Father and Son Outing/Girls Night

Usually Hailey and I have a special date night when the boys leave for father and son's.  But, this year we decided to have a good-bye party with her friends.  The had so much fun. They are such a fun group of girls and we are going to miss them and their example.  

Bo went off to what he thought was our Stake Father and Son outing and after he had everything set up he realized he was at another ward's camp out.  They ended up staying but went to McDonald's for dinner and breakfast in the morning and came home.

The tent's were a bit small too.  At least we had something!

The Miracle in the building of Laie Temple

This is one of my favorite stories I've heard since we've been here and it happened almost 100 years ago in the bay just off of our deck.

Goldilocks Visited Us...

A few weeks ago Jackson had a game and we decided to go get shave ice after the game.  Well, Conrad was really being a stinker and by the time Jack's game was over he wasn't able to come with us.  We dropped him off and left.

Well, about 45 minutes later we came home and he came running before we even pulled up the driveway telling us that some lady was walking around our house.  I said, "Oh, is it Choon (our landlord) checking things out?'  He said, "No, she was eating our ice cream."  Ok......at this point I was just really confused. We went in the house and we found a young woman, about 25, sleeping just like this through our window:

(Conrad reenacting it)

Bo went out and told her to move on and she went next door.  We decided we'd better call the police so she could get some help.

After it was all taken care of we finally go the whole story.  After we dropped Conrad off he went around our house to get in and he saw the woman sitting on our rope swing eating our ice cream.  So, he went in his room to hide.  After finishing at least a half a pint of ice cream, she then came up on the deck, took the cover off of the hot tub, tipped it up on it's side, and made a little bed for herself.  Later, I found a bowl of cereal left out on the counter too.  It must have been too stale for her to eat.

We've had our own true story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Needless to say we felt like stellar parents dropping our 10 year old off at home with a homeless woman and he had no idea what to do and Hailey had put our cell phone in the wrong spot so he couldn't find it.  I guess it's time to teach the kids what to do if a homeless person breaks into our home and makes herself comfortable.  It really kind of freaked us out, but I'm sure will be a story we'll laugh about when we get home!

Mother's Day

Church is at eight in the morning here so we didn't do a whole lot before but when we got home each of the older kids wanted to make me a treat.  They did it all by themselves except I had to help Jackson mix his.   I thought it was so cute to watch them all in the kitchen mixing up their treat.  Their treats were delicious.

Hailey made me brownies

Jackson made chia balls

Conrad made peanut butter cookies

The primary presidency had the kids answer five questions and they had then answers in the sacrament program on Mother's day.  It was fun to read and see what each of the kids thought.

May Day

We just learned that in cultures around the world many people celebrate May Day.  I'm not totally sure how it originates, but it has something to do with Springtime and celebrating of cultures.  May Day in Laie is huge. The elementary school had a school program to celebrate.

Normally each grade represents a culture.  But, this year it was all about America.  They began practicing daily the first week of April. Each practice was at least an hour long and the entire school day before the program was dedicated to practice for the program.  I can't imagine the amount of time spent preparing and planning everything they did for the show.  It was quite the production!

Last Friday was the big day.  The kids woke up at 5:30 to get ready.  (They were a bit excited.)  Conrad wasn't quite as excited as the other two and slept in until a little after 6. They got to perform in the theater where they do the "Breath of Life" show every evening.  The had to be at the Polynesian Cultural Center by 7:30 AM and the show started at 8:30.   The kids had a great time and we had fun watching them.  It was about 3 and a half hours.  Kinda long for the little boys, but they did really well considering.

Here are some pics of the kids in their costumes.

Hailey's grade was the Jazz Era and I found out the night before that she had to have a 40's hairstyle for the show.  We had to practice a very long time to figure out the curls but Hailey didn't care.  She loved it when it was done.

Con represented HOLLYWOOD.  He came home with a men's XS vest.  Needless to say it was huge.  One of our missionary friends altered it for us and it turned out so nice!

Jack was Rock n Roll and I just laughed when he came home with pants almost as tall as he was but luckily he could just roll them up. 

Here's the crowd that came to watch:

 The royalty was introduced before the kids show started.  I'm not sure how they decided who was what but it was cool to see too.  They sat up on the stage the entire performance.  I think they were all sixth graders.

Here's a pic with Hailey and her friend Brooke after the show.

Chinatown, Iolani Palace, and Chuck E Cheese

A few Sunday's ago we had a family meeting and came up with ideas of what everyone wanted to do the last six weeks we had left.  We were surprised to find out their number one pick was...wait for it...Chuck E Cheese!  Of all the places we could see they wanted to go to there?  But we made the plan and the next Saturday we took them but first we visited Chinatown and Iolani's Palace since we were close.

Chinatown didn't have a whole lot of places to see, but they had some cool shops and food markets that were fun to walk through.

Iolani's Palace

If you don't know the history of Hawaii and how the era of their kingdom ended, click on my link.  It helps you understand what this palace represents and why it is still important especially to the native Hawaiians today.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBIolani_Palace 

It was pretty neat to learn that they had electricity and plumbing before Buckingham Palace.  The ruler at the time was intrigued by technology and had anything he could installed as soon as it was available.

Here are some pics

There is so much gorgeous detail outside and in

Our crazy bunch.  I was happy Brayden made it through the day without passing out of heat exhaustion.  He refused to take his sweatshirt off.  Silly kid.

Quilt that the Queen made while wrongly imprisoned for 9 months

One of the Royal Bedrooms

Throne Room 

Dining Hall

Sitting room (those are real elephant tusks in the back of the pic)

Another Bedroom

Blue Room

Upstairs Hall

Stairway

Coat of Arms

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Chuck E Cheese

Empower Your Dreams Competition Kick Off Party

A couple of Fridays ago we went to a kick off party for the Empower Your Dreams Competition.  Bo organized it so we all got to go. It was at the Flag Circle at BYUH. This competition is for business start up ideas.  It has three groups that get to be involved, community, international students, and the other student body.  They have $30,000 in prize money to give out and needed to get the word out.  It's an amazing opportunity for people with a great idea to get some money do start up.

We had a great time and it was a great turn out.  There were hot dogs, popcorn, drinks, otter pops, and of course bouncy houses! They also gave away some door prizes.  The competition is in May.  I'm sure I will have a post for it later.

Before the party started the kids had the two houses to themselves.  They had a blast!

Hailey came later with her friends and I didn't get a pic. That girls is really growing up. :)