Harper's "Friends"

H lady has quite a collection of friends these days...

She spends hours a day reorganizing, moving, feeding, and caring for this clan. I love that she has just started to enter the world of imaginary play. It is such a fun stage. She is very tentative to them... She will make sure they all drink from her play bottle, eat, etc. It really is so cute. Right now she is just getting her "friends" ready for a snack.

She also travels around the house pushing this stroller everywhere! You can always hear Harps coming by the sound of those wheels.

Love you H lady.. I can't wait for many more hours of tea parties, dressing up, Barbies, and more! 

xoxo,

allie

Stairway to Heaven in Hawaii

If you live on Oahu... you have either seen or heard about this hike. 

(I took all of these photos off the web.. but more of my photos to come soon!)

Before Will deployed we had rumors of this daring illegal hike and we knew it was probably a must do before we move. From what I understand,  the Haiku Stairs were originally built by the United States Coast Guard to install an antenna on top of the mountain; the stairs were originally more of a wooden ladder and eventually became so dangerous the State shut them down in the 1950s... The State of Hawaii decided in 2002 to fix them up with and invested around 900,000 dollars. They never officially opened and since have always been one of the famous "forbidden stairs".  With Remi here it was the perfect opportunity to tackle the Stairway to Heaven and so our adventure begins...

First and foremost, this is not a kid hike. Uncle Greg had completed the hike a couple of weeks earlier and (very kindly) offered to wake up with toddler H. Yes, wake up. Since the Hike is deemed closed, we had to start our adventure at 2:45 am. Why so early? The state hires a security guard to stand watch who arrives at 3:30 am; oddly enough this doesn’t stop that many hikers (we saw over 50 people on the very narrow stairs!). It took us about 1.5 hours to climb up the 4,000 stairs and the same to come down. Stairs is a fairly lose term because in the beginning it is VERY vertical and you are particularly climbing up a ladder attached to a mountain.

Overall it is an amazing hike and I totally think everyone stationed in Hawaii should try it once. And I think once is enough for me. Ha.

You can see the clouds surrounding us in this photo!

Here are my tips and observations.

1. Do not hike this if you are afraid of heights. You are literally climbing the ridge of a mountain.

2. Bring lots of layers. It gets very cold the higher you go!

3. Bring a head lamp to see the steps.

3. Gloves are a necessity. We were in the clouds and the higher we got, the more slippery it got.

4. Make sure you are in (some type of) shape! It is tough work climbing stairs endlessly.

We were home by 7:00 ish and the little lady was so happy to be playing with Uncle Greg. Uncle Greg thank you SO much for watching our little lady. 

Later that day we had a birthday party.. here is the little lady in her "Birthday Party Dress". 

 

I hope everyone else had a fun, adventurous weekend as well!

xoxo,

allie 

Happy Birthday Aunt Lucy!!

Happy birthday to my youngest sister Lucy... she is the B.I.G. 20... so close to 21!! Lucy (Bern to my family....is the sweetest person I know with so much potential to change the world with her kind heart; Bern has always had a love for animals, an obsession with Coke, and tons of friends. She is currently at the best school, University of Wisconsin-Madison and I am so proud of her! I am lucky to call her my sister!! We love you! Happy Birthday!!

xoxo,
allie

P.S. we spent the morning hiking the "Stairway to Heaven"- a famous hike on Oahu ... a long entry about that coming your way soon!!!

Waimea Beach

We had the perfect morning and afternoon. We spent the morning exploring the Bishop Museum... I had never been but I totally recommend it. It is the perfect "smaller" city museum that has multiple buildings that feature different exhibits. We spent (almost) all of the morning in the Hawaii Hall... it was in a beautiful old school that was originally built to educate Hawaii Chiefs. It was full of a plethora of Hawaii History and culture; as Remi put it "you could go 3 times and learn something else new!". After a quick nap time, we spent the afternoon as Waimea Falls and went up to the Farmer's Market for lunch. That Farmer's Market is incredible; the term Farmer's Market hardly gives it justice... it is all of these local restaurants and caters with different organic Hawaiian food. Delicious food + Surfers everywhere + Beautiful setting= Great Evening. Here are a couple of funny snapshots from our beach adventures.

and I included a bunch of similar photos, 

but I just thought they were funny family photos!!

xoxo,
allie

p.s. I got this surprise in the mail from one of my best friends... she knows me way to well... Thanks Lizard for sending me a new supply of my favorite candy! (True true, Peeps are my favorite!). She even ordered me a new flavor... Birthday Cake Peeps (I can already sense some of your faces sneering who are in the anti-Peep camp but believe me they are delicious). The surprise package totally brought a huge smile to my face. Thank you Liz! Love you!!!

Rem's Bread

Anyone who knows Remi... knows he is a bread and pizza expert. As long as I have known Rem... I have always know him to be a huge pizza connoisseur. Remi is also a New Yorker so his pizza expectations are rather high. Will and I have been missing that New York style pizza; Oahu might be strikingly beautiful and have the world's best Kona Coffee/Kalua Pork but Pizza here is a no go. We are pretty much limited to chains. Sorry... but we are admittedly Pizza snobs (blame it on being raised in Connecticut). Anyway, on my recent quest to eliminate processed food from our diet, I felt it was time I dive into the Homemade Bread/Pizza dough genre. It is also super delicious. Thankfully, I have the perfect tutor and expert currently visiting...Remi! So we spent our evening grilling pizza (yes, I LOVE grilling pizza and I totally recommend everyone try it).

