WW: Do I Know You?

I parked next to this car at Costco. Hmmm have I ever visited them? Have they visited me?


Visit 5 minutes for mom for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

Bishop Museum: From Whales to Volcanoes

The Bishop Museum is the largest museum in Hawaii. The natural history collection is one of the largest in the world, and the largest on the Pacific Rim. The museum's main purpose is to represent native Hawaiian interests.

It was raining, and we were a bit drippy. I hadn't brought an umbrella. The collections are housed in different halls, or buildings. This building is the Hawaiian hall. We were standing near the ticket counter, waiting for the rain to let up just a little before dashing for the building.Once we made it into the Hawaiian hall, I pulled my camera out to snap a picture of my boys. A man held the door open, and offered to take a picture of the three of us. His picture didn't actually take. I thanked him, and stuffed my camera away. He asked if my boys needed to go to the bathroom. Without taking a breath, I looked him straight in the eye and said NO. Then he nervously rambled, telling he he had eight grandchildren of his own. All of this happened within less than two minutes of meeting him. Ew. The boys and I entered the museum without looking back.
Please, if you ever run into me at a public restroom, and see me take my sons to the ladies room, don't question my decision. Son1 inspected and stared at the ancient tiki carvings. They were several feet tall. He was interested in their emotions and facial features.



Ku, the god of war and prosperity, is the most recognized tiki. This Ku is made from breadfruit.
I would love to own this painting. I see my own boys in the painitng.
One entire room featured kahili. These are feather poles carried by attendants to announce the presence of the "ali'i," or chiefs. Each set of feather poles is named something associated with their chief. The room was dead silent, and my kids were so respectful. Then my cell phone rang. It was Hubby. Suddenly I became that person with the ringing cell phone that gets glares. We exited this room, out of respect for the Silence of the Feathers (I made that up), and viewed the remaining Polynesian exhibits.
Outside, we followed the path to the Castle Memorial Building. Along the way we passed this tree. The leaves were naturally bent in half, and two feet of roots criss crossed and poked up from the ground. This is the Hala tree, or the screwpine. The leaves grow in a spiral off the branches, like a screw.

We entered the Castle Memorial building, and arrived at the whale exhibit. The whale exhibit was the main reason we came to the museum. Son1 is fascinated by larger ocean mamals and sharks. (Tomorrow I am writing a short post on why to read non-fiction to your kids.)

Each whale in the exhibit was controlled bu a computer in each animal's base. The movements are controlled by compressed air. Some cylinders moved the eyes, some moved the flippers, and the mouths. The exhibit was loud! The animals made life like sounds and sounded whale heart beats. It was dark inside, and initially a little scary for Son1. He loved it after the fact.

Son1 loved these cross sections of whales teeth. I have tried to explain baleen teeth to him, but he didn't really understand baleen teeth until he saw this exhibit.

We finished our time with the whales, and headed for the Science Adventure Center. The center is three stories tall, and centers around three levels of a ginormous volcano. The whole exhibit is nearly 17,000 square feet. That's just a little bigger than most Costcos!
There were so many exhibits! I'll share just a few. Below the volcano, which was a mock up of Lo'ihi, an underwater volcano, Son1 steered a remote submarine. This was his favorite. He watched the remote submarine on the screen, and manipulated it with his hand.
On the main volcano level, Son1 used different forces in a tank to simulate a mini tsunami. We also walked through the center of the volcano, and Son1 slid down the slide. In this exhibit, it was totally pitch black with black lights, and flourescent Hawaiian scenes made from paper maiche. Exotic animal sounds played in the tunnel. Son1 was a little apprehensive, but Son2 was completely fascinated.
On the third level was the rain forest. We dressed up in animal costumes. I slipped my costume on, and noticed immediately one of my kids was missing from the tree top exhibit. I whipped around and found him on the ramp a few yards away. He was enamored by....

...the monstrous erupting volcano.


