Weekly Wrap Up | 12/4/22

Aloha friends!

Well it happened – my family and I survived out first family trip together! We flew into JFK airport in New York – where my son threw up during the descent. It was an 8 hour flight and my daughter’s first time on a plane – I was exhausted but we still had to get to Philadelphia. So we get our rental where my hubby freaks out because he thinks he left his phone on the airplane. Let’s just say…it was a tense moment – so tense that he didn’t realize until 15 minutes later after having someone help him at the rental place to call the airlines and asked if there was a lost phone…that said phone – had fallen to the floor under the car’s steering wheel. 🤦🏻‍♀️ After that we made the 2 hour drive to Philly, hungry, anxious – trying to listen to my husband’s old GPS device (dunno why he just didn’t use his phone – seriously…) -made it to our air bnb after getting turned around a few times, and dealing with aggressive drivers. My son barfed one more time when we reached our final destination – thank god I took the extra barf bags from the plane!

Oh and we went from 85 degrees in Hawaii to like 40 degrees. So that was fun! 😅 I did not pack enough warm clothes – we learned to layer! Our air bnb was an old house but close to where my husband grew up so it was the perfect place and not too far from Center City in Philadelphia. We had a busy week in Philly. We went to The Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum, The Academy of Natural Sciences and the kids favorite The Franklin Institute! We even drove down to Delaware to visit my husband’s cousin and visited a best friend of his as well. Philadelphia was lots of fun, just super cold while we were there.

Freezing at the Zoo! Luminature at Philadelphia Zoo

The day before Thanksgiving we made the trek almost 5 hours up to Poughkeepsie, New York where my sister and mother-in-law lives. For the most part it was a nice drive – kind of long but we made it. I wish we had seen fall leaves but they had fallen by then. I can imagine how beautiful a drive it would be with the changing leaves. Thanksgiving was a family affair and a success despite all the chaos of 3 families in the house. We did one activity in Poughkeepsie which was the Walkway Over the Hudson. It was a lovely walk on a bridge over the Hudson river until it got super cold and I felt like I couldn’t get warm enough – I think that’s when I actually caught a cold. The rest of the week we hung out at the house with family and my daughter had a wonderful time playing with their cat, Harry.

Harry – my sister in law’s handsome cat!

The day before our flight we drove from Poughkeepsie to Tarrytown (or Sleepy Hollow) to visit another best friend of my husband’s. I was feeling pretty poorly – my throat hurt but I had no fever or body chills thank goodness. I wish it was day time so we could actually see the town but it was night time. After that we drove another hour into New York City to a hotel next to the airport. I barely survived – barely got any sleep before it was morning and we had to eat breakfast, and get to the airport. Our flight home was 11 hours long and of course my period decided to come 6 days early! I bought some bottled water, wore my mask on the plane – tried to sleep. I was so proud of my kids for surviving that long of a flight. 🙏🏼 We got home with me barely having a voice. I’m still trying to recover my voice. I have some coughing but glad there is no fever and body aches or chills!

My dog, Atlas, is back to trying to figure out his routine. They had fireworks going on in my parents’ neighborhood so he was freaked out over that and lost some weight – he needed to lose weight anyway lol. My family said Atlas shadowed my mom a lot around the house. He picked up some interesting new behaviors – I think my dad let him run wild. So I’m trying to retrain him on some things! But other than that – my kids went back to school, I’m trying to deal with jet lag and waking up too early. Trying to blog! I finished the laundry and unpacking, I even wrapped xmas gifts. I still have half my xmas list to finish! 😆 And my hubby leaves for Okinawa at a later date, Dec. 18th…but still…so much to do, so little time.

But it’s nice to be home! How have you all been? I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you celebrated!

Blog Posts:

I managed to finish only 2 books while on vacation – there was just too much to do and family to meet with.

Books I Read:

Currently Reading:

Shows/Movies I Watched:

Wednesday (Netflix) – I managed to watch 2 episodes on the plane but I’m just that person who starts watching something on the plane and start falling asleep. Same for reading – I just cannot do it on the plane. Next time I should just do coloring books or word search puzzles or something! Anyway I finished the whole series when I came home and love it. Wednesday speaks to my Scorpio soul lol.

How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!

Weekly Wrap Up | 11/13/22

Aloha friends!

We got through this week! Almost thought my daughter’s cold was coming back but it’s been allergies because mine has been acting up too so Flonase for her and Claritin for me has helped. She did get eaten by mosquitoes on Thursday when she went on her first field trip – she doesn’t get a break does she? 😅 But she is a trooper!

I’ve started packing just to see what will fit in my luggage and honestly, packing warm clothing is taking lots room (our summer trip would have been filled with shorts and tank tops 😅). And it’s so sad – my kids barely own any long pants and definitely no long sleeves. My daughter always tells me her feet sweat in socks and I told her oh well she’ll be wearing them on the trip! It will be such an experience for them. My son has been to Nebraska to visit relatives but this will be my daughter’s first plane trip and it’s an 8 hour one. I guess it will be practice for when we visit their dad in Japan next year! We are excited, but I’m excited/anxious/worried – mostly because my indoor dog will have to be an outdoor dog for a few days when he goes to my mom’s house. So I’m worried my spoiled boy will be a little stressed. He gets to hang out with his cousin Tucker who is fully an outside dog. 😆

So I’ll be gone on Wednesday – I’ll still have post go live while I’m gone because they are pre-written but I won’t be replying to any messages until I come back Nov. 30th.

My sister also wanted to do an early Thanksgiving Lunch today since we won’t be here for actual Thanksgiving, so we get to eat today! I don’t think we’ll have turkey but we will have food and pumpkin pie.