Reina's Hula Performance Oct 2010

On October 3, Reina had a hula performance at Iolani Palace. The performance was part of a youth festival.


This is the first dance they did. The "sticks" they are using to keep rhythm are called kala'au. They are the first learned of many implements the dancers use as they advance at hula. The song is "Likelike."


There are two songs in this video. The first song is the traditional "Kawika". The second is the hapa-haole standard "Keep Your Eyes on the Hands."


This is the hapa-haoule song "Ulupalakua." The song is about the Ulupalakua ranch on Maui. If you watch closely you can see the dancers slinging breadfruit and making paniolo lassos over their heads.


This dance is to the song "Royal Hawaiian Hotel." Reina says this is her favorite hula song.


Here's the keiki dancing to "Tutu E". Sorry for the jittery start: I had to move b/c I couldn't see Reina. This song is about "grandma" who drinks some rum and does hula. Reina loves doing the "drunk" part.


The last song they danced to was "E Huli Makou"

Next up are some stills from the day (click to see larger image).

Reina, mid-performance.

Reina watches the older students do a song in between sets.

While waiting for Reina's performance to start, Noa and I checked out some fire trucks.

After the performance, Reina and Karen got to meet Jake Shimabukuro. If you don't know who Jake is, he's a kind of mix of Eddie Van Halen and Chet Atkins on ukulele. Here's a video of him covering the Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps (which he performed right before Reina came on and I was too dumbfounded to record it):

Camping!

Long time no post. Last weekend we went camping up at Kualoa beach park, Friday thru Sunday. Click on the pic to see a larger image.

Here's our home away from home. Ugly, yes, but effective. This site is only about 100 feet from the ocean and the wind comes off the ocean at a steady 10 knots with occasional gusts twice that. A wind break is essential for both the tent and the fire.

Kids hangin' out on the air mattress under the sunshade.

Noa being Noa.

Reina and Noa wash the veggies. After we cooked lunch and the coals had burned down a bit, we wrapped these in foil and stuck them on the grill with the lid on for 3 hours. They slow cooked to perfection and we had them for dinner.

After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.


On Sunday we went to Kualoa ranch and the kids got to ride horses.

Reina's Swim Meet

Well, as soon as I promised to myself to blog more, my machine got eaten by a virus. It was so bad it couldn't even boot. It took three weeks to get it right. I think I got it while I was looking for a streaming version of the NCAA final game in which the UConn Women's basketball team played. Word to the wise: free streaming TV sites = trouble.

Bottom line, more catch up to do. Reina had a swim meet two weeks ago. One of Reina's favorite things to do when there's a meet is to meet the pool staff at our pool (Manoa pool) and ride the park bus to the meet pool. A lot of the kids and the pool staff ride the bus, so it's a fun time (as always, click the image to see a larger version):

It was a division meet in which 9 or 10 pools participated. In such large meets, there's a lot of hanging around. Here's Reina waiting for her first race:

It was actually a pretty cold day, and the race was in Palolo valley near the mountains so it was cloudy with intermittent showers. And the water was a bit cold, too.

In her age group (ages 7-8), Reina took first in the freestyle 25m, third in the backstroke 25m, and sixth (I think) in breast stroke 25m. Somehow, I missed her freestyle race, but here's her backstroke race (click to watch the video):

And here is her breast stroke race:

Reina's most favorite part of swim meets? All the goodies the parents bring to share at the end. She has a musubi (rice and spam wrapped in seaweed) in one hand and a doughnut in the other.

Well, I got behind in posting and so I'll be posting some things that happened several weeks ago over the next few posts.

A few weeks ago, we went snorkeling and Reina did her first open ocean snorkel.

One of the first things she saw was a sea turtle. There were several out that day:

She even took off her life jacket and dove deep to get a closer look at the fish and other sealife:


In addition to the turtle, here are some of the other things we saw. This blue bird wrasse was strutting around flaring out his pectoral fins:


Here's a Moorish Idol:


And of course there are lots of sea urchins:


In the end, she said it was so much fun, even better than the water park. And that's saying a lot.

The Wateringcan Man

"The Wateringcan Man"

2006

Acrylic on canvas

Artist: Eli D. Kirk

Hi everybody! Work was incredibly busy this week, so I'm just getting around to posting last weekend's events. First, on Friday after dropping Reina off, Noa, Chi, and I played at the park next to Reina's school:



Then we ran around. Reina's school is in the background:



I spent much of last weekend fixing the light fixtures in the house. Reina was bored, so she played dress-up with Noa:



Then she read Noa some books. Here she reads him The Lorax:



We did manage to get out a bit. We went to Kakaako park. The park has some grassy hills where kids slide down on cardboard boxes. First we ate some lunch in our boxes:



Then we slid down the hill:



Here's a vid:

Lastly, the shrimp that Reina caught last week is pregnant.

What We Have Been Up To

Over the weekend, we went to the stream to get some fish for the tank. In Hawaii, people have dumped dozens of different species of freshwater fish into the streams, so there's lots to choose from, if you can catch them. Noa and I are ready to go (click for larger image):



Reina caught a bunch of freshwater shrimp.

Here's the tank. Chiharu caught a beautiful orange swordtail. We also got some guppies, some catfish, and some shrimp.

We also did some "camping" in the bedroom. Chiharu set up the tent so the kids could camp out over the long weekend.



Tonight, Reina got her homework done early, so we played a game of Upwords. It's similar to Scrabble, except the board is smaller and you can stack letters to make new words. She won, of course.