Happy Birthday Week: September 9 - 15, 2024

     It's Happy Birthday week in our family.  We started the birthday week on Monday celebrating our granddaughter, Susanna's second birthday and the prophet, President Russell M. Nelson's 100th birthday.  Don't both of them look so cute in the pictures to the left?  Susanna is wearing the Hawaiian dress we sent her for her birthday, and we are so thankful to have Susanna in our family.  We are also so thankful to have a prophet of God to lead us and guide us in these latter-day days.  I was able to watch most of President Nelson's birthday celebration on Monday during our lunch break.

     After we were done with our work on Monday, we met up with Damien, one of the students in our YSA ward.  He was needing to interview someone in the 60 - 80 age group for his communication class and we were the only ones he knew here on campus.  We were more than happy to let him interview us about our experiences with music, television, and movies in our lives.  Elder Rappleye kept says, "back in the day. . . " I think Damien certainly learned how different/limited it used to be with options to listen to music or watch TV and movies. 

   With the beginning of the new semester, we are back to having FHE activities on Monday nights.  At the start of a new semester, the first FHE is usually always a getting to know you activity since there are so many new students in the Ward.  We played a game to help us all learn each other's names.  A person would call out another person's name that is in the circle, and the people on the right and left of that person would turn and face each other and say "boca".  The last person to say "boca" is out.  Then the person whose name was called has to call out another person's name, and so it goes until you have two people left in the circle and they then have a duel to see who the winner is.  The kids all had fun.  There were lots of laughing, and I think it did help break the ice and help us learn people's names.

     There is always food served at FHE, and not just refreshments.  You can see in the photo there was rice and Fiji curry, one spicy pan and one not spicy.  The spicy version was the more popular one.  

     You can see from the photo above we had a really good turnout.

On Tuesday, Elder Rappleye finally got the call that the cargo van was all fixed and ready to be picked up, so he and Bry drove down to Kailua and picked it up.  The pictures to the right show the cargo van all fixed up.  In case you don't remember how it looked before the auto body work; the pictures below show the damage.

Having the cargo van back and all fixed up certainly gives Elder Rappleye a sense of accomplishment.  It was one of the first things he started working on when we arrived and now, he can say 10 months later, it's finished.  Getting the cargo van fixed will be part of his mission legacy.

   On our Wednesday off, we finally made it to Waimea Bay.  Whenever we drove past the bay, we would always see swimmers out in the water and the parking lot packed, so we were determined to get there early.  We got there a little before 9AM and there was plenty of parking available.  We pulled out our beach chairs and boogie boards and were excited to spend some quality time at the beach.  But when we walked out onto the beach, we were greeted with the signs in the picture bottom left - WARNING - No swimming, WARNING - RIP currents, WARNING - Dangerous Shore Break, and WARNING - For your safety, please stay off the rock.  We didn't see anyone out in the water.   We couldn't tell if the signs were posted all the time just for liability reasons or if they are just put out there when the conditions are riskier than normal. 

Since we didn't see anyone in the water, we decided we would not go in the water, so back into our car went the boogie boards.  We decided to just enjoy some beach time since we were already there.  You can see the boys on top of the rock in the top picture above.  They ignored the warning sign and eventually all jumped off the rock.

      Views of the bay from both ends of the bay.

     Elder Rappleye top picture and me in the bottom picture.  After a while we saw people going in the water, but since we had put the boogie boards back in the car, we didn't go in.  That was a little disappointing, but I got some reading done and soaked up the sun.

     We got home around noon and spent the rest of the afternoon getting things done around our pad, and then played pickleball in the evening.  It was cooler than it's been, so it was quite pleasant to play.  We still went home total sweat balls as usual.

    Usually when I am finished with my work at the food warehouse, I'll walk over to the motor pool to see if Elder Rappleye is ready to go home.  I am usually always the first to finish for the day.  But there are always things to do at the motor pool.  On Thursday when I arrived at the motor pool, I caught Elder Rappleye working on this cart, and actually thought to pull out my phone and take some pictures.

   

   Here Elder Rappleye is greasing the front suspension.  There are about 11 points on the carts he needs to grease when he services the carts.  This one is a Taylor-Dunn cart.  They also service club carts.

   Then he slides off the box on the back so he can access the batteries.  In the left-hand pictures he and Alex Tam are checking the water level and adding water as needed. 

     I guess Elder Rappleye could go home and start a second career working at a golf course servicing all of the golf carts, then maybe he could afford to take up golfing again.

     Here are the rest of the birthday celebrators - top left, our son, Scott whose birthday was on Thursday the 12th; top right, our granddaughter, Vienna who turned 13 years old on Saturday the 14th; bottom left, our granddaughter, Myla who turned 11 years old on Tuesday, the 11th; and bottom right, our granddaughter, Lucy who turned 6 years old on Friday the 13th.  That's 4 days in a row of birthdays in our family, and 5 out of 6 days of birthdays.  We love our birthday week and all our birthday kids!

     On our Saturday off, we decided to go see the movie, Reagan.  Movies don't stick around very long here in Hawaii, at least the ones we want to see.  Reagan had already left the closest theater to us in Kaneohe, so we drove into town and saw it at the Dole Cannery Regal theaters.

  It's located where the old Dole Cannery used to be in Honolulu.  They have changed it to a mixed-use development with stores, offices, and movie theaters.  They still have some of the old cannery equipment displayed in the shopping area, and old pictures of the operations of the cannery.  It's a nice bright yellow, but a very deserted place, not many people or shops.  Maybe on a workday there is more activity around because of the offices that are in the building. 

I finally remembered to get a picture of my current piano student, Thanush.  I posted back in August about him getting married.  He is learning quickly.  Hopefully he'll continue all the way through the keyboard course and graduate.  Many of the students get too busy with their school studies that they end up dropping out.  Thanush is the only male student we have right now taking the keyboard course.

     With all the birthday celebrations we had this week, we had lots of opportunity to interact with family which was great!

      I will close this post with words from our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, which he spoke at his 100th birthday celebration. Some very good advice from a very wise man of God.

“My dear brothers and sisters, the length of your life is not as important as the kind of life that you live. For each of us, even for a 100-year-old man, life passes quickly. My prayer is that you will let God prevail in your life. Make covenants with Him. Stay on the covenant path. Prepare to return to live with Him again.”