Hawaiian Adventure

   

I have been back about a week now from our little Mini Vacation to Hawaii. Pumpkin and I went down to help out my Little Sister welcome a new little addition to our family, a brand new niece.  I am still working on getting off Island time so I thought that I would send everyone on a quick Hawaiian adventure via pictures.... 

 

On the way up to the temple the mountains have all these little waterfalls.  These guys appear early in the am and after rain, which is almost all the time on this side of the island.

 Pumpkin building her "crab pool" on Ft. Hase beach. 

Visiting my old elementary school on base.

 Driving up to the gate we passed by the bay and island where they filmed the intro to Gilligan's Island. 

On our drive up the coast we passed by China man's Hat.  I really don't see the hat part but it was a still beautiful spot.

We were happy that some of the photos that I snapped out of the car window actually came out.  I still can not get over the water, so clear and inviting!

Pumpkin was very surprised to see cows, I fear she is under the impression they only roam in Texas.

I had little guy duty which reminded my back how painful it could be chasing after a very energetic and heavy 1 year old.

This little hole in the wall place in the mall parking lot is where we had THE BEST lunch.  Grilled Steak and Shrimp with rice (lovely sticky rice) and a salad.   Sorry no photos of the lunch but after running around that little guy all morning I was HUNGRY! 

Right outside of my sisters house is a HUGE Hawaiian Plumeria tree.  Every morning there was a heavenly scent from this guy and I am on a mission to see if I can talk Hubby into having on in our yard.

The last day there Pumpkin and I were able to have some time to go back to Ft. Hase beach and play in the surf before hopping on a plane to come home.

 Two weeks is the longest time I have ever spent away from Squirt and Peanut, and I would not want to do it again.  Pumpkin and I are so happy to be home, we missed Hubby, Squirt, and Peanut terribly!  And now I must start packing the whole family up for a weekend trip to Houston to celebrate a little cousins birthday!  I used to think that I would not want to be a Road Warrior, but this type of travel is something I might get used to.

Have a great weekend Everyone!

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi

100 books

Found this 100 books meme here: here

Bold the ones you've read COMPLETELY, italicize the ones you've read part of. Watching the movie or the cartoon doesn't count. Abridged versions don't count either. BTW, according to the BBC if you've read 7 of these, you are above the average.


1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (TBR)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (TBR)
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden -Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Inferno-Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madam Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down -Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Now I have a built in reading list for the rest of the year.   What is even better?  I can count myself in the Above Average category!

What books have you read?


Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Post It Note Tuesday ~ My Random thoughts

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Mahalo

Today I am flying home and already missing  the ocean and memories of Hawaii.  Coming back for a visit to someplace that I grew up so many years ago brings back memories and new ones.  The best new memory, seeing my new niece for the first time!  I was able to have a little vacation and a baby fix all at the same time. The best old one, smelling the Hawaiian plumeria!  We grew up with one in our yard and when I smelled the heavenly scent I knew I was in Hawaii. My beautiful sister and her growing family are going to be missed and Pumpkin and I thank you for asking us to visit.

Here are some of the many things that I will miss ...

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Sunday Citar

There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.

~ Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi

Wordless Wednesday ~ Even In Paradise you can have one of those days

To see more Wordless Wednesday visit Live and love outloud and The Misplaced Midwesterner.


Happy Wednesday Everyone

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Post It Note Tuesday

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Aloha Hawaii

We have finally made it to the spot my sister spotted some green sea turtles (which is my favorite animal by the way).  Pumpkin with skinned up knees and bloody elbow, very prego sister and little nephew in tow we spotted just one little itty bitty sea turtle.  No worries, we will try again and maybe I will have a picture to post!

But what we are most excited about is a new little cousin to make their appearance next week.

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Post It Note Tuesday

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi

Sunday Citar

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body. 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A girl is innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot. 

~ Allan Beck

Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
~Jean De La Bruyere

In honor of a new addition to our family, a new cousin, I have dedicated this Citar to children and all the joy, chaos, and endless love they bring to our lives. 

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Little Friend update

I am so happy and proud of this past week, I just had to share.  My little Bodybugg has provided a clear road to losing some weight and I have. 2.8lbs have been sent out into the universe and I hope it finds a new home on some distant planet or wherever lost socks end up. This was done with the help of Hubby and another surprising source.  Please meet my Little Man, Mufasa.  Isn't he cute?!?!?!?

Mufasa has kept me company on my crazy night time walks to get my calorie count in.  Mainly because he looks like a scary dog (really he is a big softy) and he does not have a "walk" speed.  He may be an old man now but there are times when his inner puppy busts out!  It is more like, where is the next squirrel and or bird speed.   And for this and many, many other reasons he is My Little Man.

