Darn Good Chocolate Cake

Okay, so I am making one right now and thought I would share the simple secret recipe:

Ingredients:
1 box devil's food cake mix
1 small box chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
for later: most of a pkg. of semi-sheet choc chips

Healthy substitute: INSTEAD of 1/2 cup oil, I substitute 3/4 cup flaxseed meal and 1/4 cup oil. I haven't noticed any difference in the taste or texture and it relieves a little of the guilt in eating it...it's HEALTHY! Gotta have my omega 3's ya know...

Combine all ingredients EXCEPT choc chips. Blend for 3 minutes with a mixer (time it, cuz 3 minutes it a lot longer than you think when you're just standing there mixing). Stir in choc chips. Spray a bundt pan with oil and pour the cake mixture into the pan. Bake for about 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees. Take out of the oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes (mine takes longer to cool because it's a heavy bundt pan). Set a plate over the top and then flip it and serve immediately. I like to sprinkle the top with powdered sugar and served with whipped cream.

Here's a Hawaiian word to describe this cake: "ono" means "delicious" or "scrumptious!"

Another Day, Another Move

Today our lease at the new house began. After only two hours of sleep, I got up and took Alex to school and then drove--with Aaron in tow--to Waimea to pick up the keys to the house and pay the rent for this month. I also went to look at a chair I had found on craigslist and bought it! So yeah! We have a chair! The only piece of furniture we own that we can sit on, other than our beds. :) This is a really bad photo of the chair here, I pulled it off of craigslist, but for $100.00 I thought it was a great find!

We've had quite a running list of things to buy since we moved here and we are beginning to see items being checked off our list.

1) Washing Machine - Since our friends moving into our first house have their own washing machine, we suggested to the landlord that we buy their washing machine. So, it looks like that's what we're doing. It's not the brand new washer and dryer set I would have run out and put on a credit card because we NEEDED IT, as I may have done at another time in my life...BUT, it gets our clothes clean and it's less than a year old and is only costing us $150.00! So we won't have a dryer, but I haven't had one since we moved here and have lived to tell about it, so a clothes line it is.

2) Wind Chimes!!! Haha... It may sound funny, but this was way up there on my "needs" list! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear the constant chiming in the breeze here. Peter & I both have grown to love hearing the chimes at our first house and didn't want to give that up, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that we are moving next to a rooster farm! So, for Valentine's Day Peter went out and bought me a very nice set of Mongolian Mezzo chimes. Now I fear I am becoming a wind chime snob because these sound AMAZING compared to the clanging cheap chimes that were hanging on our house when we arrived. It is worth it to pay for nice ones! The first time someone came over after we hung the new chimes they commented immediately on the great sound. See?

3) A Bundt Pan - It may seem like a petty need or want, but let me tell you, without a bundt pan I cannot make my Darn Good Chocolate Cake, and without my Darn Good Chocolate Cake when I really want it, well... let's just say I really needed a bundt pan. I threw my 10-year-old Pampered Chef pan away when we moved because it was peeling and nasty looking. I could have easily picked up a bundt pan at WalMart when we were in Kona, but for some reason I wanted it to have more of a story than that. So, one Saturday morning when we were at the local farmer's market, an astrologer had a booth set up and she approached me. She told me I was going to have a girl and she would have dark hair, and she KNEW because she did this "all the time." Haha... Okay, lady. Nevermind your "prophecy," sell me your amazing top-quality star-shaped bundt pan! And so she did, for 50 cents. And my Darn Good Chocolate Cake never looked better!

So, other than the items I mentioned above, we haven't purchased or otherwise inherited much "stuff." In addition to the washing machine, we are also buying a double futon-like bed and a small blue dresser from the owners of our first house. It looks like we may be having some friends come to live with us for a couple of months, so we thought they could use the bed and, when they're done, we'll put it in the outdoor play room for the boys. And the dresser will go in the boys' bedroom. Oh, and I am also buying this butterfly vase I had to have because of my current butterfly fetish. So I got the double bed, dresser, butterfly vase and a ton of hangers from our first house all for $100.00. Not bad.

Dang, I am RAMBLING like crazy tonight, aren't I? If anyone is still reading this, I would wonder why. Well, if I have anything else to add about this move, I would have to say it is definitely being done "aloha style." We are taking our time, enjoying the process and not letting ourselves get all stressed out about it. It's great!

I made it 36 days...

...without crying once. Without feeling homesick. Without wondering what the heck we're doing over here. Without regretting putting our children through this big move. Without feeling so very, very far away. Without looking up the going rate on current plane tickets "home" and then growing discouraged at the expense of the journey.

Tomorrow will be better...

Sad

Talk about sad! I went in the boys' room a bit ago to ask Aaron to quiet his singing down and let Alex sleep, only to find Alex laying in bed crying. :( He was very difficult today after getting home from school, so I was wondering what was going on. He said, "Mommy, I'm crying in my bed." I asked him why and he said, "I miss my friends, Ethan and Faith and Emily and Zachary and Joshua and my old class." I just layed in bed with him and he cried and said he wanted to go back to Mammoth to see everyone. I felt so terrible. That's the first time he has had any kind of sad emotion since we arrived here. I don't know if something at school triggered it and made him want to go back, or if missing everyone was what made him so grouchy today. Either way, he said he wants to talk to his cousins tomorrow, ALL of them. That sure made me want to book a flight for him. He has a 4-day weekend, ya know???

It's Our 1-Month Anniversary!

