Life of Larisa or LOL

...plane ride ever. Also Gabe's newest catch phrase. I'm surprised we survived the flight and landing. We have decided that Northwest Airlines is not for us...no matter how inexpensive the tickets may be next time. We had "the worst" seats going and coming. As the lady at the check in counter described it when asked if we had good seats "If you define good as sitting together." Gee, thanks! On the way there, we were one of about 100 families traveling with kids. It was a zoo. A sea of sippy cups, strollers, diapers, and frazzled, tired parents. A blast. Then we were lucky enough to be seated in the row directly in front of the bathrooms. Strange, gross smells surrounded us for six hours. Not to mention we were unable to recline. On the way back we had "the worst" turbulence I've ever had the misfortune to experience. Turbulence plus no warning of said turbulence plus surprising lights on, lights off in the cabin equals crappy flight

I'm experiencing baker's high. Despite three botched bakings in the past week (rock hard, flavorless peanut butter cookies, too flat ginger snaps, undercooked banana bread), I made what can only be described as "the best cookie ever". It involved a substitution and alcohol. Win, win. The original cookie recipe involves rum, coconut, and chocolate chips. Since I was all out of chocolate chips, I decided to use butterscotch, which I happened to have on hand. The result was super sweet yumminess . I baked the cookies on Friday morning...just in time to place in a cute Christmas box and bring with us to Isom's work Christmas party. Despite being at Mac 24/7 for what promised to be a delicious lunch, his coworkers scarfed down the cookies before the meal! Licking lips. Licking fingers. Groans of joy. Smiles around the table. Merry Christmas to me. It was a wonderful sight to see. And I didn't have to eat and get fat myself to experience the joy. Eve

Thanks Santa! The big items were opened this morning in order to avoid having to deal with extra bulky travel...and I'm so glad! Gabe opened presents from friends and Japanese Santa--- Bakugan toys, Lego three in one, Japanese Army camouflaged back pack and MRE's (meal ready to eat). He is in 6 year old heaven. Isom received the elusive Keurig coffee maker (Santa found the last one on the shelf). I no longer have to suffer through baking cupcakes and cookies with a mangled wire whisk---Santa brought me the most beautiful red KitchenAid ! It really is beautiful. I don't usually marvel over the beauty of kitchen appliances, but... She speaks for herself. Now to name her.

After the peanut butter cookie debacle, and feeling frantic and defeated all at the same time, I found a recipe for white chocolate chip cookies . These turned out great (although maybe they seem better than they are after the peanut butter rocks). Gabe will now have a sweet treat to take to his class tomorrow and my confidence is a bit renewed. One more big batch of cookies left to make for Isom's work and then I'll be taking a week break from baking while we enjoy snow, family, and friends on the mainland.

...were a bust! What happened? I don't know. Something went wrong. I followed the recipe. I even did the signature fork criss cross. Nothing was helping the rock like consistency however. Frown. At least I didn't feel too cheated. Like the chocolate cupcake, the peanut butter cookie is not something I'm a fan of. It is too much. Too much on the roof of the mouth. They make you thirsty and I feel unfulfilled after eating one. For all the peanut butter flavor there isn't enough sweet flavor to satisfy my taste buds. At least I gave it an attempt. If you have any secrets on how the peanut butter cookie can be saved or improved---please comment! Now, I have to figure out what I'm baking for Gabe's first grade class tomorrow. The happy faces of Isom and Gabe...they had NOT tried the peanut butter cookies---thus the smiles.

...it can be extremely dangerous---to 33 year olds . My ear is extremely sore. It is swollen. I've been forced to take out my diamond earrings. Thankfully there was no blood...or tears. But I felt like crying. Since Isom experienced several different time zones in one day, he was understandably tired when I picked him up from the airport this morning. We enjoyed a leisurely Starbucks breakfast, ran a few errands, and came home so he could have a nap. I received clear instructions to wake him up in time to get Gabe from school. At 1:30 p.m. I headed up the stairs. At 1:33 p.m. he was still NOT waking up. At 1:38 p.m. I decided to use a more drastic technique to wake him. I proceeded to stand up on the bed. Jumping commenced. One jump, two jumps, three jumps...WHACK! The ceiling fan knocked me in the side of the head. Luckily I was on the bed---it made for a soft landing. Doubled over in pain and holding my ear (I was sure I had pulled a Van Gogh and my ear would be d

