Bishop Museum

It felt good to get out of the house and let the boys run around and have fun and maybe even learn something.





Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for taking us and getting us in with your passes!

help get the word out oahu moms!

Got this email tonight: (sorry the format copied over a bit crazy)
Aloha friends!
We are holding a series of information meetings to discuss starting a
charter school. We have already submitted our "Letter of Intent", and
are in the process of writing our "Detailed Implementation Plan" (DIP).
We will be gathering input and looking for members to serve on
committees and the interim local school board (ILSB). We will be
presenting our vision and ideas, discussing fundraising and grant ideas,
facilities, etc.
There are several options to attend:
Wednesday, July 7th at 10am at the Gunstock Ranch Pavilion in Laie, Hawaii
Wednesday, July 7th at 2pm online at
http://www.elluminate.com/trial/p.go?pk=PvSs3WAV8WrSxOEI (please visit
before hand to make sure you have all necessary plug-ins)
Thursday, July 8th at 6pm at the Gunstock Ranch Pavilion in Laie, Hawaii
We hope that you will attend one of the three above sessions to hear our
plans and to share your ideas! This is a statewide endeavor so please
forward this to all that may be interested! We will continue to hold
meetings. Please visit our website at
http://hawaiiala.weebly.com/index.html for more information including
the schedule of meetings.

Ambrose doesn't even start school for two more years, but I have been hoping for this sort of thing for a while! It's nice to have more options and I will definitely be making an effort to attend one of the meetings to find out more information.

summer starts now

Today marks the first week of the summer for our family because I don't have to rush off three evenings a week to teach:


My awesome student Nilo sent me these pictures of our last day as a class:



What a beautiful bunch of people! This term was a challenge because everyone except one student was straight out of EIL classes- meaning that this was their first college English class after learning English. They started out the term very insecure and I worried about making sure everyone could understand what I was saying... let alone the readings... let alone writing at the college level.

I think we all learned a lot- me most of all- which makes me so grateful for this semester because I feel better equipped to teach a variety of students now!

I don't know if I will teach again, but it sure has been a fun ride and that is that.

feel free to join us

over at the good old book club this month

It's my turn to choose and I think I want to locate my inner sleuth.

Melissa gets a shout out for obvious reasons.

And Seth Aaron. For less obvious reasons, but still, it works.

Jackie Kontoes, I feel you should be involved somehow. So there's your shout out.

It's gonna be fun!!

have you ever read this book?

There are a lot of questions surrounding the Mormon or LDS faith.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love it. I love the peace and happiness I feel when I attend the temple, regular church meetings and activities, in my personal and family prayers and also when I read the Book of Mormon.

The sister missionaries in our area came for lunch on Saturday and we always have a great time with them. When they left they gave me a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon and told me I could give it to anyone I want.

Who do I love enough to trust with something so personal to me? Something that changes my life daily and brings me such joy?

It's a nerve racking thing to give such a gift.

Here's the thing: I would LOVE to give YOU a copy.

Are you curious what this whole Mormon thing is all about? You really should learn for yourself and learn from the source.

If you would like a copy I have one for you- no strings attached and totally free. It would just make me really happy to send you one.

Email me: stephaniexrobertson(at)gmail(dot)com and I will mail it to you PRONTO!

This book has changed my life and even if it doesn't change yours in the same way, at least you can know what this whole Mormon thing is all about. :)

get ready to be inspired

Remember my ridiculously talented BFF Diana?

You know, of Yan Photography?

Well, she's putting on a workshop, wait no, HEARTSHOP they are calling it, with none other than thee Becky Earl! What an amazing, powerful duo!

The minute I heard about it I clickity clicked all over that link to see if they would be doing it while we are on the mainland this summer and alas, they are not. It's June 4th and 5th (come on ladies, wanna push it back a month and a half later??)

Oh and the schedule is so AMAZING! A campfire? Really guys? That's enough to make me want to look for flights.

Fly me out Yan and Becky! I'll model a shoot for you. It can be, like, a learning experience for your attendees: how to shoot someone awkward, and let's face it, not really photogenic. Whaddaya say? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway, browse around the workshop site if you live anywhere near Utah and I think you'll get as excited as me and lucky you- you live in driving distance if you are anywhere on the mainland.

Here's some of their recent work:
YAN-





I had to stop myself- I could have picked like every photo from her blog she's so dang good. AH!
and we can't forget Becky Earl-





Is anyone freaking inspired yet?

