Demas-Hahn Wedding

Monday, May 12, 2008 was the big day for Joni's cousin Myra Hahn and long time man Chris Demas. Joni helped prepare for the wedding and was a bridesmaid. It was a great time out at Paradise Cove Luau in Ko Olina. I guess something has to go wrong at every wedding, and this one was no exception. Things were humming along just as they should until, just before dinner started, the sprinklers came on and soaked anyone already sitting down and half the dinner tables. Luckily the Hayes' were outside the strike zone. The place had to move and reset the tables once they figured out how to turn the sprinklers off. It seemed to turn out ok in the end because the bridal party got free drinks after that. Here are some photos:

This is the happily married family.


Here we have all the Fernandez children together. All were part of the wedding and Joel even sang a song to open the ceremony.


The next generation of Fernandez were on hand too (except the eldest, Jordan).


We were all looking good but didn't take many photos of ourselves so this is the best we got. My bad posture while trying to hold Rylan and my appetizer plate in one hand and hide my wine glass with the other hand makes me look fat. My new haircut didn't make up for all that. Joni looks great though.


Rylan was made to pose with other babies at the party of course. He got a good look at the future here.

Mothers Day

Back on May 11, we celebrated mothers day with the rest of America. It took some work because so many people were in town for the big wedding the next day. Joni, Rylan, and I went down the street to Waiole Tea House for breakfast and had a nice meal there without having to cook anything.

After that we walked home and visited the neighbors, including Rylan’s surrogate grandma, grandma Venegas and auntie Christa. Rylan brought them plumeria flowers. In the end Rylan made grandma Venegas help him down the stairs because he is practicing going up and down stairs without having to sit down on each step. He is getting good at that. In fact he is becoming a good climber in general - he can go up all the ladders at the park without assistance. Most of those are the half-rainbow shape with small round rungs that kids can climb to reach platforms and slides. It is unnerving to watch sometime because toward the end when the ladders become more horizontal he has both hands and one foot on the same rung for a moment.

Anyway, that is about all we did for mother's day. After the morning activities our attention turned back to the wedding - Joni participated in the rehearsal and I managed the bbq following the rehearsal. Here is a shot of grandma Venegas with Rylan:

Ixoras that are fragrant

My Ixora odorata has finally started to really flower. It is a beautiful plant with a great sweet fragrance that fills the air near it. For comparison I've included some of the other fragrant ixoras I have in the yard.

This is the prize Ixora odorata. It has very long flower stems and takes some time to open up, but is worth the wait. This is a native of Madagascar, or so I've been told. Besides the great fragrence, the leaves are a big beautiful green. All these ixoras can get fairly big so I need to prune them after they flower.


This is Ixora fragrans according to the people I bought it from. The fragrence is not nearly as nice as the odorata but nicer than the finlaysonlanum. The flowers bunch up to create a snowball like look but when they die they don't fall off; therefore, the bush is sort of ugly unless you go clip all the dead flowers off. The leaves are also not the best.


And finally the Ixora finlaysonlanum or something like that. It has many of the same problems as the fragrans but I think the fragrence is even more sour.

Star Fruit Flower

Mid may and the the star fruit tree started to flower. Will see if that translates to October and November fruit.

Mountain Apple Flower

Few photos of our Mountain Apple tree in bloom. This tree gets going about this time of year and the apples will be along soon. The flowers are beautiful and as the parts fall off it is like pink snow on the ground. Saw a number of bees on the flowers, which is a good sign considering that bees have been on a major decline recently due to the mites. A few months ago there were almost no bees even with significant flowers in bloom, now we have carpenter bees and also regular honey bees. Not sure where these honey bees are coming from but could be from friend Michael Kliks across the valley who has a number of bee boxes in his yard.

You can see a bee in this shot of the flowers in the tree.

This is the ground around (include wheel of wheelbarrow) under the tree.

April/May Family events

A few weeks ago now (4-22-08) we met up with Joni’s uncle Gerry who lives in the Philippines and was in town on a drug rep junket – Gerry is an oncology surgeon or something like that. We were only able to share a drink with him down at his Waikiki hotel. Officially Gerry is a second uncle or something but because he is the same age as Joel he has been more like a cousin to them. Anyway, here is a photo of us around the pool bar.


