Ivory Soap and Pot Roast

The last month we ran out of soap - the bar soap that you bathe with. So off I went to our friendly neighborhood Wal-mart. I looked at the prices of soap and nearly passed out! I'm not sure how long its been since I last bought soap, but man did the prices go up! So instead of buying the soap I usually get, I decided to get Ivory soap.

I unwrapped the bar of soap and smelled it before I put it in the shower and it totally reminded me of my grandma Frances. Well, she didn't smell like Ivory soap, but her bathroom always did. I love the smell of Ivory soap!

I've already shared in earlier posts that I love the smell of pot roast. It reminds me of my other grandma - Joyce. Sundays after church, mmmmmmmmmmm!

Both of my grandmother's died in 2006 and I really miss them. I'm glad that I had the chance to spend a lot of time with them and learn from them. I have lots of great memories and, I will keep their memories alive by buying Ivory soap and making pot roast!

Saimin

One of the great benefits of Juan working the harvest is that he brings home a sack of the biggest potatoes I've ever seen! I put one next to Jason and the potato was as big as his face!!!
That one potato made enough mashed potatoes to feed three of us. It worked out perfectly since Jason doesn't like mashed potatoes. He stuck to his saimin (Top Ramen).

Speaking of saimin, Jason has gone from liking the more traditional form of saimin - you know the kind you cook on the stove for 3 minutes, to liking only the 'Cup-of-Noodle' kind. Personally, I prefer the kind you cook on the stove. So, I try to buy a case of the 'Cup' saimin whenever I can. This brings back a lot of memories of my Grandpa Jacob. He used to have several snack wagons on Kauai called, "Jake's Snack Wagon." They were all painted orange with white lettering on the side. Anyway, grandpa Jacob sold cup saimin in his wagon along with patele's, corn on the cob, hard ice, soda, and lots of candies. Being one of the oldest grandchildren, I often worked in the Snack Wagon on Saturdays at the Swap Meet and during the summers at Salt Pond.

Grandpa would always let me take some candy home and then he'd give me some money and say, "don't tell grandma." Then grandma would give me money and say, "don't tell grandpa."

I should have saved all that money!

Whatever!

I can't wait until the first snowfall!! I've heard that Idaho has already used one of their snow days. For my family members in Hawai'i who don't know what snow days are let me esssplain. Too much snow - school cancelled. Don't you wish you guys had snow days?! I don't like using snow days because eventually you have to make it up in the Spring. Here in Othello we are supposed to get down into the 30's this weekend. Of course it will get that cold because we have a 5 day weekend (Fri - Tues. off).

It's time for parent-teacher conferences!!! Oh boy, can't wait! The grades we've seen from our middle schooler has been pretty good. 3 A's, 2 B's, 1 C. That was a few weeks ago though.

More questions:

What is your favorite food? I have lots. One of my favorites is Lumpia, then Won Ton, Lomi Salmon, Kalua pig, Poi, Lau lau, Poki, and Sashimi. It's good when you have the last 6 things altogether.
Getting hungry again.

Favorite game to play as a child. I liked to play all kinds of things. Chinese Jump Rope was pretty big when I was about 5th and 6th grade. I wish I could still jump like that.

Favorite pair of shoes. Crocs - all the time, any style, I love Crocs!

More later.

Dirt Storm?

Ever heard of a Dirt Storm? Well, we just had one last night. Kind of like a sand storm only with dirt instead. Every year for the past two years we've had a sand storm come through out town and the surrounding areas. Last year it was so bad that some of the highways were shut down because you just couldn't see where the road was. The dirt/dust storm lasted all night and through today. Our porch had a layer of dirt on it. My kids went outside for a little bit and every time they took a step on the grass a little poof of dirt went up. My son's black sweats were gray all around his ankles.

The greeter at Walmart was wearing a white mask and there was dirt all over the outside of her mask. When I first got in there, I notice that it was a little foggy in side - a dust fog. I could taste the dirt and dust. Yuck!

Never experienced anything like that in Hawai'i. Tsunami warnings, hurricanes, tropical storms that flood the whole island, but no dirt storms!

Harvest

Even before the temperatures dropped this week, the fall harvest had already started for many families in our little town, including mine. Last week, Juan started hauling potatoes for his cousin. I was up around 4:00am everyday to make Juan breakfast and lunch before he left (around 4:30). I don't mind it too much, especially when I see him coming home covered in dirt and exhausted. I think we end up appreciating each other more.

