lulumama

Karen and Ashok's Wedding!

After two consecutive nights of wedding-related events (and more late nights before that), i am exhausted. But it was REALLY fun. This is the first time I've attended a wedding in which I really felt like I was genuinely celebrating the union. So we were all dancing with abandon and love for karen. :) Every wedding should be just like this one.

The reception had THE BEST hotel food i've ever had in my life. During the cocktails after the ceremony but before dinner, they had drinks and an amazing light chocolate cake (yes, BEFORE dinner). For dinner, they went way overboard with four appetizers (all on one plate but each could have stood on its own), then two types of soup. After dinner they served a lovely apple gallette a la mode. THEN outside of the banquet room, they had a HUGE dessert buffet plus a chocolate fountain and stuff to skewer and dip in fountain like fruit. Plus Haagen Dazs ice cream. I didn't eat most of it. But i wanted to.

Really terrific Filipino wedding band and singers (six of them). They actually sang FALLEN by Lauren Wood, which is a special song for me and Chris from the soundtrack of Pretty Woman! After dinner, came a surprise REALLY funny entertainment. OMG, what an evening.

Ashok's family purchased saris for the girls and he lent the men outfits borrowed from various people in his family.

Don't they look beautiful?

Karen looked amazing. She's wearing extensions!

The dance room.

Karen and Ashok sharing their first dance at the Sangeet.

it was nuts. We were all dancing with abandon. i can't explain why but it was just a euphoric situation.

At the hair salon on the day of the wedding ceremony.

Outside the Inter-Continental (used to be the Regent)

Staircase to the wedding ceremony area

Ceremony in the lounge area outside of the ballroom

extreme zoom on my camera. my dad was unexpectedly called up to be part of the ceremony! even karen didn't expect it.

me and karen at the reception

Posted January 20, 2012

First Annual Loke Family White Elephant!

We decided to have a little fun this year and instituted a White Elephant gift exchange. Valuable lesson #1: never let Lisa be responsible for three people's gifts because you will end up with 3 silver Tiffany "Mum" necklaces.

White elephant gifts. That little green moist toilette was Gung Gung's IOU for a gift. He apparently got a gift but forgot to bring it to HK.

Gung Gung stole the "butt station" from Sophia. It's a tape dispenser/pen caddy/paper clip holder/memo pad holder made in the shape of a man sitting on a toilet bowl.

Erica's candy dispenser was very popular amongst the kids. This is Brian trying to pry it out of Sophia's arms.

More wrestling

The wrestling took a while

Randi got a book holder

Brian steals the food chopper from Erica.

Posted January 17, 2012

Adam's thank you note to popo

Now that the boys have a few years of Mandarin under their belts, I've been asking them to write their grandmother's thank you notes in Chinese. As I was walking out the door for my flight to Hong Kong, I grabbed Adam's card to Popo since it was with his other thank you notes but unfortunately didn't see Colin's. Oh well. So, anyway, I delivered Adam's note to Popo in person at our New Year's Eve dinner. Everyone was tickled to read it.

PoPo read the card out loud in Cantonese. I only understood about half of it!

Gung Gung applauds Adam's Chinese skills

Aunty lisa was pleased to see that he used the notecards she gave him

Gung Gung announced to the whole table "That deserves a reward!" and took a US$100 bill out of his wallet and handed it to me. I asked if the reward was for me because I am the one who has to put up with all the whining and complaining about how hard Chinese is. He said no, it was for Adam. Phooey. Colin didn't get a reward because he didn't make sure his note got delivered. I encouraged Adam to split the reward since Colin helped him a little with it. He says he'll think about it.

Needless to say, I was SOOOOOO proud of both boys. It's not easy for a kid growing up in the US to learn Chinese and they PERSEVERED, sometimes DESPAIRED, but never gave up. Good job!

Posted January 17, 2012

Christmas 2011

This Christmas was twice the fun because we have Chris' parents AND Erica PLUS her boyfriend Ted visiting us. It's a crazy house bursting at the seams and full of love and laughter. Just the way we like it!

Fun at Zippy's

Our traditional post-movie group photo with the Aaltos. We saw Sherlock Holmes and LOVED it!

Playing Taboo on Christmas Eve. Girls v. Boys!

Erica was relentless with the buzzer.

The boys team was stacked with English majors and other verbally-gifted people. We girls gave it our best, but they eked out the win.

Someone is in love. Handsome, helpful, loving, funny...I think he's a keeper!

Our tree. Truly an embarassment of riches.

Cute shot of Chris and Erica.

Getting ready to open gifts

Adam is all smiles

Colin got a new tie with monkeys to wear to debate tournaments. Aunty Erica showed him an alternative use.