It's hard to believe, but we have already been in Hawaii for a whole month! In a strange way it feels like it's been longer than that, but in other ways it feels like we just got here! We've really been easing into life in Hawaii. We know the time will come for being more a part of the social circle here, but for now we are enjoying a time of, what I would call, hiddenness. Even our little house is hidden as it is unseen from the road to any who pass by. Other than Jenny & Sully, we haven't been to anyone's home and we haven't had anyone over. Okay, I have been to the home of a woman where I attend a weekly Bible study. And she and her husband did stop by once. But other than that, it's been pure family time.

At least until today! Almost as if to commemorate our one-month anniversary here, I had my first friend over. She came by with her 5-month-old son to check out our house and is considering renting it when we move out. We were able to easily connect as mommies with small children and I really enjoyed her company. I actually met her when we were here visiting the area last August. She came to a gathering of Jenny & Sully's friends as a French interpreter for a Haitian man. She was due to have her baby at the time and I hoped I would see her again when we moved here. Sure enough, I was surprised to run into her at the first women's meeting I attended! So anyway, it was just nice to have someone over and begin a new friendship.

And tomorrow the fun continues. We met a young couple at Jenny & Sully's last weekend who invited us to a party at their home tomorrow. Alex is very excited because they have a 5-year-old son he is eager to play with again. They live on several acres outside of town and have quite the shindig planned! At 4:30 they are serving turkey burgers to the kids and have some kind of adventure planned for them. Then at 6:00ish we will have a potluck for the grown-ups (I'm told the children will be taken care of?). They asked Peter to bring his guitar to play some music around the campfire later in the evening. So this should be fun and will give us an opportunity to meet even more people in our little Hawaiian town.


Our New House

I have a feeling that our "season of hiddenness" may end quickly when we move out of this house into our new house, which is located within walking distance to the homes of several families we know. I think I will be ready to have people stopping by to hang out by then. Although I don't know what we will have our friends sit on as we still don't have any furniture! Ha ha... I'm beginning to realize that our new dwelling will be no secret as everyone seems to know "the two-story house on Union Mill Road." There's only one of those and that's where we'll be!

Cast your vote on how to spell the baby's name!

Alima Joy - (ah-LEE-mah); Hebrew & Arabic origin, means "powerful, strong, cultured, wise, knows dance & music."Used in Arabic & Hebrew speaking countries. (When we first chose this name 10 years ago it was because we found it meant "a heart that sings and dances" and Peter felt we were going to have a dancing daughter.)

Alyma Joy - (changing the i to y to match the y in Joy); same meanings as Alima.

Ilima Joy- (ee-LEE-mah); Hebrew & Hawaiian origin, means "flower." This refers to the flower of the o'ahu plant, which is related to the hibiscus. The blossoms are small and golden and woven into garlands. Used in Hawaiian speaking countries.

A Speck of Reality & the Kohala Cocoon

We have been residents of this beautiful Hawaiian island for 3 weeks as of today. Wow, it feels like so much longer in many ways! I love that I am sitting here in my capris and always-dirty bare feet comfortably listening to the crickets play their tunes outside...and I'm WARM! It's like a Redding summer night I loved as a kid, except that it gets darker much earlier here. :) I do love it here. Did I mention how much I love seeing my boys play outside everyday, in WINTER??? And to hear little knocks at the door followed by the sweet request, "Can Alex play?" Then, out the door goes Alex, with Aaron following close behind, to play with the neighbor boy.

Last night we went out for a fabulous sushi dinner at a well-hidden local restaurant. I heard the waiter say, "All the ingredients were grown here on the island..." to a table nearby and I was surprised by the moment of panic I felt! I can only liken it to hearing the pilot of the airplane interrupt my sleep by announcing how many thousands of feet up in the air we were. I had to stop and catch my breath! An island. I live on an island. Yes, that little speck in the big, big ocean. Not just on it, but on the very edge of it. If someone sneezes we might fall off that cliff we see just across the street and down the dirt road a bit.

It's so easy to forget in our daily life here that we're surrounded by the ocean on all sides. Sure, so I can see the ocean from just about anywhere in town. And if I drive an hour south, it's still there. Two hours east, it's still there. I realized I have already become so focused on our semi-glamorous life here along a 4-mile stretch of country highway that I forgot how small we really are on this big planet. For all I know, I'm a Who on a speck on a flower easily blown to pieces by the wind.

Aw, and now the rain begins pitter-pattering on our metal roof. I love, love, love it.

And then there's my husband who finds himself in what he calls the Kohala cocoon. Detached, disconnected, shut down, turned off. No, this isn't a new condition. He came here this way. Only now the distractions are gone and the cocoon has made it's presence clear. No longer is he a Worship Pastor, an Administrative Pastor, a business teacher AND owner, an entrepreneur, a dad and a husband requiring more hours in a week than he has. Gone is the office outside of the home and the church calling him away at night. The friends and family who hoped for bits of his time here and there are now held back by an ocean.

I am ecstatic to have my husband back and for the kids to have their dad back. We're together nearly all day, even if he's in the other room engrossed in his work on the computer. It's nice just having him around. But, as I've felt for quite some time, he's not the "him" I used to know. The light has burned out. Now is his time to recharge. (Wow, the rain is REALLY pounding down now!) I know, after some time to rest, my husband will break out of this Kohala cocoon and discover a whole new version of his old self. I'm excited to watch that happen. A little time in the waves here and tinkering on the guitar there is just what he needs. I have no idea how long this hibernation period of his will last, but I am very thankful we came to Hawaii when we did. This is just what our family needed.