Nonna is in Town!

We're in the middle of a two week long visit from Nonna all the way from Guadalajara.....it's good to see her again and the girls are having a blast with their nonna (aka abuela, umbrella, tutu, grandma...).

After a loooong day traveling she finally made it here at 8PM (1AM her time!) on Monday, however, her suitcase decided to spend one day in Honolulu, you know, checking Waikiki out and all. So Tuesday we took her to Ross to buy some clothes. Her suitcase made it to Hilo later that day. Strange enough, a package that she had checked in with her suitcase did make it, in it were a painting that she had made for Leslie and Macario (more on this story below) and a total surprise for us:

That Nonna is full of surprises...... She also brought the kids a BIG bag of Pelon Pelo Rico (a mexican tamarind spicy candy) , a box of chocolate covered mazapan (a mexican peanut candy), and a box of glorias (also a mexican milk candy)....we wonder if she's getting a commission from our dentist..

As the last time she was here, she brought the rain with her, plenty of it! it had been nice and sunny until the day she arrived. It's been mostly rainy since (rain gauge has collected nearly 2" of rain over the past 24 hours), but we've had a couple of sunny patches too, enough to let us go out and have some fun.

Here she is at Syd's soccer practice on Tuesday at the bayfront fields....

we don't realize how tall Syd is getting because we see her every day, but here we realized that she has almost reached nonna! and her feet are growing too like weeds! she's starting to look more like a "L"....

Troublemakers in Red

We took her to meet King David Kalakaua (Merry Monarch) at his park sitting next to one of Hilo's majestic trees..

Then she came with me on a business trip to the Hualalai Resort on the Kona side and while I had a meeting she was checking out the facilities, which I believe we of her approval....(homes being built there are in the $30 M range.....)

There we had lunch at Alan Wong's Hualalai Grill...hmmmm it was ono!, although, I gotta say, it wasn't as good as the Alan Wong's cookout at the Farm where Charlotte works. A visit to one of Alan's restaurants makes one appreciate the unique experience that the cookout was.. (Note to Alan Wong: If you read this blog...MAHALO nui for the Hamakua Springs Farm Cookout!)

Cesar Salad with Chicken

Crazy Asian Salad...

Thursday Leslie and Emma Rose stopped by on their way to Boiling pots and asked us if we wanted to join them, so we did (it wasn't raining). Syd and Hana were trying to teach Emma Rose to do cart wheels, but I'm not sure that their two-people approach was that successful.

Leslie & Emma Rose at Boiling Pots..

Saturday morning we went to Honoli'i to show Nonna the place where the girls do their boogie boarding. (Note to Nonno: Nonna did not go out surfing...)



Saturday Night dinner with Macario, Leslie and Emma Rose and the unveiling of ER's painting.

As I said, Nonna made a painting of Emma Rose as a gift to our good friends L,M & ER. It was a complete surprise for them. Here is the painting and the photograph that Nonna used for a model.

We had a delicious dinner with Pork in green pipian, chayotes, purple sweet potatos (courtesy of M&L), and stir fried ho'i'o (fiddle fern shoots) with peanut sauce, also courtesy of M&L.... and for dessert a banana pie thingy that was hmmm ono!

Leslie must be one of the most expressive persons we've ever met, so we knew that her expression when she saw the painting was going to be priceless...so we told them that we were going to unveil nonna's newest painting at that time.....

Here is the unveiling from Leslie's camera point of view:

And here is Leslie's reaction from our camera point of view:

Well, that's it for now, more to come later........