Message in a Bottle

A Pic of the 'message in the bottle' before I mailed it off
to my niece 

It is almost like being on set of a movie.............I am driving along the beach here at the ranch and something catches my eye- After almost 2 years of two to three times a day checking the beach I can scan drift wood, washed up flip flops, bottles, rubber buoys, house hold trash, and other misc. things that wash up on a daily basis and know that there is nothing worth stopping and taking a CLOSE look at.  I had done my usual scan and something caught my eye.  There are probably 100 glass bottles any given day on the beach- I would say mostly wine bottles- The bottle that caught my eye was a greenish color and looked to have something inside- It was kind of sitting off by itself half buried in the sand- As I get closer to where it is I can tell that someone has placed a personal message in a bottle, threw it in the ocean, and dreamed of where it would wash up and who would find it.
I walked in the door last week after finding the 'message in a bottle' to my phone ringing- It was my sis. 'Hey guess what!' was coming out of my mouth before she could get a word in edge wise- The bottle is corked  and part of the cork was broken off- This made it impossible to open the bottle when I was on the phone with her (My precious boys had no interest in even checking the bottle out- they are at the age and of the personality that they think messages in a bottle are not all that interesting)- So I held it up and turned it all around to give it a through inspection to report to my sis- Through the partially sanded/greenish colored glass I could make out Chinese writing mixed with American writing- I could also see a signature of what looked like a child and the year 2003. After giving the details of what I could see I set the bottle down in my lower living room area and we moved on with our conversation.
Earlier this month I got an excited call from my niece (her nick name is 'sissy')- "AUNTIE!!! I just wanted to invite you and Oklie (my dog) to my birthday party!"- My heart jumped at the possibility of being able to go to her 7th Birthday- After looking at all that is going on in our schedule right now I realized that I would not be able to make it....Along with telling my sister about the bottle I was also telling her that I was definitely not going to be flying in for sissy's birthday party- I got off the phone and headed back down to the lower living room to get the bottle for further inspection.  As I picked it up It struck me- I needed to get this unopened bottle in the Mail ASAP so that my niece could have a once in a lifetime birthday gift......A true message in a bottle found in the warm Hawaiian Waters washed up on an isolated beach and sent with love from her auntie a little over 3000 miles away from a birthday party my heart is dying to be at!

My sis and niece 

P.S. Sissy got the package yesterday (that contains the bottle) and wants to wait until her actual birthday to open it!!

UPDATE 3/24/11


SISSY OPENED THE BOTTLE TODAY- AND MY SISTER JODI (SISSY'S MOM) SENT THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL:


A couple weeks ago my sister, Stephanie, found a bottle that had washed up on their beach in Hawaii. She mailed it to Sissy for her 7th birthday. It was a letter written by a 12 year old girl named Akane Nihei from Fukusima, Japan in 2003. It says, "Dear friennd who got this bottle...This bottle mail is planed by "The 50th annual iwaki port festival". We are the staff of this festival. We flowed this bottle on the pacific ocean of Hawaii offing in Sep.2003. You are the only one person who got this bottle around the world. So please contact us. We will waiting for your contact." 


My sister (Jodi) sent an e-mail to Akane today from Sissy- I will update this blog when my sister let's me know if Akane (who would be 20) responds- I just Googled Fukushima, Japan and this is what came up.  May God Bless and keep this girl if she is still living in Fukushima- I can not even imagine what she has experienced- Again, will update as my sister updates.

A nuclear power plant in the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan is under a state of emergency following the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that shook the nation today.

Located in northern Japan, the Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 2 million and lies in an area heavily impacted by the earthquake. A dam broke nearby, washing away homes, Reuters reported.

Residents near the facility have been asked to evacuate as a precaution. The nuclear power plant's cooling system was malfunctioning after the quake, causing concerns, per the Guardian. 

Molten Chocolate Dog Terd's (Cupcakes)

I had a sudden inspiration yesterday to make a dessert- something chocolate and something DELISH....I scrounged through my cubbards to see what the gecko's and ants had left me unscathed (I just learned this word in a book I am reading so I thought I would use it on my blog!).  I grabbed a Betty Crocker Cake Mix- It was a Devil's Food Chocolate with a small little caption in the back left hand side corner 'MOLTEN CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES'- Oh Yes Ma'am I could make this recipe....I took one look at the online recipe and had high hopes of duplicating the same thing.

