Anyhoo - I'm gotten sidetracked again:) I thought while I had a minute I would try to do some double duty and post on a couple of my topics - finally!
First, let me tell you about Our Pet Cat......erpillars. (You knew that was coming, right?) There's a couple time a year when there are monarch caterpillars in abundance on the milkweed plants in the community. Well, that time was just a couple of weeks ago. The kids pass a huge milkweed plant on the way home for school and one day they decided to bring a little friend home with them. I thought it would be fun to set up a little home for him (or her) and so we set about doing it. First we had to head over to a friends house to get some milkweed leaves for him to eat - that is the ONLY thing that they eat. And of course, while we were there we spotted many more caterpillars and somehow we ended up with 3 more, one for each of the children (don't ask my why Juliana needed her own, but she did). So here they are in their caterpillar form:
This is Abby's, she named it Blossom
This is Isaac's, it's name is BYU.
These are Danielle's and Juliana's. The one at the top is Danielle's, Flower, and the other is Happy, Juliana's.
We fed them (taking MANY trips to the milkweed plant) and cleaned out their little home. And when they started getting fat and juicy we went and bought some screen to put across the top of the container. And looky what happened:
The chrysalises are so beautiful. They are a green apple color with a delicate black and gold stripe around the top and little gold spots on the bottom. Then after about 10-14 days the green turns really dark and gets translucent and out pops a monarch butterfly!
Yes, we did end up with more than the original 4 caterpillars, but we had a little bout of some parasite that killed a few off. But we did end up with 5 chrysalises and 4 of those actually hatched butterflies. The whole process was really fun to watch and the kids got really excited about letting the butterflies go. Abby even took them to school for a project last week. All in all, it was great, but I'm glad that we're done. Maybe we'll do it again next year.....
And now onto the Hauli Hula Girl - me, of course! For those of you that don't speak Pigeon (or even know what it is) hauli is a Hawaiian slang term for a white person. Sometimes used in a not so nice way, but I personally haven't come across it meant that way too many times. But I am definitely the white girl in our hula halau. There are a couple of other fairer skinned gals, but they both grew up here, so they don't really count as hauli.
So back in October a friend of mine convinced me to start coming to her hula group (halau) with her. It didn't take much convincing, I've wanted to learn hula since we moved here. So I started going each week. There was a hula festival at the Polynesian Cultural Center back in January and our halau danced in it. We danced 3 songs - none of which I knew until a week before the festival. We had been learning other songs and then at the last minute it was decided that we would dance something else. The women who have been dancing with this halau for years of course already knew these numbers, but I had to learn them - quickly. We practiced a lot the week before the festival, so it wasn't so bad. Here's the last number that we did (the ending is a little messed up because we were dancing to live musicians and they slowed it WAY down). I think I did pretty good....and I got to dance on the stage at the PCC, so that was really fun, too. Oh, in case you can't tell, I'm the tall white girl in the middle of the back row:)
OK, that's it for me. I have a paper that is due in an hour, so I'd better hop to it.
8 comments:
That's awesome about the butterflies-that would be a good experience with the kids-I can't believe you can tell whose are whose especially happy and flower!
I think you dance better than the woman to your left-she hardly moves her arms! Great job and I finally get to see you!
How fun! Loved the dance and butterflies.
Okay, I feel cheated. Why are you dancing in Grandma's nightgowns? Where is the grass skirt? Where is the swishy-swishy of the hips? This looks like something a Utahan would do. Is that what you get at the Polynesian Cultural Center? People dancing in grandma's nightgowns with all the hip swishyness hidden? I'm not goin'ta go now. I had my reservation and everything.
But, the caterpillars were WAY cool. Loved the whole process. Loved the names. Loved that you took such good care of them. You are the winner, you grandma-nightgown-dancing Hauli Hula Girl.
Hey, I'm glad you joined the halau! Great job learning the songs so quickly, I was in the same boat last year...I miss it. Hopefully I'll recover soon and rejoin!
You GO white girl! I've very impressed! The dancing reminds me of tai-chi, but with really loud music. ;) I bet it's a cool experience.
And the butterflies are WAY cool! The simplest things can be SO magical!
The pictures of your butterflys are amazing! Way to go for doing the hula! You are never one to back down from a good challenge! Tell Cameron I love my tiara even if it looks silly! Love ya!
Hey this post was a comment magnet!
But it was so GREAT! I'll have to send you an email my comments are to long!
Lisa I love it that you just go and go, experiencing all these things!
Learning, mixing in w/others. Makes life BIGGER.
Mama
Loved the story about the butterflies, we had experienced some places where people could have butterflies to release at special occasions, never really thought about how they were raised, and prepared. I'm sure the kids learned a great deal from the "experiment". And, you may start a trend at the elementary school.
You do a beautiful job with the Hula--I enjoy that you are adventurous enough to do these things, and from a father who has absolutely no talent when it comes to dancing, I express my admiration.
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