Lost Lazy Days of Summer

So summer has arrived, and rather than slowing down, our household has revved up into high gear. Summer is high hula season and on average we have a show every few weeks or so. This usually entails a lot of sewing. For the girls May Day performance on Mother's Day the three girls needed a total of eleven new costumes. Dave and I were up until 3am on Mother's Day sewing buttons onto their costumes. Tradition states that you need to have good mana when creating costumes and that will translate into more beautiful dancing. By 2am, the mana had ceased to flow and at that point our goal was just that the costumes did not fall of our children on stage! Luckily they didn't and enough good mana must have flowed, because they all danced beautifully:

In addition to hula this year, the Chu ohana has taken up a new sport; outrigger canoeing. Between hula and paddling, we are literally on the go seven days a week. Paddling has become a new obsession in our household. Our children literally go around the house yelling "hut, hut, ho!" the commands to change sides while paddling. And for those of you who know how anal retentive I am, the fact that I leave my children relatively unattended on shore while Dave and I race is testament to how much we love it. (And before anyone calls CPS, outrigger is very much steeped in the polynesian culture of ohana, so they really are watched by many people, I'm just anal).

Although I started paddling as "mommy time", Dave has picked it up and really excelled. He's won two medals, lost 20lbs, and has already steered in his first race.

I, on the other hand, am more of a late bloomer. I haven't won any medals yet, have only lost 10lbs. and let's just say learning to steer is going much like learning to drive. (Let's not tell anyone from Kilohana I wrapped my parent's new Benz around a pole!) And before you judge...just try controlling a 1000lb moving canoe with no brakes, no lanes, with tide, current, wind and lots of "traffic" in the form of boats, swimmers, buoys, and the occasional seal!

So, if you don't hear from the Crazy Peanut much this summer, it's because we're mucho busy...and in some cases (my steering) no news, is good news.