We started by making the dough this morning and letting it rise all day. The dough seems scary but it is SO easy. There are tons of recipes online. I can't wait to keep trying them out. 

12 Hours later we started this..

and then we topped the Pizzas and grilled them. The key to grilling pizza is using a Pizza stone and the trick is you have to put the pizza stone on a cold grill or it will crack!

My current favorite toppings are fresh spinach, fresh basil, 

apple chicken sausages, Maui onions, sauce, and mozzarella. So delicious.

I can't wait to keep making dough and trying more Pizza toppings. Endless ideas. 

and of course we had to do some Hawaii stuff today too. We spent the morning at Pearl Harbor.

(Ha, another photo that someone took for us.
It would be cute except they cut out most of Harps!)

I also realized that Will is not in any of these photos! He has been working, but luckily got out a little early today so the boys could go on an adventurous hike. And they worked up the perfect appetite for our Pizza creations.  Thank you Rem for teaching me such a great skill.

xoxo,

allie

Friendship

Will and I have always been a couple that has loved spending time with friends... (don't get me wrong, we also adore alone time) but there is something so special about maintaining and growing lifelong friendships. Will and I were lucky enough to start dating in High School and we had a really great tight nit group of friends who we still talk to today. Since Remi is visiting right now, it always brings me back to 16... almost 10 years ago! I think your High School friends keep you honest.. Ours have seen us transform from an awkward track couple to a couple that has been married almost three years with an almost two year. Crazy.

In college we both, again, formed a close group surrounded around common interests.... My girlfriends are all Gamma Phis- the best sorority at Wisconsin (sorry Bern! just kidding!) and Will has a group of college friends that formed through track/cross country.... (and we are lucky enough to be stationed with some of them now here in Hawaii!). These friends know us so well... I think they saw both of us embrace adulthood and encouraged us along the way. College was a time of enormous growth for me and I was so happy to spend those best four years with my girlfriends. And all of us traveled around Europe our Junior year of college. Amazing.

Army friendships are the "new friends" in life. I think finding "battle buddies" (or those who will help you when you are in a pickle during a loooong deployment) are essential to the lifestyle we live. Spouses come and go with long training sessions, deployments, etc. and you just need that additional support network. I have the best Hawaiian Ohana in my neighborhood and on the North Shore; we will help each other with anything! Ha during the deployment some of them might have helped me smash my house window to break in after a long "locked out" session. See, true friendship! I also have a great group of Mommy Friends who I adore spending time with; these are the friends who you can talk endlessly with about kid stuff. An important topic to all moms and really only moms. These are the ones that can relate to my day to day life with Toddler H.

Anyway, having Rem here just makes me reflect on the importance of maintaining friendships. Thank goodness for social media, airplanes, cell phones, and emails because I feel like I chat with most of my friends (or see their status updates!) all the time. And we have been lucky enough to have a couple visit us here in Hawaii!

I had to include a couple of Remi and us over the years! 

I am sure I have tons more but these are the only ones I could find in a quick search.

College Friends!

These were my lovely ladies from Flight School. I was so lucky to spend that 1.5 years with them and I so hope our army journey reunites us at some point. 

(and yes, I have a huge pregnant stomach in this photo!)

and.. I was just looking for photos of all of my Hawaii friends. I don't seem to have many photos of all of us, so that will be my goal at our next gathering.

and what are Remi, Harps, and I doing this afternoon? Rem started the day with a long bike ride and this afternoon we are going to start baking bread and check out the Dole Plantation. Baking Bread is one of Remi's specialties so we are looking forward to learning his technique. 

Rem looking at cookbooks. 

xoxo,

allie

Remi's Visit! Part 1

Guess who is here?!  Uncle Remi! Remi is one of our dearest friends in the whole world. He and Will have been friends since they were tiny... they went to school together from Kindergarten through High School, grew up down the street from each other,  and have always been the best of friends. They even ran track together on some amazing relays and just have always been "Remi and Will" (at least to me!). Rem and I became instant friends in High School and we actually spent, tons of time together during our college summers when Will was off doing training for West Point. Anyyyyway we are SOO thrilled he is here.

Today we hiked Diamond Head (a class Oahu adventure), went to Leonard's for someng world famous donuts, and explored some botanical gardens. It was a fun filled day... We are hopeful for some Hawaiian sunshine tomorrow so we can hit up the beaches. Harps, of course, adores Rem and he has been so patient playing with her. She is so happy to have more attention (ha since she clearly doesn't get enough from her two hoovering parents!). Harps is also really starting to talk. Okay, okay, so...  I say this at every age but really I adore this toddler age. She is just becoming such a little kid. I'll save more details on that for another post!

Diamond Head

Wahiawa Botanical Gardens

and Leonards!

and H enjoying some Leonards!

 

Hope everyone else had a fabulous Monday!

xoxo,

allie