From the Archives

Everyone needs to see something from the Archives ever now and again. I just came across these cuties while looking through my photo files and thought I should share them with you. I can’t sleep: I was so tired at work that I drank an entire Arizona Green Tea on my break… I am still reaping the benefits and am wide awake!

I can’t believe the kids have grown so much since this picture was taken! They are still just as cute and even more silly!

This was taken at our favorite spot at Lydgate a couple weeks ago–or so. I can’t believe it is the 13th already, so who knows when it was taken. It was recent, that is all I can tell you.

I am happy to report that Jona, Foster & Viohl are doing well on our local radio station KONG FM 93.5 and even today I heard their remake of Let It Be this morning after getting fingerprinted for my new job (more on that later). If you haven’t heard it yet, you must check out their website and stay for a listen or two. I have attached a link somewhere on this site so that you can purchase the cd from cdBaby.com. The band makes more if people buy it from their site, but it is up on CD Baby for those people who don’t have a PayPal acount.

Ok. I will write more later. Just wanted to check in and tease you all with a photo (more to come) and say a few words about the CD. I am still promising a “feature article” sometime in the future… soon…

Happy New Year! Wow: 2010 (I keep writing ‘01 instead).

It looks as if keeping track of “deadlines” should go somewhere on my list of things to do in 2010, as well as “write more” on my blog. I joined Write-of-Passage and have written, what, once? Well. Always something.
I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions…or vow to do stuff in the coming year. I make goals. The Bible says “let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” and something about how we should keep the vows we make. I am human. I will break the vows I make for the coming year (obviously didn’t have luck with that in the past, so why set myself up for breaking a promise?). Goals are good though. It gives something to look for, allows for mistakes and I am not making a promise I can’t (or won’t) keep. I have a thing for goals anyhow: made my first set of life goals in third grade. I made it my goal to 1. learn the piano 2. learn the violin. On the piano I would learn to play Fur Elise, The Blue Danube and one other piece I forget what it was. I was able to take piano lessons, but the violin lessons never materialized. Something about my parents not wanting to endure the squeaky stage? As a result of this, I. Don’t. Get. Stringed instraments. They don’t make sense to me. Oh well. Maybe someday I will be able to cross “violin” off my list.

This is what my list for 2010 looks like:
* Go Kayaking (Wailua River)
* Go Hiking up Sleeping Giant and maybe other trails.
* Throw stuff OUT…minimalize as much as possible.
* Make the chorus to the song Give me your eyes by Brandon Heath, the prayer of my heart this year.

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
Yeah
Yeah
yeah
yeah

You can find the rest of the lyrics here.
It is so easy to get bitter at people: tourists who come through on vacation with only thoughts of thier vacation and how inconvienent it is for them to stand in line at the store. People who think life is just perfect because I live in Hawai`i it has to be great (actually did have a lady tell me that! She had asked me, “How are you?” I replied, “OK.” To which she replied, “You live in Hawaii, right?” I couldn’t deny that, “yes.” And she repied with a flippant, “Than it’s great!” Not sure I really talked to her beyond taking her credit slip after that. She had no idea what she was talking about. Or the customer who is just, shall we say, hormonal, or difficult? Or the North Shore folk who make the trip down to Lihu’e and think nothing about spending over $300 just in Christmas Decorations for their vacation home?
I have also met some really, uhmmm, not so bright people. But! They have a heart. These same people have hearts that care for other people. I might not get much help from them when I have a question, but I know they care… they have a heart. I need to stop and recognize that. I need to get past my irritation of other people…and look at them through Jesus’ eyes, through His heart… I don’t necessarily want to.
Or my neighbor upstairs. It is UNBELIEVABLE what we have to go through. Makes me feel not so bad when my kids are loud, or they cry… I think it just “serves him right” but that’s not a good attitude… (but on the other hand, I am pretty sure Jesus’ response would be to stretch out His arms and say, “PEACE, be STILL.”).
Yeah, I definitely need to work on looking at people and seeing thier hearts… even the snobbiest of tourist can still experience heartache that only God can heal. I want it to be my prayer so that I can be more compassionate and pray for those who cross my path…

My other goals have to have an action plan… so I gotta get out and walk more… find a friend who would want to go hiking with me as well as Kayaking. A Zipline would be fun too, but we’ll see. That one takes money! I need to get rid of stuff… that just takes TIME…

Also, should practice writing ‘10 and not ‘01!

Sorry to say, we were unable to fully watch the Titan’s game…and then they lost rather pathetically. Can’t be any worse than WSU losing to UW this past Apple Cup…

More on Christmas Day later. I am happy to report I have found where the photos are hiding! I will post more tomorrow (and on Facebook). Until then, goodnight!

