I put all unpublished clips March-September into a short movie… not that short, it’s 10 minutes.
Leilani, Sonja, and Grandma went to the wax museum at Fisherman’s Wharf last week (they had “free” tickets).
Sonja shielded Leilani from the worst parts, and in the end Leilani loved it, especially the movie scenes, for example Dorothy in the land of Oz. But Leilani doesn’t have all the cultural background yet, and she didn’t remember all the details because she only heard them once:
Blowing Away With the Wind – a lady dressed in fancy, big, beautiful dress that puffed over her feet, and a man with a white shirt in front of a table and trees.
Titanium – about a boat that sinks
Yes, we are OK, our house is on the other side of town… we just came back from San Francisco (Bad Mommy! What about Leilani’s bed time! But that’s another post) and saw the fire on the road.
Scary though… we can smell the smoke.
Excerpt from the article on SFGate.com
(09-09) 22:03 PDT SAN BRUNO — With a thunderous roar heard for miles, a natural gas line explosion ripped through a San Bruno neighborhood shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, sending up a geyser of fire, critically burning residents and igniting a blaze that gobbled up more than a dozen houses.
The wind-whipped blaze jumped from structure to structure in the area near Skyline Boulevard and Sneath Lane, west of Interstate 280, raging unabated for almost an hour as emergency crews rushed in, residents cleared out, and ambulance sirens filled the air.
Andy and I have been married for 6 years!
The images link to more photos.
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Tuesday, August 31st 2004 we set up. Andy, Klaus, Ruwan and Thelan helped John to set up the reception tents at the Taro patch. Inge, Trude, Kiron and Sonja cleaned up at Kalihiwai beach. |
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We started the celebration on Wednesday, September 1st 2004. In the morning we hiked NouNou, the “Sleeping Giant” hill nearby, and picked Ti leaves that we later made into leis for the wedding guests. In the afternoon Andy and the guys went kayaking, while Sonja and the gals had a lei making class.
In the evening we had a pizza party at our house and also the most beautiful sunset rainbow.
To see more click on the image above…
The morning of the wedding day a big rain cleared the atmosphere, cleansed
the island, and the rest of the day was beautiful, warm, sunshine, light
breeze, just perfect weather. Before the ceremony we had music and hula at
the beach.
In the beginning Antion blew the conch shell, then Serge Kahili King held a deeply meaningful and moving ceremony. We had a Hawaiian water ritual and a lei exchange in addition to the exchange of rings.
After the ceremony many pictures were taken and many hugs and good wishes received. We also took a short break at the ocean.
More Photos of our guests. Click on the image…
The reception was held at the Taro Patch in Anahola. Many more posed pictures, and beautiful Hula and Hawaiian music started this part of the
celebration.
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The reception continued with a great lunch from the Blossoming Lotus, the local vegan restaurant, cutting of the cake and Ruwan’s speech. |
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Finally, we planted a tree, a breadfruit tree, Ulu. The Ulu was brought to Hawaii by the Polynesians. To us it represents, among many other |
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Friday we had a picnic in Kokee, but we got fogged and rained out and luckily escaped to Polihale, where we relaxed and camped the next 2 days. |
As Leilani said “we were firing a fest” (this quote will be a lot more funny if you are fluent in German and English…, feiern in German means celebrate, and sounds a lot like English fire-n, a fest is a party or celebration)
10 days and 500 photos later, we’re back from lovely-as-ever Kaua’i. After sorting, there will probably be only 200 photos to keep, and Sonja will probably find dozens to post.
In the meantime, we’re having a quiet weekend cleaning up at home. Leilani was getting dressed this morning, which means putting on the same shorts and t-shirt as yesterday and picking out a new dress (because yesterday’s had spinach on it already). The first pink dress she pulled out had been used for painting, so now it’s a crafts apron. Then she got out her pink, red, and orange Hawaiian-print dress to wear. At the same time, another pretty dress fell off the hanger, and I suggested that one.
“No, it’s too Eastery,” she replied, and she was right. It was light pink, yellow and very flowery. I asked Sonja if she had ever called her dresses that, and she said no. I know I have probably said some dress looks like an Easter dress, but that was long ago. In any case, Leilani picked up on the meaning perfectly.
Later at breakfast, Leilani and Sonja had Trader Joe’s probiotic strawberry smoothies. These come in little bottles, and I had Leilani shake hers before opening. After taking the first sip of the now-frothy drink, she said “it’s like beer for kids.” Again, the similarities are many when you think about it, probably more than she’s aware of: cultured, sugar/alcohol, curved bottle, etc.
Finally, Sonja and Leilani were getting ready to go to 24-Hour Fitness. The best part of this gym for Sonja is that they have nearly-free childcare most days of the week. And the child care room is a great playground for the kids, with climbing and sliding, coloring, and TV, which is probably why Leilani likes it so much (we’ve asked the care-givers to drag her away from the TV if she watches too much). The 24-Hour Fitness is in the same plaza as Leilani’s Little Gym, so we’ve taken to calling it the Big Gym. And I always thought the children’s area in the Big Gym was called the Jungle Gym, which seemed to be a clever name by this corporate chain that thinks of all these little details. I learned today that Leilani made up the name Jungle Gym one of the first times she went, and it’s just what we call it in our family now.