Family Meeting, Ice Cream Sundaes, a Pile of Books from the Hilo Library!

Sounds like heaven - the only thing better would be if my hens would lay just one more egg a day (production down drastically) and if Dodie would have her lambs already (without complications, of course).

The family meeting was about redistribution of chores now that everyone is in "double digits" and now that  Mom is occupied with sheep and chicks.  As usual, my baby girl (11) was volunteering for everything, while the 18 year old was trying to distract us from the fact she wasn't volunteering for anything by her wit and charm (yeah, it didn't work).

We celebrated (or maybe sweetened the bitter pill) by having ice cream sundaes with real whipped cream.  Someday I hope to have my own dairy source, but for now it was organic whipping cream from the store.  Baby girl got out the fancy sundae cups from the top shelf and we pulled out the nuts and the maraschino cherries.

I also got a great big pile of books from the Hilo Public Library - nothing intellectually challenging, but enjoyable stuff.  I still have to read the four chapters of Ivanhoe I assigned my students (almost pau -finished).  Because of my profession, I have to read a lot of young adult novels.  One of the most interesting series is by Susan Beth Pfeffer: Life as We Knew It,  The Dead and the Gone, and The World We Live In.  I found the latter book at the library, and it was perfect timing.  My son and I were talking in the car about how The Dead and the Gone left a lot hanging, and how odd the ending was.  Now I know why, since I found the third book at the library!  My son dived right into the book in the car.  I love talking books with kids - I guess that is why I became a teacher.

I do have to say something about those books - the first one is so convincing, I have never known anyone who read it who didn't want to immediately go out and start growing their own food and stocking up!

The Middle School kids had Pa'ina Day.  Basically, they celebrated the end of their trimester.  There are makahiki games, a huge water slide, special treats.  Makahiki Games were celebrated by the Hawaiians in a season of no work (I always wondered how that worked when you live off the land and sea) between November and February.  There were feats of skill, like ulu maika, huki huki, spear throwing (sorry, don't know the Hawaiian name and there are none of my Hawaiian kids around to ask).  ulu maika is a little like bowling with a disk made out of lava rock, and huki huki is sort of like tug of war, but you stand on one foot on a coconut stump - tricky and more skill and trickery than brute strength.  Spear throwing means throwing sharpened wooden sticks at banana stumps (yeah, they actually let middle school boys do this at school - very brave people).  The kids had regular school and then Pa'ina day.

The good mood that lasted from the good books and the Pa'ina day meant the family meeting went without more than good-natured grumbling.  The ice cream sundaes stopped those soon enough.  Now I am going to go read!