Isaac's First Baby Food

I took so many pictures of this little meal that I thought that I would make a slide show of the event. Since the slideshow program that I have been using takes forever to upload photos, I decided to try something new. I really like the Smilebox program. It is quick, easy, and comes with a lot of templates. The only problems are, the text is hidden up at the top, I can't figure out how to speed up the transitions between slides, and most importantly, it does not play in the blog. If you want to watch it you have to click and open a new window to view it.

I'll probabbly switch programs next time. If you do watch it, I think you'll get a kick out of the faces he made when he got his first few tastes of baby oatmeal.

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

CTR Cake

I am always looking for an occasion to make a cake, especially a big fancy one. If you have already read my sisters blog you have already seen the fun cake we made for Kimball's baptism. My mom and sister and I all worked on this one, and we were very pleased about the way it turned out. (By the way, if you don't know, CTR stands for Choose the Right. It is a primary motto.)


Since we wanted it to taste good as well as look good Michal spared no expense. The cake was a moist rich chocolate chocolate chip cake (a Dr.ed up cake mix with sour cream, pudding and chocolate chips). We made two 18 inch square cakes, that we then split to make four layers (the whole cake actually took four mixes).

We used 20 oz. of Trader Joe's chocolate and a cup and a half of cream to make a ganache to use as a filling. We realized after filling the first layer that it was only going to be enough for two of the three filling layers. Since we would have to go back to the store for more ingredients anyway, we decided to fill the very center with a chocolate mousse to mix things up a bit. We should have gotten a picture of the sliced cake. The layers were: cake, ganache, cake, chocolate mousse, cake, ganache, and cake. :) I think that in the end there was almost three pounds of chocolate in the fillings of this decadent cake!

The marshmallow fondant went on quite smoothly, but the ribbon at the base hides several flaws. Mom's lettering was perfect, and the green luster dust, left over from Jared and Kimball's light saber cake, came in handy as a finishing touch.

It was a hit at the party, and I think Michal only went home with one or two leftover pieces.

I wonder when our next occasion will be?

Hartford's Big Island Events

Hartford had quite a schedule of events planned for our group, that would entertain us and show off the beautiful island. They planned evening events every night except for the night that followed the Tour of the island and Volcano National Park.

The first night's event was a welcome reception down at the Hotel pool/beach.

Isaac went to sleep just as it was starting, so we put him in a stroller, covered it with a blanket, and "parked" him near our back corner table. We filled our plates with food from the generous, fresh, seafood buffet, and headed back to our seats.

Before we got back, someone pulled Flint aside and politely as possible let him know that under no circumstances were children allowed at any of the events. NO EXCEPTIONS! Isaac and I were kink of upset about this.

I had been worried about what we would do with Isaac if we were faced with these objections and couldn't see any other options. I can't get Isaac to take a bottle of pumped milk, let alone formula, so leaving him with someone seemed like it would be out of the question.

We just decided to just enjoy the fact that we were in Hawaii together, and not worry about whether or not we could go to any events. With that said, I started researching any options we had to see the island on our own, and/or attend an event or two.

The next day, Flint had meeting till noon. I got to hang out at the hotel beach and pool. I visited with someone I met at last year's convention and she mentioned that since she was feeling sick, she was not going to go the Luau that night. I took a mental note of her room number for future use. At 6:30 the group all headed off to the luau, but I was happy to find out that it was being held at the adjacent hotel (shuttle service was available). Isaac, like the angel he is, fell sound asleep for the night promptly at 7:30. I called my friend who was happy to keep Isaac in her room. I and rolled his stroller into the vanity area of her bathroom, where he continued to sleep soundly, and I rushed off to join the party.


We had so much fun! It turns out that the party was just beginning. I had only missed the sunset photo-opp and cocktails.


The food, flowers, music, and dancing were wonderful!


I know that I'm crazy, but can you believe that everyone was leaving their leis behind! I took a couple extra on my way out.


Mom helped me reserve a rental car for our day trip around the island, since we wouldn't be able to ride on the bus with Isaac. (That reservation didn't end up working out, since the Internet and call center information was wrong, and the promised car delivery was unavailable. Plus, the pick-up location was a $90 taxi ride away). We were saved by Aaron (Flint's boss) who gave us the car reservation with the hotel that he had booked and didn't need after all.

It turns out that most of the people on the tour bus envied us the freedom that the rental car gave us. We went to Rainbow falls,
... then out to a nice lunch, the black sand beach, to Volcano National Park, and to a fun local Hawaiian food drive-in for dinner.

