Although Halloween is still just a few days away, this Saturday marked a Halloween Festival at the boy's elementary school filled with games and other activities.
Here's Bretty with a beanbag toss into the various orifices of a ghost...
Of course, Bretty noted that if it really were a ghost, then the bean bag would fly right through it no matter if it went through its eyes or not.
Hmmm, good point.
And in the great Halloween/The Price is Right tradition, Kekoa played his school's version of Plinko (complete with one of Bob Barker's girls standing by -- although it appears that old Bob is liking them pretty young these days...)
David played a demon, so he had to throw rats -- lots and lots of rats -- into a pot.
As you can see from the picture above, it seems like the entire school turned out for this day of Halloween celebration. Many of the kids dressed up in classic costumes that you've seen many years before.
There were Cinderellas everywhere. Along with her newer version -- Belle from "Beauty in the Beast." Butterflies, fairies, and princesses were also among the most common.
The boys had their tradition favorites as well, with things like cowboys, soldiers, football players and lots of versions of scary monsters.
Even the more modern costumes were what you would expect and enjoy.
Buzz Lightyear. Mr. Incredible. Power Rangers.
But then, times are changing a little bit.
Consider this little girl apparently whose dream it was to dress up this Halloween as a hooker...
And this boy, who always wanted to be her pimp...
Ah, times they are a'changing.
Oh, and their faces were obscured because we don't pick on little kids then post their pictures on the internet (unless they're our kids, of course).
But then I have no qualms about posting this guy's picture. I initially thought was wearing a costume dressed as Elvis. Then I looked more closely, and I swear, this is just how he dresses...
It's blurry because I had to snap the picture pretty quickly!
Ah, Halloween is almost upon us. Here's David as a demon...
Bretty as a monster...
Kekoa as a muscular Power Ranger...
And Malia as a flying unicorn and Nalani as a spider...
Then there's Alyssa...
She was dressed up as a slovenly teenager who spends all day sitting on her bed messaging her friends in her messy room.
Thank goodness she only pretends to be that on Halloween and isn't like that all year long.
Gotta Dance!
Gotta Dance!
(With apologies to Gene Kelly, our little girl Nalani is just singing in the rain...)
Gotta Dance!
Okay, maybe she's not singing, but she's definitely dancing!
Nalani has been taking dance classes every week for some time now, but most of the sessions only allow parents to peek through the glass door to the lobby. It appears that some kids behave better when their parents are out of the room -- go figure. Anyway, today the class opened up for parents to watch their adorable little girls.
The class begins with stretching, of course, complete with each girl performing a split.
Well, almost...
The first part of the class consists mostly of jazz and ballet...
Then they need to switch to tap shoes.
Why?
Because they gotta dance!
The instructor told the little girls that they were to put "glue" on their hands and stick them to their hips. But then she had to go out of the room for a second and chaos reigned supreme.
Well, almost.
Look at our little girl with her back to the camera the second from the right...
Yep, she's the only one whose hand remained "glued" to her hips because that's what her teacher told her to do.
What a terrific little girl!
Finally, to end the class, they danced with ribbons and Nalani even dragged Cari into the act...
While Daddy remained on his rear end...
And Nalani being the wonderful little girl that she is, she even shared her Halloween candy with her little sister Malia...
Gotta dance!
We could also title this post, "Little Girls Take Over the Community Foundation."
Last week my lovely wife Cari unexpectedly had to head off to Green Bay, Wisconsin and that left me as a single dad with six kids.
And since we didn't have any time to make other plans, the littlest two of our children spent the week following me everywhere -- including spending many a day hanging out at the Nevada Community Foundation.
Sometimes, it wasn't the least bit disruptive, such as when they sat around in my office and colored...
Other times they were downright adorable, such as when Nalani put on my Cowboy hat and Malia wore a Packer hard hat...
Then there were the times when I walked down the hall only to return to find that they had decided to take over my desk...
Quite honestly, while I intellectually understood what my lovely wife did all day, physically and emotionally, well, that was quite an education.
The day would begin at 5:45 a.m. to get Alyssa off to school -- then it was the boys to their school -- then go in to the office -- only to take a break a few hours later to take the little girls out to lunch -- to picking up Alyssa at her school -- then picking up the boys.
There are breakfasts, dinners, feeding the animals, taking the dog out, doing dishes, overseeing the kids as they pick up the house, bath time, laundry, bed time.
The day never seems to end!
I'm not sure who was happier to see Cari return -- a tired me or six kids who were tired of me.
Well, we were all quite happy and decorated the house with cray paper for Cari's arrival...
We made a nice little poster...
And created a wall of celebration for Cari...
Here are just a few of the examples of the pictures on the wall. Everyone drew a series of pictures which shared this...
Nalani started to draw a pizza, but then decided that she missed Mommy's eggplant...
Kekoa liked Mommy's cold lunches from home (their lazy Daddy made the boys buy a hot lunch every day)...
Alyssa decided to score a few brownie points with her Mommy by saying how much she missed her smile...
Only to be trumped by David who missed his Mommy kissing him goodnight...
But Bretty's was proof positive that these kids are not just clones of their Dad...
Bretty missed his Mommy telling him to eat breakfast.
In other words, this kid needs to be told to eat.
Clearly, there are some ways in which he is nothing like me!
My cousin Dart's son Xavier arrived earlier today from Alaska to compete in a softball tournament. A few years back he played on two underdog baseball teams that went on to win consecutive state high school championships in Hawaii. While we were all proud of him, he did take just a little too much joy beating my alma mater Iolani along the way to those championships!
It took about an hour after picking up Xavier and his friend Michael at the airport before we were finally able to pull him out of our garage -- Xavier couldn't stop saying how much he wanted a "manly car" like mine.
Anyway, they decided that they needed to get in a little practice before their first game later this week. So to be supportive of Xavier's dedication to practice and hard work, everyone in our house decided to get down to business, doing the things they needed to do this afternoon.
Right away, Xavier got busy "warming up" for practice in the hot tub...
While Alyssa spent her time after regular school taking an additional online class...
Xavier then did a series of "stretches" in the hot tub to get his body ready for practice...
While David, Bretty and Kekoa were busily working on their own homework...
Then Xavier sat in deep thought in the hot tub envisioning how he was going to practice...
While Malia and Cari got busy making a special dinner of fried rice and shoyu chicken for Xavier and his friend...
Xaiver finally convinced Michael to get out of the pool and join him in the hot tub so they could thoroughly plan out exactly how they were going to practice...
While even I got in on the dinner preparation chopping up the Portuguese sausage for the fried rice...
Oh well. If nothing else, Xavier got to lift some weights as Nalani, Malia and Kekoa climbed all over him...
Coming from a family of nine kids (yes, my cousin Dart has nine kids), Xavier is one of the few visitors we have who considers our house quiet.
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