YUM, CHERRIES! We live in a somewhat quiet neighborhood, on a street called Cherry Lane. We are the noisiest part of the block.
CHAOS IS A WAY OF LIFE HERE
Minutes before I started typing this introduction, my seven year old daughter, Lily, was screaming, crying, pouting – whatever you want to call the tantrum she was throwing. Apparently, she did not like the fact that I was ending her computer session on PBSkids.org. Here! I took a picture for you. Take a look for yourself.
Immediately after that, I took a picture of my four year old son, McCann. I know he looks innocent, but just minutes before I snapped the “crying” photo of Lily, he managed to get more water outside of the tub than inside it, during his bath time. This is life around Cherry Lane. Things like this happen all the time.
CRAZY IS A WAY OF LIFE HERE
My neighbor, Mindy Gledhill (in the mud fight picture with my wife above), has a t-shirt that says, “I have a black belt in crazy!” I love that shirt. It almost describes my family. Only, instead of having a black belt in crazy, we have taken it to the Jedi Master level.
BUSY IS A WAY OF LIFE HERE
Most families would have a hard time keeping up with us. Once we babysat our friends’ son, Andrew. That day we built a compost bin, made homemade tomato soup, dined on the soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, made chocolate raspberry shakes, played bingo, browsed Christmas toy catalogues, miniature golfed, saw a 4D movie, played a session of PBSkids.org, and played on our playground in the back yard. My friend said, and I quote, “You were just supposed to babysit him. It’s not his birthday. Next time I’m coming along.” It may seem crazy to most, but that is a normal day around here.
PARTY IS A WAY OF LIFE HERE
Can I even count the parties? First party of the year is GNO (Girls’ Night Out). One February, I threw a last minute, surprise Valentine’s Day present for my wife – a night out with her friends in our neighborhood. I called all of them, but only ten of them were home or able to make it. It has since become an annual tradition (limited to just the ten girls) where they are treated like queens.
Each year has a different theme. One year we had a person give all the girls pedicures, while another year they went out to the restaurant of their choice. Last year’s theme was “Heavy on Dessert,” and they had over 15 different homemade delectable desserts to choose from.
They seem to have lots of fun.
I guess I could go on forever talking about the details of all our various parties, but to cut it short, we have three different block parties every summer (June, July & August),
an annual water balloon fight,
and our Cherry Lane Scare every October.
CUISINE IS A WAY OF LIFE HERE
Our life revolves around food, which is ironic, because my daughter has a genetic disorder that should prohibit us from this way of life.
But, I was born with a wooden spoon in my hand (And a whisk in my mouth).
and my wife was raised on a farm where everything was made from scratch, and attention to culinary details was a must.
IT ALL STARTED WITH SALSA
When my good friend Penina asked for my salsa recipe, I decided to make the experience fun by creating a pretend cooking show and uploaded it to Facebook and YouTube for her.
The show became such a hit, with our friends and family that we continued filming episodes. Because our episodes were so crazy, my wife suggested we call our show Cooking in Chaos With Luhi & Lily. Our first blog was born.
But we quickly created other blogs highlighting other things we did...like reading...
Swimming.
Picnicing.
Visiting museums.
Mud fights.
Dressing up.
Balloon fests
And just general goofing around.
Oh! I can t forget that we blog about the interesting people we meet when we are out on the street. Guys that dress up in Morph suits, and buy ice cream and...
girls that dress up like ballerinas and go to the grocery store. There are fun people like this all over.
We combined all this into our current blog, CherryLaneDiaries.com. What you are reading now. Imagine that!
MEET THE CREW
This is McCann. His nick name is “Tornado.” I bet you might be able to guess why. He likes to climb on top of everything, torture his younger sister and his older brother, and terrorize our dog Emma.
This is Lily. She is our angel. She has a rare genetic disorder called Prader-Willi Syndrome. With this syndrome, her hypothalamus stops working properly, and she doesn’t receive the signal that she is full. She loves to eat. Also, whatever she does, she does it 100%, whether she is sad, mad or glad.
This is Brandon. He is the only mellow kid in our family. Brandon is also the family football fanatic. He also likes to help in the kitchen. Especially when we are making something that he likes to eat.
This is Emma. Santa gave her to us for Christmas a few years ago. She is the best dog ever. But don t feed her anything else but dog food or she will stink up the house.
This is Fauneil. A long time ago there was a party in an orchard in Montana. There was dancing, good food, candles in the trees, and the prettiest girl in the world was wearing a white dress. I was lucky enough to marry that pretty girl. That was the most important day of my life and the start of all the chaos. Fauneil has been at the core of it ever since.
This is me, Kaluhiokalani, or Luhi for short. I love to cook. My other big passions are interior design, English gardening, and graphic design. My most favorite thing to do, though, is hanging out with family and friends. You will see this if you read my blog.
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