So Squid, Wormy, and the Husband are all on spring break this week. I am not. Since this is an awfully long stretch of time for them to be left to their own devices, I have planned some virtual vacations for them. I am going to share them all with you in case you are in need of some resources to make it through a long break.
Today, we are traveling to Hawaii. My husband and I went in 2009, so we are more than happy to share our vacation photos with the girls. When we got up this morning, we put on our Hawaiian shirts, leis, and bright colors. This helped our mood since this was the view outside:
For breakfast, we had the ever-popular SPAM and Eggs. We went to the Spam museum in Minnesota last summer, so we have a case of the variety pack of Spam. What better time to bust that out than self-quarantine?!?
After we finished breakfast, my husband showed the girls our vacation pictures while I did some video conferencing. After that, it was time to enter the world of Virtual Touring. I had a 30 minute “Travel to Hawaii” video that the girls watched, and a video from a helicopter tour we took on Kauai. However, even if you are not owners of this awesomeness, we quickly moved on to more general resources you can access. We visited these two virtual tours of Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii:
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2013/06/take-virtual-tour-hawaii-volcanoes-national-park-video23427 – this is a very cool video of images from the tops of the volcanoes set to some music that Wormy really got excited about. I think the movie was about 3 minutes.
https://artsandculture.withgoogle.com/en-us/national-parks-service/hawaii-volcanoes/nahuku-lava-tube-tour – This was a really neat virtual tour done by a Park Ranger of some of the features of the park. You can click and drag to change your view and click other features to get supplemental materials. We were watching on it from our living room tv while screen mirroring from my ipad. The only reason I mention this is because I was using Google Chrome, and the interactive components did not work until I switched to Safari. Be sure to try it out in a few different browsers if you have trouble. Our favorite part of this was the fly over of the volcano!
After this, we explored two free apps on our Apple TV. The Trip USA app was a favorite, as there was a special on the Spam Jam festival in Hawaii. We also watched a virtual tour of Pearl Harbor. The apps both contain short little videos of different parts of the island, the US, and the world. If Hawaii isn’t your chosen virtual destination, be sure to check out somewhere else!
Squid had gotten a Sea Monsters kit for Christmas a few years ago, and we just hadn’t gotten to growing the little guys yet, so we also started that. I’m scrared…very scared! Haha
By this time, after all of the Virtual travels, we needed to get up and bounce around. It was time to learn to Hula. We watched this YouTube video to learn some basics. We were being a little goofy, as in one of the Apple TV programs we watched, they said the Hula actually began as a way for men to prepare themselves for battle. Squid and I kept joking about getting ready to attack…
We were pretty good at the Kaholo, but I still need help with my Kawelu!!!
Next up the girls had the option of watching “Lilo and Stitch” or “Moana.” The girls chose “Lilo and Stitch,” and I went back to work.
After the movie, we worked on learning some Hawaiian words, through the help of: https://www.trafalgar.com/real-word/hawaiian-words-and-phrases/ There are a few other websites that offer audio files of the pronunciations, but some of them had a big long list of words. We only wanted a few.
Finally, we ended with dinner. My husband made Kalua Pork while I was working. It’s the recipe from the local Hawaiian store in Wauwatosa – Ono Kine Grindz. Basically you take a pork roast, cover it in Hawaiian salt and Wright’s liquid smoke, wrap it in banana leaves and let it do it’s thing in the oven. I’m sure you could just make your favorite pork recipe if you were looking for a meal idea. We served it with canned pineapple chunks to get the Hawaiian feel. Before the girls could eat, we watched performances from a Hawaiian luau through this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Z1pqts5N0&feature=youtu.be
During dinner we listened to music by Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole, as he is one of our favorite musicians.
It wasn’t quite the same as going to Hawaii, but I got more work done and the girls didn’t seem to get bored. 🙂
Car Full of Harmony 
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