Start of school 2011

Ah, school.  This is the second week of being back.  Emi loves the routine and structure, Charlie isn't so sure about the whole thing.  Emi has a teacher who transferred from another school and she could tell within the first day that she was a great teacher.  Charlie has a teacher that I really respect, but he's a bit in awe of her still and says she's very strict about little things- good teacher!  I think she does a great job taking first graders and preparing them for the rest of elementary.  I don't start up my teaching until the 22nd, when UH Hilo starts its term.  This means I have a couple of weeks to finish up the last bit of my painting job, do my annual garden weeding and trimming, and prepare a couple of lesson plans.  I have some apprehension about my starting school up again, because I know for 14 weeks I'm going to be overloaded.  I'm going to be working still, to keep my benefits at work I won't be cutting many hours.  So between school, teaching, and work I figure I'll just have to put my head down and try not to drive anyone else crazy.

But for the time being, I'm getting down to the beach a couple of times a week and enjoying the end of MY summer!  I'll head down to the beach with my Dad in a a few minutes, putting off that weeding and lesson planning a few hours.

This coming weekend promises to be a busy one.  Emi has her roller derby bout on Saturday evening, which she is really excited about.  She seems to have a certain talent for roller skating.  Not only does she love it, she's actually really good at it.  The derby is run in a very professional and focused way, and I'd have to say that their primary focus is on building confidence and a sense of self and pride.  Funny, because it's not what I was expecting but Emi has really enjoyed it all.  Charlie has an event Sunday with his jiu jitsu gym, first a beach clean up for an hour and then a huge family day picnic at the beach park after they finish cleaning it up.  I like the fact that the picnic is proceeded with the clean-up.  The coach tries to install the concept of respect in the kids, respect for family, coaches, and teachers.  The clean-up is an added layer- respect for the community and the beach!  We could use more of that around here.

Oh, big news for Charlie.  The Cub Scout recruiters came by his classroom and Charlie was sold.  He was so enthusiastic and eager.  We signed him up, which means we also sort of agreed to be den leaders since there aren't many other first graders that showed up for the meeting.  We met one other boy who is doing it, and we think we could get another couple boys involved, but for now we're going to sort of flail our way through the process.  Charlie bugs me on a daily basis about buying the shirt and he's so excited to start earning badges.  He asked when we could start camping, and he's talking about tying special knots, shooting bb guns, and he's got his pinewood derby in an unopened box, ready to start when we say the word.  I'm a bit at a loss about all of this, because he's so incredibly enthusiastic.  Charlie doesn't get excited like this very often.  When he does it's an excitement that shows up as a very singular focus and determination.  

Summertime

June and July

Summer always seems to fly by when there are two kids to keep busy!  We've had a great time, especially when Lucy and Betsy came to visit for two weeks.  We picked them up in Kona, spent a couple of nights in a resort swimming and playing, then the next week and a half surfing, eating, and finding 'Hawaiian style' treats for Lucy.  That girl loves her food, especially mochi.  I think we spent half of our time in the Farmer's markets and bakeries looking for the best possible mochi confections.  Betsy and I surfed every couple of days and we spent one day hiking up at Volcano with the kids.  We first went in Thurston Lava Tube, then we continued in the unlit tube, taking a trio of flashlights.  That was a weird experience, considering how much I dislike being underground.  Charlie and Emi thought it was great, Lucy and I weren't so sure.  After that we took the kids down through Kilauea Iki trail- a five mile hike around the rim of an old caldera and then across the bottom and back up.  Five miles of hiking and the kids acted like they'd been doing that sort of thing all their lives.

Lucy and Betsy flew away home and we've spent the time since playing with the boys across the street and with a family the Emi and Charlie know from school.  I signed the kids up for swim lessons for the entire month of July, and Emi was invited over to the Waikaloa to spend the 4th of July with my Dad.  My brother Peter is back for the summer, and he's been taking the kids to their swim lessons while I spend a couple of hours working on repainting the hallway and living room.  This was my big project for the summer.  No dramatic changes, it was just time to freshen it all up.  

