givin’ it a go, again

so, i know it has been a very, very long time since my last post, but i’ve been thinking a lot lately about this little ole’ blog. it has been sorely neglected since we had our fourth child and i think i am ready to give it a go again. i am not promising anything yet, but i am hoping to start posting more frequently, which won’t be very hard, since i haven’t posted in forever!

 

i have missed the connection i feel with you, my readers, every time you leave a comment. i have also missed all of the memories that i have not been recording. i so enjoy going back and reading my older posts and remembering things that i would have forgotten otherwise. our children are so young and still saying and doing the most entertaining, and sometimes frustrating things, that i like to look back on them. so, if for no other reason than to document them, i will resume writing our story……

 

since it has been such a long time i don’t think i will go back and update, but i will just start from right now, or at least in the past month.

 

we are coming off of a crazy few weeks of summer full of vacationing, visiting with old friends, and a horrible lack of sleep. however, yesterday, a day in pj’s and naps for everyone has helped immensely! i am hoping things will start to return to some sense of normalcy once again, now that we are home in our own surroundings and beds!

 

my dad, amazing as it may seem to those who know him, just celebrated his 70th birthday! this guy here…

 

is 70! you’d never guess it!

 

so, my mom and sister-in-law planned a wonderful birthday bash last month in california. all of the kids were there, something that hasn’t happened for a long time and won’t happen again for a long time since malia and her husband up and moved to fiji last week!! it was such a great time to be together for one last time for who knows how long!

 

for his birthday malia, kawika, mom and i arranged a photo shoot of tutu man’s ohana:

 

 

here are the siblings, kawika, gavan, me, and malia.

i wish that we all lived closer! we had such a great time hanging out, talking story, eating, and playing games.  we never have enough time together!

 

our girls loved playing with their cousins, and, again, seeing them together made me long to live closer. nani and her cousin kele are a year apart and they are like two peas in a pod! they haven’t seen each other for 3 years and as soon as they got together it was like no time had passed!

 

here are the grandkids: kale’a, nani, kele, katrina. in front, mahealani (she was much happier without her dress on, i promise, i didn’t just dress her in a onsie!) and kawena:

we were able to stay in califonia for 2 1/2 weeks! it was great, but i think we stayed about 1/2 a week too long because the girls and i were getting pretty grumpy and ornery! mitch was only able to stay 5 days and then he flew off to work while i stayed with the girls. i was exhausted, to say the least!

 

ohana is the best! it is so important to cherish those relationships we have with our family.  nani reminded everyone while we were there something that stitch said (or was it lilo??), “ohana means family. family means nobody gets left behind!”

 

i love my ohana so much and it was wonderful to all be together last month! wish it could happen more often, but i will take what i can get!

 

love this shot!! can you tell who’s who??