Betty Crocker's version of the Molten Cupcake

I noticed that that I did not have the 1/2 C of whipping cream that the recipe called for nor did I have the patience to wait for an hour for the chocolate that goes on the inside of the cupcake to cool down- But hey- It's all good :)
I substituted the whipping cream with milk- melted the chocolate chips and slammed the chocolate chip milk mixture into the freezer for the 5 minutes it was going to take me to mix up the cake mix-  Whipped up the cake mix, put the batter in the cupcake pan and put the still warm (kinda thin now that I think about it) chocolate Molten mixture into the center of each cake- put it in the oven and watched them rise........They were beautiful as I left on the oven light just to watch them rise- when I pulled them out of the oven they looked like something you would see in a bakery.
It wasn't until I went to take the cakes out of the pan that I realized that something may be wrong- Each one came out missing the bottom- and stuck to the bottom of the pan was a sticky cake like substance that smelled really strong of chocolate- I realized then why the recipe called for whipping cream to mix with the chocolate chips- It would make the chocolate mixture that went into the center of the cupcake batter thick- Also, allowing the chocolate mixture to completely cool would make it even thicker so that the bottom of the cupcake batter would have a chance to cook so that the molten chocolate would set up in the center-  My mixture was so thin and still so warm when I added it- it sunk right to the bottom of the cupcake pan and stuck there.
CRUD!!!
No worries, I had been watching Food Network and saw a really cute way to frost cupcakes- I would pipe homemade chocolate frosting (Thanks Rhon for the recipe) onto the top and overcompensate by making it thick and fluffy- who would notice the bottom if the top was super cute-
I just snapped a pic of what my Eli has dubbed the 'Dog Terd's'- He walked in just after I had piped the last of the frosting on and stood and stared- WHAT? I asked him (in that kinda annoyed voice that we- mothers can use sometimes) 'Looks like a dog terd' was his only reply as he grabbed one and walked off.............The more I looked at them the more I saw that I had indeed mixed the frosting the perfect color of a dog terd and the way I had swirled it on the top of the cupcake...well.......I should have seen it coming

1/2

cup whipping cream

1

cup semisweet chocolate chips

1

box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® devil's food cake mix

1

cup water

1/3

cup vegetable oil

3

eggs

1. In 1-quart saucepan, heat whipping cream over medium-high heat until hot but not boiling. Stir in chocolate chips until melted and mixture is smooth. Refrigerate about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until thick.
2. Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pans). Grease and flour or spray with baking spray with flour 18 large (2 3/4x1 1/4-inch) muffin cups. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl constantly. Place 1/4 cup batter in each muffin cup. Spoon 1 tablespoon cold chocolate mixture on top of batter in center of each cup.
3. Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Cool 1 minute. Carefully remove from pan; place on parchment paper. Cool 10 minutes. Frost with chocolate frosting. Just before serving, dust with powdered sugar. Garnish with strawberry slices. Serve warm.

Makes 18 cupcakes

Ryan's waterfall invitation

I have not forgotten about the cheesecake in the 'dolphins and cheesecake' post- This waterfall invitation came up so I am going to cover that first- I'll get to cheesecake sometime this weekend (hopefully).
Last night we had quite a bit of rain- enough that we have a small lake out in our front yard area and a few waterfalls.  On the way to bring the boys to school, Ryan pointed out a waterfall on the ranch and asked if I would like to hike to it when he got home.............um...............I usually try to save any sort of hiking for mall related activities- an example of this would be that I would 'hike' up the stairs instead of taking the escalator when going from Macy's to Williams Sonoma (3 floors apart) or hiking around Union Square toting bags............but I could not tell my youngest son 'no'- so this afternoon Ryan and I set out on a hike.  It was completely beautiful, amazing, and breath taking.
Thanks so much Ryno Chase for the invite....The pictures will tell the rest of the story.

Behind Ryan is the waterfall

It looks A LOT closer than it actually was!

