Busy, busy week!!

Well, again I have to apologize for my long absence in writing! Last week was really busy! I was at Jenna's school every day helping with the activities for Colonial Day. The whole school participates in this week. The theme this year was Celebrate America. Each class chose a time period in American history to study and prepare a presentation for the rest of the school. They have different activities all week. I went in on Monday and showed the kids how to make marbles out of clay; on Tuesday I helped the kids with painting projects; on Wednesday I helped the kids make homemade butter and then I set up the display of the colonial shops that I have been working on. I posted some pictues of my feeble attempt and of Jenna's final product. Thursday was the day that Jenna's class presented their projects to their class and parents. Jenna showed her kitchen that she has been working on. She did a great job presenting to the class! Her class had a traditional colonial meal with stew, pot pie, corn bread, fruit, pumpkin pie and chess pie (custard pie.) On Friday, each class presented their time period to the school. They did presentations on the playground in front of the entire school and parents. After the presentations, each class went from class to class to see the individual presentations by the students. The kids presented their projects to kindergarden through 5th grade. They all did a great job! It was really fun to help out all week. I've enjoyed getting to know the kids, parents and teachers. When I helped in Jenna's class in Wisconsin, the kids always called me Mrs. Howery. In Hawaii, everyone is called Auntie or Uncle, whether you are related or not. So all of Jenna's classmates call me "Auntie Lynn," or just "Auntie." It was kind of strange at first, but it's kind of neat too.

As you know Friday was Halloween. This was the first Halloween that I have ever experienced that it wasn't cold, snowing, raining or absolutely miserable! Jenna could wear her costume and not have to wear her winter coat over or under it! She wore her Little Mermaid outfit that we she got at Disney in August. I'll attach some pictures of her. It was really nice to be able to trick-or-treat and not worry about the weather. Sorry. I'm not trying to rub it in! I know how bad it can be. I thought that it wasn't supposed to be too bad though...how was it? Instead of going around the neighborhood, we went to an organized event at the old airport. It was called "Candy Land." It was like a fair. They had rides and games and food, except everything was free! She got candy as prizes. It was fun for her and we didn't have to walk all over. She didn't get as much candy as she would have, but that's OK, because AJ and I usually eat most of it anyway!!

Saturday we went to the beach that we call the "movie star beach." We went snorkeling and made sand castles. It was fun. We haven't been to the beach for a several weeks...poor Jenna was going through withdrawal!!

We had our first snow in Hawaii last weekend! It snowed on top of Mauna Kea, the biggest mountain here on the island. It's been so cloudy here lately that's hard to see the top of the mountain, so we can't see the snow anyway. It's strange to think of it snowing in Hawaii! AJ remembers a time when he was here when they actually had to close roads near the top of Mauna Kea because of white-out conditions! Very strange!

Jenna has been wanting me to tell you about a van that we see almost every day on the way to school. It's a very colorful van...think 70's peace symbol...the whole van is colored all different colors. It's very easy to pick out and Jenna thinks that it is really cool.

Well, I think that brings us up to date. So, until next time...aloha!