised Makai with a donut delivery for breakfast. At work we used to get donuts delivered every Friday and if there were extras in the afternoon I might bring one home for Makai. Since we haven’t been in the office for a long time, it’s been a long time since he had a donut! Ahead of time he chose ribs from Smoque for his birthday dinner. Smoque was closed, but we were able to order barbeque from another spot and he thought it was just as good. For dessert we again surprised Makai and got an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. It was chocolate with cookies n cream ice cream and oreos on the top!


Vanessa asked us to come over and have a little celebration for Halloween. Since it was Makai’s birthday so close, we also celebrated his birthday!

I brought some of our decorations from home and Vanessa went all out with balloons and Halloween decorations!

I also got a pinata. I planned to make cupcakes (no one wants you to spray your covid all over while blowing out candles!).

Makai liked the chocolate banana muffins I made recently so much that he requested them for his birthday instead of cupcakes!

It was so sweet of everyone to make his birthday feel so special at a time like this when we can’t visit family or have a big party.

We did not plan to stay over but it got really late, we were in the suburbs and we didn’t want to drink and drive so we all crashed. Makai in the morning with his crew. LOL