A pic of the small lake in our front yard from all the rain last night

Ryan saw how much I was struggling walking in my crocs
so he graciously traded me shoes

As the water was flowing over us I just kept praying against
Lepto (found in dirty water here) and thinking how I wanted
Ryan to remember me as a mom who did 'cool' stuff with him

This is my 4th Bout with Island Fever!

It's really funny to talk about now, but when I got my first dose of island fever it completely freaked me out.  By the second dose I kinda knew what it was so I was a bit more calm about it.  By the third time it happened I recognized the signs right away and booked a trip to the mainland ASAP.  I am starting to feel it come on , and so am taking the proper steps to ensure that I don't get to the 'fright or flight' mode (I would say more like flight or flight mode- get me off this island NOW cause if I have to see water all around me one more day I am going to loose my marbles- If you are reading this blog and are from my adoption agency, I swear I am completely sane- and am just being a bit dramatic when I say I feel like loosing my marbles :)
I would say that island fever happens to a select few people who choose to move off of a large land mass (i.e. MAINLAND USA) to a small island- which happens to be not only 3000 miles away from any mainland but also the farthest island away from a mainland in the whole world.  I live on an area about the size of the Valley I moved from- What also helps to fuel island fever is when your favorite season is winter and where you live is 24/7/365 summer- it's like being in the movie Ground Hog Day waking up to the same temp. everyday- day after day (my husband LOVES this part of living in Hawaii)

For those of you who have never experienced 'Island Fever' I will do my best to describe it:

1. It starts with a nagging claustrophobic feeling.  You start noticing that everywhere you look is water.
2. The claustrophobic feeling grows with each passing experience- an example of this would be that on my way to drive my kids to school, when I get to the top of our drive way and see the ocean all around I do the 360 head swirl with my head to find an extended amount of land- when I don't see it I get the wild eye, the the feeling of 'I've gotta get out of here and drive'........I need to drive for hours on an interstate (Drove over 12 hours on a little road trip on my last trip to the main land and LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT- sorry mom and sis if I was a driver hog)
3. The mountain's that are on 3 sides of the ranch (the ocean is the 4th side) start closing in on me- It's like they move closer and closer to our house
4. The claustrophobic feeling get's worse and the constant humidity and constant warm temp. mixed with the salt on everything and sand every night in my bed starts getting to me............
5. I sit Matt down and tell him that while I love Hawaii, I've gotta get a change of scenery- He usually thinks I am being a bit wimpy but tells me to do what I need to do........
6. I book a week long trip to the main land
7. I Stare out the window of the airplane just before landing on the main land memorized by all the lights of whatever big city I am landing in (San Fran, Seattle, Portland, etc..)
8. Feel Like kissing the ground when I land
9. Enjoy my week on the mainland- the fever subsides- 
10. I fly back to my little island with a new appreciation for my surroundings and the ocean that was a week earlier closing in on me now looks beautiful- the mountains that before I left seemed to be closing in on my house are back in their rightful place- the overwhelming humidity, salt, and sand everywhere is tuned out once more and life goes on as usual...............UNTIL
11. The cycle starts again.  At this time I battle a bout of island fever about every 4 months.

Nov. was the last time I was on the main land- I've gotta go cause I need to search for airfare!! LOL!

Have a good night everyone and enjoy with me what I will see tomorrow morning.......

A Beautiful Hawaiian Sunrise

A year ago Chile sent something to Hawaii

Early this morning I got a text message from my sister in law that read:
'Hey! I had a funny thought- a year ago today we were on tsunami watch!!'   
I chuckled under my breath and thought I would blog for just a sec. before we headed out to church.
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Last night a year ago I was busy making Chicken Kabobs for the BBQ we were going to have the next day (Feb. 27) with Matt's cousins Tim and Conny and my brother and his wife- both were visiting from the mainland.  For some reason I decided to use a whole bag of Coscto chicken for the kabobs- I knew it would be an overkill and we would have a ton of leftovers but figured my boys would eventually eat them up.  I finished up the Kabobs pretty late and headed to bed.
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Our phone rang at 4 am- It sits on my side of the bed so I grabbed it with a groggy 'Hello'?  The chipper voice of my dad came across the line, 'Hi Hun! Just checking in to see if you had seen the news.  Hawaii has a Tsunami Watch and I wanted to make sure that you knew.'- If you read my previous post you will already know what I am about to share.  Because we live so far out in the country, we do not hear the Tsunami Sirens- This would not be a problem except that we live right on the ocean.  We depend on friends and family (especially if it is in the middle of the night) to call and let us know if there is there is any type of 'warnings' we should know about.
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I copied and pasted from KHON News parts of their feature, 'One Year Later: Lessons learned from Hawaii's last Tsunami Scare:'
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February 27, 2010. It's six o'clock Saturday morning and the civil defense sirens are sounded.  Hours earlier, a powerful earthquake rocked Chile, triggering a tsunami warning for Hawaiiand the Pacific.