I can’t find where I transfered our Christmas Day photos. Guess I am gonna have to continue looking. Until then, here is a photo I took with Morgan guys when I took their Christmas Photos. The surf was very rough that day!

A couple weeks ago we had Parent/Student/Teacher conferences at school. We had time beforehand, after taking Jack to work, so we went to Nawiliwili to watch the boats and look in the water. The kids saw four different kinds of fish in the water while we were there!

The kids are doing well in school. Hope got lots of 3’s and even one 4! She is natural student and loves school. She loves to write and “read” books. Brady does well in math and has started participating in Music. He has even been singing the Christmas songs he’s learned recently around the house and over the phone to grandparents. If he hasn’t sung to you yet, don’t worry! You’ll get your turn (or just call us up and say you would like to hear Brady sing). Brady also does well in Hawaiian Studies. His teacher for that class is impressed with how he notices the little details. He’s had a bit of an adjustmust to make from PreK to Kindergarten, but he is getting the hang of it. He does very well when he focuses and applies himself.

Just yesterday, with a small amount of help, Brady counted to 300. We are keeping track how far he counts because he made a goal of counting to 1000 during the break. I am so proud of him! It is his idea to count to 1000…

Both kids love school, for which I am very grateful! I love thier school too.

Just recently the school was given a grant so that the kids could paint murals for the fence outside of the McDonald’s construction site (should be ready in late spring of 2010). The older kids painted a beautiful scene of Hanalei Bay, only to have it ruined in the heavy rains we had last month around Thanksgiving break. It was very sad. They worked so hard on that mural and it was so nice to look at! The elementary kids’ murals are up now, after being treated so that they won’t run in the heavy rains that might come. My kids’ even helped work on it. The Prek helped with the geckos (stencils). The Rainbow mural was signed by all the elementary kids, including my two. I will try to get (or find) pictures of it soon.

We are now on Christmas break for two weeks!

Three more sleeps until Christmas. Guess I had better finish wrapping those gifts for the kids!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas Tree 2009

Our tree this year is finally getting its own distinct look. Every year we add more decorations to our tree. We started with lights and a garland that matched the sandcastle base that had been the display model where Jack bought it after the holidays for our first Christmas here on Kaua`i. We had been in in the PNW for the calender-date Christmas and waited to celebrate as a family when we got back. The following year we kept it to just lights as we had a Boy who I was afraid would take stuff off the tree as well as an infant who wouldn’t care anyhow. Our third Christmas here had a few ornaments towards the top of the tree mostly just lights… last year was another year of minimal-keep-out-of-reach-ornaments, with those in reach the (plastic) Snoopy ornaments that I fetched out of storage while on the mainland that April (2008).

During after holiday sales last year I picked up a box of “shatter proof” ornaments (aka “plastic”) that I hid in my closet all year. I hate plastic bags, but plastic ornaments are the greatest. I am not worried about kids breaking them and then me stepping on shards that have made their way into the kitchen somehow… the kids decorated the tree themselves this year, for the most part. I did the lights and all the more fragile ornaments (yeah, up towards the top of tree out of reach).

We have a definite theme this year. All my Snoopy/Peanut ornaments that I saved from the top of the Whitman’s Chocolate Sampler boxes started it. Our tree skirt is a Peanuts themed print. Jack found a yard ornament that has several of the Peanuts Gang and it is looking out our window.

The kids made ornaments in school this year, and they have joined the tree. As well as the ornament crafts they made last Christmas as well and ornaments received as gifts. It is getting a somewhat local feel too. Hope’s class made footprints in a pair of slippers. Too cute.

As beautiful as a perfectly themed out Christmas tree can be (e.i. by color, etc), I don’t think I would ever want one. I like the memories and associations that I attach to the ornaments on our tree. Like the Jack-in-the-Box snowman ornament: when Jack and I were still dating, we had gone through Jack-in-the-Box’s drive-thru and Jack decided to see what they would do if he told them his name was Jack… they gave us free food with our order, plus this tree ornament. Or the Starbuck’s coffee cup ornaments that my friend Lori gave us last year (she works at Starbucks). Or the fabric pine cone ornaments that I was given by volunteers at the Cowlitz County Historical Museum where I did my internship my Senior year in college. Or the wood bell nativity scene that Sue gave me back during our Junior College days at LCC. Or the ornaments I now have that in years to come will bring tears to my eyes as I see how much my kids have grown and remember our days on the beaches of Kaua`i.

