Aloha to my blogging family

I thought it would be nice to have a blog like everyone else to keep you up on what is happening with me. I have just had a wonderful Christmas with a lot of my children and grandchildren but those not here were missed very much.
I have been working on my goals for the new year and hope once again to meet them with enthusiasm. One is to keep in better touch with my loved ones far away. I hope that your will come by and check in from time to time and to see whats up with us.
This year has been a wonderful adventure for me. I was elected Pelekikena (President) of Kauwahi 'Anaina Hawai'i Hawaiian Civic Club and it has kept me jumping. I had the opportunity to go to Washington DC for the lei draping ceremony in June and it was awesome. The are actually planning to move the Kamehameha statue and I was hoping it would be this year when we went, but I understand the plan is that it will be in 2009 now. I guess I will be going again.
My biggest adventure has been starting the Papa Hi'ikua Hula Class with Mapuana De Silva. I went to Hawai'i in August for a week and studied with her. A friend also went to the class and we meet every week to practice and study so that we can pass off the things we learned and go forward with the next class this August. It was very hard but wonderfully so. My goal is to uniki as an 'olapa (dancer) in another 5 years of attending her classes. She also came here for a week in November which gave me the opportunity to once again learn more from her. She is so awesome, and lives a very Hawaiian way, which I love and recognize as those things that made me so happy as a child. I love just being with her and all my hula sisters and brothers.
I still work for Community Action as a HUD housing counselor, mostly doing default and reverse mortgage counseling. I love my job and Emmy has been working part time for us too.
Doug and I are doing well. Doug started working again, he administers a program for immigrants : ESL and education classes for parents and after school progams for kids. He enjoys it although he has to drive to Salt Lake again, which is one thing he didn't miss in retirement.
With both our schedules we don't get to fish much anymore, but I'm hoping for more time to do that this summer as I now work 4 day work weeks with Friday, Saturday and Sunday off.
I just wanted to start this tonight to see if I could and hope you will frequent this blog when I come to mind and that you will enjoy it. Love to you all