Cub scout recap......

Duke took kazu along with him to his first cub scout meeting. Kazu had so much fun. They had a short meeting then headed over to the fire station. Kazu was so excited and asked so many questions. He was the only one paying attention. He has already been to a fire station and had a private tour by a fire chief, ate dinner with the fire fighers, and got to see their trucks, the police truck, and the media truck so this wasn't anything new. I guess being a little boy and being inside a fire station is exciting no matter how many times you go.

Duke was happy when he came home. He said about 9 boys showed up to their meeting but that none of them had uniforms because they couldn't afford it. There was talk among the troop of passing uniforms down that had been outgrown. It was so sad to hear that not one of those 9 boys parents could afford a uniform. We by no means live in an affulent ward. And this meeting really drove it home.

My wheels have been spinning on how to raise money to get these boys a uniform. Does anyone have any ideas? I want to call next week to see how much a complete uniform costs. I asked Duke if he could ask his company if they were willing to sponser some uniforms for these boys. Or if he could ask any of his former business clients if they could donate anything.

Feel free to email me if you have any ideas at the dukemelody account. I'd love to hear some of your ideas.

Aloha,
Melody

A new chapter....

Duke was just called to be Cub Master for our Ward. We are so excited. The boys are excited. I am excited too but have no idea on what to expect. I'd guess that knot tying, fire making and rendering some type of service was in our future but I have no clue. So if any of you are / were mommies of a Cub Scout or Boy Scout or wife of a Cub Master feel free to email me. I would have already emailed you in a panic had I not lost your email address =(

So here's to a fun new chapter for our family.

Aloha,
Melody

Pictures....

Capri
Capri

I had a nice long weekend off. We didn't do much. I was looking through the camera to print pictures to put up on the wall of the boys and came across more pictures from my trip. Not the best pictures but my pc crashed 2 weeks ago and I don't have any of my photo editing programs. I'll have to down load it soon.

Speaking of my email crashing can all of you email me your addresses and phone numbers. I lost all of that information. I need to send out thank you notes and don't know where to send it... =(

Well, sorry so scattered and short. I've got to get the kids to bed it's back to work tomorrow.

Aloha,
Melody

Another day at work....

So Reyline had this woman come into the store picks up a journal and asks "What's this?"
Reyline replied "A journal."
"Oh" says the lady. She puts down the journal turns around and picks up the book Eat Pray Love and asks Reyline "Whats this?"
Obviously it's a book Reyline thought but replied "It's a book"
"Oh" says the lady, still confused she looks at Reyline and asks "What do you do with it?"
"Read it" says Reyline, all the while thinking I wonder what kind of drugs this lady is on
"Hmph" says the lady as she thumbs through the book. She puts it down and walks out of the store

Yep just another day at work. Its kind of like the people who don't enjoy coming into our store because ALL our cards say the same thing... "legends say that hummingbirds.... " And when you try to explain what IS actually in the card they look at you like you are the illiterate one.

So off I go to work a 10 hour shift, wish me luck. And when I got hired I thought, It can't be that hard to sell a greeting card. I guess the laugh is on me, huh?

May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii....

Well, I'm about 8 days too late, but we celebrated today. It was Kazu's May Day program at school. The weather was perfect. His class danced to a song called "puka puka pants". Puka means hole in Hawaiian. He was fantastic. He especially did well at the part when he turned around and shook his okole (butt). (I now see what talent he got from me... =)) I was excited to record a video and post it here but he must have killed my battery yesterday when we opened mothers day gifts. At least I got some great photo's to scrap.








I have to say I was impressed with the program. It sure isn't may day like it used to be when I was little. There was the Royal Hawaiian band performing and even the offical Hawaiian Royal Court. It was fun. I also enjoyed the kindergarten performance. My friends little girl *J* is in the kindergarten and she was so cute!





Here are some pictures from my Mothers Day gift. The boys made it at school and I absolutely LOVE it. I really wanted to wait until Sunday to open it but they were so excited and proud of what they made they insisted I open it yesterday. Kazu made this card and a beautiful bead necklace. A necklace that I am supposed to wear whenever I'm with him =). He also made this card. I love the detail in it. He said he drew my hair like that because he loves it when I wear my hair down. He obviously loves my eyelashes... hehehe. He also drew in my favorite heart necklace that I like to wear to work and some flowers at the bottom.



Kala'i made me a dried flower sache. It's so funny he handed me the tissue wrapped gift and said "Here mom, it stinks" LOL Image my fear of opening the package. All night he kept picking up the sache and said "it stinks" LOL I love his little card and what he said.



So I'm a happy camper today. I have great new photos to scrap. And in the spirit of May Day here are some pictures of plumerias that are growing in my yard. Happy belated May Day!

My favorite picture from SF

So this is my favorite picture from my trip to San Francisco in February. It is of my friend Yvonne and I at the airport. She is the crazy person who decided to help and fly out to Hawaii to train me a couple of weeks after I started. Poor thing thought she would be rid of me after that week. However, she has been having to put up with me and my brain farts for almost two years. She's been so kind even when I used to call her at midnight and ask the dumbest questions.

You see what she doesn't know is that I am secretly trying to pick up her accent. LOL. She's from Africa and has the coolest accent. I swear if I had that accent oh the custom printing I'd sell. Hehehe. At any rate I'm happy to have her as a friend. She is the one person who I know will be honest with me, even when I don't want to hear it. She also has the same love of dark chocolate and plumerias as I do. I'm mean really!

National Scrapbooking Day...

This past weekend was National Scrapbooking Day. Yep, a whole day dedicated to scrapbooking. Normally, I'd start the weekend out by getting up at 2am or something crazy like that and watch QVC to catch the latest deals. Then I'd rewatch it to see if there were any layouts that would inspire me, then I'd scrap. By the end of the weekend I'd come out with at least a few 'masterpieces' that would surely make our family scrapbooks.

Well, this year, I didn't do one scrapbook realated thing. I sat at my newly cleaned desk a couple of times, but mostly to clean out my purse. So now I'm determined to do something scrapbook related. So here's the plan:

1. Take lots and lots of photos
2. Print
3. Scrapbook
4. Share

Sounds easy enough. Looking back over the past few months except for my Italy/Greece/Rome photos I mostly have pictures of the store. Pictures taken for my boss who rarely gets to come down. I dread the day I'll have to tell my boys I was too busy working, and didn't have enough time for them.

It's been so long since I've scrapped and I miss it. I miss sitting with the boys and sharing a particular memory. I miss the excitement in their face when they hear a story about themselves that they haven't heard in a long time. I miss having photos to document our life, good and bad. I miss doing 4 bad pages to get one good one. I miss being ok with even the bad pages because I knew even then I preserved a part of our family history. So I start this month out with my plan: take photos, print, scrap and share. My goal is by the end of the month I'll have at least 5 pages to share. Wish me luck!