Hanalei Young Women's Luau

The Hanalei Young Women hosted a luau to raise money to go to Especially for Youth in Honolulu. It was lots of fun and the cost was way less than any other luau on the island. Here's the band:
The band is made up of Coppin (in the middle) from our church and two other guys that we don't know. They played traditional Hawaiian music and they were wonderful.

Joey and a bunch of little girls sat right by the stage, enjoying the show.

Here's the food. Kalua turkey (yum), chicken with long rice (yuck, tastes good but looks like snot so I can't stand to eat it), cole slaw, steamed rice, pork lau lau (yummy at the luau, gross in the hospital cafeteria), haupia (yummy coconut pudding), taro mochi (REALLY yummy dessert made with taro and rice flour), pineapple upside-down cake, coconut & macadamia nut cookies, and coconut cake.

The hula dancers are some of our Young Women.

Here's Coppin doing a fire dance.

We had so much fun!

He Hears Me

I have always known that God hears and answers my prayers, but sometimes He does it so effectively that it's almost comical. Take today, for instance. Here's a little background information: Because I have two grandbabies in NICU on the mainland, my boss has not been putting me on the work schedule since I keep telling her I have to go help my daughter with the babies when they go home. They are now way passed their due date and are still in NICU and we don't have any idea when they'll go home, so I keep having time off and then not going, and then worrying about getting enough work hours so that I can afford to go when the actual time comes.
This week I had only twelve hours in. I have to work a lot more than that to keep our health insurance and to make ends meet. Last night I prayed to Heavenly Father that work opportunities would come so our family could meet our obligations.

Here's the funny part. This morning Michelle called and asked me if I'd take her call shifts tonight and tomorrow night. Sure! Then Tomi called and asked if I'd work her twelve-hour L&D shift on Sunday. Sure! Then Savitri called and asked if I'd work her twelve-hour L&D shift on Saturday. Sure! Then my boss Bonnie called and asked if I'd like to observe (paid) in the OR on Friday in prep for some training that's coming. SURE! Then Jen called and asked if I'd work four hours of her shift on Thursday. SURE!! Then Vicky called and asked if I'd take her call shift on Saturday, but I had to say no because I'm already working for Savitri on Saturday.

WOW!! Sometimes the power of God amazes me! I keep telling Mike he doesn't need to worry about things because He always takes care of us. This all happened this morning after last night's prayer. SO FUNNY!

Snorkeling With the Sea Turtles

We love to snorkel and one place we go is Anini Beach. We always see sea turtles there. My friend Donna from work saw an octopus there. She also frequently sees sea horses, but I have yet to find one.
Our sea turtles look like this, but I don't have an underwater camera so I got this pic off the web.

Another web picture.

See, my pictures don't look exactly like the ones off the internet, but this really is a sea turtle picture I took.

Please believe me! This really is a turtle!

Joey and I like to find a turtle and then swim around with it for a while. I love when they come up for air. It's fascinating to watch. I rise in the water with the turtle and when I look above the surface, the turtle looks like a great big snake coming up. I know this sounds crazy, but I think Joey and I have followed the same turtle around twice. Yeah, I know what you're thinking... they all look alike, right? But this turtle has a shorter foot or fin or whatever you call it on the right in the back than on the left, sort of like Nemo the fish. He hangs out at Anini and we are friends now.

Say It Out Loud

I'm starting to like the Hawaiian accent and even starting to speak with it... a lot. You can speak it too, if you read this out loud:
This is written on the bleachers at the gym where Joey plays basketball. It is re-printed on each set of bleachers so it is printed exactly like this six times.

Basketball Season Once Again

Once again it's that time of year when Joey plays basketball. I love to watch him play.

He just keeps getting better and better and this year he is really doing great!

He is number 4 (in the black shirt) and here he is making a great shot.

Once again, the ball is sailing from Joey's arms toward the basket.






At this league in Kauai, there are boys and girls on the teams. Joey says it's a little different playing with girls but he's getting used to it. There's a little girl named Zoe on his team and she is a scrapper!


She and Joey are the best players.

I love this picture of Joey getting the tip-off. Look at that graceful form!

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a sports fan, but I really do love watching my boy play. I am so proud of him.

Not Completely Paradise

While Kauai is amazingly beautiful and the weather is always nice and beautiful things grow everywhere and there are no snakes and people have a wonderful spirit of aloha and it looks like heaven, I don't believe it is actually heaven and this is why:

Life's Burning Questions

Today at work my friend Carol asked me, "Why does splenectomy only have one E when spleen has two?" And I answered, "Why is Filipino spelled with an F when Philippine is spelled with a Ph?" Anyone know the answers to these questions? Because Carol and I are stumped.

What We've Been Up To

We have been very busy and that's why I'm behind on my blogging. Saturday we went to a birthday party for the daughter of my BF from work. My friend Carol does birthday parties for her kids like no one I've ever met before. There were probably 100 people there.

I LIKE PIZZA!!

Here is my BF Carol and her daughter Tierney. If you look closely, you'll see some old geezer in the background that you might know.

Waiting for the feast. After we ate salad, pizza and pasta, Carol kept bringing out desserts. She's amazing! Not only birthday cake but also marshmallow cupcakes, chocolates, lollipops, cascaras, cream puffs, and other Filipino desserts that I can't remember the names of.

Here are a couple of pictures taken in our new condo. We are loving it. It is a lot newer than our old one and it seems cleaner and a lot more open. Joey has the upstairs (which is just a bedroom, bathroom and walk-in closet) and he thinks he's in his own man cave now. BTW, Joey's room is the perfect guest room... hint... hint...

The move was pretty easy, as far as moves go. We didn't have too much stuff to take, since most of what we own is in storage in Colorado. Our old landlord said he'd never seen renters leave a place as clean as we left ours. I was not surprised to hear this, and I guarantee that the new place is cleaner now than it was when we signed the rental papers.

This I know because I cleaned it!

An Explanation For My Absence

Mindy commented that I need to blog more, so I'm going to try to do better on that one. There are two reasons I have not been blogging lately. The first is that we moved to a different part of the island. I'll post details about that in another post, but the short story is that we went without the internet for more than a week, besides the work of moving. The second reason is that I have been spending WAY too much time with these people: I really do like my job and my co-workers, but we have been very busy and lately I have been working more hours than I like to. This picture is a repeat from when Flat James was here.

Here's a picture of Mike that I wanted to post just cuz he's so cute in it. This one was taken at Anini Beach, which we used to be able to walk to from home. Now we have to DRIVE to the beach. Oh, woe is me!!!

I know this post is lame, but I just wanted to put something quick on the blog for now. Maybe tomorrow I'll do a real update on what's going on in our neck of the woods.

P.S. Just in case you were wondering, the picture in the previous post was taken by our son-in-law Ryan when they were here. Yes, it really is that beautiful here. That was taken on their hike along the NaPali coast. I love the picture so much that I had it enlarged and framed and now it is hanging in our bedroom.