Volcano National Park felt like Jurassic Park. Maybe it was the tropical forest mixed with the strange sulfur smell and the thick overcast sky. Maybe it was the craters and tunnels that made up the rest of the scenery, but it was kind of eerie once it got dark.

Here I am with Isaac in narrowest part of the "Lava Tube" in Volcano National park.

Here is Flint in the biggest part.

The next day was a free day, so we played at the pool and beach all day and recovered form our road trip. We hung out with Mike and Vicky, who had brought their 8 and 10 year old boys. We did some body surfing and snorkeling etc., and came up with a plan to that evening. Vicky didn't want to leave her boys in the hotel room from 5:00-10:30 (the scheduled time for the evening's events at Kohala Ranch) and I couldn't leave Isaac until he was sleeping, around 7:30. We decided that we would split the cost of a rental car so that we could tag team the kids.

We drove up to the ranch together. What a gorgeous drive! The sunset and light were just beautiful when we got to the ranch.






The hillside pastures were breath-taking. These are what I call Happy Horses!

After taking a few pictures, I dropped off Flint and the other couple and took Isaac on a little sight seeing drive across the country side. I wanted to check out the Northern point of the island. I drove back to the ranch by 7:00 so that I could feed Isaac and get him to sleep. When he went to sleep around 7:45. Mike and Vicky took him with them (and the rental car) back to the hotel so that they could spend the rest of the evening with their boys, and I could spend the rest of the evening with Flint at the ranch.

They had an amazing paniolo ranch barbecue dinner with steak, ribs, chicken, baked beans, potatoes, corn on the cob ..... They had a couple horse shoe toss games going (which I am really bad at, and Flint is pretty good at), a lasso toss station (which I am pretty good at, but Flint is not so good at :), a branding station (where we could brand a piece of wood with the ranch brand), a star gazing station with a telescope (we saw Saturn and its rings), a s'more station, and a live country band playing! It was great fun! Doug (one of Flint's Hartford friends) even got up and took a turn with the microphone.


The next day, we used the rental car to drive to Kona and then the Pololu Valley (I'll tell about that in another blog.) That night I decided to play with Isaac at the pool and watch the band and hula dancer on the terrace instead of joining Flint at the "Surprise" final event.

They ended up going to a boat club on the Kuilia Coast for dinner and dancing. Since Flint went alone...

he spent his time taking pictures of the sunset and thinking wistfully of his wonderful wife. :)

(Great pictures don't you think?)

The Hapuna Prince Beach Resort

Here is the view from the lobby of our hotel of the pool and beach!

Pretty incredible isn't it?


There is nothing quite like having a vacation on the company dime. When I vacation, I am afraid that I try to go economy in the accommodations and activities. When the event planner at the Hartford plans a vacation there is nothing economy about it!


We stayed at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Kohola Coast of the Big Island. For a virtual tour of the hotel, with much better pictures than we could have taken, click on the link.

Here is the entrance, and walkway up to the golf course and spa.

Our room was large and beautiful. It had optional shuttered doors on the balcony and front door so that we could enjoy the cross-flow if ocean air in the room too. Here is a picture of Flint and Isaac looking out over the balcony, ready for an afternoon at the beach. I admit that I took others that showed more of the view, but I'm a sucker for a close up of Isaac in his shades.



Isaac loved the pool, and charmed everyone with his giggles and Mr. cool glasses. In fact, after our trip to the pool, he enjoyed the ocean water too!



The beach was crystal blue, beautiful...

and perfect for snorkeling, boogie boarding,

and/or just gazing out on...

One of my favorite spots to watch the sunset was the lounge level just below the lobby. They had a little four man Hawaiian band and a hula dancer there every evening. If you look in the bottom right hand corner of the picture you'll see the dancer.


It was perfect! The music and dancer kept us, and most importantly Isaac, entranced while we looked out at the view of the sun setting over the ocean.

We were spoiled and pampered, and loved every minute of it!

The Beautiful Black Sand Beach of Punalu'u

This beautiful beach was one of our favorite spots on the Big Island. It was over on the Volcano National Park side of the island and the black lava rock has become an amazingly beautiful beach. The sand was not super fine (more like the size of coffee grinds) but it somehow felt cleaner that way.

Isaac liked digging his little toes into the sand, but wasn't quite sure what to think of the cold ocean water.

Since he was born in October, and it has been winter for most of his life, he has not spent much time outside; except when he was all bundled up for walks. (Here he is on one of our early Feb. walks.)

We were thinking that he was pretty lucky to be getting his first experience with ocean water in Hawaii. (On a black sand beach, no less.) But he felt differently!

He was not very happy with us at first; and he let us know. (I love his face in this family shot.)

