Let’s have coffee! Updates, Links and Aloha here
Well we are transitioning from one season to the next now, and I thought we should all just take a minute to check in! How about you pull up a chair and grab your coffee…
So: how are you doing? Was summer all you hoped it would be? (winter for some of you! So crazy! :)) Are you feeling ready for the next season?
If you’ve been around a while you know I’m a lover of autumn, (which doesn’t exactly exist in Hawaii) so when your leaves start to fall, think of me. And feel free to send photos.
Here in Hawaii most schools start at the beginning of August. (way too early, in my opinion.) We’re on our second week now, and trying hard to find our groove. Read: painful.
Here’s just a few quick family updates from our end:
**Levi has officially caught the surfing bug. Here’s a fun little video from Instagram last week…
–Levi is also playing soccer now.
(and six-year-olds playing soccer are seriously the cutest thing ever. I die.)
–Jonah joined a high school cross-country team. It’s not exactly official, (homeschoolers are not allowed to participate in school sports around here — isn’t that a bummer?) but he is training with a real team and loving it. I think he’s gonna be a really good runner! Speaking of running…
*The Olympics!!…Don’t you guys just LOVE them!? So tell me: What’s your favorite part of the summer Olympics? I don’t think I can choose. Well, obviously there’s gymnastics. We also love all of the track events, and beach volleyball is so much fun to watch. I just wish it could go on forever!
PS about the women’s gymnastics: Did you see the 41-year-old woman on the vault? Wow, right?! So, it got me a little pumped up, and then I started thinking/wondering what you guys thought about my idea of going for it in 2020…?
No? Oh…ok. (My boys just shook their head.) Never mind.
#thatwasawkward
*On the Farm: We’ve got some fabulous late summer harvests happening: LOTS of (big!) avocados, and the usual: bananas and papaya. Mango season was a big let-down for us this year. Boo. 🙁 Coming soon: Starfruit, pomelo, and mountain apple. Which = juicing, juicing, and more juicing.
I’ll leave you with a few recent instagrams and some fun full moon shots Josiah took in the wee hours of the morning. Then be sure to scroll down and click on some of my favorite links from the interwebs…
That ^^ was a GoPro shot by Luke.
Below: Josiah’s full-moon photos: (look for the stars! :))
And here’s a few recent shots from my @healthyhappyandfree instagram feed! A fruit and veggie smoothie, an energy bar, and (every third post is) an inspirational quote. 😉
ALSO: In case you haven’t heard the news…
Each Friday during AUGUST, I am choosing ONE PERSON who has either shared my book, The Secret of Your Naturally Skinny Friends, on their Instagram feed (by a photo, mention, or whatever! Just make sure to tag @healthyhappyandfree) OR left a review for the book on AMAZON (and let me know they did it!) and I am sending them a $20 AMAZON GIFT CARD, AND sharing their photo on my instagram feed!
You still have time to enter –so share a photo or leave a review now!
**Here’s last week’s winner, who wrote a great post on her blog sharing about her favorite podcasts, and about her love for my book! 😉 Yay and thanks!
MORE ONLINE…
**The boys teamed up with Levi’s for this post over at the SheKnows website, talking about back to school, denim, and how we keep it classy, island-style.
**Triggers– the amazing book that helps us deal with anger in parenting… just came out with a STUDY GUIDE! You can read my review of Triggers, here. Book is on sale this week, so grab the book AND the study guide now!
More posts from around the internet…
Healthy Fats for Kids over at The Lean Green Bean Blog. (super interesting info!)
Warm Spinach Bacon Salad with Chicken also from The Lean Green Bean. I have always loved a warm spinach salad, and what’s weird: I’ve never made one!
BBQ Chicken Sweet Potato Pizza. (Happening Friday night at my house, in case you’re wondering.)
Your Kid is a Brat and it’s Your Fault (okay I laughed so hard. And it’s all true! And yes I’m busted, too.)
Connecting with Your Teen Daughter From my girl-mom counterpart. (I love her!) Kari Kampakis.
Don’t Text While Parenting — It will make your cranky From Time.com. Ouch, and #truth.
The One Parenting Tip We Should All Steal from Prince William from House Beautiful. Everyone loves a parenting tip from a Prince!
INSPIRED article at The Interia about our friend, and big-wave world-record holder, Aaron Gold. This guy is a legend. (Appreciated the mention of Luke and I in it!)
50 Photos to Take this fall. (if you’re so lucky as to have fall. :)) *sniff sniff*
Hey thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me here! I adore you all, and I hope you’ll leave me a comment telling me anything (anything!) about your life, your summer (or was it winter?) which sport YOU would choose to do in the Olympics…or anything else!
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here soon!
XO
Mon
Monica: I love, love, love your blog and Always share your posts on FB. I’m a mom of two Boys in Peru, South América, and I think I came upon your blog because I’m Always searching for info and ideas on raising Boys which I absulutely adore. Congratulations on a very inspiring blog. Big kisses, Jackie
Oh thank you Jackie!! So nice of you to take time to tell me that! I love hearing from you (all the way from Peru, wow!) Thank you for sharing my posts on Facebook–that means so much to me! Please say hi again any time, you’re a big encouragement! 🙂 Aloha-
Hello,
Home for me is South Dakota. That’s where my heart feels at home anyway as I grew up and lived there for the first 38 years of my life. However, we now live on the Gulf Coast of FL. I also really miss the changing of the seasons and the cool crisp air that comes in the fall.
