Kid Overload Weekend

This weekend we had two events at our house.  The first was a slumber birthday party for the Girl.  She officially turned 10 today, but the party was Sat/Sun.  She invited 7 girls over.

The Boy had his Cub Scout troop over.  It was a thanks to the cub scout leader for hosting each meeting at his house for the last 2 years, when the original plan was to rotate houses.  The parents chipped in for gift cards to two restaurants.  This gathering was Sunday, a few hours after the girls' slumber party was over.

Wifey asked if I REALLY wanted to have a fully booked Saturday and Sunday with young kids.  You know me, if it's going to be bad, you might as well double-down and then pull off the band-aid as fast as possible.

The Girl's party was easy, for me.  I kept my mouth shut and let the Girl and Wifey obsess for hours and days over who was to be invited, what the theme of the party was, how to invite them, and so forth.  And then they went over and over it again.  Are you sure you wanted to really invite Kai?  Are you sure you want to invite Chloe since she and Kai don't get along.  10 year old angst and drama, which you have to chuckle about to yourself.

My job was to take the Boy out of the house and keep him occupied so he wouldn't be the annoying younger brother running around in his underwear causing girls to shriek.  We went to a college volleyball game, a pub for fish and chips, and then to a softball game.  Then, a little night grocery shopping.  By the time we came home, they had eaten their pizza, opened presents and were serving cupcakes in lieu of cake.

The Boy watched some TV with me, and then he went to bed upstairs to sleep in the guest bedroom.  I had taken an allergy pill earlier in the day and it makes me very drowsy.  So around 11:00, with the girls in sleeping bags downstairs in the living room, Wifey and I turned in.  They had just finished watching a movie and were just giggling and talking.  Wifey didn't give them a firm time to sleep, but just told them to start winding it down.

And the chattering went on and got louder.  I was in a haze of sleep and half-sleep (I could hear the chatter).  Wifey got up at 11:15 and asked them to tone it down.  Then she got up at 12:30 and asked them to tone it down and get to sleep.  And then around 1:15, she called the Girl up the stairs so she could talk privately.  The Girl kept asking, "Am I in trouble?  Am I in trouble?"  Wifey then told her it was time for talking to stop and sleep to be begin.  Right, gotcha!  And about 10 minutes later Wifey had to tell the girls to go to sleep.  And after that I passed out.

Then the girls left,  most of them by 10:30 Sunday morning.

The cub scout troop started arriving around 1:15.  Of course, the first things boys do is find the Boy's Nerf guns and rifles and start chasing each other around the house, front yard and back yard.  The girl was off to another girl's birthday party from 12:30 to 2:00 so it was perfect.  However, I installed keyed knobs on her door (that we had installed in our house during our house remodel) so no nasty boys would get into her room (like they did last time).

Besides boys chasing each other with guns, I was thinking about how to keep them busy.  Aha, everyone likes to hunt for treasure.  So got some baggies and I filled up each of the 8 baggies with three items:

a) a small bag of peanut M&M's
b) 3 Pokemon cards (the Boy recently declared he didn't like Pokemon anymore and wanted to give them all away)
c) some small toy/trinket sitting in the bottom of the Boy's various tubs of "stuff".  You know, little plastic figurines from McDonald's happy meals.  The Boy didn't care, to him it was just "stuff".

And then I made the boy stay in his room while a went to the backyard hiding the bags in various places.  I know the yard SO well thanks to a rather naughty, yet ingenious dog of ours.

The only problem would be if I hid it too well and we had undiscovered bags of booty in the backyard that my dogs would eventually get to - I didn't want the dogs consuming chocolate from the M&Ms.  Fingers crossed.

And then,  I announced there was a treasure hunt.

Aha, those boys tore through the backyard (with guns and Stormtrooper helmets) looking for treasure.  And then......then the whining started.

• Ummmm, [the Boy's] Dad?  Can you give us a hint? [Johnny] - "No."
• Puuuleeezeeeee!!!! [Johnny] - "No."
• Ummm, no offense, I don't really like silly banz (the treat one boy found).  [Johnny] - "So what?  I don't care."
• Please, please, please give us a hint!.  [Johnny] - "No."
• (10 more requests for hints) [Johnny] - "Okay, along the trail that has the garden hose, there are some nearby.
• Ummm, [the Boy's] Dad?  I don't really like M&Ms.  [Johnny] - "Okay."
• Guys, Help ME find the last bag!