"We had a long lead time, the tsunami was going to arrive around mid-day, Civil Defense could make a reasonable decision to sound sirens early in the morning, people had several hours to get ready," said Charles McCreery, Director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Geophysicists at the Pacific TsunamiWarning Center are poring over data.

But at that time, gauges along the coast of Chile are only transmitting readings once an hour.

"Thats a little bit slow for us and its frustrating to have wait an hour to see if something happened there," McCreery explained. "So now those gauges have all been upgraded and they transmit every five minutes so that’s much, much, much better."

Residents living in tsunami evacuation zones are told to head for higher ground.

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That was us! We were headed for higher ground- Conny and Tim were not staying with us, there were staying at a local hotel.  My brother and sis in law were staying in a guest house here at the ranch.  Conny and Tim's hotel evacuated them and they were not able to make it over for BBQ- My bro, his wife, Eli, Ryan, Matt, I, Roxy and Hurley (our rabbits), our dog Oklie, the BBQ (cause we were not going to miss a fine opportunity of bbq), some personal items, and those CHICKEN KABOBS headed to the top of our driveway (the blessing of our driveway is that it climbs to about 1800 feet in a matter of 1.5 miles).  The tsunami came in a lot smaller that what they were thinking- THANK YOU JESUS- (I think it was a 3 inch rise)- and we had a great day BBQ'in with not only my bro and his wife but some other friends showed up with their friends and all those kabobs I had made the night before was the perfect amount to feed everyone!   (I do not want to take away from the fact that Tsunami's can be very dangerous.  For us, with this particular Tsunami Scare, we knew that we were not in any immediate danger and wanted to keep it serious enough that we did what the State was asking us to- evacuate, have plenty of food, water, etc...- but not so serious that we freaked our boys or our visitors out)

Below are some pictures of the day.

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BBQ'in at the top of our drive way- and if you notice
the view we had of the ocean...

This was our set up- with the chairs facing the ocean

The small wave hit Hilo, HI first and made it's way down to
our island- We knew from listening to the radio that the wave was
not going to be big- Matt, my bro, and Eli went down to the beach to check
it out- this picture was taken exactly when the wave was hitting.

my bro and beautiful sis in law

Tim and Conny finally made it over for dinner a couple day's later.

Being Still instead of Freaking out......

A couple nights ago we had a HILACIOUS  Thunderstorm.  It was the type of thunderstorm that wakes you out of a dead sleep at 1 am with a BOOM of thunder.  I would say that this is the worst thunderstorm that I have ever experienced- I don't know a lot about thunder and lightning except that it can be extremely loud and a bit terrifying but this storm was very electrical- the lightning would move across the clouds first and then hit the ground.  From what I have heard, it hit our island the worst-and then worked down the chain of islands with less and less strength.

