New Year Happenings 2011

Although not extremely religious (Clint and I are very spiritual and believe faith to be a personal endevour and relationship between you and God) we decided to have Sakai be blessed through Baptism. We had a private ceremony at a small chapel on the east end of Molokai at Kamalo- St. Joseph's Church, which was built by Saint Damien (cannonized in Fall 2009) himself. It was very quaint, personal, and spiritual- just the way we envisioned. The day was not complete without his Godmothers- Rowena and Amy (Godfathers- James and Sam), great-grandpa's christening gown from the 1920s (the bonnet was on at one point, but did not make it into many pictures!), and, of course, a mum mum- he wanted to go for 1st Communion too, haha. Afterwards, our small crowd of Sakai fans enjoyed a Mexican dinner up in Kalae prepared by our friend Carlos' mom, Chela. 

  

 Sakai loves nothing more than to go to the beach. It is like the ultimate playground. Even better than a playground, less germs, in my opinion...at least the ocean salt disinfects a little right? This little guy will play on the sand and then crawl into the ocean on his own and be totally content. He is a water baby. This a picture of Sakai at Morris Pt- one of our favorite beaches, but you have to get there early to get a good parking spot- right on the beach! 

 Sakai and Dad with our new stroller from Papa Jim at the wharf. New stroller is da bomb, it is not quite a jogger, but you can still jog with it if you want to. It is very versatile and can convert into a double stroller too!

 Sakai accompanied me on my business trip to Los Angeles for a reading conference. Our good friend Crissy let us borrow this Ergo Baby pack. It was so great. Sakai loved it, as you can see he could sleep in it too. He has had a hard time sleeping in our other carrier- Baby Bjorn since he grew out of the newborn position. I really appreciated having this carrier and was sold on it right away to get my own!

 Pic that Clint took at Rock Point while he was having bachelor w/ no kid week!

Before my conference in LA, Sakai and I were able to spend the weekend with my sister in-law Rowena and her family. This is Sakai and our niece Sasha in the tubby. It was a great time! Sakai enjoyed playing with his cousins. He really loves to be around other kids it seems, he is so happy and curious about what they are doing. The enjoyed him too, Kaley told me, "I like when Mr. Sakai (his name to them) kisses me!"

To Sit or Not to Sit?

9 months @ Halawa Valley Beach

So we are back at home, after a wonderful holiday on the Mainland. Spent with lots of family, heaps of food, and what we love best...lots of baby time. My favorite part of our vacation was the 24/7 time we got to have with Sakai. Whether he is sleeping on an airplane, crying in a car seat, giggling at his daddy, or squirming during a diaper change, I can just not get enough of it. As a working mom that I am now, all the moments I have with Sakai are so precious, it doesnt matter what we are doing, I love each one.

Now that we are back, it is actually the end of January, the Labrador Grandparents (Mama and Papa) have been graciously caring for Sakai while Clint and I work all-day. However the time has come and we have been forced to recon with the idea of "the babysitter." Ever since Sakai was born, I have been asked, "who will watch him" and all the while I never felt compelled to answer this fully or even think about it. We have been blessed for the last nine and a half months to have maternity leave, paternity leave, and lots of 'live-in' grandparents nannies. Time is up though. Time to think about this. Time to find someone. Oh the thought of some stranger spending so much time with my son just made me cringe, almost want to cry. Cry for him and his anxiety of being with someone new, but also cry for me- jealous tears, I want to be that person spending all that time with my little love bug.

So we had three options for sitters, all great people. First one, not taking anymore kids. Second one, too expensive. Third one is a charm? Hope so! Clints parents took Sakai to the new sitter last week to get his feet a little wet and allow the other kids a chance to meet him. Apparently, Sakai now has 3 three year old girl waiting to dote on him and a 2 year old that he owes an apology to for smothering with kisses and knocking down. After this report back from my mother-in-law, needless to say, I was thrilled. Sakai had a great time and the other children adored him. She is also willing to let me come by at lunch to nurse, do my cloth diapers (not wash, just use), and keep TV time to a minimum (zero). Hmmm, sounds good to me. I will keep you posted on the results. Start date is February 11th!