Here in Othello, we went from a high of 90 degree weather last week to a high of 62 this week. That's a big drop for this Hawai'ian. I don't mind the cold though - as long as I'm prepared for it.
I've actually been wearing a light jacket at work everyday - all day.

I almost forgot, a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my niece, KU'ULANI KAMAU and my sister-in-law MINA KAMIBAYASHI!!!!!! Also, my sister MAKANA KAMAU last Friday. Shall I mention how old everyone is??? Well, Ku'u is a wonderful 13 years old today, Mina a mid-life 40 and Makana a wishful 39, I mean 34 (I wish she was 39 so that she couldn't tease me about my age!)

More birthdays to come, October is full of them! That's one of the reasons Juan has to work the harvest - after October, we're broke!

HAPPY HARVEST!!!

County Fair

Well, our weekend at the County Fair has ended and everyone's exhausted! We had a lot of fun tasting all the different foods and catching up with friends. The weather was nice, most of the days were hot, around 86 degrees, and the evenings were about 65 degrees. You didn't really need a jacket. Of course, the last night was FREEZING!! It was so cold that people were wearing their winter hats and gloves! I wish I would've had mine! We got to the fair around 4:00 pm and left at 8:30pm because it was just too cold.

I was inspired by the 'Blessed Quiver' blog to answer some questions about myself on my blog. I know that might be a little boring for some of you, but I can't really think of anything else to blog about today, so here goes!

1. If you could be anywhere else in the world, where would you be?
I would be in Spain siteseeing with my family (and other family members who would want to go). Actually, anywhere with my family would be fun. When we get together (especially my moms side of the family) we tend to laugh a lot.

2. What are your favorite smells?
One of my favorites smells is the rain. On Kaua'i you can smell and feel the rain coming. Another smell I like is the smell of freshly cut grass. Pot roast in the oven is another good smell. It reminds me of Sunday lunches after church, pouring the gravy over everything. . .
Cookies just baked and semi-cooled - Enough about smells!!

3. What are your favorite tastes?
Well obviously from the previous question, POT ROAST, shortbread cookies, and then there's chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!

So, I'm going to have to stop now and make some cookies or a pot roast - kind of getting hungry:)

More later!!

It's County Fair Time!

I love the County Fair!! To me it's the reminder that summer is over and fall is beginning. This is our County's last big "hooooo haw," before we bunker down for the winter months. I love the fall and winter months. Most people think I'm crazy - but when you grow up in Hawai'i you don't see much of any season but summer. 80/90 degree weather - all the time. You can sit on the beach all year long, get a nice tan, and have no worries about raking leaves in the fall or shoveling snow in the winter.

Anyways, the fair is so nice because you get to see practically the whole town. It's nice to get dinner and just sit around and talk to each other. You get to catch up with people you don't always see.

Jason has a field trip out to the fair to see all the animals and booths - should be a lot of fun. For some of the kids in his class, this will be the only time they get to go to the fair.

Laterz

Swine Flu?

There have been several cases of the swine flu in our town. At the school where I work, there are bottles of hand sanitizers everywhere. We're also wiping down tables w/antibacterial wipes before we start teaching. In one of the 1st grade classes that I work in there were 7 kids gone today because they were not feeling well. I didn't have to work as hard with all those kids gone, but I worry that some of them may not have health insurance and not be able to go to the doctor. Aaaggghhh! I wish I was a billionaire, so I could help all these kids!

I think the worst 'disease' you could get when I was in school was chicken pox. I remember my friend got it in Kindergarten - he was gone for a whole week. I'm not sure when I got it, I know I had it though, I have a scar to prove it.
When Jonathan was born we had the options to give him the chicken pox vaccination. We didn't let him have it. Six years later when Jason was born, it was required before he went to school unless you filled out a waiver.

Another 'disease' you could get that was bad was UKU'S (pronounced "oo-koos"). Okay it's not really a 'disease.' It's just head lice. My little cousins would fly over from Maui to stay with us for the summer and go home with chicken pox scars and UKU's. Poor things! It's funny because none of us got UKU's but they did (must have got them on the plane).
My dear mother-in-law was said to have sprayed RAID on her kids head when she found they had head lice. Different strokes, for different folks! Don't ask me if it worked, I wasn't there!