That last one is where, after I found out the details, I had to roll my eyes.  Both parents were at the party.  They've been over for post-cub scout get togethers (parents drink, kids run amok).  The Mom just mentally checks out and lets her husband watch the kids. The husband, he's a hoot.  He's what I call "uber liberal" parent.  He jumps up and panders to his two children for every little whine.  And, he tries to talk to an 8 and 4 year old as if they were an adult.  Yes, some people might find that treating young kids as adults leads to better blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.  I call it spoiling the kid.

So the son, let's say his name is Tim, is whining that the other boys (who have found their treasure) aren't helping him find his treasure.  When I ask him, "Hey Tim, I thought you already found your treasure?" He answers in a whiny voice, "But I didn't like the prize!  I want something else!"

Oh....so then he whines to his Daddy who is trying to get the attention of the other boys, "Boys, Tim is your packmate.  And when your packmate needs help, we all need to get together and help him find the treasure."

The other kids stop for about 3-4 seconds, think about it and then run off with guns chasing each other around the front yard.

I kinda say in a low voice to uber-liberal Dad, "Yuh know....Tim already got his treasure.  He just didn't like what he found.  So......"  He asked me, "Then whose are we looking for?"  I said, "Lee's treasure.  And Lee doesn't really care and decided he wasn't going to go look."

Meanwhile Tim is pulling at his dad, "C'mon, we gotta go find that treasure.  C'mon."  And the uber-liberal dad was muttering to his son, "Well son, I tried to get your den mates to help you out....but I didn't set this up....so I guess we need to go look for it ourselves."

10 minutes later, they found it.  And, I don't think he liked that treasure either.

Ha!

Hawaii Trip Recap - Summation, pt 3

Oh yeah, not quite finished.  Stupid computers at work keeping me busy.

So people have left comments like, "What's the big deal?  Just move to Hawaii and quit fretting over it."

But you see, the problem is that I'm have a big problem with this mental leap.  Wifey and I both have always considered that we would retire to our current town.  I let a girlfriend leave me and return home to Minnesota because I knew I'd never end up there.  i.e. she would have probably married me if I'd been willing to relocate up North - which I wasn't.

When Wifey and I started dating, I made jokes that most of my friends who got married had to move to a new house (if they already owned a house) because the new spouse would say, "Well, I don't feel like it's OUR house.  It's your bachelor pad.  I want something WE BOTH decided on."  (makes a lot of realtors happy!)

She said no, she had no problem selling her house and moving into mine (whew).  But when tupperware started falling on our heads as we opened up overhead cabinets because we had the kitchen bulging with our combined items, we had to ask ourselves:

• Remodel?
• Buy a new house?
• Build a new house? (we bought the lot next door to our house)

In the end, we decided to remodel.  And, the thing is....the remodel cost about $5K less than it cost ME to build 7 years before as we went high luxury on certain items.  This was going to be our permanent house in our permanent retirement city.

Until about 2 or 3 years ago.

So, no.  It is not easy to "just sell" your house, all your belongings, your cars and just fly to Hawaii and start over (knowing no one).  It's a big deal to us.  We are planners and for the last 12 years, we've been paying down the mortgage, refinancing, paying extra into the principal for that day we retired and had no house payments (7 years).

So....it takes a while to mentally turn the (mental) retirement cruise ship (metaphor) around and steer in a different direction.

Thus, I've been looking off-and-on at realtor web sites in Hawaii.  A few months ago, I did a google search and I found a site:  Hawaii Life.   The search engine was decent (there are some bugs in it, but that's because I notice it as a software guy).  But the key point was that it covered the 6 distinct islands - whereas some web sites were island-specific.

But Wifey and I know that you just can't look at the outside and inside shots to know if it might be a promising place to live.  And besides, we're currently in our research phase.  We can't leave our town for a couple of years.  First, it's the kids.  The school systems in Hawaii aren't known for their...ummm...academic excellence.  You have to put your kids into private school ($$$).  Second, health care.  While I make a very nice salary, on the day of my retirement the Mega-lo-corp might hand be a box of band-aids and say, "Good luck!  Don't call us!" in terms of post retirement health care.  It's Wifey's job we have to rely on.  I won't go into detail (AGAIN!) about Wifey's (ahem) sudden change in jobs.  But she does understand that we are totally dependent on her (city/state) post-retirement health benefits to cover both of us.  And, she won't qualify for that retirement package for another......9 years.  By then, the boy will be 17 and the girl will be 19. 