I also love how it is a workshop about getting back to the art that you love and making it shine. It just seems like two days packed with brilliance and positivity. I so want to be there and I am not even a photographer!

Please attend this heartshop and then call me and tell me all about it. I'll be jealous, but happy. :)

all new.

We have counter tops upstairs now. And cabinets, and paint colors, and framed windows and doors...etc. It's getting closer!

And putting together millions of little paper letters with membership cards for the sewing society is so frivolous and relaxing at the same time and the semester is done now so I CAN and I don't have a thing to grade, ahhhhhhh...

I feel like I had a great experience and now I am on to the next adventure, whatever it is, and it is all new. And frankly, pretty dang exciting.


What's next for us little family?

Hopefully better blogging.

Did I tell you my parents came for a week and totally spoiled us? Or that Ambrose had a really fun camping birthday party... until it rained on us?

All these pictures and more... someday!

I am excited for new. New is nice.

my home computer is giving me grief

So my work computer will quickly post these. We have been up to some things and here are some of them from my camera phone. Why the camera phone all the time? See the subject of this post for details.

I made a bunch of these on Saturday and handed them out with Ambrose and sometimes Asher in tow:
If you didn't get one and you are feeling left out it is only because the inviting was tragically cut short yesterday by crying children. You are invited. Monday 3/29 10:30AM-12noon at Kekela. A "camping" party for the big "tree" year old. Be there.


I am teaching Happy School this week and indocterinating the children with all kinds of hippie, tree hugging ideals since the theme is how happy the earth makes us: And we truly do live in such a beautiful beautiful world that Heavenly Father has created for us. Of course we should take care of it! It's only polite.


Speaking of polite. I love the sassy tudes in this group. Sometimes it makes me excited for their mothers to come at 11am and claim them, but mostly it's just awesome because it shows me that all the sass I deal with in Amby all day is indeed all part of the age and stage.
And is usually just plain hilarious.


And this was snack time: YUM!

Aloha. My parents come on Saturday y'allllllll!!!!!!!!!!!! Cha-hooooo!

i guess i'm old enough to care about this now

oh yeah, and we were almost creamed by a tsunami last Saturday. I wasn't totally unprepared:

but we had several hours notice to get it all together and if we had in fact been creamed by the tsunami, like we anticipated, we sure would have appreciated less stale food....

AND a tsunami has hit my little island home before and we've been promised one will again...

SO it's time to get serious about this preparedness business and it feels good to finally get started. I feel all organized and responsible.

There are a million helpful sites. Well, several anyway.

I love this one: Food Storage Made Easy

I heard about it through a friend a long time and ago and did what I always do, which is file it away for someday when I have the space and money for food storage.

NOW IS THE TIME! There will always be an excuse and the next tsunami (or insert threatening natural disaster menacing your neck of the woods here) could hit any day.

I even bought the E-Binder and am going to print it off at BYUH tomorrow through print services. Sorry, I can't print you one because there's a copyright agreement and one of the most annoying things about me is I am a rule keeper. I know. How irritating. Sorry.

BUT- it's only $17 and that's nothing compared to the peace of mind I feel now that I have a system to go by and feel in control of the situation.

I am excited to finally get with the program. Hope you can do the same cuz I like you and all, but I don't really want to share all my tang and granola with you next tsunami just cuz you're lame and didn't get prepared. ;)

happy school!

I was talking to my good friend Echo about the fact that we don't do Na Kamalei anymore and that I wanted to do something else. We both wanted to do a home preschool.

A little while later I was talking to another good friend Rachel about a playdate swap and somehow we got talking about a home preschool.

Way before that I had talked to another good friend Matti about, you guessed it, home preschool ideas she had.

And, wouldn't you know it, all of our kids are at the same age/developmental stage give or take mere weeks.

Awesome.

And then our good friend Ashley moved back to Hawaii and we like her and her daughter is also the same exact age as our kiddlets, but we thought, four kids is perfect, no, wait, five kids is exactly what this school needs! Yep, five's the limit. Let's do it!

And we liked the Joy School values, but wanted to be more flexible in our curriculum so we added in this idea and boom:

HAPPY SCHOOL was born!

Today was the first day and look at the little darlings:

(thanks for the picture Ash!)

So every Tuesday and Thursday Ambrose gets to head off to Happy School from now until June. We teach on a rotation schedule. I have three weeks in there somewhere where we will learn about the joy of honesty, mother earth (yahoo!), and cooking.

Cute!

