break down

this website gives a nice break down on Laos... notice the jump in gni... and look atl the number of people still living on less than $1 a day.

http://www.alertnet.org/db/cp/laos.htm

it's not tahitian...

it's a tokelauan dance... for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokelau

i am leaving hawaii for snowy seattle tomorrow. this will be my last post until i get back to the northwest of whatever. so i close out with natahli and ko'olina performing "pate pate" - (this is from sunday night - and this dance aint easy) but, once again... it's not tahitian, it's tokelauan.

for more on te vaka, the group that performs this number:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_Vaka

2006 in review

wl: here is some of the better pictures of john and the family from 2006. (i stole em off his computer's hard drive while he was at work.) these are posted pretty much in chronological order - starting with january (a new year's dance i think?) through christmas this year. well, i hope this meets your demand...

gone off island

off island tomorrow with john and ivona (to some place called "mow-eee;" i tried to find it on the map, but it weren't nowhere) so no big post today...

and, shawna, if you are looking at my blog, i promise i will post that video soon! maybe sunday? sometime in the evening? check back again!!!

the polynesian cultural center

this is ivona's nephew, byron, up in the coconut tree. he's really high up there, but my zoom don't portray that too well.

at the new zealand village, throwing sticks at each other.

tom and jenni stopped in to say hi.

"i wanted to play the drum," said tom.

what white people do for fun

a certain family (that will remain nameless unless you can read really small print: the toblers) gets together every other year in florida for christmas, and they come up with some amazingly creative competitions for their five sons (four sons this time around - jake, the youngest is off in canada?? i think.) - and this year aint no exception:

a drive-by shooting contest

(or also known as: what white people won't do to get that warm and fuzzy feeling of growing up in inner-city america).

limited editorializing needed...

here comes the bullets...

run forest. run.

someone should tell jeff not to look back when they're after you. (this is clearly his first time).

"a direct hit"

thanks to amy for these photos that i am posting without her written consent (or verbal for that matter...)

yall are awesome. wish i coulda been there.

more from the north shore of oahu

for jayleen

posted by special request from ko'olina:

she took this one herself

'ailana is the one about to fall to the ground. ko'olina is a great pusher.

scavengers

this was the scavenger hunt for the "big" christmas gift the nieces got for christmas. kinda fun if you're into scavenger hunts... and this one is a little different. (thanks to digital photography and easy printing). natahli was in on the gift... she knew what was up, and so you can see her ineffective attempts to play along- and (at her dad's request) her attempts to slow it down outside...

so if you got nine minutes to kill... watch the nieces duke it out to the finish... complete with twist and turns... and a surprise ending...