Last Week

One of the blessings of living in Hawaii is the amazing fresh fish we get to eat. Unfortunately, neither Jason or I are crazy about spending the day out trolling on a deep sea fishing boat looking for swarms of birds. We have both done it and we've been lucky to catch fish, but it's just so much easier to buy the fish at the store or at the fish market. Sometimes we get really lucky and find a fisherman parked at the side of the road selling his fresh catch. You still have to fillet the fish, but you can get it for a much better price. Jason got lucky a few days ago and we have been eating some delicious Ono since. In fact, Ono means delicious in Hawaiian. Yesterday Jason prepared the Ono in a coconut curry sauce. It was fabulous!



Cole and Aidan both performed in their school talent show last week. We got pictures of them, but the stage pictures didn't turn out. Cole sang and played "Hound Dog" with his ukulele club. The picture shows them getting tuned up and ready outside just before the performance. Aidan also sang and did actions to "Captain Josiah Track Your Train." He learned the song in music class and performed with one other boy and three girls. It was very cute. I can't believe my boys like to perform, especially considering how frightening it is for both Jason and me. I hope they continue to have such confidence.


The Loco Moco is a dish unique to Hawaiian cuisine. There are many variations, but the essential loco moco consists of white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and brown gravy. Jason finally got a Loco Moco at Joe's on the Green last week. After years of living here he decided it was time to try it. We don't eat a lot of hamburger at our house. In fact, the only time I buy it is when we are having friends over for a barbeque. Jason loves most other traditional hawaiian breakfast fare like portugese sausage with eggs and rice, musubis and malasadas, but the loco moco never did sound too appealing to him. He was able to get it all down, but decided he would be ordering something else next time. One bite was enough for me!


Cole's GT Math teacher invited him to be in the Robotics Club this year. He and his friend, Shane were the only 3rd graders in the club, the others were all in 4th and 5th grades. He and Shane have been spending the last hour of school on Fridays building a robot out of Legos. They got to show it off at the Robotics Expo at the mall on Saturday.


I love the smell of sawdust. I also love to watch Jason build. He is a builder...a good one too and I'm not biased. It is not often that I get to watch him work. It wouldn't look good to have me tagging along to all of his various jobs. Saturday night he built some wooden containers to store his tile saws in. Sadie, Aidan, and I set up a picnic right next to his little project. We ate carrots and grapes while we watched Daddy work to the smell of sawdust and the sound of the wood saw. It was great!

Sadie's Last Day

Sadie has been attending the Kalaheo Missionary Pre-School all year and has loved it. For her last day some of the parents threw the kids a party. They had a bounce house, pizza, and lots of fun party favors.

Sadie with her classmates, Pastor Ed (Sadie calls him "Pastor Edge") and her teachers


Sadie with her teachers, Mrs. Barcelona and Mrs. Kaneshige


Sadie with her favorite friends from school, Ethan and Francesca





The kids had as much fun jumping on the deflated bounce house

6 New Babies!

Our friend, Yvonne, ordered about two dozen laying hens from the mainland. They arrived in a box at the Post Office and the Postmaster asked her to come quickly to pick up her noisy package. She offered to share some of her babies with us. I told Jason we should let the kids each bring one home. They came home with two each. So far, they have been super easy to take care of and they get lots of attention....especially from Sadie.


Sadie named her chicks Polly and Cheepy



A typical Sadie moment... she had Polly sitting in an old half dead plant in the back of her dump truck running around with my shoes on.

Aidan with Kylie and Kaylie

Cole with Leah and Nicole

Aidan gives me a flower to put behind my ear every day. He wanted to get a picture of his chicks with a flower too.

