Turkey day

Every Thanksgiving my Ward throws a "Turkey Bowl" where all the men play a football game, It's usually the young vs. the old. Anyway, Rabici loves playing in this game every year since it's the closest he gets to rugby out here in Kaneohe. The only thing I hate about Turkey bowl is that it starts at 7:30am! Grrr. Anyway, here's some pics from our thanksgiving.

He's so happy!

The High priest and Elders Quorum. a.k.a. the "old guys"

The young men.

That blue tarp in the background is where I stayed during the game. And in case you're wondering...the old guys won 30 something to 17. Sorry young men...better luck next year!

Twilight Party pics

Here are some pictures from the party we had for Twilight. \I had a blast with the girls. Everyone who came were Lisa, Jen, Karen, Jaymie, Kehau, Aubrey, Selena, Michelle, me and Patti. All of us outside of Bucca di beppo. I'm glad the food was better than the movie!If you can't read my shirt it says "Real men prefer mountain lions". As you can see I'm Team Edward.

Selena replacing Bella. She's a better sub in my opinion

All of us after the movie.

Me and Lisa strike a pose...and yes, I cut my hair!

SHE who must not be named OR Why I hate Twilight the movie

I've been getting phone calls, text messages and questions from some of you asking me about Twilight. Yes, I went to the Twilight movie on Friday. Yes, I made a big deal out of it and was really looking forward to it. NO I didn't like it, NO it wasn't good and Yes...I'm upset. I'm so mad at that the director that she is the equivalent of Harry Potter's LORD VOLDEMORT and is not allowed to be named...ever. I'm actually upset about a lot of things so I guess its easier to list them here so I can gather my thoughts properly.

First of all I'm upset at the effort I put in to making sure no one spoiled my Twilight buzz. I didn't listen to my husband who had no interest in anything related to, mentioning or refering to Twilight. I ignored all the people who said it was going to suck and put together a whole party just to showcase it! We got together to make shirts and go to the movie and organized a dinner. All that was fun... the being together and eating together; everything else sucked. I'm definetly mad at the effort I put into it.

Second, it was NOTHING like the book! I wasn't expecting it to be dead on; i had seen scenes that were not in the book but in the trailer. I was okay with that. I know movies are very rarely exactly like the book. But this movie...I want to kill, rip, tear, and beat the director. What was she thinking?! She messed up practically every scene in the movie! Did she even read the book?
1) What was up with the Biology class scene? Why is he holding his nose like she just farted and it smelled bad?
2)Where was all the dialogue between them in the restraunt? Edward says a few sentences about sex, money and a cat and that's it! That scene is where you find out how Edward can read minds, and you learn about vampires and his family.
3) What was up with that field trip to the nature whatever?! I understand having to edit certain scenes but adding things that never happened and make no sense in the plot!!!! What was that?!
4) Wasn't Victoria supposed to have red hair?
5) Why are Charlie and Bella eating out? They never ate out. That was one of the things that defined Bella; her role as a parent to Renee and taking care of Charlie with the cooking. She didn't cook in any of the scenes!
6)Isn't Jacob supposed to be an indian, born and raised on the reservation? If you're going to make a non-native american look native american, can you please look at some pictures! Jacob's hair looks like it was pasted ontop of his head and then blow dried at the bottom. And he spoke like an English guy (Thanks Channy for pointing that out to me) I laughed every time I saw him; he looked stupid.
7) AND THEN, the piece de resistance! THEY CUT OUT THE MEADOW SCENE!!!!!!. Hello!!!! Key scene in the book, turning point of the story, cut out and for what?!!!! The meadow is where Edward FINALLY makes the decision to love Bella instead of ripping her throat out. It's when they actually get together! Not to mention the fact that Stephanie Meyer had a dream about a vampire and a girl talking in the meadow and that's how Twilight got started! It's the best part in the book and it's gone! And what did we replace it with? Edward jumping through the trees like some Tarzan wanna-be whose glittering body looks like my 6 year old niece smeared him with lip gloss. And then he and Bella end up on the ground lying side by side with music in the background like a Korean soap opera! What??!!

Third thing I hated about this movie...the acting. It was atrocious, horrible, corny, stupid, and insulting. Rob Pattinson, here's a clue: To be "mesmerizing" doesn't mean you force your eyes to be the size of Texas. It means you're supposed to be alluring and invite people in, flirt a little. Kristen, here's an acting clue as Bella: Talk faster! Bella was observant not mentally retarded. Every scene Kristen just stands there either baffled or upset. Bella had more of an emotional range than happy and not happy.
I practically fell asleep in the theater the acting was so bad! All they did was get a couple of lines that became famous from the book, threw them together, and called it a movie.

