Background on the word BLOG

My mother thought having the name 'blog' was so weird. So I thought I'd share an excerpt of why it is so:

Blog is a word that comes from a combination of "web" and "log", meaning that people can log messages and information and opinions onto a web site on the Internet...

So there mom...a logical reason of a weird made-up word. I think it should even be an official word for the Scrabble dictionary.

Artichoke Heaven

This very fun evening, I had gotten some artichokes and melted some butter and we cooked and cooked these babies. Rina had never had them this way, so she's showing off the "heart". Ah, but when I looked at my pictures on the family web site....I can see that I'm not having any more artichokes for a year!!!

Learning about the 5 Love Languages

This amazing woman talked on the 5 love languages. I'm a big fan of this approach to learning how to live and love your family more. We all speak in different love languages...and there are combos of the 5 kinds. When you know what YOUR language is and what your mate's language is....and your children....you can interact much more kindly and where "they" can understand that you are loving them. When I raised my hand and mentioned that both Tomasi and my favored love language was physical touch, someone mentioned, "that's why they have 14 children". ah ha. It was very fun to have my two daughters in this class with me. If you want to know of this approach to living on this old earth.....go to http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/ and either order a book or get the titles and go to www.half.com this is where I order all sorts of books and you'll be surprised on how cheap it is to order books here, even NEW ONES.

Blogs are for frogs

When we were wee folks, about 11 and 12, the Holmes clan spent a week in the mountains in a cabin near a creek. The wee ones collected 27 frogs, (a few toads, too) that looked like this fellow:

Anyway, upon leaving, we had to pack our frog collection and put them in the trunk. Dad loaded the suitcases and we drove home.

Only 26 survived, 'cuz one of the more adventurous ones got out of the box, and Dad unknowingly squished the poor froggie. We were sad.

But, were glad we could "stock" our pond on Bell street with a fresh bunch of croakers that didn't croak (die, that is...)!

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My brother Worth Holmes of Tyler, Texas wrote the above note on frogs. I've written about frogs in my past emails. My one and only "sibling" is this Worth and now and again he'll write something and I'm glad for that. We had great times as children and when we were in our first two years of college....we shared a house and roommates...then later our mother came to San Luis Obispo, CA and we got a larger house and did the same. Our dear mother cooked for us all. Worth is a great guitar player and folk singer and I always encourage him to play and sing more. soooooooooooo blogging might be for "frogies"...but I'll say this, he had not gotten on a blog until I had one...and he's a computer programer. ha. so I beat him to the punch here.

Family Home Evening at Beginning of Reunion

okay, here We are haveing a wonderful time playing music for our family. I love playing the lap dulcimer while Tomasi plays the autoharp. The family joined us in the songs when they knew them... Here is the family playing scrabble....no kidding "on and on"... and Tomasi did a bingo smack off Manu made a fire with Dan out in their big fenced back yard and it was wonderful to be out there with Laura just "talking story". When it was quite bright....and up high, Manu made a JUMP OVER THE FIRE......I remarked to him that it was a bad example and when the little grandson here, (Dan's boy, Michael said, "Uncle Manu, that was a bad example to do that junping over the fire") We all laugh. On the right of this picture is Sarina and Misi's boy, Isaiah. They have just moved back to Utah from California.
Dan is holding his little boy Sam and Sarina's youngest. He came up to me and said, "I love you grandma"...and I said, "I love you too, Ezra"...He quickly correced me, "I'm not Ezra, I'm SAM". wayyyyy cute. This week is going to be a dozzzzzzzzzy on saying the names right. I ought to have them all wear name tags?
This is Namahana and Jim and two of their children visiable....

Tomasi has taught this lesson to me for many years and I thought that I'd work on this theme this time for our family home evening.

FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Fill your mind with TRUTH.
Fill your heart with LOVE.
Fill your life with SERVICE.

It was fun to ask the families questions as to what is truth, what is the Love and what is the Service....These three words can be applied to any area you want to be Successful in.

I had gotten a little "Liahona" that is a compass that is represented here and inside is the direction arrow of East,West,North,South. We have the opportunity to have the compass in our life of where we're going and to be successful on this threelegged "table of life".

Spending Sunday together

Tomasi was playing Rachael's beautiful metal string guitar while we were making food on Saturday and Sunday....How we love his music slack string Tongan styel. Then the second picture here is Shaleena is quite the BAKER....and it tastes really good....and Esther and I are breaking up the beans for the pot......A wonderful meal at Lila's house.

Graduation Luau

Here Felila was kind in not overloading this mamma with toooooooooo much information. She'll be one of the bloggers on my site so she can post some pictures and I can comment here. I'll learn another time how to put photos on a slide show like this one. Some of you may know some of these folks. It was a mix of folks and food and fun.....all over too soon for all the preperation times.....I'm soooooooooo grateful for a beautiful day and we all had fun. Thank you Lila and Michelle and Rose for all the work that got put into this special day for your graduating children.

Luau Preparations

You can see us all doing STUFF for the Luau.....at the sink, in the ice buckets....and Felila making Chicken long rice....she had 8 roaster pots....one was hers and the rest was borrowed.....180# of Chicken....and then her circuts blew. She took some down to the outlets at the park....then some of THOSE circuts blue out......100 cups of rice.....you can see that Felila was too busy....but some of us didn't know what to do adn we'd all ask her at the same time.....I love Lila for all that she does for everyone.

not all was eaten...but now stored other families friges for the family reunion.

Arriving in Utah

We arrived at Felila's house at 10:00 a.m. and these are the photos of that time. You can see the HOT RED CAR of grandma's here. Tomasi is with Manu and Rose's girl......Katherine. She's such a fun girl and we worked at cutting up chicken for 2 hours with two other older grand kids.

the THREE GRADUATES.

Jonathan Aalona Montoya......Pleasant Grove, UT High School.
Ryan Manu Tomasi Tukuafu from Payson High School.
Sarah Alifia Tukuafu from Springville High School.

I missed all the graduations, however, we as a family had a great GRAD -LUAU PARTY near Felila's house in a park on Saturday.

learning more stuffs

Tomasi and I are staying in Bob and Mitzi's new house that is just arround the next block from Lila's house. The one thing that Bob and Mitzi said they want to change is the color of their bedroom and other rooms in the house....it's this color...ha. The rest of the house is a lovely green and what I love most about this house is the wonderful accustics. This morning before Church we played on the dulcimer and autoharp for one hour.

WELCOME TO MY FIRST BLOG SPOT

hello dear family and friends. hallayah.....there is also spell check on here so some of you will lose a few laughs. I'm sitting in Felila's house side by side with our lap tops and she's teaching me.