Curriculum Fair

Thursday evening, last week, we went to the boy's curriculum fair at school. It takes over the school library and each class displays either their best projects from the year or a special project just for the curriculum fair.

Jacob's kindergarten class made their own paper mache monsters. They imagined them and drew pictures of them and then made them. Jacob named his monster "Isee".

Micah's class did reports on animals of the sea. Micah did his on the blunt nose stingray.

Micah's class also displayed their reports on their "Flat Stanley" projects. Micah's Stanley traveled to New Jersey to visit Da and Beth. They took Stanley all over and Micah's report was really good.

Micah's gifted and talented class did a whole unit study on persuasion in advertisements. He had fun quizzing us on all the slogans from different companies and seeing if we could guess them. We did pretty good!

Memorial Day at Bellows

What happens when Micah has the video camera

We discovered that while Micah was holding the video camera on one of our hikes that he was also making his own movies!

Memorial Day at Bellows

We spent Memorial Day relaxing with the Racela Family at Bellows. It was a nice day as far as weather goes, some rain and clouds and sun too. It is the time of year when the ocean is always warm and it is so incredible. We rented a 2 person kayak for the day, which is the first time we have ever done that in all our time here. Micah couldn't wait to go out so him and Darrick were first!

Everyone wanted a turn on the kayak and even Max wanted to check it out!

John and Kelly offered to watch the kids for a bit so Darrick and I could go out. We paddled out far and just sat and relaxed. It was so quiet and only the sound of the waves slapping our kayak could be heard. We just soaked in the moment and talked about how much we would miss Hawaii.

We stayed at the beach all day long-it was great!

Micah and Darrick on the Kayak

Happy 1st Birthday Lainey!

Yesterday, our sweet friend, Lainey Homesley turned 1 year old! We went to her party and had a great time. It was a cupcake themed party and everything was so cute-mostly Lainey!

We had food and the kids played games. Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, they played pin the candle on the cupcake. Naomi was not sure why we put a blindfold on her, it was pretty funny, but she got her candle on there!

We had a great time hanging out with our friends!

I even caught Naomi sneaking some of Lainey's cake when she thought no one was looking! After the cake we did a pinata and yes Naomi is holding the bat backwards!

Even the moms had a ton of fun!

Happy Birthday Lainey-we love you!

Eia Makou

"There's a little word"

Mayfest

Today the boys school had their annual Mayfest celebration. All of the schools seem to have some type of big May celebration. The theme was He Lei Poina 'Ole Ke Keiki which means a Lei never forgotten is the beloved child. At Iroquois Point each grade is assigned an island to represent. The celebration started off with the traditional blowing of the conch shell.

Next the Scouts took the stage and led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The second grade represented the island of Kaho'olawe. They performed "Sweet Lei Hinahina" and "Eia Makou".

The kindergarten represented the island of Lana'i. The performed "Lei and Lana'i" and "There's a Little Word".

One of the great things about living in Hawaii is that the boys could learn about another culture.

I can't believe she ate the whole thing!

I remember that phrase from some TV commercial. Well it definitely applies to Naomi right now. A few weeks ago we went swimming and I packed the kids a snack for the way home. As we drove I handed out 3 apples.

A little while later I looked at Naomi and she was just sitting there. I asked her where her apple was and she just smiled at me. I tried my best to search the floor at stop lights but soon discovered that she had eaten the whole thing-core, stem, all of it. Sometimes we forget that there are some things she still doesn't know. On multiple occasions she has put a candy in her mouth to eat it wrapper and all.

Well tonight at dinner we had strawberries and you guessed it. One moment the strawberry was on her plate and the next the entire thing was gone-stem and all. So then I started cutting the stem off for her and the boys demonstrated the proper way to eat a strawberry-without the stem!

Cholo's and Shark's Cove-what could be better?

Today we went to 2 of our favorite places on the island-Cholo's and Shark's Cove! Like always our lunch was super yummy and they had done some really nice remodeling to the outside and it looked really nice.

Then we headed to Shark's Cove. Naomi has not been there yet so we were excited to take her. The boys started off right away searching for "treasures" and it was low tide so they found a ton!

Naomi was not too sure at first about collecting or touching anything but she soon got the hang of it and was helping the boys collect! Then we spent some time climbing and exploring on the rocks. The kids enjoyed finding little pools they could soak in and climbing to the top of the rocks. Once we got to the top we could see the waves crashing and it was awesome!

Darrick and I found some time to relax, sit on chairs, hold hands and watch the kids play. As I was sitting there, realizing it may be our last time there I thought about all the fun times we have had there. It is one of our favorite places to take visitors and we have had so many fun times there with friends!

Of course the weather was beautiful and the water was warm. The time went too fast and before we knew it, it was time to go. As we drove away we all waved good-bye to Shark's Cove and thanks for all the years of memories.