Whew! It feels good to vent all that. But I must say, there were some things I did like.

1) Every scene with Edward's family was awesome; the kitchen (though it didn't happen) and the baseball game. Excellent and superb! Emmett, Alice, Jasper, and Rosalie were exactly how I imagined. Even Carlisle. Esme....ah....they could've done better but she was all right.
2) Charlie Swan. He was surprisingly funny and perfect as Bella's dad. He was exactly how imagined Charlie and his acting...awesome! Take notes from this guy Rob and Kristen.
3) The action. When it came to James hunting and trying to kill Bella it was great action. I knew how it turned out but I was still on the edge of my seat.
4) The cameo with Stephanie. Thought I hated the diner scene, I loved the little cameo with Stephanie Meyer there. If you missed it, it's the part where Bella meets Charlie to eat at the diner and the waitress gives Stephanie, and calls her by her real name, a glass of water before she goes over to Bella and Charlie.

Over all I 80% hated Twilight. The girls I went to the movie with did say I may need to see it again since my expectations of it may have been too high. They could be right. These are my first impressions and I wanted to share them since my gut reaction tends to be right on the spot.
If you saw the movie and loved it, I apologize for killing your buzz. Kudos to you for finding enjoyment in one of the very few movies I actually detest.

I will be going to the movie again...matinee of course...with Channy. I'm going to give it one more shot before making my final opinions though what I said sounds pretty final already. But if you loved the movie or hated it, you got to admit that the book is still better. My expectations of this movie were like that of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Da Vinci Code: I know it's not exact but it can still be good like all of those movies were. This was so horrible it doesn't come close. Hopefully round 2 will be better.

It's almost here!

Just two more days and the long awaited movie "TWILIGHT" will begin. A group of us young married women in my ward are going and are actually making a party of it by making T-shirts the night before and going to dinner right after we see the movie. I'm so excited! I was looking for pictures to do the invites with when I ran across some of these from the movie.

Now I know Robert Pattinson is NOT the Edward of my dreams, but he's starting to grow on me. He'll never be "my Edward", but he's okay for the movie.





Anyone have any good suggestions for T-shirt sayings? I know Kaytee, Liz and Nia gave me some good ones when I was up in Utah. Anymore? Let me know!

A Day in Utah

I know...finally! So here are the important pictures from my one day visit in Utah. Though it was short it was one of the highlights of our trip. We haven't seen our friends in so long and I was laughing nonstop! I also saw a side to my dad that I've hardly seen...and that would be his funny side.

Sometimes...I'm just cruel

Okay, I know that the reason why I have enemies, or those I like to call "jealous", is because of my sharp mouth and sometimes unforgiving nature. But, I also know that why I have friends, or those I call "smart", is for the exact same reason. Some people get me, others don't.

I am fully aware that sometimes I can be just plain cruel when I want. You could ask my parents, my husband but especially my students. When they are outright being disobedient I let them have it. I've only had to really be cruel about 3 times a year. My threshold for annoying teenagers is actually pretty high. Well one of those "cruel times" happened on Monday.

As you may recall from previous posts I must teach P.E. Laughable, I know. Anyway, the group I have is "Mixed Sports" so I decided to do a beach day in Kailua where the students could either play two-hand touch football, volleyball or swim; all of which are sports.

So we get there and they drive me nuts! They aren't staying in the boundaries I outlined, they keep trying to wrestle with each other when my back is turned and some of the girls show up in bikinis that would make Paris Hilton blush! I finally get them all in the school van and yell at them that if one person makes a noise on the ride back they're all getting an incident report (which is our version of demerits or detention). So they're quiet...mostly.

When I get to the school I park the car, turn around in my seat and scream my head off at them. I scold them for being disrespectful to me and the other staff there. I scold them for being a nuisance to the other beach goers. I yell at them for making me regret ever coming up with fun things to do for P.E. since they are such ungrateful, uncouth creatures and from now on it's laps and obstacle courses until the end of the semester. When I was done shouting I made them get out and clean all of the school vans. All 8. Inside and out.