Ambrose talks about Happy School like it's Disneyland or something. I love it.

here's my class

on the very last day:

aren't they cute?

i honestly love every single person in that picture.

oh, and of course we had to do a "crazy one":

i already miss them, but horray for christmas vacation! this is the best job ever.

he passed!!!!

after one Masters in Social Work completed, then 3,000 supervised clinical hours over two years working, many many nights studying at the library, several large boring textbooks read, various podcasts listened to, a bunch of practice tests taken, and a whole lot of prayers offered

THOMAS ROBERTSON PASSED HIS CLINICAL LICENSE EXAM ON HIS VERY FIRST TRY WITH FLYING COLORS THIS MORNING!!!!

we hardly told a soul he was taking it because we had heard horror stories of people taking it nine times...etc. before passing. it is a beast and he CONQUERED it no problem! :)

the kids and i tried to keep ourselves occupied this morning. we made him cookies and a "we are proud of you" sign because we would have been no matter what and then he called with the great news and so i knew i had an hour until he would be home from honolulu.

i cried a few happy tears then we got all dressed up, ordered pizza, made juice and got the table set, straightened up the house, cranked up the upstanding youth tunes and got ready for "daddy's party"!


ambrose practiced saying, "GOOD JOB DADDY!" with large amounts of enthusiasm over and over while asher and i kept watch for his arrival.


that is one relieved man.

i think we will all sleep well tonight for sure. with this license comes a big promotion at work that he has already been promised, better pay, more doors opening for him professionally, and the end of a very hard year for our family.


life will never be "practically perfect in every way" but this is where the clouds part for us and i couldn't be more thrilled for my smart, capable husband and our happy little family.

thanks to all of you loved ones for cheering us on this year. it hasn't been an easy one and in some ways it has been the best year ever (that seems strange to say, but true.)

HOORAY!!!!!!!!

my cup of tea sewing society

i think that's what i'll call our sewing society. i googled the name to make sure we would be one of a kind and found that there is a "just my cup of tea" social/sewing society in brooklyn (hunt 'em down lizzie and take 'em out!) but they don't look very active and we won't have the "just" as part of our name. you still in? not sure what it's all about yet, but it's gonna be about something. like sewing and tea cups and general awesomeness.

anyway, here's what we've been working on lately - and by we i mean thomas and me- which is a whole separate society- although he is my cup of tea.... oh gosh. someone help me please.

first: you must know that i am the photographer on these and so the pictures are not up to snuff and therefore don't fully showcase the projects well. it was kinda frustrating, but you can get the idea.
first thomas found this headboard on craigslist and decided it would look cool upholstered in the two panels. it was a very tricky project because we have never done anything like it before and it wasn't as if we could just staple everything to the back of the board.



he figured it out though and it looks great!

he did that while i worked on our bedspread:

and we both cut out the fabric together for both projects to make them perfect. it was fun working together. we came up with this very basic design and at first it was looking a little too south american for me. i like the south american look, but we were going more for basic, clean, beachy, and modern and that isnt necessarily south american is it. after i got it finished and laid out on the bed though i was pleased as punch.


here's the back:
with the mustard, cherry red, and sky blue repeated a little. this picture kinda makes it look like a mans sweater from the mid-nineties. whatcha gonna do. i promise it's real swell.

next?

i just have to quilt it and i'm gonna try to do it by hand since it measures 90x90 and was a beast to maneuver through my machine in separate pieces. wish me luck.

oh and here's the stockings:


oi! sorry for the bad lighting. again. i love how they turned out though. i was going for depression era homemade with the charm of the ball fringe. depression era charm? yes. stay with me.

i'm thinking about embroidering our names on them, but i'm gonna wait til my mama comes in a few months to embark on that new frontier.

and... oh yes, i made these christmas cards for the womens organization:

for their sub for santa program. my mother-in-law designed them and donated the supplies and i made them. neat!

ok.

thomas found a multi-colored antique pharmacists desk thingy on craigslist and sanded her down like crazy and painted her and now she looks like this:


thomas is just, well, cool like that to say the least. she'll look even better once the knobs from anthropologie arrive- picture two little black and white clock knobs on there.

and i guess that is all for now friends.

i'm tickled by the idea of our "my cup of tea sewing society" because i'm silly like that. it's going to be fun. get your tea cup ready and your sewing machines dusted off, oiled up and ready to go! anyone can be in it. i wouldn't say it's much of a social society because i'm not one for social commitments, but it's gonna be our cup of tea and that sounds good to me.