Molokai Holokai 2010

This Labor Day weekend while Loretta was in San Fran, I was racing on my Stand-up Board. The race was hosted by a club Loretta and I started with Todd and Noe Yamashita called Molokai Ohana Surf Club aka MOSC. The race was called Molokai Holokai. There were a couple of divisions, but I ended up entering the 14 foot stock. From the start of the race I was in the front pack. As I got deeper into the race, some guys pulled away from me. In the end, I got fifth overall out of about 30 competitors. However, I got 2nd place in my division. The race ended with pupu's at Hotel Molokai and an awesome awards ceremony. Check out the website: www.molokai.spruz.com.  

Scooting, rolling, grabbing and toes!

So in the past month, between 4 and 5 months, Sakai has been working on so many skills. He has started doing this scooting/crawling/wiggling thing...comparable to an inch worm. In any case, he has figured out a way of getting from point A to point B. Around the same time of his figuing out how to move he started grabbing at objects. Now there is nothing that he doesnt want to touch, hold, and put in his mouth! It has begun...hold on to your wine glasses and coffee cups! I think this, so far, has been my most favorite milestone to watch him achieve, as a mother. I watch him when he first grabbed his first key-rattle and it was just amazing to see the thought process, which took quite awhile, but so neat to watch him as his brain figures things out!

Rolling over from tummy to back has also been a favorite of his. It is almost automatic sometimes, when we put him on his tummy, in an instant he is on his back! So again, we need to start watching out! The most comical of the milestones this month has been the discovery of his feet. Sakai has been a feet watcher for quite some time now, but now he has discovered that he can put his toes in his mouth...he has become a toe sucker! It is so funny. Now, we have to wash his hands...and feet!

toes!

scooting

grabbing

North Shore, Wedding and a Birthday

Centerpieces: Blue and Borrowed (from our wedding!)

Smiley, smiley at the beach

This year, my birthday weekend coincided with our good friends, Jon and Kelly's wedding (at Turtle Bay on the North Shore of Oahu), so to celebrate both occasions, we stayed up on the North Shore for the weekend. We rented a room in a large house at Shark's Cove. We really felt like we were on vacation, even though mom's house was only a 45 minute drive away. The beach, grocery and eateries were just a few minutes walk from our place.

beautiful and happy bride and groom!

Turtle Bay beach ceremony

Mom, babysitting Sakai

Friday we arrived on the North Shore early. I took a lovely, much needed nap in peace, while Clint, mom and Sakai went for a walk around our Pupukea neighborhood. We got dolled up for the wedding, including Sakai in his spiffy wedding attire, and headed off to the sunset wedding at Turtle Bay. The wedding was just picture perfect. It really reminded us all of our wedding- ceremony on the beach, sunset reception under a romantically lit tent out in the open. Jon and Kelly live on Oahu, but are friends of Clint's from Cerritos. The two of them moved to Oahu around the time I moved to Molokai. (I remember staying at their first apartment in Waipahu when my Trooper came in from the Mainland on the barge!) Since then, we have become close over the years; staying with them during Oahu shopping trips, dining with them at highly recommended eateries, and sharing Department of Education stories! The truly best part of the wedding was watching Jon and Kelly give their vows. They both wrote their own vows, which you could tell were from the heart- touching and genuine. Jon and Kelly dated for 15 years before getting married! They knew each other in middle school. It was so much fun to hear the wedding party speeches. There was a common theme...Jon and Kel are a model couple, the best to them! My second favorite part of the wedding was the music. Clint and his friends from Cerritos all have good taste in music and many seem to be DJs or are linked to them somehow. Well, the DJs, from Cerritos of course, were great. They drew the crowd in and really mixed the music well. I dont get to hear mixing at all anymore it seems, so it was really fun to dance and enjoy them mix it up.

feet sensory - Three Tables beach

The next day, we slept in until 6 am...yes, Sakai was awake, so we all were, since we were in a little one room studio. We walked down to Shark's Cove Grill for breakfast, a quaint little food wagon across from the beach. We then scoped out the scene at the beaches and found our next move. After going back to pack up for a beach day, we walked down to Three Tables. It was so nice to be able to walk to the beach, even with all the gear. So the highlight of the beach was by far Sakai's enthusiasm in the ocean. He was hesitant at first and a little whiney, but soon enough he was cracking up watching Clint body surf small waves toward him. He was enjoying himself so much he was like the ocean poster child, a lot of other people were coaxing their children in, "Look at that little baby. If he can do it, then you can too!"Slathered in sunscreen and covered in ocean gear, we made it back with no sunburn either. That made for a great beach day!

