coming soon!

it's that time of year again - giveaway day at sew, mama, sew!!

be sure to check out their listings of giveaways on dec. 12. i'll be participating again, and would love it if my dear family and friends actually entered! plus, they're making it a week-long event, so there will be plenty of time to enter all the giveaways - it's one of the best events of the year, so mark your calendars now!

belated costume-y goodness

hello!

i realized that we never posted a photo of the final halloween results. after much debate (kalei originally wanted to be a vampire - the thought of those big vampire teeth and the resulting drool grossed me out, so i encouraged her to think outside the box), we decided on a fireman, pirate queen (complete with eyepatch), and the return of the red power ranger!

not to be outdone, i joined the kids in costume!

(i thought it was hilarious that my kids didn't know who i was! they just said, "you're a..... doll?" apparently, you have to be above a certain age to know who 'raggedy anne' is.) anyhoo, here i am with kawelo and taralie - don't you just love her costume!? she's the head teacher of our seminary team-teaching-duo - she's amazing!

the kids brought home a huge haul of candy and had tons of fun, and i won an award for cutest adult costume. good times!

one step closer....

james found out this morning that his sabbatical application was unanimously approved by the university's sabbatical committee! from there, it will move on to the dean, then the provost, and i'm not sure if there are more steps beyond that. we are so excited that this might be a real possibility to spend 6 months next year living in paradise! (i hope i'm not jinxing anything by writing about this... not that i believe in superstitious stuff... but i'd better go throw some salt over my shoulder or knock on wood or something, just in case.)

aloha!

politically correct costume assignment

for some reason, our elementary school does not allow halloween parties or wearing halloween costumes to school.

they do, however, have "harvest" parties, and allow the kids to wear a costume to school for the last day of "drug awareness" week. (what do costumes have in common with drug awareness? probably about as much as wearing hats or slippers to school. i still haven't figured out the logic chain on any of these.) predictably, the costumes had to be in line with the school's guidelines. this year, the guidelines were "come as a book character." i was not thrilled. great - i get to come up with two costumes instead of just one! then, i figured the kids could wear their regular costumes because they were surely in a book somewhere, right? but, the school administrators threw in the wrench that the kids had to actually bring the book to school with their costume.

diabolical!

don't worry your pretty head, though, we did prevail. kalei wore her pocahontas jacket, with braids, and took a book about great women in history. koa went as this guy:

i LOVE this book! the illustrations are beautiful and the message is sweet, with some funny thrown in.

perfect for this boy.

koa quotes

bess: come on, dude. let's go! (said to another driver while waiting for said driver to go past.)

the car passes. the driver is female.

koa: ooooooooh, it's a dude-ette.

trip to the farm!

it was kawelo's turn to take a trip to the farm with his preschool class and he was

E-X-C-I-T-E-D.

he loved the pumpkin patch. he loved the play area. he especially loved the giant slide. he loved his apple cider slush (a first for the kids in our family) and cookie. kalei and koa both attended this preschool, had this wonderful teacher, and enjoyed this field trip. it's a tradition that is ending! i'm a little sad at each "last" milestone we pass, but excited

(E-X-C-I-T-E-D)

for our family to be moving on in our journey.

love this boy!

the running man

in early september, bowling green hosted a mini-marathon. james was excited because now he could realize his goal of running two marathons a year without having to travel far to do it. (what a weirdo, right? my goals are things like: "don't eat the whole bag of m&m's - half a bag is plenty.") anyhoo, the day came and he did great! although, he was saying they should call it "the road kill mini-marathon" or the "take your life into your own hands to run this mini-marathon." apparently, the organizers did not arrange to block off roads, so the runners had to run on the shoulders of the roads making up the course. (have i ever told you about bowling green drivers? no? well, let's just say that half are visually impaired retirees, and the other half are youngish people who are chomping at the bit to illegally pass them.) with this shoulder-of-the-road running, james was able to get an up-close look at various specimens of roadkill. the short list: mice, possum, snake, dog/coyote, birds, etc. no skunks, though. (thank heaven for small favors.) despite these interesting conditions (along with the "flat" course including numerous hills and the organizers running out of water before any runners finished the course), james ran a great race! he felt good, looked good, and finished strong. we love you, james! we're so proud of you! (by the way, james says he is most likely not going to run this race again. we don't blame him!)