Awake at 4:58 am in Waianae

Why am I awake ? Hmmmm. That is a long and interesting story. It all started Tuesday night. We were getting the house and pets ready for our leaving them in the capable hands of Carina. The short version of this part of the story is that I was holding Patch when she saw Kato and had a hissy (literally) fit. Kato barks and lunges, Patch bites...unfortunately, it was my hand that she bit. And wrist. And arm. She also got Kato in the lip.. That cat has mad super powers! I washed and neosporined myself up, found some antibiotics from Dr. Wells, dds, and went to bell choir practice. My hand oozed and swelled, but all I could think about was getting to Hawaii. So after not sleeping a wink, we got up at 2:30 and left for Burbank. It was more than a little painful and very swollen. Uh oh. I texted Susie from our layover in Seattle and told her I may need to see a dr ...I knew there was Kaiser in Honolulu so I knew I would be taken care of. By the time we landed, I had red streaks going up my arm to my elbow, I was shaking uncontrollably, nauseous, and light headed. I hurt like heck...no, it was cuss worthy pain, I hurt like hell! We were stuck in Honolulu traffic, so my wonderful personal assistant got on his smart phone, found kaiser's number, talked to several different people and was told to turn around and take me to the Kaiser ER. Which Susie managed very well, and even Maxwell was very good natured with his long stint in the car. Of course, he did have grandma sitting in the car next to him...singing and making faces...kaiser was suitably impressed with my injury, and many caring nurse and doctor type people came and went. Took blood. Took x-rays. Put in an IV with antibiotics. Brought me heated towels and numbed my hand for about ten blessed minutes, during which time they opened and irrigated the wounds, THAT was fun...!!! Joe arrived and Susie took Maxwell home. Finally, I was discharged with antibiotics, anti emetics, and pain meds. Stopped at McD's for a Big Mac and our first night of vacation was about over.  Oh, and oxycodone...that is good stuff! Made me want to live again! So today I have an appt with an orthopedic, my swelling is down, red streaks are gone and we go to Hilo to see volcanoes and waterfalls.  But...big sad face...no swimming in the ocean. And I feel better, so I am up and awake early...ready to start the day. In Hawaii!

Notice the good

I had this post written as I lounged in bed this morning, listening to someone laugh outside my window and the crunch and swish of the leaves as someone else walked by, but now I am sitting here drinking my coffee and wanting to turn on the TV...The Amazing Race is waiting.  The movie I saw Saturday, and the radio show I listened to yesterday and the devotional I read a few days ago are swirling around my head and I am not sure if I can pull it together. So...just start.
You know this picture?

Well, the little Vietnamese girl whose clothes were burned off of her by a napalm bomb spent many years being bitter and angry.  She is now in her 50's and lives in Canada and finally realized that she was wasting her life and now looks for the joy in the present instead of living in the despair of the past.  I am definitely paraphrasing what I heard on the radio show (which was about the ethics of spending scientific resources on instruments of war and destruction, nothing about my topic) She has changed her focus...negative to positive.

If you could live every day of your adult life twice, what would you do differently the second time around?  How would you use that "do-over" to live better?  

THAT

is how we should be living the days that we are given.

Not "That inconsiderate person just woke me up early on a holiday morning..." But, "Someone is laughing! Early on a holiday, how wonderful to be awoken by laughter!"

The sunshine on the leaves

not

the shadows under the roots

smiles

not

frowns

 love

not

criticism

As for me, I choose joy.  I choose belief. I choose hope. I choose life.

Conquer Chiari Walk Across America

Another year beginning...I was talking to a retired teacher the other day and she told me that she still feels that September is the new year, not January.  I understand exactly what she means.  And with the beginning of a new year is the realization-again- that the world has moved on without Aiden.  In my mind he has continued to grow, just as his classmates have and I have to remind myself that he stopped at 5 years 11 months 3 weeks.  It is not just that he is not here now, but now I have to remember that he also missed first grade, and second grade and now his classmates are going to third grade.

Also at the "beginning" of our year is the Chiari Malformation Walk which we will walk on September 21 in memory of Aiden.

Rock Creek: Still special after 20 years

Teacher anxiety dreams...even during the summer!