So, 9 more years.

Six Years

Today's the 6th anniversary of when we met The Boy. 

Wifey, as usual, was in charge of the anniversary celebration plans....except she kept saying that it was April 4th.

Mmmm...can a mother forget the day she met her son?

Or is her husband wrong.  Again?

The cross I bear, being married to a woman whose first husband was a paranoid schizophrenic is that...ummm, she usually doesn't believe anything that comes out of my mouth, if it disagrees with what she already believes in.

I use some memory numonics to remember some key dates.  The Girl's Family Day is always 2 days after my birthday.  I remember that because the day AFTER my birthday (while we were in China) was the day Wifey and I realized we forgot about my 40th birthday.  So, we can always remember that "Ha-Ha" moment.

And for The Boy, I remember it as being 2 days after April Fool's day.  So it's easy for me to remember the phrase in my head "two days after".

I said to Wifey, "Ummm, I think his family day is April 3rd...cause you know, two days after April Fools."

She looked at me, with that pitiful look for a fool, shook her head and said, "No.  No."  [loud sigh]

Hmmm.  Should I go ahead and let her celebrate the Boy's Family day on the wrong day to avoid marital discord?  Then I thought, "It's the Boy's DAY.  I need to set this right."

First, research.  Finally, this stupid blog pays off.  I went back to my archives and I looked at the date.  Yup, April 3rd in China.

Let's see...how to approach this.

I had to return a document to the house safe, so I took the opportunity to pull out documents to prove that it was April 3rd.  Aha, the red picture folio they hand you at the Civil Affairs Office.  Can't read any of it except our names, our street address and our birthdays....and at the bottom on the right side of the folio were the numbers:  2007 04 03

I took that out and laid it out on the counter where Wifey stops and puts away her car keys and the rest of the stuff when she comes home.

I heard her come home, then start talking the Boy, "Hey...ha-ha-ha...I guess I got the date wrong.  [The Boy] guess what?  We're celebrating your Family day on Wednesday instead of Thursday."

The Boy's answer, "Ummm, okay."

I told my wife I "stumbled" across that folio while I was returning a document to the safe. 

She said, "I don't know.  I guess I was so LOCKED IN to the 4th that in my mind, it was the 4th." 

I went on to explain the whole "two days after" numonic and she was severely unimpressed.

And then she said, "Well, we were in China at that time, so who's to say it wasn't the 4th over here?"

[Sigh]

At this point, I'm not going to go further and try to explain / remind / convince her that China is 12 hours ahead of us.

[Must remember, it's about the Boy.  About the Boy.  About the Boy]

My Work Desktop

This is how I spend most days. 

Yup, almost total gibberish, but believe it or not, it's good news.  And actually, this is way, way, waaaaay better than my last job at the Mega-lo-corp.

Hawaii Trip Recap - Summation, pt 2

One of the reasons I had been hesitant about thinking about retiring to Hawaii was the fact that it's an island.  Of course, there are associated reasons related to being on an island - the price of everything is 30%-50% more than on the mainland.  But one of thing things I worried about was the concept of "island fever".  A friend of mine's dad lived for years in the US Virgin Islands.  He did indeed live in paradise.  And then she told me he sold his house, sold his business and was moving back to the mainland.  I asked why, and she said, "He just got.....I'm not sure if it's island fever or.....the feeling of being trapped on an island."  And that, is my biggest fear. 

Here in Texas, if something bad were to happen (think 9/11 when all planes were grounded), you could eventually make your way somewhere by car or even by foot if you had to.  But on an island......dude unless you take up sailing across oceans, you are there until big mechanical birds are allowed to fly again.  And as we experienced while Wifey was laid up in ICU, you have to hope the island has a good hospital (we were looking into how much an ambulance flight would cost to leave Hawaii to get back to the mainland - minimum $10K just to get to California).  There were people from the small islands of the Pacific there because the hospital in Honolulu was the best for women and kids.  But what if you have heart issues or cancer or.......?