The three of us stood and watched the lava erupt from the top of the volcano vent over and over. Two of us were in costume. A nice man offered to take our picture. I let him. He had his wife with him, and he didn't dare ask if he could take my children to the bathroom. After going through my pictures, guess what I realized? I dressed up like a red vented bulbul, the bird I found in my yard eating the worms! Son1 is a coqui frog. They arrived in Hawaii recently, in the 1990s.

There's a New Blog in Town (To Me, Anyway)

I am enjoying a new blog (to me, anyway) about popular culture and life on the campaign trail. While she is potentially a next First Daughter, the blog is hardly political. Her dream is to write a satire about life on the political campaign trail. It's my kind of blog, a show and tell blog about popular culture, a behind the scenes look at life on the campaign trail. I saw a television interview with her that turned me onto her blog. She is pretty sarcastic and yet sincere in real life. She interned at Saturday Night Live and Newsweek, if that tells you anything. She is not ultra conservative or particularly vocal about her own politics.

Memories of September 11

The Remembrance Barge is used for VIP tours of Pearl Harbor. This picture captures my feelings today. Read my memories of September 11, 2001 here.

Freedom Isn't Free

Wordless Wednesday:

Old Glory flies high over the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1,102 sailors found their final resting place on the USS Arizona battleship, sunken below by Japanese imperial forces. The memorial stretches over the hull of the battleship, without touching it.

Come back tomorrow and read my memoir of September 11, 2001 when we lived just outside of Washington, D.C.

The 8s of the Birth D8. (Get it, birth date?)

The Farmer Files was born on August 8, 2007, on the date 08/08. I planned a little celebration for The Farmer Files in my head for the special day. But plans in my head don't always play out in real life. Instead we had a teeny celebration at home, just three of us. Hubby was somewhere on the Big Rock. The kids and I celebrated with a guava cake just before bed time. We at least had to choose some type of tropical cake.

To commemorate our special birthday, I am going to share with you in 8s!

Eight Things We Our Whole Family Loves to Eat in Hawaii:

1. Hawaiian Plate Lunch (more about this later)

2. Kalua Pork- served everywhere

3. Apple Bananas-from our trees

4. Pineapple-fresh

5. Hawaiian fried rice (includes the island popular SPAM) at Sandy's Cafe

6. Terikayi cheese fries from the Grass Skirt Grill in Haleiwa

7. Flavormania exotic homemade ice cream on the North Shore

8. Fresh local catch (fish)


Eight Things about our Blog:

1. Mama blogs like she talks and not really how she writes.

2. We love to show local Hawaiian culture beyond the common tourist experience.

3. We love to take you out and about, and bring Hawaii to you as much as we can.

4. We try not to embarrass anyone, including the Farmer Four.

5. Our first and foremost reason for blogging is to keep up with family and friends separated by time difference and distance.

6. What is true in real life is true online: A friend of the Farmers is a friend forever.

7. We love comments and we love to make new online friends!

8. We don't use our online names for a reason. That means y'all refrain, too!


Eight More things about our Blog:

1. We have Google Analytics embedded on our blog.

2. That means you can't see us looking at you.

3. So just leave a comment and make The Farmer Files happy, m'kay?

4. If you don't comment that's ok. We love seeing that you stopped by, and we're still happy.

5. We will start giving away some Hawaiian love from Hawaii (when I get it together, don't expect it really soon) for our commenters.

6. When we move to San Diego we will NOT be LOST on Oahu.

7. Only Heather knows what our new theme will be, and yup, she's designing it.

8. You're gonna have to wait until we move to see the new theme.

Hugs to Heather!

Once upon another life ago my friend Heather was a graphic artist for a government contractor. Then she was promoted to Domestic Engineer. Well lucky me, I have friends in high places. Guess who redesigned my header? I LOVE it. So leave a comment and tell her you love it, too.

I last saw Heather in the flesh two years ago. She and her Hubs came six thousand miles just to visit us. They see Hubby more often, though. He sees them whenever he is back East.

Lucky him. Sad me.