Later!

School Stuff

The first week of school came and went with only a few minor glitches. Most of the glitches came from my 12 yr. old. Middle School is not like Elementary. If you don't turn in your homework, you get detention after school. If you don't pass your core classes, you don't go to 8th grade. Personally, I don't find that hard to understand, but we'll just leave it there...
Jonathan forgot his math book on Monday, homework was due on Tuesday, the online math book was not available yet. . . aghhhhhhh! Luckily, his cousin had her book and was done using it. So that night, he didn't get to bed on time, but he DID get his homework done and turned in. Of course he was very tired the next day, but that's what you get!

Other than that, everything went pretty smoothly.

I don't really remember doing homework when I was in the 7th/8th grade or even in High School. I remember the 4th grade. It seems like all I did was LONG DIVISION. I can remember sitting at my desk at home, looking at the math book page full of division problems and dreading doing them. I actually liked my teacher (although I can't remember her name). I would give her gardenia's from our driveway and she still wouldn't give me a break on those division problems! Wow, trying to bribe the teacher at nine years old!

Happy Birthday!

I woke this morning remembering that I' m one step closer to 40. I went through most of the day without anyone at work knowing that it was my special day. Of course once I got home, it seemed like everyone was trying to get a hold of me. My family and I went out for a nice dinner, but we kept getting interrupted by phone calls. I soon found out that our dear friends posted my birthday on FACEBOOK along with how old I was!!

I remember my 5th birthday or maybe it was my 6th birthday. . . oh well. I got to have it at McDonald's!! We sat at round tables made out of stone or something. No Happy Meals back then, just cheeseburgers and fries. There was only one McDonald's on Kauai at that time, so this was a big deal.

Well, McDonald's don't cut it when you're turning 39! Anyways, I had a nice day and a wonderful dinner with my family and friends. Thank you for all the birthday wishes!!

Back to Work!

Wednesday, Aug. 26 started our new school year - yeah!! Excitement and dread filled our home that morning (boys were excited, I was dreading my first REAL day back to work). I had been going into the office for a week now, but Wednesday was the first day back for the students -blah! I was a little excited and took pictures of the boys, but in the back of my mind, I knew how much my feet were going to hurt and how exhausted I would be when I got home. I wasn't disappointed. I was in pain, but it quickly went away and I was left with memories of how many children and parents I helped that day.

I think most of the people I work with are at the school because they have a heart for kids. It's definitely not for the money. You can be the fourth assistant to the Assistant Superintendant and get paid as much as a first year teacher in our school district. Isn't that sad!! Our motto is "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND," but in most places teachers and aide are losing their jobs. In our kindergarten classroom, we have 27 students and only 1 teacher and 1 aide. That's 13.5 five/six year olds each!

I can go on and on about the administration and how things need to change. The truth is that I won't quit, I'll probably retire at this job because it's what I love.
My grandma Joyce was a teacher, maybe that's where I get the desire to do what I do.

Thanks a lot grandma!

Tunda and Lightning!

I've been afraid of thunder and lightning as long as I can remember. Two days ago we had a lightning show that really scared me. I've never seen lightning like this. We could see it hitting the ground. It sparked 15 fires in our area, 13 in Spokane, and 5 in North Idaho. Some of those fires burned hundreds of acres.
The thunder rumbled and shook our house. At one point it felt like someone was rolling a big boulder on our roof. It was 11:00pm and we were all up and in one room. It took me about an hour to fall asleep after the storm passed. Our friends had everyone sleep in the basement that night. Those kind of thunder and lightning storms are unusual for around here.
On Kaua'i we had quite a few thunder and lightning storms. I don't really remember seeing lightning but I sure heard the TUNDA! Usually when the thunder and lightning came we lost power. It happened a lot. Everyone knew where the candles, flashlights, and matches were. . . no big deal. Well, it was always a big deal for me! I was always afraid that the lights would go out when I was home alone. But, now that I think about it, I don't ever remember being home alone. Someone was always there. Hmmmm - I guess I was scared for nothing!
So much for that!!
Scaredy cat

Back to school

I recently took my boys shopping for school clothes and then went grocery shopping. I should've planned it on different days.
I remember my mom taking my brother and I school shopping. We went to the same store every year. I just can't seem to remember the name of it. We didn't have a mall at that time. What would my son do without a mall. No American Eagle, No Hollister, No Aeropostale, NO WAY! We're in Middle School now - come on! Luckily I found him all those 'name brand' shirts for about $5.00 each online. My younger son doesn't really care about those kind of things right now. He's more interested in the Mario Cart backpack and lunch bag. Needless to say, I came home about $150 poorer, my feet swollen, but at least my boys were happy! Thank goodness I don't have a girl. Boys are like, "I want that, it fits, lets go home."

