little sausages and blow-up mattresses

Raph has been walking with me a lot lately. Ever since we saw the giant boars in the orchard on our drive home. The last thing that I want at 8.5 months pregnant is to be chased or gored by a wild pig. So he has been walking with me. Our road is an overground mess so each of us has to walk in our own tire rut for most of the way which works out fine, but when we got to the short paved section and could walk closer together, I reached out and took his hand. He looked down at my hand in a perplexed way, and I asked, "What's wrong?" "Nothing," he said, "your hand feels fat." What a romantic, huh? It is true though, both my hands and feet fill up with that extra blood volume. I had to remove my rings last week after a walk, when my fingers looked like stuffed sausages. And my feet, well they feel like blow-up mattresses. They get really stressed when I walk on them, as though the air is fighting to get out of the mattress when too many people are on top of it. Lovely little quippet of pregnant life.

Kindness

Yesterday I was late for the staff meeting, which was a mandatory Mexican fiesta. I had a student in my room, which I felt was more important than the taco bar, so I wasn't in a huge hurry to get up there. The security guard/ faculty Scrabble champion, Jay, came and picked me up on the golf cart, which surprised me, never having been allowed that luxury before. I asked her if she was coming to get me because I was late. She said, "No. Because your hapai (Hawaiian for pregnant)." So I jumped on and headed to the faculty meeting, got a big bowl of ice cream and settled in. Hardly had I parked my backside and started stuffing my face with ice cream and toasted coconut when I was called to the front of the room to receive gifts. I was truly overwhelmed with the kindness of my coworkers who made me this quilt and diaper cake. What thought and creativity went into this! Pahoa is a special place and we have loved our school.

Memorial Day Sky

Long weekends are great. Especially Memorial Day. After the long months with no break, that Monday seems like a Godsend. We cleaned feverently on Saturday, pretended to have friends and had them over for dinner, played some scrabble and lost. Good times. Sunday we got up and headed for the other side of the island. We stopped in volcano for sunny 70 degrees with wind. We ate lunch on the side of the road in possibly the most perfect weather ever! We snorkeled at Place of Refuge, one of my favorite places on the island. It felt great to be in the water. Then we ate and took a nap under the palm trees. I don't think that there is anything nicer than that. We meandered all around the island. This was the sky at sunset, which as usual doesn't do justice to how beautiful it really was.

The Reader

It wasn't too long ago that I was bribing Raph to read. Like a kid, I told him if he read three books he could buy a remote-controlled car. And he did. Then he became and English teacher. He hasn't stopped reading since he got here. He's read all sorts of things - classics, fantasy, adolescent literature, etc. His favorites are still Harry Potter and he's currently rereading the entire series to catch up again for the release of the new book this summer. Is this the same guy I was married to a year ago? Sometimes, he forgets I'm there, he's so wrapped up in his books. Be careful what you ask for I guess!

8 months big

A month to go. Here are some pictures of my big belly. Raph looked at me the other morning and said, "is it painful that way it sticks out like that?" Oh well. I still can't believe I'm going to have a baby in a few short WEEKS!

I've been manaically finishing projects since March. I'm almost done with the fifth quilt top since then but those have been sent to the quilter. This one is my niece's birthday quilt. Raph liked the dumb look on my face as I tried to stuff it in the box. What can I say? He is a horrible estimator of time constraints, and I don't do so well with spacial constraints, like how much will fit in this box.

A Long Day

I wish I had more time to share events in our lives. Not that our lives are terribly interesting. It's pretty mellow here actually. Work, make dinner, walk, play cards, snooze. That's pretty much our routine, but I have enjoyed the creation of these routines, the sharing of simple times and simple goals. "What are we going to eat for dinner?" That's a tough one sometimes. All and all I can't complain.

Today seemed long though. My belly, though big really hasn't affected my lifestyle too much, though this week it has started to get kind of crampy and sometimes my students think I'm in labor because I'll grimace as the baby deals a big kick or blow to some part of my body that isn't used to kicks and blows. Yesterday there was a huge fight outside of my classroom. I liked that I didn't have to get involved due to the baby. It was a mess. Six girls rolled out of the stairwell all throwing blows and hurling obsenities at eachother.

We're all in the countdown here. 15 days till the end of school (only 7 with my rotten juniors who I only see every other day). 5 weeks till the baby. 4 weeks till the moms come. a few projects to get down before our lives change forever. We have to come up with some final name ideas, which is still a hard thing for us. I'm not telling our ideas anymore (now that we've started brainstorming again) cause I really can't have somebody ruin a name for me by saying, "Oh that name sucks," or "I know someone with that name..." I'm just not going to say; please don't take offense. The truth is we're not decided at all.

I'm ready for a weekend or something. The kids are crazy and though pregnancy supposedly makes you mellow, I can only stand so much. Luckily for me, many students are being suspended at this point for fights or whatever, leaving the rest of us some peace occassionally. I can't wait to go home and sew. And sleep in on Saturday. And go for a long walk.

camera phones

We got our first camera phone this year. We actually think it takes fairly good pictures. Unfortunately we're not so good at downloading them in a timely manner. Here are some shots of visitors this spring, that we didn't post earlier.

Isaac at one of my favorite restaurant on Maui, Pizza in Paradise. Unfortunately you can't go there hungry because it takes over an hour to get your food. Maybe that is why the food tastes so good. You're soooo hungry by the time it comes that it tastes that good. And Isaac and Raph and another favorite Maui spot, Cliffhouse. We tried to go there on our most recent trip and it was totally shut down because they were tearing down a hotel. I was bummed.




in the bosom of Kiluea Iki crate, my cousin Julie, her friend Rachel, and my aunt Jean. Good hike.



