When chatting with Daddy, he started to ramble off a bunch of movie and TV quotes and I just copied them like a little parrot. Some I heard before and some were new. I’m not sure how useful they are going to be in my daily life, but it was fun just chatting about them with Daddy. Noice!
For lunch we had saimin, which is like ramen. It was really good and I ate a lot!
I had a really long sleep. I went to sleep around 10:15 and I woke up around 9:15. So I slept about 11-hours. When I woke up I was happy to see that breakfast was waiting for me. I had a fruit salad and a waffle. I liked the waffle because we I was allowed to eat some syrup. Daddy put it on the plate and I dipped pieces of waffle in the syrup.
Filled with syrup-energy, I got right to playing after finishing breakfast. I played with my toys and interacted with many people.
When I play outside I like to check in on the caterpillars and pet them. So I make sure I wash my hands when I come back in.
After dinner I played a bunch. Watched some TV. Even showed Nana some of my favorite shows.
It was getting late but I refused to take a bath. I wasn’t ready for the day to end.
I eventually took a bath crying, but calmed down enough after to fall right to sleep when I was put in bed. What a great Christmas day!
So as you know, I fell asleep within minutes of leaving the beach. I was exhausted (and maybe still a little jet-lagged). Apparently a lot happened while I slept. We arrived home and Mommy got out to shower and Daddy circled the block a couple times while I slept. He asked Papa to take over and drive me around so that he could take a shower. After a few laps Papa brought me back home and still didn’t stir. I was fast asleep. So Daddy sat with me in the truck in the garage for a bit. When he thought I had a long enough nap he took me out of my car seat and brought me inside the house but still I didn’t wake up. He decided to sit down on the couch until I was ready to wake up. But that didn’t happen. Daddy also fell asleep and the two of us slept on the couch until it was time for dinner.
It was such a nice Christmas day that we decided to go to the beach. I like the beach and did not hesitate at all to head to the water. I didn’t even wait for Mommy to get ready. I grabbed Daddy’s hand and headed straight for the waves.
Playing in the waves near the shore was fun but there was a lot more fun to be had in the water.
I had so much fun when Daddy threw me high up into the air. I have to enjoy it while I can because I’m getting so big that the day he can’t do that is approaching awfully quickly.
After a while I needed a break and a snack. I bundled up on the beach to warm up.
I had such a great time at the beach! Too great of a time. I was fast asleep within minutes of leaving.
After playing outside we needed some quiet time so Nana and I plopped on the couch and played some iPad games. I have a feeling that we’ll be doing this a lot on this trip.
After such a huge breakfast we decided to play outside a bit and run around to burn off some of those calories.
After opening presents we went to a Christmas morning breakfast buffet. Boy, did I eat a lot. I had a little bit of everything then I had a lot of fruits. I must have had at least half a dozen plates of some kind of fruits. They were so delicious!
After we finished eating we visited the koi pond that we saw on the way in. There were so many cool fish. They looked hungry. Even hungrier than me. So we got some fish food from the restaurant and we fed them. That made me very popular.
It’s Christmas morning! So exciting! What are we taking pictures for? Let’s open some presents!
Thank you everyone for all the great presents! Oh, and I almost forgot, Merry Christmas!
It’s time for bed. It is a big and bouncy bed with a mirror in the bathroom. Yeah, this is not a great way to get me to calm down before bed time.
Just doing some rounds before dinner. Ah, and now the food!
I sat down demanded meat. I got meat. Every time I had an empty plate, I demanded more meat. And I got it. Then I had three pieces of kalbi.
So there I was just sitting there, minding my own business, enjoying Christmas Eve. I even had a treat and was allowed to eat some Hi-Chew sweets, which I never had before. I was thinking, “This is the best! A great day with family on Kauai! Eating Hi-Chew! Nothing could ruin this day.” Then guess who decided to show up…Santa.
Yeah, I was not thrilled to see him. The moment I saw him I managed 20 “no”s in 20 seconds.