Two cool cats

I love these shoes so Chris thinks this gift was more for me than him. Guilty!

We received four of these cards as the boys' gift to me and Chris. Priceless!

Posted December 25, 2011

Our Dinner at Alan's

Chris and I had dinner with the Karen and Andrew at Alan Wong's a while back and had a great time, as usual. It was Restaurant Week and I was tickled that they were offering classic Alan Wong dishes that are no longer on the menu. My favorite? "Soup and Sandwich" which is chilled vine ripened Hamakua Springs tomato soup topped with a thin grilled foie gras and kalua pig sandwich. YUM.

Not Karen's birthday for a couple of weeks, but we are pake' and a free dessert is a free dessert, is it not?

The place was packed for Restaurant Week.

Andrew gives us his best look.

Posted November 30, 2011

23 Adult Truths

I saw this on Facebook today and laughed so hard! I particularly LOVE #8, 12, 19 and 21. Totally disagree with #6 and #5 doesn't apply to me because Chris' Mom taught me the proper technique years ago…Thanks Mom!!!

1. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How on earth are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind-of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

22. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

Ladies.....Quit Laughing.

Posted November 30, 2011

thriller halloween flash mob

I've always wanted to be in a flash mob. So when Yelp invited me to participate in their Halloween event, I jumped at the chance. Fortunately, Sue happened to be in town and she was crazy enough to join me. a couple of others that I invited were too chicken. I won't say who they are, but one of their names rhymes with "bane" and the other one rhymes with "briss."

Sue and I attended one 2 hour rehearsal and then practiced a couple times at home. Fortunately, it was simple choreography and not the actual Thriller routine!

It was planned to go off at Hallowballoo, a Halloween arts and music street festival in Honolulu. We had about six "real dancers" who started us off. Then, three groups of amateurs joined in, each at their own specified time in the song. The video begins as group 2 (including me and Sue) start to stagger in all zombie-like. That's us in the white t-shirts and shorts (I enter first and that's Sue right behind me). What--you've never heard of Hawaiian tourist zombies before?

(download)

Posted November 14, 2011

Oops.

Unlike 99% of his Junior class, Colin chose to spend his birthday morning taking the SAT. Thinks it's good luck or something like that. Chris and I were so pre-occupied with making him a special SAT breakfast that we forgot it was his birthday. We dropped him off at school and never said boo about it. Oh brother. Bad parents!

Posted November 5, 2011

Surprise!!

For his 17th birthday, Colin's girlfriend Brittany suggested a surprise party. I thought it was a great idea. You see, Colin normally does not enjoy celebrating his birthday so of course the best way is to force him! ha ha. Actually, Britt told me that Colin had once told her he thought it would be fun to have a surprise party. That was all I needed.

We opted for movie and dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory and we did it a week before his birthday. Brittany handled the invite list, met up with the kids and made party favor bags. I made the arrangements for the movie and dinner. All the kids were waiting in the theater when Colin arrived. I was furiously texting Britt with updates on our whereabouts. When he entered, they stood up and shouted "Surprise! Happy Birthday Colin!!" It was kind of dark so Colin didn't see them at first. Only when he heard them shout his name did he realize what was going on!

Many of the kids contributed toward Colin's main gift, an iPhone. An iPhone is something he had steadfastly maintained that he did not want, opting instead to stick with his $20 Wal-Mart phone plus an iPod Touch. We got it for him anyway (tough love). Once I purchased it, his old phone ceased working. It was funny to see him taking it apart trying to figure out what was wrong!!

At the movies

Aunty Sue was in town for a girl's week. She was a big help in making the plans and keeping me calm.

Chris went around taking pictures with each party-goer. This is John.

Colin gets a smooch.

Group shot (two more friends met us at dinner). Baskin Robbins cake with strawberry ice cream and chocolate cake!

Colin hangs around "the smart boys." They decided it would be amusing to sign their names on his poster using physics formulas (if E=MCsquared, then C = square root of E/M, etc. etc.). This took quite a while and it made me laugh to see them working so hard on this.

The final product

Colin poses with his old crap phone and his new iPhone.

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Posted November 5, 2011

Halloween 2011

For some reason, at Punahou, the younger kids rarely dress up. Instead, it's the high schoolers that go all out for Halloween and some are extremely creative. In comparison, Colin and Adam are tame but that just goes to show you what it must be like on campus. For MY boys to bother to dress up at all, it's a big deal!

Safari Adam on his way to class

"Hello boys and girls!!!" (spoken in a high squeaky voice)

Minnie (AKA Brittany) and Mickey. Don't they look adorable?

Posted November 1, 2011

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