Making Bread...

This is Aunty Boopie.  I was supposed to be Visiting Teaching her, but instead she taught me and the kids how to make her famous, highly sought-after bread.  She dedicated serveral hours of her day so that we could see the entire process and take home freshly baked bread.  One benefit of living near family is the wealth of love and knowledge showered upon my kids (and me too!).   Aunty Boopie is always the one to help me in Primary, keeping Elijah in line.  She's the one who nick-named Elijah, "the prophet."  All the kids listen to her and respect her so much.  I think they fear her a little bit too. : )

 The kids helped scoop, measure and pour.

 Aunty Boopie said, "Let them get dirty!"  They loved punching that bread down!

 While we waited for the bread to rise we played with balls and bats in her yard.

 The finished, delicious and mouthwatering loaves.

 We love Aunty Boopie!

The 1st Annual Run, Walk, Ride for Hunger

This was one of the more enjoyable, relaxing events we organized.  All our agencies were invited and our ED gave them the opportunity to raise pledges that would be applied to their accounts - which I thought was really great.  Motorcyclists came out for the "ride" and there were fun family oriented activities.  My kids loved the free inflatable waterslides after the Run, Walk, Ride.

It was held at the Queen's Marketplace in Waikoloa, which is about an hour and a half drive from Hilo.  Above and below, is Team Auna, who finished the 5K in record time.  I wish I could have walked or run it with my family, but I had to work the event.  I'm grateful for such a supportive husband and my kids. : )

Due to the fact that it was so far away and the event started so early, we stayed at The Shores in Waikoloa.  It was lovely!

 My children, of course, could not get enough of the gi-normous bath tub.  It was practically a miniature swimming pool.

 They also could not get enough of playing with Aunty Nozomi.  They love her!

We look forward to next year's!

Give a "Hoot" about Hunger...

Now that our blog is private I feel more comfortable blogging about work...  I work for The Food Basket, Inc. which is a non-profit organization with the mission to fed the hungry on the Island of Hawai`i and to eliminate waste.  Each of the Hawaiian Islands has a Food bank and we are the Big Islands'.    I enjoy the work, I have a bunch of clerical, assistant-type duties and of course I am the receptionist also.   My official title is "Executive Assistant" but our Exec. Director likes to say that I end up helping everyone else more than her.   I invited her to read our family blog also. 

We have a lot of fundraising events, which is great and a little bit exhausting.  This one happened in late October and was called "The 5th Annual Hoot for Hunger Hootenanny."  It was organized by one of our board members and her committee.  It was good fun for the community - food vendors were invited and provided little tastes to those attending.   This cake was for the Silent Auction and I just thought it was so creative!  That's a frosting interpretation of our logo on top.

I work with wonderful, accomplished people with big hearts and endless amounts of energy.   On the far left, the pretty girl : ) is Taylin Smith, who is our Event Coordinator.  Next to her, Joann is a student Intern and Office Clerk and is basically someone you can always count on when you're in a bind.   Nozomi, our Accountant / HR Director  has become a great friend, she went to BYUH also and actually introduced me to the job. Our husbands knew each other and we met through them.  Dr. Lee is the stunning one on the far right in lime and is our Executive Director.

Below is Claudia, our Director of Agency Relations.  She juggles so much I am constantly amazed at how she does it all - being a mother, wife, professor, working at The Food Basket and the loads of other things she has on her plate.

Craft vendors were also invited to attend this event.

I love this picture.  My multi- talented boss created these adorable outfits for my kids as well as the beautiful matching outfits for her daughter-in-law and adorable granddaughter in yellow.  She doesn't like me bragging about her talents, but I am just so impressed and grateful I can't help it.

The also had a Comic Hula Contest, and a Toys for Tots train ride for those who brought non-perishable goods to donate.  This event was a lot of work, but my family and I enjoyed it thoroughly!

Pre-Halloween, Honokaa and the Ironman...

I'm bunching these three random things together because they all happened on the same weekend...  Early October, we drove an hour out to Kona to visit my parents who were here on the Big Island in Honokaa on business to learn about their new mission & passion.  More on that later?  I admire their vision and hard work!

My mom always gives the kids Halloween costumes.  I love it because I don't have to stress about the holiday and my kids love it because it feels like Christmas. 

