In other words: merry Christmas and a happy new year!

I know, I know, it has been quite a while since I last posted a message, and of course posted some pictures. It is not like I didn’t have anything to tell, but the new thing (about me moving here) is a bit gone and to post things double is a bit odd too. We don’t go out too much lately, also because of the H1N1 (mostly becasue it is a huge risk for Isabella), so we miss a large part of things to tell already.

But ok, the end of the year 2009 is getting closer, so it seemed like a plan to write a new post before the year would be over again (plus I received lots of questions of people as they wanted to see new pictures and such of our little Isabella haha, so yeah, that also had something to do with it).

Isabella is doing well, by the way. She is still a very sweet baby, with the hours between 5PM and 8PM as exception.. I think she doesn’t like the transition from day to night that much, because she can cry quite a bit in those hours. Officially she is a bit colicky (a baby has to cry for at least 3 hours 3 days per week, and 3 months to be classified as a colic baby), which was something we could expect as she was so early (it seems to be one of the complications) but fortunately it is not as bad as you hear sometimes about, it is usually not more than three to four hours and it doesn’t happen every day.. oh well, if that is everything, then it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been

Isabella now weighs a bit more than 10 pounds (over 4.5 kilos), so she gained quite a bit. Thankfully she is healthy, and I have to say that sometimes I was a bit afraid as they say that an early baby, such as Isabella, can easily end up in the hospital during the first year due to all kinds of complications. So we can say that we were very lucky so far

My family can call themselves a bit less lucky, though. At first we would go to the Netherlands during the holidays, because I haven’t been in the Netherlands since I moved here over a year ago, and also because none of them has seen Isabella in real life so far. But the H1N1 has made us decide to delay it until it would be a bit less bad, if Isabella would get infected with that flu, it would be very deadly for her as she is still so young and, well, you don’t want to risk the life of such a young baby.

But ok, enough talk for now, I should post some new photo’s of the little Isabella..

In November we went back to Waimea Falls again, mostly because it rained a few days earlier and we could expect a nice waterfall:

91 years age difference:

Recently I noticed that Isabella was sucking on her thumb for the first time.. I wanted to make a picture of it but unfortunately it never goes the way you want it.. oh well, still made the following photo’s:

And then the last few pictures.. A few days ago an uncle of Michelle came to visit Hawaii. They had not seen him for about 12 years (and then I complain about my one year haha), and of course we made some photo’s:

And that was all again for now. I don’t dare to make a promise about me posting a new message before the end of the year, you’ll always see that something comes up so you can’t do it haha.. It will come.

From a sunny, and warm Hawaii (it is still 85-90 degrees during the day, it is a dry and warm winter) we wish you a Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

And here are, finally, the last Christmas pictures.. well, for now haha, I got some more but yeah, it doesn’t stay Christmas And next to that I also left some other pictures out of this collection since they were a bit blurry, probably because Michelle moved a bit hehe.. (it wasn’t me, I was filming lol). Anyways, here they are:

And that were the Christmas pictures for now… probably not when it is about New Yerar since it will be soon Chinese New Year and we will most likely go to a parade with a 150 feet long dragon, kungfu practicers and more of that kind of things.. I am looking forward to it

I know, I know… I promised to post the pictures of the other two (Christmas)parade’s but we were so busy lately with all kinds of things that I didn’t had any time any more (or I just forgot about it on the other days lol) to post those pictures..

excuses, excuses..

Right, here are the pictures of the boat parade:

And that was the parade.. nah, just kidding hehe.. We took these pictures while we were waiting for the boats… here are the real pictures

I will post the pictures of the other parade soon.. I hope

I already said it in my previous message, that I would post some more pictures of some decorated houses but from a different part of the island, and here they are:

These are, again, not all pictures but, yeah, it might really become too much and it has to stay fun to watch it all

We also drove through town again to record some of the decorations with our new video camera, I still have to compile, edit, cut, paste and such so we haven’t got those video’s online yet but Michelle took some pictures, here are a few of them:

I hope that the pictures will not become too boring as I will have at least two more series of pictures for you, one of a normal parade and one of a boat parade.. I won’t post these now so don’t worry, they will come next time

Or like they say in Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

It is almost Christmas Eve and tomorrow it will be Christmas. It feels a bit weird to have Christmas on Hawaii. We went out a lot during the last few days (that’s one of the reasons why I did not write so much lately) and even though I see Christmas lights and other decorations, hear Christmas music and know that it is Christmas, it still doesn’t give me the feeling that it is actually Christmas.

I think that I am not really used to it yet that it is almost always summer here (with the exception of the stormy weather like I told about earlier). Everyone still wears short sleeves, it is a bit cooler (still around 77-81 degrees Fahrenheit) than in the summer but yah, it doesn’t give a real Christmas feeling haha.