It is nice to see that our Christmas tree is getting its own look. Remember the Christmas trees of your own youth? How certain ornaments had to be on the tree… in certain spots too… or was that just me?

Merry Christmas Newsletter…

I am not going to send out a Merry Christmas Newsletter this year. I just don’t have the energy or the gumption to do it. In its place, I will try to update this site more often and recap stuff if I can, but no long drawn out newsletter. This year has been long and crazy and full of stuff… we are probably still processing it all so a summarization of the year would be skewed and inaccurate at this time. From surgeries to furloughs and crazy neighbors to going back to work as a substitute teacher and a cashier, what a year it has been.

Soon I will do a feature on Jack and Jerry’s new CD… did you know they have been working on a CD with a freind of theirs? It is very close to completion. I will have links to the songs as soon as they are available for download and sale… one of the songs (which I LOVE) is a collaboration of several prominant local island artists. All proceeds from the download of that song will go to Easter Seals. I think it will be a hit, particularly locally.

Also, as we are not doing a Christmas photo this year (long story) I will try to post more photos that I have taken in general.

Hope you aren’t too sad that there will be no letter–or cards even. Usually at this time we have a bunch of cards, but this year, with what, nine days until Christmas, we are at a whopping FOUR cards… two being from Jack’s parents. I am thinking that we aren’t the only ones who are cutting back or dealing with stuffs so that Christmas Cards get pushed to the wayside. I miss the cards. I love getting Christmas Cards…but maybe next year.

Wow. This has been a year. I won’t even attempt to make any political statements at this time. As a cashier I once again get the whole stupid Hillary Clinton jokes. Ok, had to sensor myself there… but my time spent out amongst the real people have told me a lot. HC jokes aren’t funny anymore and the people are more conservative than the media wants you to believe! Trust me. Lots of people liked the Clintons in office… I got that much from being in college and then a cashier during that time. But the comments have changed now. People are not wanting to be socialist. People aren’t as liberal as the media says they are. Which makes me wonder how he got in office in the first place. But I said I wouldn’t make any political statements at this time.

I have some ideas for stuffs to write about… but you will just have to wait for when I have time to myself to sit down and write. As I type now, the interuptions are many as Hope is on my lap and Brady is doing his homework. Now he is hugging me… and back to his homework. Life is never dull here.

I will write more later. Just wanted to warn you there is not going to be any official Christmas Newsletter… I will try to write more updates though when I have time. I miss writing here!

We wish you all Mele Kalikimaka and may you be encouraged by the hope we are given in Christ who is the reason for the season!

We miss all our friends and family.

Pecan Pie

I can not eat pecan pie without thinking about Dana Baker. I wonder whatever happend to her. We had class together until late in third grade when she moved out of state. I can’t eat pecan pie without smelling glue and glitter and contruction paper and pencil shavings. We ate lunch in our own self contained classrooms at the private school I attended as a kid. Lunch smells intermingled with school crafts and the smells of learning.

My mom had bought those miniture single serve pecan pies one day in third grade and put one in my lunch. I had been sitting with a group of girls eating my lunch when I had to leave to use the bathroom. When I came back, my pecan pie was gone. I searched everywhere for it. The girls swore they didn’t know where it was. I knew that one (or all) of them was lying because pecan pies don’t just walk away. I recall looking under my desk, in my backpack. In my red Get Along Gang plastic lunch pail (plastic was the new metal. Metal lunch pails were so Old in 1984! Hmmm. Maybe it was fourth grade instead of third grade… I had a metal Strawberry Shortcake lunch pail in third grade…Or was it the Cinderella lunch box, with her dancing with Prince Charming? We used to put our lunch pails on thier side and pretend we were watching T.V. We would switch lunch pails so that we could watch each other’s “t.v.”).

Pecan pie brings to mind the orange slices dipped in sugar. The peanutbutter and pickle sandwiches that I loved to eat (as long as it was dill pickles). I got teased horribly for those. No one had the guts to tasted them, but still they teased me for eating gross food. Peanutbutter and pickle sandwiches entered my family’s menu back in the early 1920’s with my great grandmother. One day at school, she was the last to the cloak room to pick up her lunch. Someone had stolen her lunch and all that was left was a peanutbutter and pickle sandwich. She had to eat it or go hungry that day. The rest is history: yummm. Odd, yes, but rather good.