pohaku @ Pu'u o Mahuka Heiau

After the beach, we were hungry, as the beach always makes you, but Sakai was tired...and he is the boss! One of Oahu's largest heiaus is right up the street from Foodland, which was right down the street from our place, so we decided, after all these years of knowing about, what better a time to go check it out. The people at Foodland suggested against walking up to the heiau, especially with the stroller, they said it was too dangerous. And they were right. After an upward winding street then a turn off through some very erry woods, you come to Pu'u o Mahuka Heiau. I guess when you build a temple, its best to get as close to heaven as possible! Pu'u o Mahuka is a luakini heiau, which means it was once used by the ancient Hawaiians to make sacrifices to the gods, include humans. There is enough remaining of the heiau that you can get a pretty good idea of how things went down there. There are also artists renditions to help you really envision Pu'u o Mahuka in its finer days. Spotted around the walls of the heiau people have left pohaku (rocks) wrapped in ti as symbols of respect for the ancient ways. Pu'u o Mahuka is pearched atop a mountain overlooking the North Shore, lending even more to its spiritual significance.

Pu'u o Mahuka

organic goodies @ Waimea Farmers Market

"Happy Birthday, Mommy! I guess I'll take a nap while you drink your Margarita"

going home, silly daddy

My 28th birthday started out with the best birthday gift a new mother can ask for...sleeping in until 8am! After packing up we came across another diamond in the ruff we found on the North Shore was the Waimea Farmer's Market on Sunday mornings. Who knew right? I mean who is up on the North Shore on early Sunday morning? Well, if you are it is a good stop for some good eats. There is multitude of organic this and that- veggies, soaps, lotions and textiles, not to mention all of the interesting food booths- pasteles, breakfast burritos, avocado egg rolls (mmm, Cheesecake!), ginger juice! We settled on splitting a breakfast burrito with the works and a grass-fed beef pastel. Breakfast burrito was great, except low and behold, it had cheese on it (which was NOT on the menu!). The pastel, which I ate most of because the breakfast burrito was off limits, once I realized I was eating cheese, was medicore. The rest of the day was spent stocking up on our staple items at Costco, last minute outlet shopping (thanks Clint for the extra birthday gifty from Coach!) and a large, unhealthy, yet totally satisfying lunner (lunch-dinner) at Chili's with a birthday margarita, ole!

About Us - the extended version...

Sakai @ 2 months

The Labrador family is my husband Clint, my son Sakai and myself, Loretta. We live on the tiny, rural island of Molokai (in between Maui and Oahu). Clint and I are both elementary special education teachers, at different schools. Sakai is our little baby boy, born in April 2010. He is the absolute love of our life. As a family, as a couple...we LOVE to travel. Near, far, anywhere. Before Sakai (BS..okay thats not nice, how about Before Baby, BB?) we really took advantage of our holidays as teachers. Poland, England, France, Italy, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Caribbean, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Costa Rica (baby in belly) and many places on the Mainland US are among our passport stamps (well, not the US ones). Next to Sakai, and traveling, I would have to say our next mutual love is food and drink. Clint and I both have interesting diets. Cooking something that we can both eat is a favorite challenge of ours! Wine and coffee...passionately fond of. And what flows through our body, besides blood, the water (possibly Clint a little more than me...). We are water people, I am a swimmer, Clint a surfer, both of us paddlers and Sakai, well he loves baths.

E Komo Mai - Magandang Araw - Welcome!

I have been pondering the idea of having a blog for quite some time now. You know to blog about our life in Hawaii, our travels, the interesting food we cook, or our exciting lives as teachers (haha), but all these fell short of the motivating factor that would actually keep me blogging. Then, recently, we have had a huge life change, that I just can not keep to myself... our beautiful son, Sakai. Sakai has changed me in so many ways already. One is that I am motivated to do things I used to just think about 'would be nice.' Now I really want to put these ideas into action for his sake, so he can be a part of it, so it can be a part of his new life. So here we have it...our family blog (this one's for you Em! haha).

So now, what will I blog about? Well, I hope that this blog can be a journal of the moments that create our family. Off the top of my head, the things that really excite us are being outdoors, anything having to do with the ocean, cooking (anything ethnic, organic, and unusual!), gardening, living green, traveling (big time), time with friends and family, beverages (wine and coffee, hehe, it just wouldnt be us if I left this out)...and of course the biggest time-consumer, obsession of ours...anything Sakai! I feel that this blog, as many are, will be an outlet to journal about the interesting and not-so interesting parts of our life as the Sherwood-Labrador Family.