So, what do I do about it? I admire all of my family and friends’ pictures on FB or Instagram of the beautiful fall leaves and their harvest pictures as well. Then I decorate our apartment with a Fall theme. Our Scentsy warmer is filled with the aromas of warm apples and pumpkin, my favorite scents of the season.
School started at 7:05am here on Aug. 10. We are still working on readjusting our 15 year old daughter, Kylee’s sleep schedule after the lazy summer days. It can be a challenge but…. it will happen hopefully before October. 😉
Thanks for sharing your life with us.
God Bless, Renee
Renee–I love it all! I do the same exact thing when “fall” hits! 🙂 (and it’s not all bad either, right? We can pretend and then still go to the beach when we want to! haha) That back to school adjustment can be quite rough, but hang in there! Thank you for taking time to comment. Much aloha to you! 🙂
Getting caught up on your blog. Took a break from blog reading for the summer. School starts here on Monday, but our homeschool group doesn’t start for about three more weeks, so we’re going to enjoy a few more weeks of summer. It’s hot here (Texas), so I don’t feel much like doing school yet! 🙂 So, what’s in your fruit and veggie smoothie?! It looks SO good!
Good for you Andria! I’m with you–when it’s the hottest time of the year it just doesn’t feel right to be starting school! About the smoothie–Hmmm, might have to scroll back on my instagram feed to find it, but I think it was almond milk, papaya, banana, cucumber…Oh I’m not sure but I mix up just about anything and it always seems to taste good if there’s fruit in there. 😉 XO
We are just three weeks into homeschool here on the Island and we love the community here. My kids are rather busy but are making the adjustment so far. I am wondering how they are going to like not having snow or snowdays.
Oh so glad you are enjoying the community here! We call it “snow days” when our electricity goes out or there’s a big storm or something…haha, not the same but exciting none-the-less! Keep up the great work and say hi if you ever bump into me. 🙂
That pic of the turtle??? Amazing! The stars/moon shot — seriously awesome. And the smoothie? I am now craving one! You and your boys are so talented in so many things! I just can’t get enough of your blog and your pictures! I love your family and the wonderful life you have created for them in such an amazing place!
Two more things I LOVE…. the Olympics and Hawaii. Swimming and diving might be my favorite. So fun. I have been watching the Games at night on the tv with my computer on my lap, taking time between races and dives to research and plan our big trip to your islands next summer! We are coming for a whole month to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Renewing our vows with our kids by our side… I really cannot wait!:)
Please keep writing and sharing… your words and wisdom are so welcome! All the best to your boys as they start this new season of school!
Angela–Thank you for such a sweet and fun comment! Love hearing from you! And I am thrilled that you get to spend a full month in Hawaii including vow renewals!? So awesome! (and such a testimony to your kids!) Thanks for the encouraging words…be blessed and have a great weekend! aloha-
Call me crazy, but there’s something I love about the back to school routine. I just came home from dropping my boys off at school, and I’m enjoying a cup of coffee alone while catching up on my favorite blogs. This week was hard, dropping off my baby at full day kindergarten was harder than I thought, but now that I’m over the boo-hoo of it all, I get to enjoy myself!
I love the Olympics too! My favorite is track and field, when I was a teenager I used to dream I was the fastest runner in the world 😉
Kisses from Colorado.
Lucy — Oh believe you me, I occasionally day dream about your back to school routine, haha. It sounds so peaceful and I imagine the rhythm is so good…
I always love to hear from you so thank you, and have a great weekend in Colorado (another thing I day dream about–and your fall will be spectacular I know!) XO
Fantastic blog as always!!! Gymnastics is also one of my faves at the Olympics and YES – I did see the 41 year old woman on the vault – absolutely incredible!!!
Thanks for the links to the articles and books – always looking to learn more about the mystifying time of adolescence…. funny that we were all there once and there’s still so much to learn!!!
Thank you for commenting, Jaclyn! Love hearing from you, and you’re right-there is always more to learn (and the world is certainly a changing! :)) Much aloha-
I love love love the olympics. Yes, I am drawn to gymnastics, beach volleyball and cycling (road) over the other sports. I have followed and loved Chuso for years, and Aly and that Laurie!!!! Oh and the dutch gal who took Gold on beam, I haven’t seen a routine that elegant on beam in ages. Anyway, I digress. My favorite part of the olympics, to be honest, is not the simone biles and michael phelps and Keri Walsh Jenkins. It’s the Refugee team. Tt’s the Fiji Men’s Rugby team who won their countries FIRST EVER olympic medal. It’s Majlinda Kelmendi from Kosovo who not only won her countries first medal it was her countries first Olympics under their own flag. It’s Etimoni Timuani, the lone athlete from Tuvalu, seriously he is the only athlete from his country competing in the olympics.
Oh goodness, sorry, I get a little excited about the olympics.
haha! Isn’t it fun!? I agree Sandy, those are all such good stories but not covered nearly as much on NBC… :/ I also really love (most of all I think) the stories of the runners who fall down, help each other up, or get injured and keep going…So incredibly inspiring! Thanks for commenting, I love your passion!
What a fun post – thank you! I’ve always loved warm spinach salads too…it’s probably BECAUSE I’ve never made one. Ha. Just moved to TX so I’ll be missing all the seasons too…#miserylovescompany. Cheers!
Hey Hey Hey… I was just checking in to see the latest and saw TRIGGERS here as well. You are such a dear to share it with your friends! And all the pics of the boys are fabulous – but the video of Levi SLAYS ME! Too cute. We are heading back to school in 10 days, but first a week long Alaskan cruise, It’s chaos right now, but I’m looking forward to some serious fun!