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As soon as I heard the first boom I decided to get up and go sit in the living room on the couch so I could watch from our living room window.  Due to how far out in the country we live we can not hear the Tsunami Warning Sirens nor do we get any sort of warning for flash floods- we do not have any neighbors to rely on for information, and the fact that we live right on the ocean, I like to be awake and listening to some sort of outside news station when we are having any sort of abnormal weather activity.  A couple of nights ago was no exception to my 'stay tuned in rule'- I promptly turned on my TV when the rain started dumping with this very busy thunderstorm- the signal was dead and TV was not going to be happening.  I grabbed our phone to make sure that it was working just in case one of our friends on the other side of the mountain from us needed to get a hold of us to let us know that we needed to be aware of flooding or extreme weather- the phone line was dead.....it runs on top of the ground and from how high the water was rising in the field outside of our house I knew it was floating in the water.......uugg......the storm was getting worse, no TV, no phone, we live so isolated and the panic started to set in!! It has been a long but victorious road for me to overcome a ton of fears- moving to Hawaii and living so isolated was a very big stretch for me.  Moving to Hawaii and living so isolated right on the ocean was an even bigger stretch for me!  I had a choice as I was sitting on my couch with the rain pounding on my roof so loud you would have to yell to be heard.  I had a choice as along with the rain the thunder and lightning was so bad I was in a mixture of shock and awe that so many strikes could hit at one time.  I had a choice as along with the rain, thunder and lightning, and the fact that we had no TV, Internet, Phone, and no way of hearing the sirens that would blare if there was a natural disaster coming our way- I could either resort back to my old ways- have a panic attack and completely FREAK OUT or I could rely on a promise that God gave me:

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'God is our refuge and our strength and ever present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

THOUGH THE WATERS ROAR AND FOAM and the mountains quake with their surging......

God is with her, she will not fall!  The Lord Almighty is with us.....

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD!'

Psalm 46

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By the grace of God I did not give into panic- I prayed my way through all the feelings of panic and prayed for the strength to trust my precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ- That He had this storm completely under control and We would be fine.  The next morning, when the storm was over and the sky's were clear I snapped some pictures of some of the water falls all the rain created- I had a new appreciation for the beauty of the water around me.  I am working on 'enjoying' the storms both in life and in nature.  I wish I could have had the view of my husband and some of our guests who thought the whole storm was amazing and beautiful- They saw God's handiwork as something to be in awe about- I was to worried about the 'what if's' to actually enjoy the storm......someday I will be to that point......but for today I am just working on making it through the storms with baby faith and clinging to God's promise that He will never leave me nor forsake me- I need to only 'BE STILL AND KNOW THAT HE IS GOD'

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Below are some pictures I took of some random water falls on the property we live- the water falls were created by such a large amount of rain in a small amount of time.

I got Matt to stop the truck on the driveway and get our picture
taken by a 'waterfall'- you get to see us but somehow we missed the
waterfall :)

If you look really closely, along with the obvious waterfall on the right, on the left hand side of the mountain
you will see a couple of waterfalls

Baby Bookin'

When I picked up the mail today I got a long awaited item (ordered it on e-bay from an Australia seller that sent it 'media'..took 5 weeks)- The Baby Book we will use if we are blessed with adoption:

Trying to figure out what would fit the need best for what we will try to communicate to our adoptive child as she/he gets older and gets to read and hear about how she/he came to become part of her forever family was quite a research project- do you use just a typical baby book that mentions not a word about adoption, or do you go with a baby book that talks about their adoption story- we went with a well written baby book that will talk about our child's adoption story.  It was an interesting comparison to my boys baby books- I wanted to make sure that our adoptive child's book was emotionally attachable and not just detached facts-
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Eli's 'baby book' is stuffed full of information of what my pregnancy was like (I gained 41 pounds and he had hiccups all the time)- it also has the typical 'first shots, first hair cut (Eli's little hair is taped under that caption), etc...Ryan's book contains far less extra curricular items like 1st birthday candles and first hair cut hair and more somber, serious information-  hospital visit bands (the ones that you wear on your wrist when a patient), most of the pictures are of him with oxygen tubes, IV's, and documentation of what a miracle it is that he survived his first couple years of life.  Each book unique and each book filled with information that will be fascinating for them to read some day (or maybe just for me to oohh and goo over every once in awhile).   Both of their books, while unique to each child, communicate a warm, informational, and bonding story........
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In our adoption baby book it covers topics like:

• Our Journey to you (included in this will be years worth of Journal entries penned out to our precious child) 
• Our very first Meeting with sub topics like 'our first impression of you and your first impression of us'
• All about your name and what it means and where it came from (the anticipation of whether our child's birth mom will choose the name or we get to)
• Your adoption buddies with places for pictures and spots to fill in favorite memories with these particular people

The questions go on for 40plus exciting pages- 40 pages that I can HARDLY WAIT to fill out- I already feel emotionally bonded to it!  There is not doubt that this book will contain every bit of warmth and love that my boys books contain- if not more :)