I absolutely adored Elijah's costume this year! He was a knight, fully equiped with armor, helmet and sword. As you can imagine, Elijah had a blast fighting imaginary villians.  Needless to say the sword broke the second day we were there, but my mom ingeniously patched it back up.

Elise was Snow White last year yet all this felt entirely new to her, especially because she got a septer and a tiara.  The costume fit her perfectly and she loves dressing up as a princess!

It was a nice escape from our day-to-day lives - my parents rented a lovely house in Kona.  Again, I pretended I lived there. : ) We ate delicous organic produce from the farm they were visiting and learning from, also ate a delicious pesto sauce on whole wheat pasta, Lau Lau and Lomi Salmon.  

While we were in Kona it just so happened that we got to see the some of the elite athletes cross the Iron Man finish line.  It was so inspiring; the participants have to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run a marathon!  Below is the first female to finish and below that is an athlete from Japan.

It kind of makes you want to try one, no?  : )  

Changing Blog Privacy Settings.... Again

Aloha,
To any of our friends who still read our family blog (because I hardly post anymore : ) we have decided to change the privacy settings for our blog back to private.    I am planning to do this in 24 hours.  If you were not on our list before, please email/ or send me a facebook message and I will add you to our address list.

My fear is that because I have been so terrible at posting, no one will read our blog anymore without Google Reader reminding them to check on us when I do sporadically post, but I will try to be better about posting.  

Have a wonderful day!

Maui No Ka Oi - (is the best!)

Every year in August, we migrate to Maui to celebrate Obon with my parents.  It was lovely, relaxing and so wonderful to see everyone again.  My sister Vicke with her family came, Connie came back from her 1st few days as a law student at UH law school and my dad's sister and her family flew in from Oahu to celebrate.  We missed Izzie and Ryan!

We got to meet for the very first time - Kenta Ito, my sister's son. He's the cutest, most cherubic little guy ever. He's so funny, everytime he thought he was in trouble he'd stick his finger up his nose!

My dad looked so handsome in his traditional clothes along with a few of the male muscians.

My dad, mom and sister Connie were amazing on their sanshins!  My mom and Connie looked so lovely in their kimonos.

The Shisaa Lion was impressive to watch, and the snapping of the jaws and choreography was a little frighening to to kids.  Just a little scary but it was still fun for them.

Before the Obon Festival we made the trek out to see the Maui Aquarium. It's beautiful!

The kids loved playing in the tree house my dad built and swinging on the tree swings. Elise is wearing a dress my mom got her from Savers - the best thrift shop on Maui. : )

We also spent the time eating far too much, reading a ton of books (my sister Vickie read all 4 Twilight books in 3 days!) playing with my parents' Wii, relaxing at the beach and roasting marshmallows over the firepit in the backyard.

Until we meet again!  Thanks Vickie and Jun for sharing pictures with us!  Also, thank you Mom and Dad for opening up your home to the invasion.  We had a wonderful time.



County Fair Fun

School Pictures and Recap

Elise is having a great experience in Kindergarten. Her lovely teacher was actually Aaron's high school classmate.  Elise is learning so much and even has a couple of kids from church in her class. Each morning she has to sign in, read and answer a question, turn in books, borrow two more, and turn in her homework notepads. 

She recently earned a math award at her 1st school assembly.  I couldn't go but Aaron was the proudest daddy and uncle since all our little cousins that go there also earned  awards.  I will post those pictures later.  I also love to hear her rattle off her daily activities and the subjects she learned about after school.

Two weeks before he was to start pre-school, Elijah decided to be potty-trained.  It was a miracle! With the move back to Hawaii and with both of us working, it was a challenge, but we're so happy it was a smooth transition this summer. 

I really love Elijah's teacher, and what he's learning.  I cried during my first parent-teacher conference with his kumu becuase I was so touched by her love of teaching and her students.  He also has to sign in each morning and answer a yes or no question.  More importantly he's learning about his kuleana, what he is responsible for and about accountibility.  He's also learning to malama, or care for or preserve.  The third concept is aloha, or love.  It's so wonderful to hear him use these words in random conversation.

A cute picture of Elijah and his sweet kumus (teachers):

Both schools are only 2 blocks away, which is a real blessing.