Rylan has had a cold on and off for the last few weeks so has not been at his best. Still, we have managed to spend a good amount of time trolling the neighborhood parks, visiting friends, and having a good time. One Sunday (4-27-08) we all went to the Japanese Cultural Center for their Keike Festival a week in advance of Kids Day. There used to be separate holidays for boys and girls but now it has been combined to one Kids Day – this is all in Japan by the way, Hawai‘i has just adopted the holiday. Had a good time checking it all out; bought a fish kite to fly on Kids Day and Rylan did a hand print and then the volunteers at the festival drew Kanji characters of his name and other symbols over the hand prints. Looks very cool.

This is a typical scene as we walk from the park/Safeway back home. On the stroller is our umbrella, toys we bought at the Manoa Hongwanji (Buddhist temple) rummage sale, and an orchid we bought at the orchid show in Noelani school.

The following weekend we were working hard to prepare for Joni’s parents to arrive along with the rest of the wedding party. Joni’s friend Myra got married this weekend so the weekend before Joni was working to prepare for that. Unfortunately Joni’s parents had to cancel their visit but are doing fine in Las Vegas. I worked on getting the grass planted in the side yard but we found time to enjoy a bbq at Michael and Lynn’s on Saturday (5-3-08). They are adopting a baby from a former Soviet republic – Kazakhstan I believe, they leave this week to pick up a 1-year old son – so we had a lot to talk about regarding their preparations. Rylan baby-proof checked their house by climbing and pulling on everything. On Sunday we had a party of co-workers and others at the house. We ate beef-roll, aka Jaba roll, and had a great time.

Here Rylan hangs out on the stones in our side yard. I removed all the soil and sand between the rocks and put in new soil that the new grass should grow in well, rather than the junk sand the old grass never liked.
Because of the gap between the stones Rylan was very cautious about crossing from stone to stone.

At the party Rylan was quite the little begger boy. He always kuddles up with Val and he was rewarded with corn at the party.

After getting corn from Val he would go next door and slurp some of Dave's water. He had to stand on his tip toes to get it.

Monday (5-5-08) was Kids Day. For whatever reason fish are the symbol for boys and it is tradition to fly a fish kite for each boy in your family on Boys Day.
Here Rylan flies his own fish kite in our yard while wearing his Japanese outfit given to him by Matt and Chizuko.

Late April Surf Chronicles

It has been awhile since I caught up on posting so I'm going to break it up a bit. This one is all about surf.

Weekend of April 28: Friday was really the start of the fun for me. I got up early and met Michael at his place at 5:15 and we made for Silva Channels with short boards. We were the first out and I got the first wave. It was as good as I have ever seen Silva’s – 3 to 5 and glassy, lining up outside and deep and you could make the sections; it looked like a video of a perfect mystical Indo wave. We got a bunch of waves before the crowd grew and saw friends/better surfers get deep barrels. Back at Michaels we traded up to the 12 footer guns and went out-the-back – 6 to 10 feet and perfect. After a few quick ones I watched Michael paddle into a big one; watching from the back I thought he was toast multiple times so it was completely unexpected when he popped out way down the line hooting. As he paddled back out the clone of his wave swung in and I caught it – stayed high and tried to make the section the way Michael did but as the wave formed up it looked doubtful so I peeled over the top after a nice run. On the way out Michael gave me 50:50 that I would have made the wave – bad odds for a wave that size. All that and got to work before 10:30.

The rest of the weekend surf adventure took place on Sunday morning when Ryan and I drove up north. Sitting in the parking lot at Uppers we saw Michael and Bobby paddle over and start shredding – Michael pulled into a close out barrel and Bobby pulled his usual radical moves. We joined the action and had a great time. Michael and Bobby witnessed me get something between a head dip and a full barrel on a nice right and after they left I scored a real left barrel. At the start of the session there were about 8 people out (including an exotic 6 foot tall model in a very skimpy bikini), but by the end it was just Ryan and I. Joni also reports getting some good surf all weekend at 3s in Waikiki.

Week of April 28: There was a nice south swell through most of the week. Never got as good as the previous south swell, but still plenty of fun waves. Both Joni and I scored some good waves. Surfed the regular spots. Was good to see the old regulars come out again. One guy that surfs Inbetweens all the time reported a good trip to the Mentawai Islands off Sumatra in Indo – he said even in the off season there is great surf there. Same guy is off to the Maldives this summer. Lucky devil.

This is the photo the surf-internet photographer took of me at Alii Beach on April 20 (I believe that is the right date). I'm kooking out on a small wave, but at least it is a nice clear photo. I actually managed to slide down this wave and get a decent ride.