So...I walk into an administrator's office and she hands me an envelope.  In the envelope is notification that I am being removed from my classroom and sent to a second grade class at Tompkins...as a STUDENT! So I head on over to Tompkins and squish my grown up self into a tiny student desk next to a sweet girl named Erica.  The teacher is a pretty blonde woman and I move through the course of the day as a mix of student and colleague.  I help the other students and mentor the teacher.  At one point, the students are doing math by choosing and matching objects and I tried to get a little boy to recognize and name "rectangle" and I looked up at the teacher and we said in unison," haven't taught geometry yet, that goes closer to the test window".  Then the teacher went to lunch, leaving 4 students in the room with me and I wasn't sure what to do with them.  Fortunately, the room had a big arch cut into the wall, connecting it with another room.  The teacher in that room told me that the little blonde pony tail girl could be very wild at which point the wild girl opened her lunch box to eat while she did her work.  then I headed back over to GH to see if I could find out why I had been exiled.  No one could tell me.  Finally I ran into Cyndi pushing Charli and Olivia in a stroller down the hall.  Their hair had been dyed with dark gray and blonde streaks.  She told me that "they" were getting rid of "problems". I ran into Neva in the cafeteria and she told me that she was subbing for my class.  It didn't make sense for me that the district was paying me to sit in another class and paying for a sub for my class. I went back over to Tompkins to talk to the administrator, who was Heather, and ran into Stacie and the twins. At this point I had a giant six foot tall box of Rice Krispies.  The secretary told me that Heather would not be available for 15 minutes and I said I needed to talk to her, and I and my cereal box would wait however long it took, even if I had to sleep there all night.  She asked what the cereal box was for and I told her that it was just a visual.  Stacie and I go out to the grassy area under the palm trees to wait and run into a high school class that is being walked out with the hands behind their backs.  They stand in a circle and Keenan says something funny and Stacie and I are reprimanded by the teacher for laughing too loudly.  The secretary comes out to find us and as we head back into the office, I wake up.  I NEVER FIND OUT WHY I WAS BEING PUNISHED! ACK!

Lazy?

It is a quiet summer morning in the neighborhood.  With the 4th behind us, summer is half over and I still haven't gotten into the rhythm of vacation days.  I can't quite decide if summer should be lazy or productive.  So I have a list of ToDos which I am slowly working on.  And there is another list of things in my head which I should be working on, but mostly I have been spending time with the kids (YAY! We were able to put the pool up this year!) piddling around the house, watching TV and reading.  It has been an unusually hot summer, topping 100 several times, which just really encourages lazy afternoons.  And my favorite TV shows are the summer ones...HGTV Design Star, Whodunnit?, Rizzoli and Isles, The Killing, Drop Dead Diva...such fun.

Our trip to see little Maxwell in Hawaii started the summer off right.  He is such a beautiful little guy.  Susie and Joe have dived into the parenthood pool head first, totally immersed in this tiny (although growing fast) character. I predict that as he grows and becomes more able to explore the world around him, his complaining will cease...

One would think that since Leah, Sam, Emma and Tela live here in the same town with us that we would see a lot of them...especially the two that attended the school where I teach!  But life during the school year is so busy and exhausting for these two grandparents, that it just doesn't happen that we see them much.  But now, we are all out of school and the time is there!  So we got to have Leah for a sleep over, all by herself! Well, she brought Hobbes, the kitten too.  And we all spent a fun 4th of July weekend together at Muna's and the beach.  And I even got to have the newest members of the clan, Nate's boys Caleb and Gabriel, and Alice spend the night...admittedly for a not-so-fun reason when Abby hemorrhaged  and had to be flown by helicopter down to Bakersfield, but still...

We made it through the hardest week of the year, the week that we remember both Aiden's birth and six years later, his death.  This year we bought a cement bench to put next to Aiden's tree at Stacie's house.  We will have a paint day sometime before school starts and let all the kids paint it together. Meagan told me that she feels Aiden pushing on her back when she is up by the tree.

Goodbye again

So the world has a hole in it again, the spot that Neva filled.

As Sheila put it when she called to let me know, she was mowed down on a street in Bakersfield.  She was a generous, funny, smart and sassy woman.  One of the best years of teaching was when she and I team taught...she had a 1/2 combo and I had a 2/3  and we were given free rein to create curriculum.  Mom was Neva's aide that year and I had Patsy as an aide for a Down's Syndrome student and we had a great year teaching whales, bats, frogs and dinosaurs. She gave me socks for Christmas every year and taught me that beer and ice cream make a great float.  The world feels smaller without her in it.