I do like to drive around at night, there are so many houses lighted and there are a couple who make it a whole spectacle, really enjoyable to watch that all. We also saw a few parades, I will write about them a bit later (we are about to have our Christmas dinner (barbeque!! hahaha, I love it but again it is something that you can only do in a nice tropical temperature). Here are, however, a few pictures of some very nice houses that we’ve seen here:

This is from two times that we went out, and I’ve only put the nicest, funniest, most lighted ones online. We made so many photo’s and I do not want to place them all online as it would cost a lot of time and it would be boring for you too if you want to see them all.

Also, you can see the same building on more than one picture, like the 3rd, 4th and 5th picture.. but what to think about photo 7 on to 11? That is just one place… quite big, I know.. we made a short video of that place so you can see it with your own eyes: Click here for the video.

We also went to another part of the island on a different day where they also had a lot of nice decorations and lights but this will be posted later (it is almost time for dinner!! haha).

I was also thinking about going to the other part of the island butttt… I think I won’t. The president-elect Barack Obama is on the island right now and he is one of the villages on that side and, well, I am not looking forward in an extended check or to end up in a street that might be blocked.. so we wait with that until he is gone again (should be in about a week I think, he would only stay for about 10 days).

Right, first food, later more

I said yesterday that we saw snow in town and I promised to write a bit more about it, so here goes.

Yesterday we went towards Ala Moana Center (a big mall) in the afternoon to get some food and to do some shopping (I got myself a new Aloha shirt and pants, unfortunately we didn’t find anything for Michelle). And a bit after 5 PM we went to the center of Ala Moana Center (lol) where, at 6 PM, would start a musical called ‘The Christmas Gift of Aloha’.

I was unsure what to expect of it, at first I didn’t even know it was a musical haha, but oh well, it didn’t matter, I enjoyed it a lot, it was really nicely done. The duration of the show was about 30 minutes.

The story is about a newly trained Christmas elf named ‘Merry’, who fell out of Santa’s sleigh above Hawaii and fell right into a ‘Menehune’ village (Menehune are the mythological Hawaiian elves). He was dismayed since he did not find any snow, reindeers or something else which reminded him even a bit about Christmas.

But with the help of Mele Menehune he founds out that Christmas really lives on Hawaii and he discovers the miracles of a Christmas on Hawaii.

He is introduced with the workshop of the Menehune, who have a workshop just like Santa has one on the North Pole. This means good luck for him because he lost all the presents for the kids when he fell out of the sleigh and the Menehune tell him that he can use the Menehune presents so that all kids get a present after all. Merry also learns that the presents are in the Candy Cane Train and as soon as he sees this train, he wants to drive it.. he is told to be careful but unfortunately, he didn’t listen and the train crashes and demolishes all presents.

The Menehune children give him their own toys and this is one of the reason how he learns that Christmas is so much more than just receiving toys.

Santa also arrives on Hawaii a bit later and then a few miracles happen.. Toys come to life and it even starts to snow on Hawaii.

Now you might think ‘yeah but that aint real snow’.. well, I don’t know.. I noticed that it was a lot cooler when the snow fell down…

When the snow fell, I had to pink a tear away.. The spirit of Aloha was probably there for real and there were probably some real wonders. Or was it because I missed the Netherlands for a bit? Who knows, it might have been both.

Here are some more pictures of the ending:

We went for a drive through town after this show, so we could take some pictures of lighted houses, I will make a post about that on a later time.

Also, if you are interested in what kind of music they played in this show, please click here.

The Honolulu City Lights takes place from December 6, 2008 until January 1st, 2009, and this basically means that the area in the city centre (in the area of Honolulu Hale, the city hall) will be lighted with all kinds of Christmas lights. You can also find a variety of status and images and yesterday there was also a parade.

We went yesterday and took a few pictures, let’s start at the beginning. I will try not to give too much comments, there are lot’s of pictures and the description can also be found when you hover your mouse over the images (and it is also written below the pictures when you click on them).

Ok, the first pictures we took while it was still daylight:

We kind of expected that it would be busy for the parade, and it actually became really busy (apologies for the vague picture, I moved a little bit when I took it):

It became a bit more dark now and after some songs by the mayor (yep, he sang two Christmas songs and it was quite ok also) and some words of welcome, the lights of the Christmas tree went on in front of the city hall:

And Honolulu City Lights started with that.. You will be able to find something to do almost every day around city hall until Christmas, there will be, for example, a toy collection with the help of an actual batalion of stormtroopers (we’ll also go that hehe) and yesterday there was also a parade during the opening.

