Palace & state buildings

Thorin's class went on a very cool field trip last month. We toured the only Palace in the USA and the House and Senate of Hawaii. The kids were allowed to take a photo behind the governor's desk where press conferences take place. The entire building is built with symbolism. The state is very strong on symbols and traditions. The pillars represent the Hawaiian islands, they stand in water to represent the ocean, the doors and desk have 8 panels to represent to areas as well. At the Palace we had a tour guide who told us about how advanced the palace was back when it was built. It had electricity before the White House! You should have seen it!
http://www.iolanipalace.org/index.php/history/restoration-of-the-palace.html
This website shows how beautiful the koa wood staircase looks. The original staircase is so expensive they no longer allow visitors to use it.

Can you imagine dancing at a Royal Ball in this beautiful room?? I could!

Marine Corps Base-KBay Adventure

Today was a total adventure. We drove over to the other side of the island to get our last T-shirt replacements for the SWAMP ROMP and had a great time exploring the base. We had lunch in the courtyard, shopped a bit and took some tourist-style photos before heading out. If you are on Facebook you have seen my story, but if not....here it is.
We were driving back on Highway 3 (there are only 3 highways). This one is very high off the ground, has a tunnel and is only 2 lanes. So we are driving and we see a police car. Then we go a little more and more police cars. This is not normal. I made a comment about quotas and drove on.....then there were MORE so we started thinking something was going on around the area. I was hoping it wasn't a bomb threat. So, we were cruising along at 60 and a truck blew past us so fast that I looked like I was going backwards.....so I thought, those cops are sure to get that guy if they were here...but there were none....then more that 20 police cars, unmarked trucks and a couple helicopters swarmed us. We nearly got hit by an unmarked suburban. It was a little freaky. We were worried of running into something bad so we phoned a friend to see if there was a news story....nothing. We saw so many police cars that I think the entire state of Hawaii was around our car. I posted it to Facebook and many people were joking that it was an island and where were they going to go??
You would think that huh??
But this was an island-wide high speed chase and it ended shortly after they passed us.....they got AWAY!!!
It was a stolen truck and they hopped in another one! So, as I was looking for this bit of news to post on Facebook I noticed that it was a common thing here. There have been so many in the past few years that I was tried of reading. The very next day there was another high-speed chase and the mustang ran into the wall and the guy died.....glad I wasn't there that day!
SO, never a dull moment on this little island!

Student of the Month-Cannon

Cannon was her class' student of the month. She is doing so well in school that I am excited that we came to Hawaii instead of another state where she would still have been in Preschool. She was mostly bored last year and irritated because she was ahead of what the other kids were doing. Even her teacher said that she was ready for school earlier than most kids. Well, her kindergarten teacher emailed me this weekend and said that after Spring Break she will be working on 2nd grade material because she tested out of the 1st grade work!!!

She is following in her sisters' footsteps and LOVES school as much as everyone else in our home.....I could not be any prouder.

crazy hair day

This was Sorenna's crazy hair for spirit week.

Girl Scout Thinking Day

I don't remember doing this as a Girl Scout, but it was a very fun project. The girls were assigned a country to research. Our girls had France, Phillipines and Ireland. It was very interesting to see what they came up with when they were looking into the girl scouts of each country. It was neat to see that they are very similar in other lands. They did little trinkets to give to girls and made a food from the country to try as well.
It was a fun experience and I look forward to what we will get next year.

Circus adventure at The Bishop Museum

We finally got to attend the Membership preview day for one of the exhibits and it was a blast!

It is called Circus and explains all the small unknown details about Circus life and the bigtop. The girls were in a raffle for a chance to walk the tightrope and do a giant acrobat swing, but they didn't get picked. We did get a chance to squeeze into a small box, dress up like circus characters, and wear CLOWN noses and those adventure were just as fun. There was a trivia video that allowed you to take a quiz and it informed you of the correct answer. The girls learned tons of cool facts from that part.

My favorite part was the face painting. I told the girls they could get CLOWN faces...not a heart of flower for the night.

Robert was joking that Cannon had actually turned into a clown with the makeup. She was a NUT! The other girls joked that she needed to be a clown when she grew up because she was really good at it. Go figure...the quiet one is the clown!

Misc January & February events

I know it has been a really long time since I got caught up on my BLOG....grad school, 3 kids and tons of volunteering has me busier than usual.

These are a few of the highlights from January & February.

Thorin became an Alter Server!!

We went to a concert (Lt. Dan Band) with Gary Sinise (CSI), we ran a few races and so much more.