But on the flip side to that....you can't live your "sunset years" in fear.  I know A LOT of people who would never go far from home due to fear.  I have a good friend, she and her ex-husband were/are nurses.  And they did the "traveling nurse" route (1 year assignments in various cities).  I asked if they would ever do a traveling assignment to Hawaii.  The answer was, "No, because then my Dad couldn't come out to visit.  And Dad is too nervous to fly to an island that far from the mainland and be out of touch of medical care."  Well....it's not like they use coconuts tied with string as phones in Hawaii.....but that family was raised to really, really see the glass as half empty.  Thus, I didn't want to be that paranoid to shut myself out of a good place to live. 

I guess my counter to that paranoia is to ask how many times I've been in a bad situation where I had to hop into my car and drive across the state to get somewhere?  Uhhh, never.

So yeah, maybe retiring, living (and dying) in paradise is better than retiring, living, (and dying) in yet another wave of drought while hacking up a lung due to the allergies in the air.

Hawaii Trip Recap - Summation, pt 1.

Okay, my blogging has become a little bit lazy.  Or it's my new job within the Mega-lo-corp that has me busy.

This will answer some questions posed in comments.  If not, ask more.

Wifey and I decided....sometime in 2011 or 2012 that we are going to retire in Hawaii.  When we say retire in Hawaii, we mean it and not in a "Yeah....sigh....it would be nice to kick up our feet and watch the waves roll in and just sip Mai Tai's in Hawaii."  We mean, retire from our current jobs.  Sell our house, buy a house or condo in Hawaii and then look for new jobs in Hawaii.

Many people move to our town because it's a great place to retire - which is the irony.  Our good friends have been here as long as we have and they are looking to retire somewhere in N.C.  They too have taken vacations to N.C. to see if they like the climate and the cost of living there.  We, obviously, have been to Hawaii a lot, which is probably why it took us so long to decide that it would be worth leaving our "retirement heaven" to Hawaii.  There are two reasons we are leaving our town.  We love the town...A LOT...but we can't see us dealing with two things in our retirement age:  The Weather and The Allergies.

I'm a complete believer in Global Warming and it has really wrecked Texas the last couple of years.  It use to be in our part of Texas, you would get a drought that may last 2 years once every 8 years, but then you would have 6 years of non-drought.  This last cycle has been brutal.  It was 2 dry years, 1 wet year, 1 moderate year, and now we're headed back to another 2 year cycle.  I grew up in Houston and learned to deal with the heat, but last year we had over 30 days where the temperature was over 100 F.  Do I really want to deal with that and be trapped in the house when I'm in my 60's?  Or do I want to be on an island where the average temperature year-round is 81 F?

Many years, a friend of mine moved away because she couldn't handle the allergens we have in our town.  And a few years ago, another moved away for the same reason.  I kept thinking, "But...but...guys...this town is great.  That's just a small sacrifice you have to make."  Well, it's getting worse for me as well.  I think, again, it's come down to the warmer temperatures.  The trees get confused and think that it's spring in the middle of winter and they start flowering and pollen is in the air way, way earlier than it used to be.  And then when the blessed rain finally comes, the molds grow much faster because the air is much warmer than if it rained in the dead of winter.  Wifey spends about 7 days a year, taking sick leave from work, since she's too miserable to go to work.  I just go to work and sit miserable in my office - hacking (asthma) and sneezing.

So back in 2011, when we decided "Okay, we like Hawaii so much, why don't we just retire there?"  The first thing out of my mouth was, "Let's retire to Lanai!"  Wifey looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, "No!"  And then after thinking about it some more, yeah we can't retire there.  We love it there, but we can't retire there.  The reason is what I call the "$100 wrench problem."

Lanai has:

• One gas station
• Two mom-and-pop grocery stores
• 2,600 residents
• 1 elementary, 1 middle, and 1 high school
• 2 big hotels, 1 small hotel

You have to buy a car that the mechanic on Lanai can actually work on.  There are no dealerships on that island.  And if you need something.....let's say a wrench?