The picturs that follow next are a bit vague sometimes, this is mainly because these are all pictures of moving things and they were all taken by night and as soon as there is movement during night, you will find that back on the photo’s unfortunately. We also skip some photo’s as it will be too much to put everything online (the total parade took about an hour so you know what it can be haha):

I also made a video of the parade (and that’s something I kind of regret, I have a sore arm and got muscle pain all over my body haha) but I have to edit that video first because it is, like said, over an hour of material and that kind of is a bit too much to put online just raw. So that one will follow later.

So after the parade we could either just go straight home, get some food first and watch a bit of the concert, or go inside city hall where the city workers made all kinds of things. We chose to do the opposite (hahaha) and went into city hall first where we found many things such as rare wreaths, gingerbread houses and all kinds of other things (again: I won’t post all the images as it will be too much):

And then we came outside where we took some more photo’s of the lights and after some food we went back towards home. Here are the last pictures:

And that was all for now I hope it was not too much photo’s or that you got a bit bored by it.. We will post more photo’s later on as we are also planning to drive around and look at all the decorated houses.

Today was the day after thanksgiving and this is traditional the day that the shops in the US start with their Christmas sales, they also call it ‘black Friday’. And I can tell you it is indeed a bit of a black day in the US..

What a hassle today, haha. I am probably the sober Dutchman again but what a nonsense for a few percent off the prices.

To name something, at 6.30 AM, on the morning of thanksgiving day, there were dozens of people waiting in the line to get inside Best Buy.. Mind you: almost all stores were closed yesterday.. The purpose of this all is just to get as far as possible in the front of the line for a store that only opens at 5 AM the next day. And that’s another thing.. many stores were already open at 5 AM, or even at midnight, and at a lot of stores there were huge lines of people waiting. All just because those people have to shop.

It is possible that my mind sees it all too simple but isn’t it so that if the stores all open at 8 AM or 9 AM, that these people still have the same choice? I find it a bit ridiculous to open up that early, and it is a bit sad for the employees who have to get up really early, after a pretty big holiday, and get to work again.

Michelle already told me about black Friday and we said that we would go on the road around midnight to see if it would be indeed this busy. Michelle told me it would but, yah, how would I know.. I thought it wouldn’t be that bad… I guess I have to guess again.

We get outside and the first thing we see is a huge line of cars, it should have been several miles, waiting to get off the freeway and onto the parkinglots of the mall in our neighborhood (which they gave a special price of 5 dollar per parking instead of the free parking as it is normal)… Here’s a picture of those cars:

As you can see, as far as you can look there are cars.. it was exactly the same at the other side of the bridge. I am sorry to say but what a weirdlos… and I could imagine something like that if there were good deals but, really, I have seen the ads and there isn’t really all that much sales. Besides, there will be more days in this Christmas shopping season where they will give more (and maybe even better) deals since most stores want to try and get an extra profit at the end of the year.

Nah… it is not really my thing, I think this all is just a bit exaggerated.

We went also to that Best Buy store last night, we wanted to go there anyways but since a friend of Michelle was waiting in line (lol), we made sure we’d go. And indeed, there was over 300 people there.. What is it that got into these people.. it is really like camping haha.. Here are two pictures to give an impression:

The pictures are a bit vague but oh well, at least you can get an impression of how it was like. And the whole parking was actually like this, no less than 300 people were camping out. They were lucky to be in Hawaii with the nice weather and not the mainland where, as I read and heard, it was the same as here.

By the way, when we drove back home, we decided to take a bit of the freeway so we could film the line of cars, unfortunately about half of the cars was gone or the video would have been a lot longer but oh well, it still came out as a 2.5 minute recording… if you want to see the short video, you should click this link.

And this all was not even that bad, some terrible things actually happened. I heard today (and read about it later on a few news sites) that an employee of Walmart in Long Island, New York, died because, when the doors of the store opened, a huge mass of people entered the doors and literally ran over him. The man died because of his injuries because of it all.

Now that I am thinking a little bit about it (and I think many Americans will disagree with me but that’s ok, everyone is entitled on his/her own opinion), then I do think that they should get rid of the whole black Friday concept.

I think it is seriously bad, especially when there are people dying because of it all and I can only wonder what they were thinking. If you think about it, it just ridiculous to stay up all night and stand in line for just a few bucks (or worse: 22.5 hours like those people about whom I spoke earlier in this post).

Nah, after about an hour we went back home and we slept nicely in our own bed.

I will write some more tomorrow as some more things have happened last week. Some nice things and unfortunately also some not-so-nice things but ok, I want to go to bed on time so I will tell about that later.

See ya tomorrow!