I celebrated by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies . I was wearing my cute cupcake apron though. The cupcake addict had no idea there was a cupcake day (every day is cupcake day to me), until I was dorking around on Facebook and saw Mai Ly 's status update...next year I'll have my calendar marked and can plan better---cupcake party at my house. I guess I've been too busy baking and eating cupcakes to realize that I'm not the only one celebrating how wonderful cupcakes are. After my first attempt at cookies from scratch the other day, I decided I should try again...just in case that first attempt was a fluke. It turns out it wasn't. I'm excited by my new cookie discovery...they are much easier to tote. The downside is you can eat a whole lot more cookies than cupcakes. But, I can share the joys of baking by shipping cookies off in cute cookie tins. I realize people have been doing this for years. I have been the very happy recipient of such treat

Dear followers, I'm delighted to report that I have another follower! I love logging on and seeing new faces pop up. Thanks for continuing to follow along on my adventures...and misadventures! Welcome to the latest members of my blog community. I hope you keep reading...and commenting...I love those too! Mahalo ! ~Larisa

We will be spending Christmas away from home this year. We haven't spent a Christmas away in several years. We are excited, but it does mean a little extra planning...at the busiest time of year. We have friends to see, cupcakes to deliver, and gifts to exchange before boarding our flight to the mainland next week. Luckily, we were able to kill two Christmas birds yesterday---we saw friends before leaving, delivered popcorn instead of cupcakes, made paper snowflakes, and exchanged a few presents. The kids were spoiled with goodies and were delighted to open presents before Christmas. Me too. I'd love to go into detail about what all the kids got...but really I'm super excited about my gifts. Twilight fan? Yes. Christmas fan? Yes. Combining the two? Nirvana. Giddy behavior over gifts, Christmas or otherwise, is usually exhibited by the eight and under crowd...and me. I was giggling like an eight year old when I received my Christmas present from Mai Ly yester

This year has been filled with many firsts...especially with regards to baking. I baked my veryfirst cupcake from scratch and have been a busy baking bee ever since. Mostly I have been sticking to cupcakes. Yesterday, however, I baked my first cookie from scratch. I was having a couple of friends and their kids over for Christmas Cookie decorating, and decided I should bake sugar cookies as their creative canvas. I "Googled" it and came up with what was a simple, sure shot recipe . The house smelled good enough to eat and when Gabe and I taste tested them we were very pleased with the results. Several gumdrops, peppermints, green and red frosting later the kids (and the mommy's) were sugared out...which would explain the exceedingly energetic behavior from the kids. No Christmas adventure would be complete without Eggnog (thanks Schultz ohana) and peppermint ice cream for dessert (the cookies were the activity ---not the dessert). It was a fun afternoon...I'm

What do you do when you're missing your other half, there's an ant parade outside your front door, the coffee you made is bad, you sat in traffic for two hours, the McDonald's clerk is mean AND they give you chicken instead of fish, your kid is rude, you forget to bring eggs for your friends baking needs, you nearly run into the car sitting in your blind side, your Starbucks order is messed up, and your eyes are puffy from crying the night before while watching "P.S. I Love You" ? That's the kind of "off" day I had. It is nearly over and I'm having trouble finding a bright spot. I would swear today was Friday the 13 th . But it's not and nothing that happened was too terrible but I'm still feeling like a cartoon with smoke coming out of my ears. We do have an activity filled weekend to look forward to so I'm hoping when the sun peaks through the curtains tomorrow, it will be the start of a brighter day. Looking forward to my swea

I love that there is a theater across the street from Gabe's school and within walking distance of our house. Not that we actually walk there. It's still nice. Friday afternoons are usually saved for me and Gabe to go on a date. Since there is no school tomorrow, we decided on a Thursday date. We were just planning on the typical Starbucks outing (also across the street from his school) and then it occurred to me that we had no further obligations for the day...why not take in a movie? A matinee of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" would be starting in twenty minutes. Instead of a deluxe drink from Starbucks we enjoyed the movie kid pack. Small drink, small popcorn, small candy---ready to go. We settled into our seats and I enjoyed the preview for the upcoming Tim Burton movie, "Alice in Wonderland" . CAN NOT WAIT for that! I'm sad to say that I don't recall reading "Fantastic Mr. Fox" as a kid...or an adult. I am very curious after seeing t

