May Day Program

 

Ma'ema'e had their May Day program this past Friday - this picture sums it all up. Not quite stage fright, but a little anxious...

Finally !

I've been waiting to overhear a conversation like this between Lily and Jake for as long as they have been talking.

Jake: Who would win...Giganotosaurus or T-rex?

Lily: Gigonotosaurus...he's bigger.

Jake: Yeah...Giganotosaurus would win...

Lily: But Jacob...what if there was a group of T-rexes?

Jacob: And a group of Giganonotsauruses?

Lily: No just one and a group of T-rexes....

Jacob: The T-rexes..but what if there was a google of Giganotosauruses?

At that point things got silly...no need to recount that kind of stuff. Coming soon: who's faster: Lightning McQueen or an SR-71 Blackbird?

Mother's Day 2007

Mother's Day 2007

Kim came home just in time for Mother's Day - she finished her last trip to Sasebo, and though it means that we won't get anymore shinkanshens (Jake), fancy dolls (Lily), high quality Japanese models (Me), and delicious omiyagi (everybody who get's that kine stuff) we prefer it this way.

For Mother's Day, we started the way most all Sundays Start: bouncing up and down with Fiona at gymnastics. Then went home where Kim got her presents - soaps and that kinda junk, but most importantly, the best presents you could ask for....take a look at the slide show....^

Post gymnastics treat

 

Time for some Blue Vanilla...why blue?

Portrait in Blue

 

Another Spitfire - One year later

 

So here's a just completed plane - basically the exact same model as the first one I did last year as pictured here.. As you can see, I've gotten a little better.

The Two Together

 

Wow planes sure got bigger from 1942 to 1976 - same scale.

A-10

 

For all the A-10's I used to watch fly over Davis Monthan. Unfortunately I lost the ladder and had to make one from scratch.

The Best Lei EVER

 

So I get Jake to school right on time on Tuesday May 1. The first of May...for me it means "Workers of the World Unite !"...the struggle of the proletariat....the ownership of the means of production...."the only thing you have to loose are your chains".....blah blah blah

In Hawaii however, the first day in May is Lei Day. Probably because , well, probably just cause it rhymes. I guess it's like how here in the islands, June first is Prune Day, but I'm getting off the topic here.

Now if Kim were anywhere in the Western hemisphere at this time, she would have set us up with garlands of flowers for the kids. But alas, she's moving bombs in Japan (again). Or more precisely, like women have for ages untold, she is telling men where to move things, in this case high explosives. Suffice it to say that while I was reminiscing on the May Day parades of my youth, watching the tanks and missles roll over Red Square, watching waves of soldiers marching to military bands and waving flags*, I SHOULD'VE been making Jake and Lily some leis.

This all became crashingly clear when we got to Jake's room at CHildren's Center, he peeked in at all the other little kids all bedecked and stuff and then the sight all parents dread: the quivering lip.

Jake (heartbroken)- "I NEED A LEI"

Dad (gobsmacked)- "Oh. It's May Day...LEI Day...Well, I, um. You see Jake...why didn't you...Well as Marx would say..."

Only one dialectic at work here - Get a lei or suck. I opted to not suck.

Dad (brightly)- "Well, let's go make one !"

Jake (realizing life will not end) - "Really? OK ! LET'S GO!"

So we spent the next 15 minutes wandering around his school to find enough fallen flowers to make a creditable lei. Thank god for plumeria trees. And, if you don't have a lei needle, or string, or dental floss, or basically anything at all to string your lei, tape will do.

He wore it all day.

Best lei EVER.

*NOTE: Never happened. Well the lei thing did. And Kim in Japan. Just not the Kremlin part.

In the Tunnel of Trippy Psychedelic Creation

 
Really. Black light + flourescent colors = pretty psychedelic experience.

LET'S EAT ALREADY !

 
Forget the candles...forget that silly song - IT'S CHOCOLATE FOR GOD'S SAKE !

Wax volcanoes

 
Making lava by hand, old Hawaiian tradition

Grandpa Gene observes

 
Always with the play therapy this guy....

Rotating Jake

 
Fun at Queen Emma park for Vinny's #4

Happy Birthday boy

 
Vinny spins

Banzai !

 
I'm assuming that it says something like "Very sorry to wish you a Happy Mother's Day, if that is ok."

My turn

 
Might read "I heart radical once a year haircuts"

Jake onstage

 
So not the performer - in his blood

Hanging out with fellow alums

 
At the Children's Center Mother's Day Extravaganza. Jake informs me that my pronunciation (Extrava-GAN-zah) is incorrect - he prefers Extra-VAH-GAHN-zah. Whotta snob.

Lily's concert

 

Hawaii Youth Chorus at Maemae

Possible captions:

 

• Boys will be boys


• We only read the menu


• Some days are just better than others


• I feel so dirty


• Wow! You're the best dad in the whole wide world !

Jake's P-40

 

Note refernce model in forground