Almost Summer Break

Even though it doesn't start until Thursday, we're in the summer-vacation mode here.  The trade winds are back, which means that we are getting some rain every night and during the day we have a breeze, a few clouds, but mostly sun.  Yesterday I called the two neighbor boys over (Aaron was in Kona playing soccer) and between the two of them, my two kids, and myself we managed to move a bulky but not-too-heavy dog kennel to the truck.  We loaded it up and then went to my Mom's house.  I backed in to her garden area with the truck, a kennel set up on the bed of the truck, and four kids in the kennel.  The comment?  "Looks like you have the kids exactly where they should be!" After the kids chased my Mom's chickens a bit and ran away from the goats (who live in the huge, fenced chicken yard and like to play chase), I took all the kids down to the park.  Emi skated on her roller skates, Charlie played with his skateboard and some little boy on a bike.  They had races.  Charlie doesn't actually stand up, but uses his skateboard as a knee board.  He's pretty fast, and only occasionally runs over his own fingers.  The neighbor boys played basketball, which meant both Emi and Charlie had to avoid running into the boys, or the loose balls that would careen across the covered area at the park. 

After the park we headed down the road to a grove of wild, invasive bamboo.  We needed to cut a few for supports for the beans and peas that Emi and Charlie planted earlier this week.  The kids all got out and loaded the bamboo into the truck.  I succeeded in finding the only mud, as opposed to cinder and rock, in the subdivision and the truck got very slightly stuck.  Not enough that we even needed to push it, but the tires spun just enough to make it exciting.  Then as I headed down the road to turn around at the next street we saw a giant Albezia limb across the road, shattered into a number of smaller pieces.  Albezia are one of the brittle 'weed' trees that grow here.  I had the kids jump out and move it as a neighborly good deed.  They got the job done in about ten seconds- they were in this super helpful, excited mood.  On the way home we looked for a couple cats in trees to rescue, or maybe a house on fire to save, but no luck.  They were in the mode to do good deeds after all that helpfulness.

Today the kids were back in school.  Four more days and they have their six week summer vacation.  I spent the morning surfing with my Dad, and the afternoon doing work outside.  Aaron made the best pizza for dinner.  It's actually a group effort, I suppose.  I make the dough, he does the rest.  I like that.  Now Charlie is off at Jiu Jitsu with Aaron, and Emi and I are hanging out in a quiet house.  In two weeks we're going to have visitors from the mainland- Lucy and Betsy are coming for a visit!  Lucy was Emi's best friend, and they moved to Washington a couple of years ago.  We've missed them ever since.  Betsy and I are planning two weeks of non-stop beach trips!  Maybe a trip to Volcano as well. 

Party Circuit

Ah, April.  Three birthdays, and this year somebody decided to throw Easter in to the mix, so this has been a two birthday, one holiday weekend.  Emi had a great birthday party, with seven 10 year old girls who didn't stop running until 10:30 pm, when Aaron gave them the 'time to quiet down' growl.  And then they woke up at 4:30 am and I gave them the 'go back to sleep or I'll be murderous' lecture, and they went back to sleep for a couple of hours.  Fun for all, and a bunch of really nice girls.  It's good to see those sorts of friendships develop.

Charlie's birthday party was Friday, at Leilani Park, with epic games of kick ball and Aaron grilling burgers for what must have been hours.  It's always a bit hard to follow up Emi's birthday, but Charlie is developing his own circle of buddies from school, which is nice to see.  Saturday Aaron and I went out to dinner (my birthday, no clean-up) and then I stuffed Easter Eggs before going to bed. 

Right now the neighbor boys are over and the kids are all playing Wii (continuing kudos to Grandma Judy and Grandpa Bill....that machine gets some serious mileage) and chatting.  The neighbor kids all came over for the first egg hunt of the day, and spent an hour running around the yard, then another half hour exchanging candy.  Now they are in the other room and all so cheerful, racing Mario Cart.  Often times the boys bring their remotes over, after they got a Wii for Christmas, and the kids all race or play Super Mario.  They all talk the whole time, sometimes fight, but mostly tease and cheer.  In about 35 minutes we'll go over to their house for the second egg hunt, that they host at their place.  Then we'll have an easy lunch here.  With all the birthdays and prep, I decided to have ham sandwiches for lunch.  With presliced ham. 

I'll post some pictures soon. 

Spring Break

I wish I took this, but I didn't.  I got it from the web.  It was taken by David J. Laporte @  footloosiety

It's already day six of spring break (that's counting the Friday off school last week) and it's going so fast!  We took a couple of days to go 'camping' at Hapuna, in the wooden tents.  It was a great mini-vacation, but we didn't pace ourselves very well and played super hard the entire time.  This means that by the third day (we spent two nights) we were just barely holding on.  Charlie spent the entire morning in a hole, happily puttering about in the sand.