Leprechaun hunters

Look who I found in the school office!  I love the day when our kindergartners go on a leprechaun hunt.  They start in their classroom, where the sneaky leprechaun created chaos.  He made a mess!  He knocked over chairs!  He dumped out crayons!  Then...he left a trail of green footprints through the school, ending in the library, where the children found gold chocolate coins AND the librarian, tied up with shiny green shamrock wire.  Oh my! There is my favorite orange bearded leprechaun hunter at the far right of the picture.  Sometimes there is no better job in the world then teaching children (and playing with them too!)

Turtles and whales

The view from Kaena Pt to the other side, the north side

Notice Susie's hands-on-the-hips-'cause-there's-no-room-on-my-belly stance?

Watching for spouts

Watching for tails

Hiwa hiwa and me!  On the beach together!

Walking to the north shore Sunset Beach to see the  Epic Big Waves!

Luckily TBTE knows us and that we would be MOST excited to see animals, so on Boxing Day, we drove to Turtle Beach, which has an official Hawaiian name that starts with an 'L' and has lots of vowels in it, but I don't remember it.  We had already seen a turtle or two pop their heads up and smile at us at the day before in the Ko'Olina lagoons, but Susie wanted a close encounter of the third kind for us.  There were still vestiges of the storm causing big waves, but the sky was blue and the drive through the pineapple fields was peaceful.  There is a point where you come over the hill and spot water and think, yay, there's the ocean again, I haven't seen it for 15 minutes and it is back!  Hiwa hiwa. a 200+ pound honu (green sea turtle) was resting quietly on the beach.  I know her name because the Honu guardians were out and they know the turtles by name.  This one had a tracking device attached to her shell and so they know that at one time she dove as deep at 570 feet!  Wow!   Susie talked to the garrulous man for quite a while and got all the info on how to become a guardian herself.  They are volunteers who keep tourists from doing stupid things like trying to push the turtles back into the water or sit on the turtles.  But it was ok to take pictures...just not too close (hence the red rope you see). http://malamanahonu.org/
Now.  Whales.  Our last morning in Hawaii, and TBTE didn't have anything planned for us, so I asked if we could make one last trip up to Kaena Pt to look for whales and TBTE were happy to oblige my last request.  Driving up, we once again spotted the mysterious albino mongoose and having seen it twice now, had to name it.  Haole.  (look it up). Joe dodged lots of the dumb little chicken-like birds called Franklins (odd name.  I don't think it is a Hawaiian word...).  At the top we watched for  a while and my heart was sinking in disappointment and Susie said, "Well, I think whale watching is a bust today" when what to my wondering eyes should appear but A Spout.  And I SAW it!  Joe had binoculars (TBTE remember) which he let me use and I watched as not one, not two, not three, but FOUR or FIVE whales played in the water.  Breeches, tails, flippers, spouts...we saw it all.  Finally.  Not only whales, but a huge, beautiful Albatross flew by.  It was a good last morning.  I can't wait to go back!

Hawaii part 3

The boat harbor at the Marine base at Kanehoe Bay where we rented the boat.

Ready to go out to the reef and sandbar for snorkeling and SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard)

Susie driving

Fishing, Hawaii style

Snorkeling and SUP boarding

Floating in the ocean

Beautiful water and our shadows at Kailua

The amazing day of snorkeling and swimming at the sandbar and reef in Kanehoe Bay.  Susie and Joe promise to take all their guests on this same expedition, ending with lunch at Kona Brewery in Honolulu. You should all be buying your tickets now!  This is where we watched a huge green sea turtle swim under the boat we were sitting in.

Hawaii part 2: Polynesian Culture Center and Luau

The Lizard's eye rock

Susie's cute baby bump

Playing games: spinning nut tops

Father/daughter pic

coconut tree

We wove palm fronds to make these cute fishies

Oh, yes, making fire without a match!

Playing with spinning sticks

Watching the kids play

MMM. Hawaiian barbeque.  Chicken long rice.