Hurricanes in Hawai'i

I only bring up the subject of hurricanes because my parents were just recently preparing for one to hit Maui. It was down graded to a tropical storm but still caused some much needed rain for the island.
Many massive hurricanes have hit the islands but the one I remember the most is - Hurricane Iwa. It hit Kaua'i during Thanksgiving in 1982, I was twelve years old. Yes, I just gave my age away - for those of you still trying to calculate, I will be 39 this year and next year, and the year after that!
Well, electricity was out for about 3 weeks where we lived but fortunately we had a gas stove/oven and were able to cook our thanksgiving dinner. We actually cooked a lot of other people's turkeys too. I remember our house being full of people, some related, some not. We played cards near the kerosene latern, took showers by flashlight, hand washed our clothes with a scrubboard and a big metal tub. . . . it was quite an experience. As a kid, I didn't mind it at all, it was fun!
Once the road ways where clear and we were able to drive around the island well, that was just devastating. To see our family and friends who lost everything, it still brings tears to my eyes. Houses flattened, beaches gone. . . .

Camping on Kaua'i

My family and I recently went camping near Mt. Rainier with our dear friends. This reminded me of how we would go camping at Anahola beach on Kaua'i every summer. Of course, during our Mt. Rainier camping trip we had all the comforts of home like hot showers, a microwave, and a nice trailer w/beds to sleep in. Not at all like camping at Anahola beach. Cold showers from a spiket near a tree, sand everywhere, and a nice sleeping bag on the floor of a tent!

As reflect on those camping trips at Anahola, I realize that I would never camp like that now. Trailers are the way to go! Of course, I wouldn't trade those summer camp experiences for anything in the world. No TV, no video games, just a lot of fishing, swimming, making sand castles, and family time.

That is the most important thing for me. Family time. Even though my kids experienced a different kind of 'camping' than I did when I was a child, I'm so glad that we had that family time together.

Kaua'i

Kaua'i is were I was born and raised for the first 17 years of my life. I love Kaua'i. It is one of the slower paced islands in the hawai'ian chain, but probably the most beautiful. It is also known as 'The Garden Isle.' (Which is also the name of the local newspaper)
One of the reasons people like going to Kaua'i is that it is so relaxing. People aren't in a hurry there.

My brother and his family still live on Kaua'i. He works at the Marriot and my sister-in-law helps manage her mom's restaurant. It is called Waipouli Deli & Restaurant, and it is one of the best local restaurants on the island. It's located in the town of Kapa'a (where I grew up).

The house I grew up in was not at the beach, but up in the mountains. My grandfather (who was born in 1913) said that he grew up with 2 homes. One home in mountains and one near the sea. They would live in each home at different times of the year.

Anyway, I grew up eating fresh fruit like papayas, mangos, mountain apples, lychee, lilikoi, guavas, and of course pineapple. We had cows, a horse, dogs, and wild chickens running in the yard. A lot of our meals were eaten outside because the house was too hot and we didn't have an air conditioner. We did have a lot of fans though.
More about Kaua'i later.

Accreditation

Some of you might ask what my credentials are for creating this blog. First of all, I was born and raised in Hawai'i, specifically on the islands of Kaua'i and Maui. Secondly, I really am Hawai'ian! My mother is half hawai'ian and my father is a fourth hawai'ian making me . . . . well, you figure it out!

My grandfather (on my mother side) was pure hawaii'an. He passed away last November at the age 95. Even though I still grieve at times for his passing, I am more blessed with the memories and the legacy that he left our family. It truly encompasses everything I am today and makes me proud to say that I AM HAWAI'IAN!!

In this blog I'll be sharing some of the interesting things I experienced as a child growing up in Hawai'i. Also, some places I enjoy visiting in the islands. Until next time, a hui hou!