Mindy & Ashlyn Visit

I'm way behind on blogging, so I hope to do several posts over the next couple of days to catch up. Mindy and Ashlyn came to visit and we LOVED having them here. It was wonderful. Ashlyn loves the water and really took to the beach. Here she is at Polihali beach. There's a long story about that night that I might blog about later.
Ashlyn at Anini beach.

Granny, Grandpa and Ashlyn.

Joey likes to pretend he's meditating.

Our BEAUTIFUL girls! We love them so much!

Ash, Min, and me hiking the Kalalau trail.

More Kalalau. Ashlyn really didn't like hiking.

Grandpa, Granny and Ashlyn at Po'ipu beach.

I love this little bikini girl.

Mindy & Ashlyn with the hula girls at Coconut Marketplace.

One of the hula girls gave Mike this flower and then asked him to come on stage and dance the hula.

He did pretty well, for a Haoli.

We love our Ashly girl! This was taken at Lydgate beach the first night they arrived.

Also at Lydgate beach.

We had a great time with them here and we wish they could stay forever!

Sand Men Are Good Boys

Here's Joey with his friends Josiah and Tajh at the beach. They rolled in the sand to cover themselves, then thought they were pretty cool.

Here's a picture I found on my camera last Sunday. I guess he took this of himself while we were getting ready for church. Tomorrow all three sand men should look like this.

Lihue Ward Cultural Night & Talent Show

Tonight was the Lihue Ward cultural night, pot luck dinner and talent show. We were supposed to dress in traditional dress from the country of our ancestry, so I whipped up a pair of lederhosen and dressed as a German. Mike and Joey went dressed as modern-day Americans. Here is a Hawaiian shaka from Frau Kathy, Lee the Scot, and Pepe Le'peu.

The missionaries dressed up as missionaries.

My friend Sharon from work did a western-style skit with her family, compete with her husband walking on his hands.

Lee the Scot played guitar and sang. Our bishop's family did a hula routine. Several other people sang or told jokes. Our missionary from New Zealand did this way-cool thing that I can't describe that quite a few men here know. The only way I know to describe it is that two guys that were from Samoa did it on the Biggest Loser a couple of seasons ago. It's sort of a chant with a dance with cool facial expressions. Clear as mud??

Joey and I have both been learning the ukulele and Joey has gotten good enough that he could have played for the talent show, but we didn't think of it until after we were there. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

P.S. So it's kind of cool how you can learn anything from Google. I just found out what the thing was that the missionary did. This is what I learned: "The Haka is both war chant and challenge. It is characterized by loud chanting, much aggressive flailing of arms and stomping of feet, fierce looks and in the end an angry sticking out of tongues."

Funny Family Night Activity

Joey was in charge of Family Night and his idea was to have a play dough sculture contest. He made a mommy and baby bird:

I made Craig and Jaylyn:

Ha! ha! ha!

Mike was the judge and he ruled that we both won!

I Love Concerts

It's interesting to me that when I was on the mainland (translation: an easy place to get to) I never had concerts to go to, except Country Jam, which is just really annoying. Now here I am on a rock out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and in less than a year, I've been to two concerts and they were both groups I LOVE.
Last night Mike and I went to see the band America at the Kauai Marriott. They were AWESOME! I sang and screamed and danced so much my throat is sore this morning.

In June the Stylistics came. Another one of my favorites from younger years. They, too, were AWESOME! Again I sang and danced and screamed.

The Stylistics even did the song from my wedding: "You Make Me Feel Brand New."

It's funny that I love live music so much because normally I hate noise. I can't stand the sound of the TV most of the time unless it's very quiet and the comercials are totally muted. But when there's a live band playing, especially one of my favs, I like to sit in the very front where I can see well and it's very loud and I have such a great time. Who needs alcohol? I get high from music!

Here's a hint to anyone who might be considering giving me a Christmas present this year: I would love CDs from America or the Stylistics.

Cuteness

I've said it before, but I seriously have the cutest grandkids in the world. Watch this if you don't believe me and then you'll know:

Geckos

I remember my first few days on Kauai. I was staying at a sort of junky hotel while I looked for a place to live. One night while I was talking to Mike on the phone, a creature ran across the wall in my hotel room. I freaked out, just a little. I remember zipping closed my suit case so the lizard would not get in it. Ha! Ha!

Now I know better. The little lizards here are geckos and they are my friends. They eat really bad creatures like mosquitos, flies and cockroaches. They come in various shades of yellow, brown and green. They are really cute when they walk, with their little bodies wiggling like they are dancing. They make a really cool sound when they talk to each other at night, kind of a "click-click-click" sound.

The picture is a gecko on screen to the glass door in our living room. We watched it eat bugs off the screen and it was quite entertaining.

Now that I'm a little more savvy about the tropics, I really love the geckos. We get an occasional one in our house and I don't mind at all, except that sometimes they poop on the walls.