Tag Award

I have been given this award by April so I thought I'd take a whack at it. Of course this award came with a tag and I have to do something to show my appreciation for this award..lol.

So the rule of this tag award is: I MUST tell 7 things about me (I'm assuming this would be somethings nobody knows about) and then give this award to 7 people. (Heaven forbid that anyone should be totally mysterious in the Bloggersville) so here's to you then.

1. I am the 9Th kid in a family of eleven children and I'm only counting the number of kids my mom has...I didn't count in the half siblings and step-siblings that are out there. So me having seven children is actually a normal thing in my family, I guess.

2. I loathe housekeeping...not that I can't keep a house but I just can't stand the repetition of keeping a house clean and picked up (everyday) especially when it takes at least an hour to make a room look remotely decent when it took my rascals five seconds to undo it again.

3. My dream growing up was to become a doctor...I like the feeling I get when I help out another person and I figured becoming a doctor is the way to go. Of course this is what the doctors do back on my little island...they help people and hardly get paid for their services...before I discovered that there are actually doctors out there who in their field just for money.

4. I love music, well mostly musical instruments...I fantasized about being totally gifted with the ability to play any musical instrument I want to play but of course that is not the way of things. So the only musical instrument I can play but I wouldn't call myself pro at it is a piano.

5. I am fascinated with history...I love learning about what people did in a certain era and how they deal with different issues and I especially love reading about people in my age group were doing in those times.

6. My favorite kind of food is fish...or any other sea food. I crave fish...I can't seem to get enough of it.

7. I am total night owl...I have a bad habit of staying up late at night doing whatever strikes my fancy and then ended up sleeping in late in the morning. Yes a very bad habit, one I'm working to get rid of because I love to sleep and with little kids around, I need to get up early in the morning to do things for them without being cranky from my lack of sleep.

Now for the seven people to pick....I'm picking these people because I truly want to know more about them...I'm nosy like that.

Brandi at Williams Family Paradise

Gran Denny at Looking Up from Down Under

Lisa at It's All About Me

Heidi at Dunhaven Place

Amanda at Bringing it Home

Heather at Peck Keiki

Noelle at Phat Bottomed Girl (I love her blog title)

So there folks...now you know a little more about me. Thanks April for the award, I will display it proudly on my sidebar.

My Beautiful Island

I was surfing the net when I came across this video. I gotta say I felt absolutely happy and a bit proud to show this off...this is what my island looks like. I miss it a lot and seeing this video brought so much memories so I thought I'd share with you all.

The name of my island is POHNPEI...meaning "on an altar"...because of its name, people of my island believe it's a very sacred place to be and have always tried to live their lives with respect for the inhabitants, from the creatures of the sea to the beautiful trees and waterfalls in the mountain. This is just a little tribute that one of my fellow islander decided to do for our little island.

To summarize the song the guy is singing.....
"We as a people of this island should treat it with respect and love...to take good care of an inheritance given to us from on high. We should always work together to make this beautiful island a place where we can be proud to call ourselves Pohnpeian."

Yes, the song is sung in my native language but the chorus is basically in English so you might be able to get the gist of what the singer is trying to convey.

Hopefully you all like this little glimpse of my birthplace and a little glimpse into my past.

God bless and happy blogging!!

Another creation

Last week in Young Women, I had to teach the Beehive about Personal Records. Because I was in Primary for a while, I have become accustomed to using visual aide when teaching a lesson to keep the kids focused and interested. So I tried to do the same thing when I'm teaching the Beehive.

Because I feel that this particular lesson is very vital and important that the Beehive take into account, I deliberately postponed teaching this lesson til last week so that I could make something for the girls, something tangible that they can see everyday and be a reminder to them.

And of course, I just happen to like the topic too. I love reading about history either personal or collective and I think keeping records of our daily lives is a very useful tool to leave for future generation. Along with my lesson, I wanted to challenge my YW class to keep a journal, to write just about anything they want but I also know that if I just say do it, they will come up with some excuse as to why they might not be able to do it. So I went a step further and made all of my Beehive girls each a journal.

So here they are...I even personalized the journals so there shouldn't be any confusion as to which one belongs to who. Luckily I have a very small class so it only took me a couple of hours to do these.

This is what I used to make their journals...just a regular composition that cost 25 cents and with a few sheets of designer papers I turned this regular composition book to that below.






These were really easy and fun to make and the girls just love them. I have to pick colors that match their personalities and they were totally thrilled to receive them. They love the fact that no two books are the same...

Yeah..as you can count on the number of the books, I only have six girls in my class..I've got a couple of girls who has moved up to Mia Maid and these were the ones left this year. Actually, one of the girls just had birthday this past week so she's moved on to Mia Maid class but I am not getting any coming up from Primary this year. I think by the end up this year I might only have one girl left or even none at all.

