Monkey (left) and Bug (right) play defense
with their friend A as goalie.

Go Orange!

Monkey and Bug love playing soccer! Monkey had been hesitant to sign up, but even she admitted she was having a lot more fun than she expected. In addition to the official practices,  they've been getting in extra tips, tricks, and drills with Daddy. The rest of the players are improving too (they're not the only first-timers on the team), and their team actually tied their last game! Very exciting since they lost the last couple by a landslide. (The league doesn't officially keep score, but kids always know who won. Can't fool them!)

Perks of Homeschooling
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what history class sometimes looks like at our house! We're reading through Story of the World, and for every chapter the girls each fill out an over-sized notecard with notes on the lined side and a drawing on the blank side. This week they were assigned to put them in order and tell me the story. You can't really see their fun drawings here, but it was a great review activity!

Mmmm....Cookies!
Since Lion had stitches in her knee, we couldn't plan any of our usual adventures for a couple weeks. However, everyone agreed that meeting up with friends to make, decorate, and eat Halloween-themed sugar cookies was a great substitute!

She's not in pain here--just sad and bored.

Nobody Likes the ER
Honestly, I'm amazed we've been parenting these adventurous girls for 10 years, and this was our first visit to the ER to have somebody stitched up! (We've been to the ER previously for a potential head injury 5 years ago, but Bug was fine.) Monkey and Lion had a bike collision, and poor Lion ended up need multiple stitches in her knee. (For you medical folks, it's one regular suture with a mattress stitch on either side.) Lion was very brave! After the initial shock of having a stream of blood down her leg and learning it was serious enough to require a hospital visit, she only cried when the doctor injected the inside of her injury with pain killer 3 times. Now we get to the really hard part--making Lion take it easy for a while, so she doesn't pop her stitches! As Lion put it, "I don't DO taking it easy!"

Meanwhile...Monkey and Bug fortunately did not have sit in the ER for 3 hours. They hung out with some neighborhood friends instead, and had a lovely time playing outside, playing with Mr. E's drum sticks (our 2 ten-year-olds plus 3 preschoolers banging away on every available surface--Mr. E is a brave man), then watching old episodes of Guts, a kids game show from the 90s. The next day Lion gave them a play-by-play of what it's like to get stitches.

Before and after photos!

New Experiences!
We had some planned fun and some unplanned excitement at music lessons last week! The planned fun was that during the hour-long break between lessons we bought snack at bakery in the same building. This is not your standard case of donuts that you'd find on the mainland! The offerings were a mix of native Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Japanese inspired pastries. We each picked one item to share, and they were all scrumptious!

Clockwise from left: chocolate covered mochi ring (donut made with sweet rice),
melon pan (a sweet bread with a cookie-like crust), poi malasada (fried dough made with taro,
so the inside is a vivid purple), and koshi anpan (a bun filled with sweet bean paste). 

Two hours later we walked out to our car to discover it was on the other side of caution tape, orange cones, and what appeared to be a small river running through the parking lot! We quickly noticed the source of the water--a water main had burst at the far end of the parking, and water was now gushing out and down the street! The building security guard was on the phone with the police when we arrived (turns out the water maintenance team was stuck in rush hour traffic). Once he hung up, he determined I could safely drive out if I went carefully, escorted me across the stream, and guided me out to avoid the worst areas and arrive at a spot where another employee was waiting to help the girls into the car. We all got home safe and sound with a pretty good story to tell!