MAY DAY

The kids collected the plumeras for their leis...they smelled SO sweet









The first day of May. May Day or Lei Day is an annual celebration of Hawaiian culture. For some reason Kalaheo School celebrated May Day on the 22nd this year. Kalaheo School has two Kumus (teachers of Hawaiian culture). One for the younger grades and one for the older grades. Throughout the year the students are taught Hawaiian culture, history, song, and dance by Kumu. My boys LOVE Kumu. I have watched Kumu teach and I love him too. He is a lot of fun and has a great rapore with the kids. Later in the year he teaches each grade a song and dance to perform for May Day on the school's big grassy field and everyone is invited to come and watch. Each Hawaiian island is represented by a Royal Hawaiian Court made up of students who qualify based on good behavior and then by lottery. The Royal Court also perform a special dance at the end of the program. May Day is an event we look forward to all year.

This year Aidan and his classmates each made their own "hawaiian tops" out of kukui nuts. They used these as props for their dance titled "Hu," the Hawaiian word for top (the toy that you spin). Aidan's "Hu" stunk. Aidan told us they all did. The "Hu" somehow ended up coming along with us on our drive up to the north shore right after the big May Day program. The smell made me a little sick and I was tempted to get rid of it, but knew I couldn't. We rolled down the windows and tried to deal with the unpleasantness the best we could.

Cole also made a prop this year. His was a gourd that he had to clean out, sand, and paint. The 3rd graders danced with their gourds and blew into them a couple times during their song.

The highlight of the performance for me was the very last number. All grades K-5 sang and did sign language to the song "I Have A Dream," which was the theme this year. As I watched all the kids sing and sign to that song I got choked up and teary eyed...very touching.

Another hightlight was hearing Cole's name announced as the winner of the Program Cover Design. I didn't have a program so I hadn't seen his artwork. Cole didn't know that he had won until minutes before the program so we were surprised, of course. Jason and I didn't even know he had submitted any artwork. After Cole was called up front to be recognized I had a friend give me her program to keep. Way to go COLE! He also got $10 for his contribution to May Day.

A charley horse and my friend, Ronny

Today was the day! This morning I woke up in PAIN...pain in my calf. A charley horse. I have been waiting for one to occur and dreading the day it came. I have even been eating bananas for extra potassium, which supposedly helps prevent them. I get them towards the end of EVERY pregnancy. They usuallly come when I am half asleep, but as soon as that pain hits I am WIDE awake...writhing in pain. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, owwwww," I said over and over again to my sleeping partner, who didn't wake up. Probably the same thing I will be saying in a couple months from now when I am in labor. Maybe I have just forgotten how bad they hurt, but this charley seemed to be particularlly painful. Even after a couple of hours of stretching and massaging, my muscles were still so sore that I had to limp around.

Jason took the kids to school for me... AGAIN. Then I called my friend, Ronny, to let her know I wouldn't be helping with flowers this morning for tomorrow's big May Day celabration at school. In a matter of minutes Ronny was at my house with her ancient Chinese herbal cure...brought over to Kauai from China by her great grandmother. Ronny gently massaged my calf while applying the medicine. Then was off to do her magic with flowers...decorating the school for the big day.

As I limped around the kitchen baking zuchini and banana bread for Relief Society enrichment tonight. I thought about Ronny. She is a true friend...not just to me, but to everyone. She is always helping others with no expectations of anything in return. She is such a giving person and I truly admire her. At the beginning of my pregnancy when I was so sick, Ronny made dinner for my family many times...she is an amazing cook by the way. She didn't tell me she would cook for us...so that I couldn't turn her down. She just did it. Before we came back to Kauai, Ronny found us a house to rent and got Sadie into pre-school (which was full at the time) I could go on and on about ways she has helped us. The thing is she does things like this for everyone she knows. Ronny and I often go walking in the mornings together. Almost everyone we see along the way, except for tourists, knows her. They usually stop to say "Hi" or chat for a few minutes. She is loved by many.

As I thought about Ronny I realized I wasn't limping anymore. My calf is still very tender to the touch, but I am now walking normally. Normal enough to collect flowers to make leis this afternoon with my boys for May Day and normal enough to fulfill my responsiblities at enrichment tonight. Ancient Chinese secret just might have worked. Hooray for Ronny!

Just a Random Post

Aloha Fridays
Often on Friday afternoons we pack up the boogie boards and head out to Major's Bay on the west side. It's got great waves, spectacular sunsets, and very few people. Then we head over to Shenanigan's for dinner which has great pizza and other good grinds. I guess you could call it family date night. We have good times at Major's!