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Hmmmmm....

 

To kiss or Not to kiss, THAT is the question.   

Not sure if it is the same in your house... but we have a bit of Frog Prince fever here.  So would you kiss him?  Me?!?! Nope!  I already have my Prince... will let another girl take her chances. :)  But I have to admit, he is kinda cute for a frog.

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Flavicon On!

No, not a new Superpower but it is a new gadget thingy!  I am not the technical one in the house, Hubby is all over that one!  While hopping around the internet I found this lovely lady at Rocky Run Design.
She started a design company and as part of her Grand Opening Celebration she was giving away  a flavicon  for anyone that asked, up until a certain date of course.  So when I found out that I still had a few days to put my name in the hat I jumped on the opportunity.  I wake up this am to find her e mail in my in box... so nice to wake up to goodies. With her easy step by step instructions I even installed it myself, YAY me!


Okay, a flavicon is that little tiny picture next to your blog address , look up at the tab and you will see the bright orange B is replaced with my custom flavicon.  Like it?  Want one of your own?  Push the button and visit her.

 

Arigatō gozai masu Krista!!! 
Next mission: picture for profile and possible button for my site.

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Wordless Wednesday ~ Wordless?

To see more Wordless Wednesday visit Live and love outloud and The Misplaced Midwesterner.


Happy Wednesday Everyone

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Say Helloooo to my Little Friend!

O. M. G. !  sorry channeled a teenage girl.  Take a look at this....

Has anyone seen or heard of The Biggest Loser?!?!  Well those guys have a Bodybugg and  so do I! A snazzy zebra version no less. One of the reasons for starting this blog, besides keeping the brain matter fit was to get the rest of me fit as well.  Hubby bought this to help me along with my painful adventure.  I just started using it on April 2nd and I am finding out that my plan has me on a 1500 calorie intake per day.  Aaaaaahhhhh! With a caloric burn of 2000 .... Gulp! I say to myself.... "Little Mochi! Nothing is impossible unless we think it so."   After the first few days I started to think back two, three months ago when Hubby started with his .... "I would NEVER weigh or measure out my food!"  Okay, I am now kinda eating my words!  Not measuring out my food (yet) but I am way more attentive to what I am eating and how much, so the little bugger is doing its job!
 

And check out this little guy!  I feel like I just visited Q and left with the coolest (do the kids still say that these days?!?) spy watch.  My little reader will tell me what my calorie burn, length of activity, how many steps I have taken, the time, and... it lights up! Oh, and Hubby has a code word he says if I mention that I would like a cookie... Little Polka Dot Bikini.

So what do you think?!? I can see myself in it! Nothing like positive visualization to put things into perspective:)  So with that I have started my journey of 1 million steps :)

Ja matta ne,
Little Mochi

Happiness Project

Happiness is .... three chocolaty munchkins :)

To see other happy images push the button above.

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi

Post It Note Tuesday

 

 

 Visit Supah Mommy for more giggles and grins.

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi

Lunch time!

This is one of my all time favorite lunch dishes, besides a good ole' bowl of Miso soup. I did not grow up eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch but I did eat this .......

Sorry I do not have a better photo but, Hubby was HUNGRY!!!

Every time we have this dish it reminds me of happy memories and family, strange how food can do that.  Very similar to my other recipe posts this is really simple and I am not sure if it has a name.

  All you need is Somen (thin Japanese noodles), fresh spinach ( 'cuz it is just better) and bacon (YUM).  The amount is all dependent on your personal taste and how many you are cooking for.

Somen noodles are thin and cook very quickly.  Bring water to a boil and add noodles.  These guys will start to roll to the top and cook for two to three minutes.  Once done pop them into a colander and run cold water over them and set aside till needed.

I personally slice the bacon to little bits to help spread the love among all the noodles and spinach.

Cook the lovely bacon till it is just about crispy, if you go too long it will leave hard crumbly bits of bacon in your somen.  Once it is happy, remove bacon and drain on a paper towel and pour off the fat in the pan.

Take your healthy portion of this dish that has been sliced into thin strips and start to wilt them in the pan after all the fat has been drained off. Add the noodles and bacon and mix well.  Be sure to watch that your noodles do not stick, I have had this happen many a time :) Tip: make sure the noodles are rinsed in cold water and not sticky when you add them to the pan. (hope that makes sense)

Remove from heat and enjoy!

Ja matta ne,

Little Mochi