Just to make you jealous . . .

. . . a few photos from our garden:




Let you think otherwise from these photos, we do have seasons here in Hawaii. The rainy season is now upon us in all its splendid sogginess. We did get to the beach last Sunday afternoon during an uncharacteristically clear day, but we've given up entirely on trying to line dry our clothes outside due to the frequency and violence of the cloudbursts. We can't complain - we know what the weather is like in NY in December. Besides, here you can still wear slippers when it's raining, which eliminates problems like soaked sneakers and smelly socks.


Ryan's small vegetable garden has finally borne fruit. Three, to be exact. All tomatoes. A few more, plus one miniscule eggplant, are in the process of ripening. Of the three tomatoes, Daniel has eaten two of them as though they were apples: raw, and plain, biting directly into them. When I was Daniel's age, I thought tomatoes were for slicing little mouths into, squeezing really hard and pretending to make them throw up. Oh, wait, I do that now. Never mind.

My Aunty Linda (my Dad's sister) stayed with us for a few days last week. She was in town to see my cousin Grant, who is an assistant band director here on the island. She and Grant both came to Sophie's ballet performance. I think she took video. If I can track it down, I'll post it.


Sophie is finishing up her last week of school before a three-week long Christmas break and is eagerly awaiting Sunday, when the children's choir performs their musical. She asked last week how long it was until the show, and when we told her a week, she complained, "Aww, that's so long!" She's doing an ensemble number dressed up as a cheerleader, pom poms and all, and has a few solo lines in one of the final songs.

Daniel refused to join the other kids on stage, but he's been singing along to Sophie's practice CD. He's a little confused about some of the lyrics, though. Sophie's "cheerleader" song is called "Mighty God," and the second verse begins like this:

Who can set the prisoner free,
Who walked on water, calmed the sea?

Daniel's version?

Who can send the Christmas tree?

So when you ask, "Daniel, who can send the Christmas tree?" he answers right away. "God!"

At least he's connecting God and Christmas there somehow.

A few weeks ago we took a drive up Tantalus, which is a long winding road up through the mountains. At the top, you have a spectacular view of Diamondhead, the ocean and the city. Ryan was trying to get a good shot for the City Church website. It was a little too overcast for a perfect photo, but you can get a good sense of one of Hawaii's famous views.


I meant to download and post a few more photos (one of Aunty Linda and Sophie and maybe one of our Angel Tree collection day at church), and revise this blog a bit, but since I somehow managed to accidentally publish it already (I really think blogger.com was born out of a fiendish plot to drive HTML-challenged perfectionists INSANE), I'm just going to gather my dignity and finish up for now.