Aaron planned the excursion, and he invited some friends to go.  It was great- more kids to play with for Emi and Charlie and a couple of adults to chat with.  The cabins are in a dry, desert area with a few scrubby trees.  This picture is exactly how it looked both evenings at sunset.  Gorgeous.  We actually stayed in this specific cabin, by the way.  About a hundred feet from the cabin is a big, screened pavilion with a stove and picnic tables and it faces due west, so both evenings we sat, chatted, and ate dinner with our friends while bathed in gold and pink light.

Now we're home, and all day yesterday was a rest day, just trying to recover.  Until the evening, when Aaron once again instigated an event.  This time he invited our friends Dough and Quenna over for s'mores.   It ended up being a last minute bbq dinner, and the boys from next door came over to join us.  Their mom, Carla, makes the best cookies I've ever had.  She makes Mrs. Fields look second rate, and she's MY neighbor!  She likes to share her cookies, which means she always sends over a plateful when she bakes.  So she sent over some fresh chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips.  Put a warm marshmallow on top and it's perfection.

Today I am trying to catch up on laundry.  Camping in dry, dusty cabins after spending all day playing in the sand results in a serious laundry day.  I'm also trying to convince myself to do some needed homework, but that just might wait until later.  It's a lovely day and kids are goofing around outside after doing their chores.  I'm the sort of Mom who says spring break is a break from school, but not from chores.  The kids have resigned themselves to this by now, since any whining and complaining is bound to result in me suggesting that since they have the energy to whine and complain, they should help me with another chore.  This tends to help curb the whining and complaining.  Emi is busy slicing oranges to take out for snacks, after spending the morning planning her birthday party.  She's smart.  She knows that giving me a list three weeks early means I have time to plan.

Volcano Field Trip

Emi's class had another neat field trip, this time to a former ranch that was purchased by the Kamehameha School.  There are 38,000 acres that are fenced, mostly land that had been deforested.  The foundation has a goal of reforesting the entire area, mostly with Koa and Ohia, and at the same to create a sanctuary for endangered birds.  There is actual a building where they hatch various endangered birds and raise them for wild release, and usually only kids in grade 6 and up get to go to this sanctuary, due to noise and stress to the birds.  The kids were amazing, very good and excited.  They spoke in hushed tones, and as a reward they got to go into a dark room with a wall of windows that opened to an aviary where at least four Hawaiian crows were being housed.  The kids were in awe.

After the crows we took another hike to a hillside and the kids were shows how to plant Koa.  It was fun to see 40 kids scrambling around and planting saplings.  They had a serious intensity, an eagerness to do this and do it the right way.

The most exhausting thing about the whole experience?  Riding a school bus for an hour each direction, full of 4th graders that were excited (going) and tired and excited (coming home)!   

February? Already?

Here we are, at the beginning of February, and I find that I am once again in the mad swirl of school, school, home, and work.  I mention school twice because it deserve such mention.  Today was a class room day for me, and I spent most of the day at a photocopier making sub plans for the class, since the teacher has a meeting tomorrow concerning Race to the Top.  Pahoa got a huge grant, and in order to access the funds there are some big changes that will have to occur and that just may impact the entire state.  The most dramatic change would be to the length of the school day.  Hawaii has one of the shortest days in the nation- hey, with beaches and year 'round summer, it's hard to make the school day very long.  I personally wouldn't mind a longer school day.  I tend to think that most parents would agree. 

Charlie is off to jiu jitsu with Aaron, and Emi is in the other room playing some very loud Wii with the neighbor boys.  They're all shouting and giggling, all good natured.  I'm contemplating starting a book I just picked up from the library, but the problem is I know if I start it I won't want to stop and it's a long book.  It's the third part of a thriller trilogy, this one is "Girl who Kicked a Hornet's Nest."  The titles pretty much tell it like it is, and the girl of the title was shot in the head at the end of the last book.  I'm wondering if I want to risk staying up too late tonight.  I'm caught up on school reading, got homework done, and I'm not really that interested in the movie Aaron wants to watch tonight.  Decisions, decisions.

Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year- obviously, these kids are enjoying it!