Surprise rain...

I've been so busy this week with all the hula practices, the dinner at church and getting ready to go to the mainland for a couple of weeks, I just really needed a day to stay home. Today isn't actually that day, I do have to go into town for practice in a few hours, but it was a good time to play "catch up". My purse really needed cleaning out. I had beach towels that needed to be washed and hung out, re-cyclying to take care of and e-mails to answer.

Since I have a Blackberry, I can get e-mails, and I do answer some, but if I really need to write a long one, I wait until I get home. I had some candy leis to finish for Lauren's kinder graduation next week, Geoff's Father's Day box sent and making a movie to send to our friend Rickey.I was at the computer, when all of a sudden it started pouring! I ran around and closed the bottom half of all the windows and grabbed my camera. I've been trying to experiment with different settings, so figured this was the chance.

As I sit here and write this post, I'm looking at blue sky!

That's how fast the rain moved through. So I guess the towels will hang out for a while longer. We really need the rain right now, so this is a good thing. I have to also remember..."no rain, no rainbows!"

aloha a hui hou,

Jane

Red Velvet

A few days ago I was at my favorite store, Williams Sonoma, and bought the coolest thing~ a mechanical pastry bag! Sort of like a cookie press. I've been dying to use it. So today, I found a great recipe for "Magnolia Bakery Red Velvet Cupcakes".

Figured this went along with my "Sex and the City" high I'm still on. So I got all the ingredients and started cooking. The cream cheese frosting recipe said to have the cream cheese and butter at room temperature. By the time I finished the cupcakes and was ready to start the frosting, I had almost melted butter and cream cheese. There really is a lot of red food coloring in them.

I went ahead and made the frosting (hoping for the best). The pastry bag worked great! So easy. Next time I'll know to use a smaller tip. I gave some to my neighbors and they said they were "to die for". Should have used tin-foil liners, but oh well. Enjoy!

aloha and a hui hou,
Jane

Graduation

Today was 6th grade graduation at Waialua Elementary. The first time I attended, I was amazed by what a big deal it was. Balloons, lots of lei, family, flowers and just a lot of celebration.

I asked my friend why it was such a big deal. She explained to me that it goes way back to the time that grade school was as far as many children's formal education went. During the plantation days, many of them went to work in the fields to help their families, so grade school graduation was a big deal...and the tradition stuck.

Graduation in all of Hawaii is HUGE. If it's college, high school, middle school, elementary, private or public school, to graduate is a BIG DEAL.

Just a few shots I took of celebration afterward...it really was a BIG DEAL.

Congratulations to all the graduates, Class of 2008.

A hui hou,
Jane

ku'u lei

Since today was graduation day at the elementary school...more on that later, I decided to make a lei for one of the girls in the "hood" who was graduating. I had noticed that hubby's plumerias were in full bloom and plenty of blossoms, so I decided to go ahead. I got out my lei needle, floss and a bowl.

The sun had just come up and I wanted to get the flowers at their freshest. As I came around the corner of the house, I was overwhelmed by the sweet smell. If your familiar with the scent of plumeria, this was about 100 time stronger! Our whole yard smelled! I couldn't smell it inside the house, only outside. I was truly taken-a-back by it.

I've forgotten the name of this blossom, maybe "Rainbow". I picked enough flowers for the lei and came inside to start stringing. It only took about 15 minutes and the end result was something so special. I've always loved a single plumeria lei, so simple, yet so full of the true meaning of a lei.

So here are a few shots of the process, from start to finish. Enjoy.

Aloha and a hui hou,

Jane