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying my new calling as a Beehive Adviser? Yep, I totally ♥ these young ladies.

Anyways, I'm back from our camping trip...still exhausted from all that excitement that came from camping, the late night and early mornings...really wears this old body out. I was going to post about the camp but I can't seem to download any pictures to show so hopefully sometime next week I'll be able to show some pictures. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy my little creation for this week and hopefully your weekend will be great one.

So Alooooha and God bless!! ♥

The Wonderful Functions of Water....who'd have thought

Lately, I found myself tired all.the.time. I feel fatigued, sleepy and I just don't feel like doing anything. And no...I am NOT pregnant...this is usually a symptom that I have when I was pregnant but be assured, I am not pregnant. I'd be worried about that if I haven't just recently been visited by the monthly visitor..lol.

In fact, the hotter the weather gets, the worse I get. I get irritated easily and was constantly snapping at somebody...sad I know. Well, I came to find out that I've been skipping out on my fluid intake...yes I did drink liquid but it wasn't as much as my body needed. See, I've been dehydrating myself...I wasn't drinking enough water.



Yes....WATER....it's actually a very very useful liquid. Do you know that water doesn't just quench our thirst but it also help a person lose weight? How cool is that? But aside from it being a weight loss instrument...there are other very useful ways water are beneficial to us. Here it is: read on.


WATER......

• Keeps us hydrated. During the hot summer days, your body needs to replenish itself with water so you will not become dehydrated. When this happens, you don't have enough water in your body to carry out normal functions. Even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you feel fatigued.
• Improves skin health. Water hydrates and irrigates impurities from the skin, keeping it healthy and glowing. Water is also the ultimate anti-aging product because it plumps up the skin and smooths out some facial wrinkles. Instead of spending money on expensive anti-aging products, let water do some of the work for you naturally and free!
• Regulates body temperature. Water helps regulate body temperature, especially during exercise. When you exercise, drinking water reduces cardiovascular stress and improves performance. And water reduces body temperature, making the exercise process safer and more effective.
• Prevents headaches. Although there are many causes of headaches, this is a common early symptom of dehydration. Drinking adequate amounts of water may alleviate recurring headaches. The next time you have a headache, consider skipping the pain pills, and try drinking a glass of water instead.
• Lubricating our internal organs and joints. Water keeps our organs and joints moist. This permits the passage of nutrients and wastes between the blood vessels and the rest of the body.
• Helps prevent kidney stones. Drinking water decreases your chance of getting kidney stones. A major waste product is blood urea nitrogen which is passed out of the body in urine. Drinking water helps dilute these salts so the kidneys can flush them out easily.
  
  
  

After reading this, wouldn't you just want to run to the closest water fountain, faucet or even a fridge to take huge gulp of water? I know we as women/moms/wives we're often too busy to stop and take care of ourselves but we need to. And I know that all the everyday life, running errands, chauffeuring kids, doing housework, coaching a little league, etc, we put ourselves on the back burner a lot. So while you're out there running around doing what moms do best, take a bottle of water with you. Even if we don't have time to doll ourselves up, as you read above already, water can actually help in a small measure to give us some help on making ourselves look halfway decent..so to speak. I hope you all enjoy this post.

P.S. Our family is still gone on our camping trip.

A Super Duper Give-away

No, it's mine silly....I just want to increase my chances of winning the give-away so I thought I'd share that with you today so we can both benefit. I increase my chances of winning by getting more entries and let you know at the same time so you can go enter it too. See how very generous I am?

Enough beating around the bush you say? Aw come on, I want to build up your anticipation, sheeesh..lol.

So, do you want to get a chance to win something awesome and wonderful? Mormon Mommy Blogs is having a super duper for the month of June. No, it's not just one prize, there's a list of fabulous things to win. If you do want to win something, check it out. But you have to hurry though...the give-away ends this Thursday. Yeah I know, short notice but hey, better than nothing, right?

Again, go here to enter the give-away. You definitely don't want to miss out on this awesome give-away.

Aight, my work here is done...Good luck on the give-away entry. And have a great Monday.

God Bless! ♥

A Little Long-Winded..lol

It's been a while, hasn't it? So many things have been going on and with school's out for the summer, all the kids are home and practically every electronic equipment we have in the house has been completely taken over by one kid or another. I've had a couple of busy weeks and the summer has barely started but I'm enjoying myself. We will be going on a camp this week Friday til next week Wednesday so looks like I might be MIA again.

