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

it's a...honu!

This afternoon, hubby and I went to Chun's Reef when he got home from work. It had been a little warm and there wasn't a lot of wind. At the last minute I grabbed my little Olympus 720 underwater camera. Boy, was I glad I did!

While hubby was out surfing, I decided to try and take some pictures of fish. These didn't turn out too well because it was late in the day. I was just getting out of the water and happened to look over and see a dark, moving shadow. I knew that since it was around 5, it must be the turtles starting to come in to feed.

I went back into the water and almost ran right into one! The first shot I took, if it had turned out, would have been of his nose, we were that close. I didn't realize that when they come in, they churn up the sand because they're so close to shore. So those crystal clear shots you see are probably taken in deeper water, high noon.

I swam with him for probably 10 minutes, just taking as many pictures that I could and hoping that something turned out. There were probably 5 of them along the shore all eating the green sea weed from the rocks.

This was problably one of the neatest things I've done in a very long time. Honu=turtle.

Aloha
a hui hou,

Jane

MAHALO

A few months after moving here, I walked into the local elementary school and asked them if they had a volunteer program. They asked if I had any children/grandchildren attending the school and I said "No" and explained by background. They said that they had SpEd, but I asked to be put into a regular ed class.

So that was the start of one of the most full-filling journeys I've ever taken. Wailaua is a very "local" school. Most of the population being made up of families who grew up here and worked at the sugar mill. I think there's over 500+ students, a large caring staff, many who have been there 25+ years and a slew of volunteers. Every class has an aide for the language arts/reading part of the day. There is a full-time computer person and also a full-time librarian. All of the lunches are actually made in the school kitchen...none of that central kitchen, then frozen stuff here! It's like a"flash back", seeing the kids go down the line and get their scoop of this or that.

For all three years, I've been assigned to a 2nd grade class. I go three days a week for two hrs (sometimes more). On Friday, I go for an hour into another 2nd grade class to help during math. Heidi is very close to my age and looking at retiring next year. She's been at the school for over 25+ years! Her daughter is also a teacher there. She makes me laugh a lot.

This year the school started a new reading program, "AR or Accelerated Reading". There is a lot of computer work that goes into it, so this has become my job. I also work with small groups on various things.

Because I've become known around school, I was asked to serve on the "SCC" or School Community Council. This is very much like SIP, coming up with ways to allocate certain funds. This has also been a good way to get to meet other people in the community.

So as this school year is winding down (June 4th) they held a "volunteer thank you luncheon" and then we were recognized in front of the whole school. I was so touched by the lei,banner and card the class made.

So instead of them telling me "Mahalo", I think I should really be telling them Mahalo nui loa for all they've given to me.

Aloha
a hui hou
Jane

Red

This morning when I was hanging out clothes (another post), something caught my eye. The sun was just starting to get high enough in the sky to start casting shadows. I looked around and the one color that caught my eye was RED. I really hadn't realized that we had so many Red flowers, ti, plants, etc in our yard. I guess my guy, aka Japanese Gardner, likes the contrast.

So here are a few pics I took this morning at 7:00am of our yard with lots or RED. Please note the blue sky!

a hui hou

Jane