They didn't finish until well after school was over. But, I didn't let them go. After they were done they went inside the school, emptied trash and cleaned the bathrooms. Then I had them get up today and publicly apologize to the rest of the students for embarrassing themselves and the school name at the beach. 3 out of the 24 I have cried (they were girls obviously). 4 called their parents and gave them their version. The parents called me up just now, I set them straight, and the parents were so mad they ended up grounding their kids on top of the punishment I gave.

Now that I've calmed down I can see how I was a bit cruel. I didn't have to make them do all that cleaning. The apology I stand by and even the vans. But the rest...I don't know. And then when those parents called it made me angrier. I did all of that and 4 of them didn't learn their lesson.

However, I have to keep in mind that 3 did cry and 20 didn't call their parents. So...I guess it worked for the majority. But this experience solidifies the fact that I belong in High School. Can you imagine me being this way with Elementary!? Can you say lawsuit?

Give Thanks...please!

Okay, so this post is going to be a bit of a rant. I've been debating with myself about writing this because I wanted my message to be clear yet not sound so witchy. But, if you know anything about me, being witchy is okay and it suits me well. SO here it goes!

We just finished Halloween; which for all intents and purposes is a holiday made to celebrate the dead. It's the one night, "All Hallows Eve", that supposedly lets the dead have contact with the living. If you follow Hollywood's versions, Halloween is the one night anything evil and disgusting can come kill you. If you follow Disney's versions bad people try to hurt you but then cool things like fairies and magical creatures come and save you. My point being that a lot of effort is placed into celebrating Halloween. Heck, we even dress up and eat candy and give out candy to other people for this "death" Holiday.

But right after Halloween, and I mean the second the clock strikes 12, all I see are light bulbs, stockings and Christmas decorations everywhere. It was November 1st and already people were ready to celebrate Christmas. What's wrong with that you might ask? Well, what the heck happened to Thanksgiving?!

Think about it. There's a Holiday every month...at least there is here in Hawaii because of some of our State Holidays. For November you've got Veteran's day and Thanksgiving. So why don't we celebrate it? Other than eating and getting fat I mean. We go from worshipping the dead to clawing for gifts! We completely skip over the one holiday meant to give thanks!

Some may argue that celebrating Christmas is better since it's worshipping Christ. No it's not! First of all, Christ was not born in December he was born in April. Secondly, if Christmas were about the birth of Christ would we really be killing ourselves to make sure the perfect tree was hanging in our homes, that the decorations were all up, that the food we're going to stuff ourselves with is prepared correctly, that the perfect gifts are bought for everyone? Nothing about the Lord in any of that!

To make a long rant short...probably too late for that...I ask, why are we so ungrateful? As American's we should be anything but! We are a part of the chosen land, meant to do great things and pave the way for the Lord's gospel. And what do we do with that responsibility? We sweep it under the rug as a nuisance and go on with our lives thinking other things are important; like our kids soccer game, the laundry, making sure our dessert tates and looks better than Sister so-and-so, and the ungrateful list goes on.

What happened to us? When did we overlook this great, all be it fake, holiday. Okay, so the Puritans didn't have a feast with the Indians exactly the way it's been told to us in school. But it's the message behind the holiday that matters! So please, to all of you who read this...make Thanksgiving a huge part of your holiday season this year; as big or even bigger than you're planning to make Christmas. Some of you already do that and I applaud you. I'm going to make sure I do it up big this year and I hope my rant has inspired you to do the same!

Mia's Halloween

One of my earlier posts was to show off my cousin Mia. I actually found out that since she's the daughter of my cousin that makes her my second cousin...but whatever. She's adorable. These are some pictures of her on Halloween as the cutest pumpkin ever!

Ode to Melinda

So, it's Melinda's, my sister-in-laws, birthday tomorrow...Nov. 4th. And seeing how it'll be overshadowed by the election, I decided to skip some of my other vacation pictures to show the baby blessing for little Talei.

Here's all of us. Rabici, Hauoli, Me, Melinda, Talei, my dad, and Aisake. This was taken right before we went to JaiCi's for her baby blessing. One last happy birthday for Melinda:

M.... Motherly (She's the best mom Talei could ever want)

E.... Energetic (Not only is she a mom but she is also a wife and a business woman)

L.... Loving (She loves my brother-in-law and our Vuikadavu ohana with all her heart)

I.... Innovative (She makes the most delicious mint cookies from her essential oils!)

N.... Nice (She's much more than nice, but I needed something with an "n"!)

D.... Delightful (She's always smiling and you can't help but be happy with her)

A.... Attractive (She doesn't have a pimple or a blemish! I'm so jealous!)

Happy Birthday Sister!