And I have nothing substantial to report. Oh well, I'll ramble along anyway. This week we have finally been getting back to our normal routine. An entire week to adjust from our travels...either I'm getting old or traveling really does take a lot out of you. I'm going with the travel excuse. On Monday and Tuesday I had the pleasure of going for morning walks with Mai Ly . Thanks for helping me keep that pesky holiday weight to a minimum. Reflecting on the weeks events so far, (or lack there of) I realize that I experienced the Christmas spirit...twice. On Monday I took The Fit into the Honda dealership for a routine oil check and tire rotation (don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about?). The Fit is the third car we have purchased from The Tony Autoplex (we like to help the owners with their second and third homes in Lanikai ). The first was Isom's hot rod. His red Honda Prelude that totally helped him "catch me". The second was

"Avatar" is the only movie that Gabe can talk about. Since seeing a preview for it he has been finding a way to work it into every conversation. Today was one of those great Sundays when nothing much is on the agenda. We slept in. We picked up Boy Scout popcorn. We had a leisurely breakfast at Starbucks---a weekend tradition. While we were waiting for our breakfast sandwiches and my Eggnog latte, Gabe suggested we go to the movies. When Isom is out of town we tend to do a lot of this. I checked the Fandago site on my iPhone while Gabe eagerly looked over my shoulder. "Do they have Avatar mommy?! Do they? Is it playing? Huh? Is it?". No. What's a mom to do? We went to see "Planet 51" instead. The voices of "The Rock", Justin Long, and Jessica Biel helped make this movie entertaining for us adults as well as the 6 year olds . Gabe and I both laughed out loud. And the three year old in front of us repeated all the key lin

Here's what I've been up to...baking instead of blogging. Decorative tins. Eggnog frosting. Snowflake coconut cupcakes. Red candies. Green sprinkles. Candy cane, Santa, and Reindeer toppers. It's my first year baking for people for the holidays. Hopefully it's all edible.

There was more to be said about Japan but at this point I feel like I have let too much time slip past...so on to other topics. Maybe I'll just refer to "the Japan trip" from time to time...and maybe you'll know what I'm referring to...and maybe you won't. For all the pasta and vending machine sushi that we had during our week in Japan (reference #1), there was a definite lack of coffee drinks and holiday flavored foods (I just couldn't drink the hot in a can coffee from the vending machines that were everywhere...although Isom loved them). Lucky for me, I was able to get all the fancy coffee I missed out on during the week, in one single beverage at IHOP . Jayme, Solomon, Gabe, and I met up at Windward Mall. Gabe and I had just come from our dentist appointments and decided to try to get some Christmas shopping out of the way instead of sitting in afternoon traffic. Since our teeth were nice and clean we decided to sugar them back up to normal st

No one can ever say I'm not a dedicated "Twilight" fan. While we were on our vacation I was determined to find "Twilight" written in Japanese---a nice souvenir. As an added bonus I thought it might be fun to watch "New Moon" while in Japan. I wasn't sure if it would be dubbed, subtitled, or some crazy combination of the two. I more than lucked out. While in Sapporo, we stopped into a bookstore. The three of us wandered around the small store...completely lost. We had no idea if we were in fiction, biography, porn? It could be anything. We also wanted to get a children's book for Gabe. At least that was easier to decipher...big cartoons! I was side glancing all the aisles when I noticed a ribbon of red... I walked towards it. It was indeed one of the series---"Eclipse". And right beside that, "Twilight", "New Moon", and "Breaking Dawn". The completest in me really wanted all four. They were

Did you ever see the movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray? Our third day in Japan. We woke up while it was still dark outside---perfect since it was technically "Black Friday"...the little known shopping holiday that is a tradition the day after Thanksgiving. Not this year. Instead we once again traveled by train to Sapporo. This time with Isom---he scored a day off from work (which he told us consisted of working on computers outside...in the cold...in the snow). I'm sure a day with me and Gabe (no matter how naughty we were) was welcome. Gabe and I were old pros by now. We knew the lay of the land. We had the bus schedule figured out. We knew what we were doing. We got turned around. How'd that happen? We marched right back into the tourist information room... We also decided to add additional excursions to our list of "to sees". We were both feeling guilty that this vacation was not exactly "kid friendly". Our rigorous