Candid Camera

If you want to see this video in a higher resolution or HD, go here:
Mason video 1

(The best part comes at 0:50)

Rotten to the Core and the Endless Pit

Finally changed the entry door to the laundry room.  Fourth door change on this house.

When we bought this house, we knew that the door jamb for the laundry room was rotting and would need replacing.  I wasn't excited about doing the job, especially since any prehung door would suffer the same fate.  However, since we had the roof redone, and we let the roofers use that door to access a bathroom, the rate of decay significantly increased.  It got to the point where enough of the jamb disintegrated to reveal the jackstuds of the door frame.  I didn't want the actual framing stuff to be exposed to the elements, so it was time to get a move on.





Oh yeah, the door was ugly too.



Compounding the problem was the original door was a custom height.  Standard doors are 80 inches tall.  Our door was 75.  That's another reason not to go with a prehung door.

A scouting mission to Home Depot proved fruitful as I located a custom jamb kit made out of pvc instead of wood.  It has a no-rot guarantee.  We also found a solid wood ventlite door slab.  This would let us keep a window open without the neighbors being able to see us pee.

So between Mason's meals, I got to work.  Removing the old stuff was easy.  Putting in the new stuff was a little more work, mostly because I had to trim stuff.  While they were both considered 36 inch doors, the old one measured 35.5.  Got the door hung before the sun went down (had to wait a few hours for Mason to sleep before Wendy could help me carry the new door.)

The next day was spent finishing the trim.  This took longer than expected since it was raining in the morning.  I couldn't caulk and paint until the exterior was dry.





What about Mason?  He wasn't eating well for a few days, so the doctor had us supplement his diet with some formula.  It wasn't ideal, but we really needed him to get food in his belly.  So Wendy breastfeeds him for a while, then I take over with a bottle.  Now he's gaining weight really fast and eating a ton, but his poop smells bad.  He also farts a lot.

Teenage Preview

Mason is getting over his baby acne.  I warned the poor kid that since mommy and daddy had acne, his teenage years will be full of angst.  However, I told him the upside will be that it will build character.


This was before removing a 3 lbs diaper.


This is after. 


On a different note, since I'm on leave, I had sufficient time to be totally annoyed at our kitchen light fixture.  It was a square fluorescent fixture that looked like a wooden box.  Straight out of the 80s.  Whenever it would get cold or rainy, you would have to flip the switch many, many times to get it to turn on.  This is even with new bulbs.  And Lawai gets rainy and cold a lot.

So when I went into town to get my Hep B shot, I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a track light fixture.  I was telling Wendy that it would be no problem to change, and she said I just jinxed myself.  Sure enough, since the fluorescent fixture had all the connections inside itself, there was no junction box in the ceiling.  I had to install one.  Not a tough job, but messy.

So now we have lights with one flick.

He's Here

Mason Nobuaki
7lbs 12.8 oz, 21.25 inches

When Babies Shower

On Saturday, August 6, Aunty Lucy Kawate and Jackie Jenkins held a baby shower for me and baby Kishida.  About 17 people showed up for the big event.  We had a luxurious brunch catered by Grinds Cafe.  It included fruit plates, a vegetable tray, baskets of yummy pastries, and trays of breakfast sandwiches and wraps.  All of the food was great!  We played a couple very tame games.  The first game was to get to know everyone.  We each got a piece of paper with the alphabet written on it.  Then, we had to go around and meet each person at the shower and write their name next to the letter in the alphabet that their name started with.  If you met someone who's name started with a letter that you already had, then, they had to give you a boys name that started with that letter.  In the end, whoever had the most alphabet letters covered, was the winner.  Edith Sakai came in first place because she was creative enough to use people's first and last names.  The rest of use were just using first names.  The second game involved splitting up into two groups.  Each group had to sing a baby song to the other group.  Which ever group had the best performance was the winner.  My group sang "Rock a Bye Baby."  We lost.  The other group sang "The ABC's."  They added in some swinging side-to-side movements.  Who can compete with choreography?  All in all, it was a great time.  I got lots of useful gifts.  Most of it was baby stuff, but I got a few mommy gifts too:  some chocolates from a couple thoughtful people and a gift certificate for a massage!  I have eaten all of the chocolate already and I didn't share a single piece with Ryan.  Of course, he doesn't like nuts and most of it had nuts in it, so he didn't really try to eat any.  Can't wait to have that massage!

What Ryan Did During the Summer Other Than Fix Things

Yes, that was an elephant's butt in the other video.  That was our rendezvous point. 

Kilroy was a thing soldiers did during WWII.  They would try to be the first to put that graffiti tag where ever the army went.  It was engraved on the monument.

No one sang at JFK's grave since you're supposed to be quiet. 

Thor is out.  Too passe.  Now that the movie came out, everyone will be naming their kid that. We're thinking He-Man now.