Perhaps because the black sand provides a nice camouflage. This beach is a popular feeding and resting spot for Sea Turtles. We saw 4 or 5 during the hour or two that we spent there. We saw some when we went in with our snorkel gear, some near the shore feeding by the rocks, and this one just crawled up onto the sand to rest in the sun.

Isaac liked watching the turtles from Daddy's arms. Especially if he kept his feet out of the water.

From the lookout point on the rocks just below the beach we could see spray and occasional tails of the migrating whales. Isaac just has eyes for his daddy with the camera.

Hawaii is definitely an amazing and beautiful place. Stay tuned for more pictures and travel-log over the next couple of weeks.

(Since we were in Hawaii for 9 days, and have a digital camera with 2 GB of memory, we were not very selective in our picture taking (taking several shots of the same thing to make sure we at least got one good one). When we got home we realized that we had taken over 950 pictures during our trip! It has been quite a project to sort out/organize and trim down. Don't worry, it takes far too long to upload pictures to blogger for me to post more than just the highlights. ;)

Hawaii!!!

I haven't posted in ages because we just spent 9 days in Hawaii!

I am planning on posting lots of pictures and giving a details of our adventures, but I am afraid that once I am still trying to unpack, catch up on laundry (one more load still in the dryer)

... take care of a baby that is still adjusting to our time-zone and being home, and catch up on my calling/other responsibilities.

I hope to have an update for you soon.

Great in 8!

I love food! I love cooking, baking, barbecuing, crock-potting, steaming, sauteing ... good food. Or just reading through my cookbooks and dreaming about cooking, baking, barbecuing, crock-potting, steaming, sauteing ... good food.

I am slightly obsessed with it in fact. I am usually either thinking about making and eating something delicious, or thinking about how I can resist eating something delicious. Sometimes I even think that I can make something delicious, and then resist eating it. :) Since I seem to have a hard time resisting, I have always struggled with my weight.

Weight Watchers and exercise worked for me a few years ago, and I thougtht I had figured out the balance... (enough exercise and appropriate resisting)... Then I got a full time teaching job and all of the sudden my exerciseing became a little sparatic. Then I got married. Then Flint started working evenings, and it wasn't uncommon for us to eat dinner at 9:00-9:30 at night. By the time I got pregnant I am afraid that my sparatic exercise rutines had dissapeared. Then I had a baby (enough said). Finally, I bacame a ravanous nursing mother at about the same time "the holidays" hit.

Needless to say, by the time January came around, I needed to make some drastic changes. When I found out that the Relief Society was sponsoring a "Feel Great in 8" competition, I was excited to participate. Those of you that know me best, know that I am slightly competitive. It was just what I needed!

We earn points by keeping track of several "good choices", and deduct points for "bad choices". The great thing about it is, it's more than just a weight loss program. It is aimed at improving health (rewarding good foods, exercise, water drinking, and weight loss), spirituality (rewarding daily scripture study, and personal prayer) and service (rewarding the completion of assigned tasks). About 50 sisters in the ward signed up to participate; and teams of 4 are keeping track of points to see who can score the greatest improvements.


Here is what the form looks like.

Since I realize it is too small to read, here are the three sections:

First, the "Good Food List".
We can earn up to 10 points a day by eating food from this list.

Second, the "Activity" points

and "Daily Challenge" points.

(The "Daily Challenges" change each week.)

Notice how high the scripture reading and exercise points are.
Notice the no eating after 8:00 p.m. points!

Finally, the "Bad Food List".

We keep track of our individual points during the week and then report the total to our team captain. (This was extra motivation for me, since I let down my team if I cheat or get lazy.)
The truth is, I could find the loop holes that would let me eat poorly and still get the maximum number of points, but I have to remind myself when I start to rationalize bad food choices that I am trying to loose weight. ("Butter is not on the bad food list!", or "Since portion size doesn't count...")

I am proud to say that after the first 6 weeks, I had lost 16 lbs. and was the highest individual score. (Did I say I was competitive?) It has been a wonderful way for me to break old habits and reintroduce good habits. I make "dinner" at 2:00 or 3:00 now so that we can eat before Flint goes out on appointments. (No more 9:00 meals!) I haven't missed a single day of scripture reading! I even joined a gym and have started exercising again (I'm debating one of those "tracking" page elements to keep me motivated). I even made it through Valentine's Day without eating any Valentine's candy!

I admit, I was weak and had 4 "Bad food" items last week, (I did throw a baby shower with delicious food.) but I really think that I am on the right track, and plan to stay on that track, even after the 8 weeks end.

If I could somehow get rid of this food obsession I would really be in good shape!