• Drive down to the docks
• Buy a $100 roundtrip ticket on the ferry to Maui
• Arrive in Maui and get onto a bus or hire a taxi to drive you to Home Depot
• Buy your $10 wrench
• Get back in time before the last ferry of the day (sometime before 6:00 pm)

And that's why we can't live on Lanai.  You see families dragging giant coolers onto the ferry because they've got to load up with stuff on Maui they can't get normally Lanai.

Okay, if we can't live on Lanai, where can we live?

Oahu - never.
Big Island - know very little about it.
Kauai - know something about it as we've stayed there twice.
Maui - know something about it as we've stayed there twice.

But, each time we've stayed for a week at an island, we don't KNOW about it like you would as a perspective buyer.  We only know about it from the point of view of a tourist.

You Can Kinda Hate Me

We were gone for a week during the billing cycle.  But the net of it is that we generated more electricity from our panels than we used for the last month, hence we "sold" $5.02 back to the city.

Hawaii Trip Recap - Pt 4

Yawn, another luau.

Actually, it has been a couple of years.  As mentioned in pasts posts, we like to stay at Lanai.  But Lanai is too tiny to hold luaus.  They have to ferry the performers and the food over and it's not cost effective (round trip on the ferry is $100).

Weak phone from iPhone since I was tired of carrying my big camera by then.

 

And I'd been telling the gals that I would be going to Da Poke Shack, which rated highly on food critique sites and apps.  Finally one afternoon while they were re-heating leftovers I went.  It was only 2 miles down from the rental house.

Clockwise from top left:

1) white rice

2) Kim Chee mussels - yum!!!

3) special of the day - wasabi ahi, very good.  tangy

4) garlic seasoned edamame - not bad

5) the spicy ahi - surprisingly bland.  not spicy at all, although you could see small red flecks in there.

  

 And then we skip to the last day.  It was a busy day.  The terms of the house rental was for 7 full nights, but we decided to leave one day early to get back to Texas time and be ready for school and work the next day.  The way the flights work in Hawaii, most flights back to the mainland are red-eye flights.  Ours left at 9:00 pm on Friday night, to arrive in CA Saturday morning at 5:30.  So, we didn't have to leave for the airport until 7:00-ish.

We had a busy day:

• Packing
• Met with realtor for lunch (more detail on that in a later post)
• Went and drove around a neighborhood to get a feel of property there
• Went to yet another beach (5 beaches in 6 days)
• Packing
• Eating out 
• Airport

When I was on the second Contiki tour, my only knowledge of beaches on the Big Island was of the rocky/pebbly beaches, except for the black sand beach.  But some of the younger "kids" said they went to the North West and there were gorgeous beaches there (there was a free day where everyone could do whatever they wanted instead being with the group).  We finally must have hit one of the beaches they went to:

Kaunaoa Beach

 

Man, it was gorgeous and smooth.  Very little to no rocks in the water.

  

The sand was powder soft.  

  

But wait, why is it empty if it is such a perfect beach?

Because it's sprinkling and overcast.  The adults are huddled under the grove of trees and you can see a few raindrops on my camera lense.

  

But the kids, especially the Boy, was on a mission to boogie board.  He didn't care about the rain, he just jumped in and tried to figure out how to catch a wave.

  

His sister is out there directing him on what to do.

 

After a while, after a lot of sideways swipes, he got the hang of it.

Is it a shock that he actually slept on the overnight plane ride?  (an extreme rarity with him)

  

Broke a bowl in the dishwasher.  Owner said fuggidaboutit

At a gas station to fill up the tank of the rental car and to visit the bathroom.  We had been explaining to Wifey's cousin about the Hawaiian obsession with SPAM.  May I present to you, sitting in the cold, quick snack shelf SPAM Musubi

And what the heck, since the airlines no longer feed you.  Let's stop off at a well rated Japanese place for some teppanyaki

 

Hey, we got close to a volcano!

 

But then the vog rolled in.

 

I sat next to the Girl.  A few hours later, when it was dark and the girl was zonked out asleep, the flight attendant giving me a glass of water asked if the Girl was showing Elmo what the plane was doing.  I confirmed it and she smiled broadly and said it was the cutest thing and she was going to do something special for Elmo.  But then, that got forgotten (but she meant well), but I never told the Girl about it.  Anyway, her pal got to go to Hawaii with the rest of the family.