Since I last wrote, Jen's back from her trip and I think she's picked up a little bug because she looked completely tired and worn out and has been sleeping a lot. Of course they had a really busy week trying to cramp in as much sightseeing and preparing for their debut in NY that the earliest if they were at all lucky to go to bed for them was at midnight every night and getting up at six or even earlier in the morning. She's doing great and now she's attending Summer school. I will be posting later on how everyone is doing for the summer.

Today I thought I'd post a really cute video that y'all might enjoy. A week or so before school was out at the Elementary School my boys attend, there was an artist who came and made a couple of murals at a couple of the buildings...they were beautiful. On one of the walls, all the kids at the school were allowed a day to go and paint their favorite sea creature and it was a fun day for them all. I was able to go for an hour to watch my son Danny paint his sea creature. But anyways, the end result, with all the classes coming in one at a time to paint...you be the judge of that. One of the parents took this video and posted on You Tube so here it is..............



So what ya think? Isn't that artist incredibly talented? What about those future artists of America? LOL...those are some talented kids!

Here are the pictures of my three boys' sea creatures they drew....I think these are to die for and I'm not by any means being biased at all..nope!lol.

Here's Danny's fish...I don't know what you call that thing. They were told to find a fish they like and this is the one he found in a book from his classroom...look how colorful it is.
Jen came along to see her brothers' fishes and decided she wanted to show them off...didn't she do a great job? LOL...She's always been her brothers' biggest fan and supporters when it comes to any small accomplishments they made...what a big sister. That would explain why she was dubbed "The Favorite Sister" and she wore that title proudly.

Here's Joey's sea creature...a turtle. He was soo proud of his drawing, he couldn't wait to show it off. {Good job Joey...I ♥ your turtle.}
Here he is, showing off his turtle...isn't that a proud "you like my turtle?" look.


This last one is Jonathan's fish. The yellow fish with the black stripes. He said he wasn't really sure what he wanted to draw when he started and when he was drawing his fish, the kids and teachers kept asking him if that was an angel fish he was drawing so he figure, what the heck, an angel fish it is..lol.

I ♥ all three sea creature the same...I'm just so proud of them. I guess they get this little bit of creativity from me, eh? LOL Hope y'all like my little show and tell today. And here's hoping your week and the rest of the week will be a great one for ya!

She's Singing her way to New York

My daughter, Jen, left last night for her Smithsonian & Carnegie Hall Festival trip. When I dropped her off with her group, she said she was so excited that the day has finally arrived that she couldn't sleep a wink the night before. And well she should be excited...it was a long almost two years preparation for this trip...all the practice on her part, the money spent and fundraising we had to do make the trip possible, I am so glad to finally got some exciting reaction out of her.

As I'm writing this post, they are in Washington, D.C. somewhere near the capitol putting on a show for Senator Akaka....Hawaii State Senator. The choir will be making their way to New York in a couple of days to attend the Carnegie Hall festival and our Ko'olauloa Children Chorus will be performing on Saturday. Any of you readers out there reading this who live close to New York or around there, go check them out. Their choir will be only one who comes with hula dancers so it would be worth it to check them out...just saying.

See, this trip of hers actually mean a little more to me than probably anyone else going on the trip because 21 years ago, I was about my daughter's age when I took the same route and gone on a trip like this. We went to Washington, D.C. on a Smithsonian tour too and spent a week there. It was very exciting to walk in nation's capitol and see some of the beautiful historical sight. After the D.C. tour, we went to PA to see the Liberty Bell...the choir is also going to see the Liberty bell...and of course, we visited Colonial Williamsburg to get a glimpse of early America and then on to New York. See, the significance? My daughter will be walking those same streets, same route I took at her age twenty one years ago. I know things have changed and there might be a lot of different changes but still, just the thought about her actually visiting the same sights I visited at her age...totally exciting.

One of the chaperones on the tour created a blog just for this tour so those of us who were not fortunate to join them on this trip can keep tabs of how their doing...right now there are only two entries on that blog but she will be adding more everyday or whenever the time permits. If you're interested, you can go here. I borrowed some pictures from their Spring and Winter concert so feel free to feast your eyes on them..lol.

(Jen is on the top..the second girl on the left. Click on images if you want a close-up.)



(The choir singing while the Halau dancers do the hula...Jen {one of the dancers} in the very back row on the far left hand side.)

(The KCC and Jubilate...Jen on the very top.)

(Jen & Jas, my friend's daughter, doing the hula.)

These are just a few of the pictures of the choir...I borrowed these from the new blog. Hope you enjoy this. Sorry I haven't been posting...school's out and kids are home and therefore, any visible computers in the house are occupied by them. Hope all is well with everyone and hope you have a great week.

♥ you all and God bless!!