We had passed on the Polynesian Culture Center when we brought the kids to Hawaii.  It was expensive and we had limited time to see and do all that we wanted to.  But this time, The Best Tourguides Evah (hereafter referred to as TBTE) found great discounted tickets through their military connections and it seemed a good way to do the luau thing.  So we set off to the other side of the island, stopping at beaches and parks along the way to "take pictures" ( otherwise known as "stop to pee").  We had been warned to eat before going inside, so decided this would be a good time to experience the local cuisine, the Hawaiian barbeque fast food chain called L&L.  I had Aloha chicken long rice.  This was a bowl of translucent noodles in broth with strips of spam, chunks of chicken and a fried egg plopped on top.  Not bad and very filling.  The PCC was a very wholesome day of family oriented activities and dwellings from all over Polynesia.  "OK, family, watch this, family.  Family, do you like poi,family? Family would you like to try this,family?" I thought at first that punctuating their sentences with the word,"family" was a Fijian trait, but all the employees, who were students at the nearby BYU campus, did the same thing, so I think it must be a Mormon encouraged instruction.  It was a fun day, ending with a luau buffet of not very impressive Hawaiian food.  BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...!  After dinner we went to a huge theater to watch the Fire Dance show...and that was worth the price of admission.  No pictures allowed...so you will just have to take my word for it that the music and dancing was fantastic.  TBTE then drove us sleepy people home to enjoy a good night's sleep after another day in paradise.

With a full heart, I offer you...Hawaii! pt 1

This is the view Joe has EVERY day from his job at the top of Kaena Point.  This was Christmas Day, and this is what a stormy Hawaii Christmas looks like.

No jungle on the west side of Oahu.  You can see Kaena Point in the far distance.

Beautiful winter waves

NOW we are on the jungle side of Oahu.

One perfect plumeria

Enjoying Hawaii and each other

Oh, such wonderful memories!  The best part of the trip was being able to just sit back and relax and let Joe do the driving.  Although Scott followed our route on the map from the front seat, he wasn't navigating.  Susie and I were in the back, visiting and maybe planning where to stop next and eat.  We had such a lovely time and two thoughts kept popping into my head.  One: It's December!  And I am warm!  And it is SNOWING at home!  Yay me! and Two: So many people disparaged Oahu when we said we were going there. All I can think is that they never left Waikiki when they visited Oahu...there is so much splendid beauty, pristine isolated beaches, variety-- jungles and cacti!, wildlife.  We never set foot in Waikiki and didn't miss it at all.

Waianae, Nankuli, Maili on the westside are very different from Kailua and Haleiewa on the north.  Here is where the regular Hawaiians live...ramshackle houses, local Hawaiian barbeque fast food, barbed wire and barred windows...I may be poor and jobless, but I can spend my days on the beach!  It is also sunnier and drier on this side.  Susie and Joe's neighborhood is tucked away under a huge volcanic rock hill that reminds me of Iceland (volcanic is volcanic I guess) with sidewalks and well groomed small yards and loads of hibiscus and plumeria and bouganvilla spilling over the white fences.  It is about a 15 minute walk from their house to the beach, which is small and littered with trash (west side after all) but still offers that clear turquoise water and white foam.  Just look out, not down and it is paradise. Joe has about a, oh I don't know 20 minute? drive up the coast, to the end of the road and his perch above Kaena Pt.

Our first order of business was to go whale watching.  So on Christmas Day we headed up to Kaena...there was a storm brewing, so the waves were big, the spray fierce and the sky low.  There was this weird optical illusion that the ocean was actually reared up into a wall, ready to fold down from the horizon, and Ponyo style, chase us down the road!  As for whales, it wasn't my day. There's one, I kept hearing, but when I looked, I couldn't see anything.  I seemed to just miss seeing every spout or breech.  We went inside and checked out Joe's office and I stepped off a step that I didn't see and fell hard.  It was definitely a BAD WORD moment.  There seemed to be at least three times during the fall that I thought I could save myself, but I landed on my knee.  It hurt too much to be embarassing.  All I could think was FIRST DAY OF VACATION!  I spent the rest of the day limping in pain, very worried that I had injured myself enough to cramp my vacation activities, but I refused to give in, kept walking (slowly) and finally listened to Joe when we got home and followed RICE--rest,ice,compression and elevation (and ibuprofen) and when I woke up in the morning, it was BETTER! Moral: Listen to Joe!

After Kaena, we visited the lovely resort area of Ko'Olina, which was the location of the Marriott Susie and Joe called home for a month while they waited for their house to be ready.  Ko'Olina has a very nice beach park along the coast, with four lagoons to swim in and a picturesque walking path connecting them.  There is also a big Disney resort and it felt very festive.  We said hello to the rays in the Marriott's pond and watched the sunset as we walked back to the car.  Susie was so smart that before we left in the morning, we put a pot roast in the crock pot and had a yummy Christmas dinner waiting for us when we got home. Mele Kalikimaka!