Letting Sadie be the Princess

Sadie does well in our family of boys. She is usually ready and eager to follow her brothers in their adventures...but not always. On Saturday, Jason loaded the truck with all of the bikes and family members...minus one fat, pregnant Mamma and set off for a ride in the mountains to what Aidan calls the "promised land." Aidan named this place after the promised land in the Book of Mormon (I think because of the effort it takes to get there.) It's a great place, but the trail is a beast.

I enjoyed a good 45 minutes of peace and quiet, but wasn't surprised when the truck arrived back home to unload a cute purple bike and a sweet little princess. Sadie tried. She even made it about 1/2 a mile up the trail, but then she was done. She was ready to be a princess. So we spent the afternoon doing nails, dressing up, and dancing to princess music. It's fun to have a princess in the family.

HOOPS

The boys LOVED playing basketball...and we were ALL sad to see the season end.
It was actually the highlight of my week to go watch the boys play. Cole played awesome and learned how to share the ball with his teammates, while still making lots of baskets each game. Aidan surprised us. It was his first experience playing basketball on a team. He is a great defensive player. He was constantly stealing the ball from the other team and was especially entertaining to watch. Some of his fake out maneuvers had the whole crowd in laughter. I asked him who taught him his moves. To my surprise he said, "Dad did."

One of our home teachers had told me that we were depriving our kids...because we don't have cable TV so they have few opportunities to watch professional sports. To that I say, "Who needs to watch the pros throw tantrums when your own dad can teach you some highly entertaining moves?"

Hiking and Strawberry Guava

Biking is now uncomfortable, boogie boarding hurts, running is too jarring, but walking is just right. So for exercise I've been walking and hiking. I've been able to go on some great hikes and some, for my first time. Jason and I hiked the sleeping giant trail for the first time a couple of weeks ago....the best thing about it was the delicious strawberry guava that we ate all along the way. Most of the trail is lined with Strawberry Guava trees so we had our fill and brought lots home for the kids to eat as well.

Field Trips
The kids have had lots of field trips lately. Sadie has two this week. I like tagging along on field trips and fortunately, Cole isn't embarrassed of me yet...so I'll keep tagging along while I still can. I went with him on his reef walk and ate lunch with him too.

Scooping

The kids can never get enough of this activity...which is great because it's free, it's nature, and it's exploring and learning.

Aidan Harvested His Radishes

Insomnia...again

It's early, 5:30am, and I've been up since 3:30am. I've had a little insomnia during this pregnancy. It's strange because I crawl into bed some nights so tired that I have Jason tuck the kids into bed without me. Then 1am, 2am, or 3am I wake up unable to fall back to sleep, now wishing I could wake the kids and give them their goodnight hugs and kisses that I was too tired to give them a few hours ago. Some nights I just lie there, feeling my baby kick or hiccup inside my belly, hoping I fall back to sleep. Some nights I wake Jason and we talk and he holds me until I go back to sleep. Some nights I read scriptures. Last night, or this morning I should say, I read from 2 Nephi. I was reading some of Lehi's last words to his children...his hopes and desires for all of them...his fears for some of them. He loved them so much. Then I began thinking about my own children and decided to write letters to each of them, not my hopes and desires for them. I wrote about my feelings of gratitude for the blessing of being their mother. As I wrote and thought about each one of them and their own unique gifts, I thought about how much each one of my children has taught me. I know I won't really know until the next life, but I am almost positive that their spirits are much older and wiser than my own. I am very blessed to have such special, precious teachers as my children. Then I began thinking about my nephew, Christoph, and his perfect spirit. What a blessing it was to be with him. I can only imagine how much his mother and father, sisters and brother miss him. His birthday was Saturday. He would have turned thirteen. We had twelve short, but very sweet years with him on earth, and now forever to hope for and look forward to. I miss you, Christoph!

I can't wait til my kids wake up and I can give them their goodnight AND good morning hugs and kisses and to tell them I love them. This life is short.