What Ryan Did on His Summer Vacation

This was a busy summer for Ryan.  He started it off by travelling to Washington DC with 13 seventh and eighth graders and one other teacher.  Before he left, he was getting frustrated with the paper work and vowed to never do this again.  After the trip, he was talking about doing it every year.  Yes, it was that good!  He said it was much more education-oriented than he thought it would be.  Not your typical sight-seeing tour.  The thing that topped it off for him was that on a trip to Senator Inouye’s office, one of his students wanted to know how she could get a job working there.  That made it all worth it for him.  Of course, the all-you-can-eat bacon in the complimentary breakfast buffet didn’t hurt either.  

Don’t worry.   He did get to see the sights, too.  They went to the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, The Library of Congress,  Union Station, The White House (at least the outside of it), all of the war memorials, The Lincoln Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, The Changing of the Guards, Washington Monument, and several malls.  This was a trip of firsts for a lot of his students.  Some of them had never been to the mainland before.  For most of them, it was the first trip without their parents.  For some it was the first time they got to use an escalator.  Many of them got to ride on a subway for the first time.  They got to meet kids from Texas, Chicago, New York, Ohio, and California.  Ryan learned that kids from New York walk really fast.  Kids from California walk really slowly.  Hawaii kids were in the middle of the pack with the mid-west kids.

Here are a few pictures.  Unfortunately, Ryan didn’t get any pictures with him in them.  You know that he was behind the camera, though, because of the bacon picture above.  Who else would take a picture of a huge pan of bacon?  We are also a little limited in what I can post because I don’t want to post pictures of his students on our blog.  So here are some beautiful and anonymous pictures of what Ryan saw on his trip.

The Smithsonian:

The National Archives:

Capitol Hill:

The White House:

Vietnam War Memorial:

Iwo Jima Memorial (US Marine Corps Memorial):

Arlington Cemetery:

Washington Monument:

A Big Mall:

But the fun did not stop there.  When he got home he delved into a number of home improvement projects.   Get, ready!  It is a long list.  He installed a recessed light in the shower stall of the laundry room shower.  It really lights up the space well. 

He repaired the table leg that was missing when we bought the table second-hand.  It came with the leg, but we needed to reattach it. 

He installed the baseboard trim and door trim in the hallway. 

We painted the baby’s room Celestial Blue. 

He replaced the missing screen clips in the clearstory and put weather stripping around those screens.  No more bugs or geckos can get in through those!  In case they don’t look high in the picture, the ceiling in the clearstory is 16 ft tall.  Ryan doesn’t like climbing the ladder that high, but he was a trooper. 

We potted some flowers in ornamental urns for our front entry way. 

He put weed cloth and mulch around all of the plants in our front flower bed and mowed our expansive lawn about a million times.

He re-potted our ever-growing Rosemary plant. 

He removed a lot of rubbish and took it to the dump.  We had two big rotting greenhouse tables in the corner of our backyard.  He dismantled them and took them to the dump.  In their place, he set up a composting bin system.  It is made up of three trash cans with holes drilled in the sides, and top.  We’re excited to see how it works.  Hopefully the neighbor’s wall won’t destroy it before we get some results.  No “black gold” yet. 

He added more gravel to the walkway of the side of the house.  While Elspeth was here helping us, we got gravel down most of that side of the house, but we ran out of steam and money part of the way down.  Ryan extended our efforts to go all the way down the side of the house and he added more gravel to what we had done to make it thicker.  It might still need a little bit of gravel, but it looks really nice. 

He finally got rid of the rolls of carpet and huge buckets of paint that were left at our house by the previous owner.  We had been talking about donating it to Habitat for Humanity from the day we moved in.  Now, one year later, it is finally gone.  Of course, it wasn't as easy as you might think.  Ryan called Habitat and was told that they would love the carpet and paint.  They would call him the next week when they were in the area.  No phone call.  So Ryan called them again.  They would pick it up that Friday between the hours of 10am and 2pm.  No one came.  Saturday morning at 7:15am, Ryan posted an add on Craig's list for free carpet and paint.  By 9am we had gotten rid of it and had three other callers.  If we had known it would be that easy, we might have started with Craig's list.

His last project of the summer was to replace the garage entry door frame.  We used the old door, but the frame was rotting, so he replaced that part.  It turned out to be much more difficult than expected.  None of the doors in our house were framed straight evidently.  That makes replacing them a big pain!  So far, no more rain has been sneaking in through that door since he fixed it! 

In his spare time, Ryan played his favorite video game, Dark Age of Camelot.  His highest level character is a druid named Eansainne.  His next favorite character is a champ named Hobble.  I’m sure the realm of Hibernia is missing his presence since he has reluctantly started back to school.  He wasn’t ready for the summer to end.  This week was the first week with kids.  So far, they are all on their best behavior.  He said that usually wears off by the second week. 

So, you may be thinking, what has Wendy been doing this summer?  Well, working is the short answer.  Last week was my last week of field work until after my maternity leave.  I will be stuck in the office for the next two months.  And, of course, I have been busy making a baby.  This is hard work in case you don’t already know that.  I am now looking very pregnant, but most people still think I am small for being seven months along.  It’s ok with me.  I can still see my toes.  Technically, I can still reach my toes, but that is very uncomfortable.  

Of course, I can’t forget to introduce the newest members of our family…the house plants!  They were my project this summer.  They add a feel of completion and warmness to the house.  At least, I think so.