This is what happens when you go to the beach on our side of the island. Weather comes. In any case, I love the way they have planted thousands of palm trees here to try to create a nice beach, since the last one was destroyed by lava.



Here is Dan chewing on sugar cane and Cara on a hike. Soon everybody but me was gnawing on the cane and Cara tried to take some home with her.

Raph and the Volcano

Raph took our teacher/mentor/friend Terry out to the lava on Friday night. As a nice surprise they didn't have to go very far to see it - exactly one mile from the car. So they had plenty of daylight to take pictures. Pretty cool. This is all surface lava, and this particular kind of lava, pahoehoe, is smooth and runny as you can see. They had a lot of fun lighting sticks on fire and throwing things into the fire to watch them burn. Boys.

A day in the life...

This happens more than you think. Have you seen a more beautiful shade of green?

Shocker

So I am aware I have a belly. I mean that's part of being pregnant. Raph took some pictures of me yesterday to put on my blog. And I downloaded them and started looking at them. I had no idea I was this big!




We attended our first childbirth class this week which was extremely entertaining. Quite an aray of people. The girl on our left was one year out of high school. Her boyfriend, who works for Dollar Rent-a-car, was very excited about how his boss told him that when the girl goes into labor, he can take any car on the lot to drive up to the hospital. He spent 10 minutes sharing his options - a Hemi, a Crossfire, etc. Meanwhile the girl tells us that she has been seeing midwives up in Waimea (which is kind of far from Hilo). I asked her why and she said because she wanted a female doctor. Fair enough, right? But then she goes on and on about how a girlfriend of hers had a baby and a male doctor. She told the doctor she did not want him touching her down there, not even during the delivery and he did! She was outraged. Anyway the couple on the right were full-on making out the whole class - gropinng and wow. Then there was the Hawaiian entourage int he corner, pregnant Piilani, with her sista and her sista's twin 5-week olds and her auntie.




Anyway, I chose flattering pictures of myself. Maybe I should post a huge one too just for kicks...tomorrow.

from our porch

On Maui this was a daily sight. Here it is a special event. I've seen two this week! Must be luck coming my way! Or maybe that is the luck!

Give me one moment in time..

Raph almost fell off his chair laughing last night at our school's National Honor Society Induction. I almost had to make him leave.

The students hid in the back of the room. All the lights were dimmed. Whitney Houston's voice bellowed out of the speakers..."When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away and the answers are all up to me..." The students proceeded down the aisle in twos bearing lit candles with the paper plates around them. They split into their assigned seats and one by one blew out the candles as Whitney inspired the mood.

All Raph could think of was the helping hands club in Napoleon Dynamite. I think we should all take a minute to celebrate the silly drama of high school and enjoy the fact that we can laugh about it.

John and Gwen 4-18-07

A long time in the making, this was a very fun wedding. Fun to photograph because it was so damn beautiful. Good friends, good weather, good times. What more could you ask for?

superbowl of hula

This week was the Merrie Monarch festival, which is pretty much the superbowl of hula. We didn't get it together enough to go to one of the competitions (they sell out), but we went to the parade. Highlights included a local school's marching ukulele band, a decorated street sweeper, a nice volcano float, and the groups of fancy horses that dropped gifts in the road for us. It was fun, hot, and exhausting.

An update

I'm 30 weeks (a little less in this picture which doesn't seem like me). 10 more weeks to go, unless this little guy is early, which he and I have been discussing, since that would help our travel plans. No pressure though. Our doctor's appointment double now to every two weeks instead of every month, which is sort of a bummer since every time I go in there they piss me off. This week when I went in, I wasn't on their appointment list. The nurse said "Are you sure you have an appointment today?" When I assured her that I did, she went and checked the computer and said, "Didn't you move to Maui? We have your chart packed up in a box to send to Maui." So twice the doctor stress. Maybe it will help me prepare for parenthood. Otherwise things are good, belly grows, baby kicks, I can bend over with less less comfort. In fact lots of things aren't as comfortable - sleeping, tying shoes, etc. but we're both excited.

We put in an offer on a house in Pgh, though we're trying not to get our hopes up since it's a foreclosure, the bank is taking its sweet time in replying to our offer, and we don't have any job for next year yet. But the house is really cool and cheap and if it worked out, it would be exciting. So we're waiting to hear...And madly applying for jobs.

a whole year a little late

Seems impossible that it has already been a year since our wedding. A little over a year really, but we've been busy. This weekend is our first vacation from vacation - no visitors, no traveling. just laundry and each other again and it's nice. (Not that I didn't enjoy my visitors or my travels, by the way). I feel lucky to have had this year with just Raph.

Full Circle

Cara, my Maui roommate and good friend, spent about a week with us. She was annhiliated by mosquitos, but still had a good attitude. It's nice to have friends. By the way she's standing in front Hale maumau crater on the Kilauea volcano.

Sunset on Siesta Key

Some pics from our vacation with Raph's family in Sarasota, Florida. Pretty fun. Gabrielle was the star, as is to be expected. Here is the new family and Raph's cousins Jason and Deanna who just made Sarasota home.

Garrulous Gabrielle

My newest niece. Awfully cute. And boy, she'll make conversation all day. Too bad we can't understand.

deluge II

Everyone had a crush on Patrice's six-month-old son, John. Mimi entertained many of us with commentary about gifts, and well a good time was had by me at the least.