But I knew this was coming. Last Christmas he came and we had talked about his visit well in advanced. I knew what I wanted to get from Santa from Christmas and knew Santa was a good guy and would deliver. So even though I was crying and just in absolute denial of the situation, some part of me knew that I could and should just deal with the situation. Through all the tears some part of me was able to come up with a solution. I told Daddy that I wanted to go “together” with him. I said that Mason and Daddy should go, which of course Daddy agreed to. I don’t think he ever intended for me to go alone. He seemed very proud of my bravery and ability to come up with a solution in that situation. So we went to see Santa together.
And guess what. I did great. I sat on Santa’s lap. I took a few pictures. I made everyone proud. I made myself proud. I faced my fear and survived. And I got a gift! I was still a bit shell shocked, but I was able to say goodbye to Santa and I was very thankful of his kindness.
When I opened my gift I found that it was exactly what I asked Santa for. He delivered. I may be afraid of him, but I know he is a stand-up guy.
He brought me the HotWheels Rollout Raceway that I wanted. It was awesome!
By the way, my raceway also packs up and becomes a storage case. Cool, huh?
Even though it was not long after I had breakfast, the household soon had lunch so I joined it. It was some kind of tradition called “The Great Taco Bell Run of 2023”. Even though I wasn’t sure what Taco Bell was, I did like the cheesy food I got to eat. Yum!
After two meals in me, I was ready to play. We all headed outside.
First I checked in on the caterpillars to see if any of them had become butterflies yet. Not yet. But I thought the caterpillars themselves were pretty cool and cute. I liked petting them. I don’t think they enjoyed it, but they didn’t really have much choice. It is not like they could run away.
We found some sidewalk chalk in the storage shed and we all had fun graffitiing the wall.
I played in the laundry a bit.
Played some football.
Played with the hammock.
Backyards are fun!
After I got some food in me and got washed up and changed I was ready to have more fun with my cousins. We did so much I can’t name everything, but all I can say is that we had a lot of fun!
I had a nice long sleep. I was trying to shake off jet lag. I slept until 11 in the morning. Mommy and Daddy stayed home to wait for me wake up while the rest of the family went to church. When they came back they were surprised to see that I still hadn’t got up. When we got up I was in good mood and hungry, and I also wanted to spend some time with everyone.
After eating breakfast I got an early Christmas present. Actually, it wasn’t a “Christmas” present, just a nice gift from Nana and Papa. Let’s just call it a stocking stuffer. It was something they saw in the store and thought I might like. What could it be?
As you know, I love to fly, so I was very excited to get on the airplane. It was too bad that I couldn’t get a window seat, but it was too dark to see anything anyway. Once we got settled in our seats I broke out the iPad. I don’t normally get to play on the iPad very often so this is a treat that I took full advantage of.
When the meal service came I switched off the iPad and watched the entertainment system instead. Despite just having two onigiri at the airport I was able to eat pretty much the entire inflight meal.
After my second dinner I played with my new sticker books for a while but before long it was back to the iPad. Then before I knew it I had fallen asleep.
Mommy or Daddy must have put the iPad away to make sure I had a more comfortable sleep. It was awkward sleeping sitting up at first, but I eventually naturally found Mommy and put my head on her lap while I stretch out my legs onto Daddy.
The flight time is less than 7 hours and I was up until meal service so that doesn’t leave me much sleeping time. But in the past I dealt with the short sleep and following jetlag fairly well, so with any luck this trip will be the same. When I wake up I’ll nearly be in Hawaii!
We are about to get on the airplane to fly to Hawaii and I’m so excited! I’ve been talking about the airplane with the lady’s face on it (Hawaiian Airlines) for a while. We’ve discuss the flight plan and the aircraft that we are going to fly on, and a lot of other flight details. I just love to fly!
We have always had a hard time finding a taxi to the airport on the day we leave. So this time we tried something different. We took the car to the airport to check in the luggage first and then Daddy took the car home and then returned by subway. Some parts went smoother and other parts were more difficult. In the end we checked-in on time and had no trouble making our flight. I was so happy to see Daddy after he returned from dropping off the car.