My guilty pleasure - The Bachelor

Trashy as it may be...I LOVE THIS SHOW. I admit to looking forward to Monday nights all week long just to sit in front of the tube with ice cream and watch this. I have been a devoted fan since season 1 - never missing an episode. Before this season, Travis Stork was my favorite bachelor. This season, Matt Grant has given him a run for first place.

Tonight being the season finale, it is down to Chelsea and Shayne. My best guess is that it's Shayne, an actress from LA and daughter of actor Lorenzo Lamas. Although she's not eternal companion material, I do think they have the best chemistry. Any other guesses?

Watch tonight!

The new pad

I actually never dreamed of living in a house this beautiful.  Travis and I fell in love with this place when we first moved here.  We are renting now, but considering a purchase.  The house is on 3 acres of beautiful grounds with a little playhouse for the kids.  It is more than a house, it is a work of art.  This house was built with exquisite craftsmanship in every detail.  Here are some of my favorite things:

The grounds of course.  Here are Travis and the girls in their toys.  The girls are driving down to play in the playhouse.  With all the outdoor fun, the girls are almost always playing outside - love it!  We have avocado trees, mango trees, guava trees, Gardenias, Hibiscus, coconut palms, etc.  Yum!

Views, views, views! Today is a little hazy, but on a clear day, we can see a lot of ocean.

This is a screen room that we made into our home gym.  It doesn't get full sun all day and it is so breezy and cool.  Travis frequents this room, but I'm working on it.  

I love the tile in this house.  It is polished limestone rectangle tiles.  It really hides dirt and all the crud the kids bring in.  This is my new table.  I haven't owned a dining room table since 2004.  We can actually sit down to family dinner and look at each other.  It is Monkey Pod wood.  Just the table top weighs 600 lbs.  Can you believe Travis and 4 young men from church got this in the house?
Our new sofa.  It's modern and fun and really comfortable.  You can slide the ottoman against the couch and lay down.  I am making some throw pillows for it.  
The wood work in this place is unbelievable.  This is one of 3 Koa wood staircases.  
Front door
3 of the bedrooms have turrets.  This is the one in the master bedroom. 
Master bathroom.  Yes, it was weird at first, but I'm getting used to it.  I just want to cover up the mirror staring at me.  
P.S.  Thanks to my great talented friend Rachel who designed yet another banner for my blog.  You rock Rach!  My new favorite animal is a sea turtle.  :)

Mom and Grandma visit

My dear mother and grandmother (aka Grandma Great) came to visit us for 9 days. My grandma is 84 and doesn't travel very far these days, so I was thrilled that she would come all this way to see us. I am so proud of her and impressed with her motivation and drive at her age. We enjoyed them so much! My girls were in heaven with all the attention.
4 generations of beautiful wahines after church
Grandma Great and Eve doing their exercises together

We got a baby sitter and went out to a nice dinner at the Hyatt one night. The grounds are so gorgeous!
(yes, I have pink hair. And my grandma thinks it's cool.)
A moment of meditation at Glass Beach.
My sweet mom helped me start a couple quilting projects that have been waiting in the wings for a while. I have this huge space in our new house for my sewing and violin teaching. I love it!
We started a "Turning Twenty" quilt and I just got the top all put together today. I LOVE the fabrics. This is a really easy quilt and so much fun.
Close up of my fabrics

Veda's Big Bash

Our little Veda turned 5 this month. We had a big birthday party for her and it was a total success. She wanted an "under the sea" party and we had so much fun theming it out from start to end. We were lucky to have Torrey and Mark here with us to celebrate. They were a huge help in pulling this thing off.

Art by Travis



Pin the tooth on the shark - another Travis original

Are these cupcakes cute or what?

about 15 super cute keiki joined us



Happy Birthday Veda Bella. We love you so much and we are so proud of the person you are becoming.

The Silver State

My rad brother, Taylor, is in a band called The Silver State. Their debut album titled "Cut and Run" was released this week. You can download it from Itunes now!

This is a video of the song "Faith You Changed Your Name". My brother is the tall, handsome guitar player wearing the long sleeved grey shirt. I'm so proud of him! I honestly love this song. I've been singing it all day long. Their band is going on tour next month for 4 weeks across the continental US. To see tour dates and cities, go to yamrecordings.com and you will see their link first thing. Way to go Tay!

kayak adventure

We had a great visit with Torrey (Travis's sister) and her husband Mark a couple weeks ago. They came out 3 days after our move and were such good sports about helping us out and interrupting the play to work (oh, and sleeping on the floor!). My girls are in love with them both and we all miss them. We really did squeeze in as much fun as could possibly be had in the short time they were here.

We took our two man kayak and borrowed one from a friend and rowed up the Wailua river where we parked the kayaks and hiked to a waterfall. Everything - from the trip up the river, to the hike, to enjoying the waterfall was all so awesome! This was my first experience swimming in a waterfall and it was COLD but so much fun. We did this trip on a Sunday, when commercial companies don't take tours of the river, so we were the only ones there. (Besides the chickens and roosters stalking Torrey).



Torrey's experienced smooth strokes rocked Eve right to sleep.


you gotta do what you gotta do!

Sorry to those of you who were affected by the spam virus comment on my last post. I have enabled my word verification setting on my comments, so you will have one more step to comment, but hopefully it will prevent this from happening again!