Pecan pie also makes me think of drinking milk out of a thermos… Sometimes pouring it out into the lid, or drinking it right out of the thermos with the built in straw. The whole lunch experience comes back in the smell or taste of pecan pie (just mention it or show me a picture). I am there in the room. Everyone is laughing. Miss Goody Two Shoes is laughingly confessing as she opens the lid to her desk to reveal my pecan pie after having teased me that she had eaten it. I had no idea that I would be scarred for life by that experience. Don’t touch my food while I am gone. Don’t touch my pecan pie or I might not be the nice girl of 8 (or was it 9) that only complained to my teacher (did she really say that “Dana Baker would never do something like that”?) this time. I just might wack you upside the head.

By some miracle, I still love pecan pie; it is just eating it that brings along a lot of baggage: the good and bad memories of grade school and grade school lunch… and Dana Baker.

I have joined my friend’s writing challenge. A challenge to write well. Her site Write-Of-Passage is a community of writers dedicated to writing well… it gives a friendly forum for critiquing other’s writing and getting your own work critiqued as well. It is great. Mrs. Flinger (Leslie from my junior college days, for those who don’t follow her on-line) has given us these challenges or topics to write about. Interesting topics. The only problem? I just need to sit down and write. I also need to clean my house, do laundry, pick up kids from school, go to work, work at what I consider my “real” job (I subbed twice this week!) and make dinners and lunches… oh that’s right, yesterday I neglected to make dinner for my family before I went to my “other” job and they decided Ramen for dinner wasn’t going to cut it. I guess they walked to 7 Eleven for dinner instead. I don’t work today, so what I really should be doing is scrubbing my floors, or packing boxes, or getting ready for the exterminators that are coming on Tuesday. Yeah, I know this is Friday. Instead, I am here… on the couch with the laptop. It is nice to take advantage of the quiet: Hope is sleeping and Brady just finished lunch and is resting in his room. Today was Parent/Student/Teacher conferences. The kids’ appointments were earlier this morning (why they are home). Since I hang out in the classroom in either a volunteer or official capacity, I wasn’t surprised by the work that Braden has done. Hope too for that matter. That open line of communicatio is a great tool to have with your kids’ teachers. It still was interesting to go and see thier portfolios.
The pre-challenge was to write on our own blogs about an embarassing moment. I missed that challenge… partly because I can’t recall my most embarassing moment. Now that I am older, I interpret the embarassing moments as being relative to my then age. Goodness, wasn’t everything about 7th grade embarassing? Or awkward? Being the tallest fifth grader at my youthgroup (and taller than the rest of the junior high boys AND girls) that was really really awkward. Now that I have gone through two pregnancies and the lack of decency/modesty that goes along with that and nursing two kids (for what seemed like ever), well, yeah.
The first challenge was to take some character in public and write them into our story… and that is a Hilary paraphrase… I was unclear if this was fact, fiction, fable or what. And I didn’t ask as I knew I wouldn’t have an opportunity to write on this topic and have it posted by the due date. The only thing I can think of, without getting political is our exPre.z, one of the HillBillies. It isn’t even a present situation. This doesn’t even fit the assignment, I am sure, but it still bugs me to this day. If I voted on petty stuff, like a lot of people do, I would not have voted on this person when he ran for reelection (oh, that is right, I didn’t vote for him e.v.e.r. for political, etc. reasons). My friend Amy and I were required to attend a speech or seminar, conference, what have you, on something to do with PNW History. We decided to attend some speech at the Ft. Vancouver Regional Library. When we arrived in Vancouver and the library, Lo and Behold! our lovely leader was there before us in the same vicinity giving some propaganda speech. There wasn’t a place to park even remotely near the FVRL. I don’t know if you know the neighborhood around the FVRL, but there was No. Way. that Amy and I were going to walk back to our car in the dark. It wasn’t even something we had to discuss between ourselves; it just wasn’t going to happen. So, we turned around and drove all the way back to Longview. Our fearless leader didn’t get any brownie points from us. He was personlly responsible for us having to move our schedules around to find another historical community event. We finally found an event sponsored by the the Cowlitz County Historical Society which included a turkey dinner, so we actually did better than the first choice even though we had to pay money to get in. We should send him a bill.
On Monday, I will do my best to have my post in on time. oooh, what is this I see on the side? Hahah. There is a time and date option for publication! I could write it now and publish later. No one would ever have to know.
You all won’t have to worry about critique comments on this site. Those will be saved for the Write of Passage site.
I felt self conscous about joining this writing community. I rarely actually write on my own site anymore. In my head I write every day… I have even been working on one peice for a couple years now (mostly in my head with bits and peices here and there on peices of paper located here and there!) on my experience here in Hawai`i…well, more observations. I will post it some day when it is finished. It hasn’t come together yet: too disjointed and missing sections.
I must go for now. I don’t even know if this peice is cohesive.
I am hoping to do a better job of writing soon…