Independence Day Musubis

I know everyone must be wondering why I suddenly stopped making bento every day for like two weeks. Unfortunately, June is grant writing month at the office and we were pretty smashed doing writing, forms in a dozen drafts, etc. Then my kids got 102 fevers a couple days apart and I had to stay home a couple days last week. It’s been crazy to say the least.

Over the 4th of July weekend, I decided I wanted us to take the kids to the Ala Moana fireworks show again. It’s the biggest on Oahu and the only thing wrong with it is that you have to get there super early, sit on the concrete parking lot for hours, and then getting out is a mess. Fortunately, with the right parking plan, it isn’t all that bad. For food, I made Spam, White, and Blue musubis! 🙂

When we went four years ago, getting out was extremely frustrating. We sat gridlocked in our van for over an hour, just trying to get out of the Ala Moana parking lot. That explains why it’s been four years since we last went. This time, we parked on the other side of Ala Moana on the fourth floor, close to a ramp. It helped a lot that Ala Moana now employs security to direct traffic. The rain threatened several times, but we stuck it out and when the show started, the sky was dry and the show was fantastic. The kids loved it, so that was great.

The musubis were pretty easy, I simply made two batches of rice, one white and one dyed blue. I was thinking of making entire musubis red, white, and blue but while I was brainstorming I realized that the spam could be the red part and all I had to do was provide blue and white rice. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!

This is a bento I made last week, but never found the time to post. We had taken the kids to eat at Farrell’s at Pearlridge on Tuesday and Buddy didn’t finish his entire cheeseburger. I’d brought my leftover fries home as well, but they were too soggy to eat. I replaced them with apple fries and ate the garden tomatoes with the lettuce as a salad.

I’ve signed up for an intensive kickboxing course called KUT (Kickboxers Ultimate Training) at the Martial Arts and Family Fitness center at Puck’s Alley. It’s a nine week, six days a week course that I’m hoping will get me motivated for losing weight again and eating healthier. They provide nutrition guidance, so it’s kind of like a bento challenge for me as well, since I’ll have to stick to certain restricted foods for my lunches. It starts July 25th, so that should be interesting… and painful… and gruesome. Expect lots of whiny posts for the first few weeks while I lament the pain in my everything.