Christmas Eve Morning

I started off with a little coffee

after having a wonderful morning being lazy in my pjs. I drove up to my parents just in time to get a few pictures taken before Hurricane Leia hit.

We had a wonderful night at church, where we were treated with the children's choir and live models that acted out the Christmas story. Leia was excited about everything she saw and used her big girl voice to talk about anything and everything. She also called all of the photos of Jesus "baby Jesus." After church, we went to China Star for dinner and had a yummy chinese dinner. Then headed home to open one present. I got a super cute scarf from Mexico...(My presents seemed to have a little bit of a theme, some from Mexico some from Hawaii. Did someone's parents go to Mexico and Hawaii this year?)

Everyone headed to bed early, so I went home to my own bed. I was tucked in and fast a sleep in time for Santa to come and drop off all my presents.

Merry Christmas

May your days celebrating Jesus's birthday be filled with much laughter and joy!

Merry Christmas Eve

Oh little tree, that started out in a itty bitty pot and now has grown too big for many pots.

Hopefully one day you will grow to be this big

and hold all the ornaments in the right place.

Break Goals

This break I've decided to focus on my photography. My goal is to take my camera every where I go (kind of like when I first got it) and take at least 4-5 pictures a day of just the simple things. It doesn't have to be big or anything. I want to capture the everyday things as well as the events that will happen over break.

I also will be working on fixing up my business blog and hope to go live right around New Years.

So here's how the goal is going so far...

My hula sisters took the opportunity to try a new way of grooming and came to Kent to get their eyebrows threaded.

I shared some christmas cheer with others when I stopped wrapping presents to go and help a stupid car not be stupid any more. I soooo hate dealing with cars!!!! (Oh-and guess what, that lovely mechanic that rotated my tires and didn't tell me that one of them was bald hasn't called me about the part that he ordered for me that I should have been over 2 months ago now!)

Cassie and I took the Link to downtown Seattle to finish up my shopping. It was super nice not to have to worry about traffic or parking once we got down there. We caught the train right at the airport and 8 stops later we were right under the Westlake Mall. I would recommend going this way to everyone I speak to. It was so nice and only cost $5 round trip! I would have paid more than that in gas alone.

So far so goood!!!!

Vacation FINALLY!!!

My Vacation finally started!!!! Whooo!!!! Hoooo!! We were supposed to be out on the 18th of December, but when we had to add the days from the strike to our calendar they added them to our break making us go to the 22nd of December! Boo!

So today I spent the day in my pajamas after a super yummy breakfast at Sunbreak Cafe! I am so excited for the multiple days that I will spend in my pajamas and time I will get to spend with my camera and family.

Halau Christmas Party

This year our annual halau christmas party was celebrated in great spirit with games, white elephant gift exchange, raffle, slideshow, and ono food. We ate until we were stuffed, laughed until our bellies hurt, shed a few tears, and all together we remembered a year that brought many great blessings and took some.

A Year Later...

Hula Sisters a year ago at the Christmas party

and now a year later with their little bundles of joy!

This Past Week

In this past week I attended a Soup Swap,

which was a lot of fun. It was great to catch up with some old friends that I hadn't seen since last May. Although we keep pretty up-to-date on Facebook, it was nice to actually see them.

I finally got a letter from

about my missing bags. They didn't find any of my items, so the sent me a check to replace everything, although I'm pretty sure it didn't cover a refund of my baggage fee. boo!

I put this

and this

together to make this

It turned out pretty good for my first time.

It's Just One Of Those Days

It was just one of those days....the day that seems like nothing is going to go right.

It's raining when you wake up and you have outside duty.

You roll over and see that your alarm clock says 6:30 and you were supposed to be up at 5, so you could go and work out.

The clothes you laid out to wear today, don't fit right and you end up changing.

But then you get to school and you have that first cup of coffee with a little hot coco in it.

You set out the entry task (that is already copied) and check your email.

You head to the copy machine and no one is in line.

You go out for duty and the sun is out and it's not as bad as you thought it was going to be.

Your kids come in quietly and get to work.

They get along and play nicely in partnerships. Then they quietly go out to recess.

But then as they file back in, you notice a few are covered in mud -someone in the class has pushed them down.

You here a group of kids coming down the hall yelling about how it isn't fair that they are getting in trouble.

You have your kids work in partners again and there is one group that just can't handle it.

You have kids bullying another kid.

You have kids that are yelling across the room at each other.

But you are determined not to get mad, you take a deep breath and then you have the kids line up for music. They leave and you go back to the calm of your room....things get better.

But then you pick them up and find out that they have been awful. They can't stand in line, they are talking and ignoring everything you say. You drop them off again and you head to get a treat. The treat is pacifying enough hopefully to get you through the day.

The kids come back and are somewhat good, but then you see it again.

The disdain for one kid written over another's face.

The pleas from another just to be liked. Your heart aches for that kid, but you can't figure out what to do or how to help.

So you call in the big guns, hopefully it will help!

They leave the room in silence,

you pray for hope and a change of behavior.

You now have to deal with the next challenge...