Life of Larisa or LOL

  Dirty thirty!  My latest "new thing" is a game.  Rockstarr Band Battle is the newest game in the Majors household.  We are a game family.  We love cards, dice, and board games.  Over the past year or more of the pandemic, our love of games really paid off.  We are semi-professional gamers at this point.  Since we aren't a big sports family (our kids never did soccer or Little League or anything like that for an extended period of time), our weekends are generally free.  We have no commitments to be at a field or a gym at a certain time.  Our lack of organized sports creates room for lots of organized game play . Since we aren't a part of the organized sports crew, you might assume that we aren't very competitive.  One of us isn't (Isom).  The other is (me).  The boys are usually interested in winning , but the true competitive spirit resides inside me.  If you're going to play the game, you might as well win the g...

I'm at about one "New Thing" a week since 2021 started.  This week's "New Thing" consisted of a new to me hiking trail called Lualualei Lookout.  According to the health app on my phone, this hike was 6.1 miles.  The All Trails App has a difference of opinion, coming in at 4.2 miles.  I guess we could split the difference and say it was about five miles of hiking completed this past Sunday.  No matter the mileage, it was a leg burner for sure, all parties can agree to that.        My trusty hiking companions for this new trail were April, Jennah, and Marina.  The trail was new to all of us, so it was an exciting adventure.  Lualualei is located in Wai'anae on the island of O'ahu.  Wai'anae is a pretty good drive from our respective homes, almost an hour in the car, but well worth the scenic drive.  The start of the trail is a known high theft area, so we decided to employ my teenage son as our chauffeur.  We arrived a...

We might be guilty of focusing more on our baked goods than how our hair looks.  After the success of Banana Nut Bread (minus the nuts), we took on our next boys who bake (plus me) project---homemade baked bagels.  We love bagels.  They are usually a staple on the grocery list and in our household.  They are great plain, with cream cheese, as a breakfast sandwich with egg and bacon, with hummus, with tomato, with avocado...they are super versatile.  When my friend Janell posted about a three ingredient bagel she and her kids made during quarantine, I needed no convincing that this would be something for us to try too. Three ingredients you say?  Yay...oh wait, we don't have the ingredients needed.  Devastation.  A week or so went by and after one late night grocery run, my husband found the ingredients we needed.  Lifesaver!  I'll post a link to the recipe we used below, but basically you make a quick dough.  You cut your do...

It only took a global pandemic for me to start writing on my blog again.  Welcome 2020!  First post of the new decade!  I'm trapped...uh, quarantined...sheltering in place with three boys.  The oldest of the boys, my husband, has transformed our dining room into an office space.  So now we eat in the living room.  I try to think of it as a little bistro table at a cafe somewhere in Europe.  Armchair travel.  The oldest actual boy, my 16 year old Junior in High School, has found a new hobby since some beaches are closed and the ones that are open for surfing are quite crowded.  He is skateboarding and giving me daily anxiety as I hope he doesn't send us to the Emergency Room from a fall.  The youngest boy, my 8 year old, is now an online student prone to extra sassy behavior, tantrums, and a lack of focus.  Between school lessons we try to bring some zen into the household with a variety of online Yoga classes, swimming in our blow u...