MAMMA MIA

Last night my sister Penny and I went to see the movie "Mamma Mia". It was so good. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, because I'd heard both good and bad...from now on I'm not listening to anything!

Needless to say after the movie, had to go to BORDERS and buy the soundtrack! Singing and laughing all the way home! Gotta love it!

Aloha,
Jane

Mango Madness

This month for Enrichment Night, someone came up with the idea of "Mango Madness". What might that be you ask? Here in the "country" side of Oahu, we actually have mango trees. On our small street alone, we have two. These aren't your little 10 foot trees, these are HUGE trees that are full of fruit.





Hard to believe, but there are actually parts of this island where you can't plant mangos!














So anyway, back to EN. We thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite mango recipes. This week I've been working on putting those recipes, and a few others, into a little cookbook~ Mango Madness. There are the obvious ones like, Mango Bread, Mango Pie, you get the idea.I'm not sure about Mango Quesadillas, but MangoSalsa sounded great.


Here's a little poem my neighbor girls did for the back of the cookbook.

Mouth watering
Always yummy
Never is gross
Great to be shared
Outstanding taste

So enjoy a few pics of this, the King of Fruits and the bounty of summer in the country.
Aloha, a hui hou
Jane

Oh, now I GET IT...

I'd heard about them, looked at pics of them, wondered what could be so good. Well, now I know...

After we had dinner for Jack's b'day in Newport, we decided it might be fun to stop and try one of these little beauties!
What can be said~ heaven in a little round cake. These were perfect. Nothing else needs to be said.

Lauren with her face painting from Magic Kingdom the night beforeThis is even before taking the first bite!
Jack loved just the frosting.
Yes, perfection in a little round cake.

Puka Shells

The other day we went to Haleiwa Beach Park so that my man could go paddle. I went in the water for awhile and as I was coming out, something caught my eye. It was a big puka shell. At first I thought that someone had broken one of those "fake" necklaces that you can buy at the swapmeet, because it was so big. I bent down to pick it up and realized that there were a lot of other puka shells in the sand.

I walked down the beach a little farther and found all of the shells that are in the picture. I was so excited because to find that many "real" ones was a real gift. I've got a container that I put them in whenever I find one, but never this many all at once. Not sure what I'll do with them just yet.

They're called puka shells, because "puka" means hole in Hawai'ian. I'm really not sure how the holes get there, probably some sea creature.

Enjoy my "real" puka shells.

aloha, a hui hou,

Jane

41 years and counting...

Since June 15th was a travel day for us, we really didn't get a chance to celebrate our anniversary. We've been married for 41 years! Hard to imagine that we've been married longer than we were ever single. Forty-one years~only old people are married for that long. Hummm guess you know how we feel about that.

Oh, I almost forgot! We did stop and have dinner on the way to San Clemente from the airport...

Aloha, a hui hou,

Jane

Greyson

Greyson is One!

Curls, smile, brown eyes, love bug

Silly, water, son, cousin, namesake

Grand~Son

Jack is Three!

Jack

Funny, digger, freckles, lover,

blue eyes, boy, brother, cousin, son

Grand-Son

Lauren

Lauren is Six!

Princess, eyes, smart, life-changing, giggle,love, girlie

first born, aware, First Grader, daughter, sister, cousin

Grand~daughter

Disneyland

Greyson's first look at the Magic Kingdom! It takes on a whole different look when you see it through the eyes of a child.

Greyson waiting for the train to take us around the park. This is Jack's favorite ride! All Aboard! Doesn't he look like a Big Boy?

It was so HOT! Probably 110 degrees! When we left at 11:30pm, Traci's car said it was 80degrees! When we had lunch in Frontierland at the mexican food place, there was a fountain, so the kids got to play in that to cool off. I felt like I wanted to jump in too.

We took the kids to the little island, Pirates Lair, and let them run around in the shade. Grey had so much fun! He got so dirty! He loved running and climbing with his cousins.

Geoff and Bri had never been in the Tiki Room (45 years old). We love going in there because it's cool and today it was crowded.

On the Jungle Cruise, Greyson never closed his mouth, he was in awe! Lauren and Jack even told him that the animals wouldn't hurt him.

We had wanted to go to dinner at our favorite, Goofy's Kitchen, but they were having some problems with something in the resturant, so we went to an pasta place in Downtown Disney. It was really good, but we'll save Goofy's Kitchen for next time.

I'm so glad that we got to be with Greyson for his first experience at the Magic Kingdom.

aloha,

J

Graduation

Lauren attended Our Saviours Lutheran School in San Clemente this year. It was the perfect place for her and she really blossomed. They had an actual "Graduation" ceremony for the kids and a little reception afterwards.
Lauren and her BF Rennie with Mrs. Crow, their beloved teacher. Do they look like First Graders?
In the chapel singing songs for the parents, and waiting for their names to be called.

Lauren, worked so hard this year. I'm amazed that she can tell time and read! She seemed to really love school and all of her friends. She did have to learn to not talk in class quite so much.

J

Trying to "Catch Up"

Just got back from 2 very, very busy weeks in San Clemente. With all 3 grandbabies having birthdays in the same week, it got very busy. I did all their shopping on-line, and had it sent to Traci's. She took it to the MH and all I had to do was wrap it. Easy to say the least. It also helps that their parents told us what the kids would like.

An added sidebar to our trip were problems here in the hood. I spent countless hours on the computer and telephone trying to get some of the problems sorted out. I finally had a "slight break-down" and just couldn't do it anymore. I was on a vacation, trying to get drs. appointments done, Lauren's graduation, Geoff's b'day, Lauren and Greyson's b'days, Jack's b'day, the list goes on... I was starting to not sleep at night and that's bad.

So after telling them I just couldn't anymore, and needed a break, things seemed to settle down for a few days. Thats until we got an e-mail from our attorney that the crazies had filed a 37 pg motion trying to get the original order stopped. Another sleepless weekend for both of us until we could talk to our attorney.

We found out about 10:30pm the evening we got home that it had been denied. That was a huge weight lifted. The next day, was good, I'm no longer on the board here, another weight lifted. They're on their own now.

Went back to hula tonight, trying to get ready for Na Hula August 10th. Practice is in my future. Terry took a couple of days vacation because he couldn't work due to the above mess. Been nice having him around. We stayed down at the beach until almost 7pm the other night!

So I'll try to get caught up within the next week.

aloha, a hui hou
Jane