Happy New Year! Yeah, right.

So, how’s your 2010 going for you?  I don’t know about you but my January didn’t get off to a great start.  First of all, I sent Micah to school on January 5 (per the official DOE calendar) and there was no school that day.  Apparently it became a teacher work day when the furloughs were implemented.  Micah claimed to know about it but I swear there was never a written notice sent to me (perhaps the Unreliable Student Postal Service lived up to its name).  I know I’m not the only parent who made that mistake.  One of Barry’s aunty’s sent her granddaughter to school too!

Then I had the debacle with the school bus service.  I get a call from the VP saying that effective immediately, Niu Valley Middle School will no longer have bus service.  Yeah, no advance notice to parents and by the way, they already cashed my check.  Needless to say, my inner tita took over and I found out that the DOE and the ground transportation companies do not communicate with each other.  Nor does the DOE communicate with their school administrators.  Long story short, I made a lot of noise at the DOE building on Punchbowl street.  A quick call to the DOE PR director resulted in a personal call from an assistant superintendent who reassured me that Niu Valley kids will still have bus service until further notice.  You see, PR directors hate it when the information we distribute via the media is contradicted by one of our own who didn’t FOLLOW THE PLAN.  So props to my DOE PR sistah for her efforts to diffuse a potential media nightmare for the DOE.

On the home front, January has also put a major dent in our finances:

• Washer breaks down and floods garage on December 31 (technically this is 2009 but it was the start of the avalanche).
• DVD player dies.
• I’m paying for a reserved parking space at work because I thought I was buying a new car this year (but I have to admit I LOVE the perk).

Add to that Micah’s $1500 orthodontic bill (I mean “investment”), and I now have more than $3500 in NEW bills.  Oh, and let’s not forget Matt’s school loan.  I swear I’m going to have to work until I die.  Sigh.

Good riddance to 2009

I thought it was just me but it seems like there are a lot of us out there who just can’t wait until 2009 comes to an end.  I can’t say it was a horrible year but it wasn’t a great year either.  We lost our dear cousin Mark to an awful disease and several of my friends lost a parent this year.  Probably topping everyone’s list is the economy.  While I feel we’re luckier than a lot folks (still employed, knock on wood), the global economic crisis has made life a little more difficult.  It didn’t help that we had a son starting college either.  To add insult to injury, on this very last day of this yucky year, my washer craps out on us.  AAAGH!  I was hoping to buy a new car to replace my gas guzzling, pushing 150,000 miles 4-Runner but it looks like that will have to wait for at least six more months.  We’ll be making a visit to the Home Depot tomorrow after lunch.   I’m looking for energy-efficient appliances that use less water and detergent so if you have any recommendations, send them my way.

I know things could be a lot worse but I’m allowing myself a brief swim in the pity pool because I’m very annoyed that I have to cough up big bucks to buy a washer and dryer.  I hoping and praying that 2010 will be a better year for all of us.  Happy New Year everyone and good riddance to 2009!

What the heck happened to Christmas?

It’s hard to believe that Christmas 2009 is pretty much a distance memory.  I’ve been working non-stop since Thanksgiving to get ready for Christmas and just like that, it’s over and done!  The tree is gone along with most of the needles.  All that’s left is the Christmas lights on the deck and bushes and a wreath that is starting to look pretty ugly.

Now we’re on to New Year’s preparations.  On my list of things to do:

1. Mochi pounding tomorrow with my Uesugi ‘ohana in Wahiawa.
2. Buy a Farmer John ham for the imu at the Wong’s house.
3. Clean my house before 2010 is ushered in.
4. Return a few Christmas gifts.
5. Clean my office.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope all of you did too.  Here are some pictures of our holiday and the aftermath.  Wishing all of you a Happy New Year and may 2010 bring all of us good health and prosperity.  Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

p.s.  Just for the record, I was not the last person to get her Christmas cards out.  I received at least four cards in today’s mail!  Hah!

Micah checking out his stocking loot.

Matt opening his presents. Look a little more excited dude! At least you got presents this year.

My beautiful decorated but extremely petrified Christmas tree.

This year’s Christmas card photo.

What’s left of Christmas 2009 at the Nakamoto residence.

He’s home! Or is he?

Yep…college boy came home this past Wednesday evening.   He looked the same, more or less.  Bushy hair that hadn’t been cut since August and some weird facial hair hanging from his chin (I told him to lose that right away).  He said he gained about ten pounds but he’s a naturally skinny kid so I couldn’t tell.

He ate dinner at Zippy’s with us that evening and then took off with Barry’s truck to spend the night in Pearl City with his friends.  He actually stayed home today with Micah, only going out briefly to train for track season and to pick up lunch.

So let’s review.  Matt has been home for a little over two days now and we’ve seen him for approximately four hours.  I’m also down $100 and we’re back to sharing just one car again.  How many more days until January 9th?

It’s that time of the year again!

Ugh.  I can’t believe the holidays are just around the corner.  My angst began last night with a call from an aunt about Thanksgiving lunch and what would I be bringing.  In recent years, I’ve been assigned pumpkin pies because my mom (who usually does the pie baking) has been spending the holiday in Sin City.  Yeah, I could buy pumpkin pies from Safeway or Chinatown but my inner Martha Stewart shudders at the thought of store-bought fare.  So begins my journey of holiday madness.

Tomorrow night, I’m planning to make pie crusts.  A trial run if you will to see if I can perfect mom’s recipe.  It’s not making the dough that’s hard, it’s rolling it out and getting it in the pie pan and then fluting it just right.  I have yet to master the technique and have been scouring the internet for how-to videos.  My mom’s cookbook features three versions of pie crust so I had to call her last night to figure out which is the best recipe and to write down all her tips for making the crust.  She’s the one who told me to practice first.  Thanks mom, I’m feeling so confident already.

Thanksgiving prep is just the beginning of my holiday madness.  I’m totally behind on my Christmas shopping and I need to replenish my Christmas tree lights since most of them died on the tree last year.  On top of that, there are several birthday gifts to be bought between now and December.  I am happy to report that I’ve updated my Christmas gift list and it’s uploaded to my iPhone (what a geek).  The Christmas card labels are also good to go but I’m warning everyone now on my list that our cards will be late this year.  That’s right, you heard me.  OUR CARDS WILL BE LATE, DEAL WITH IT!  It’s all Matt’s fault as he doesn’t get home until the second week of December.

Sigh.  I just love the holidays!

Happy Birthday Matt!

Matt

It’s hard to believe that my oldest son Matt is 18 years old today.  Seems like yesterday that we were tearfully sending him off to preschool for the first time.  Today, he’s a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado.  I guess he’s enjoying the freedom that comes with being a college student.  We found out that he recently went camping in Wyoming (during tornado weather no less) with his Cross Country teammates.  They took a chicken named Henry from a teammate’s farm and then proceeded to cook Henry for dinner (there are pictures of Henry’s untimely death on his Facebook page).  I feel a little better now that I know Henry wasn’t a wild chicken.  I was having nightmares about Matt contracting avian flu when I saw the photos!

This morning I was thinking back to the day he was born.  Eighteen years ago today, Matt was struggling to breathe at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children.  Born at Queen’s Medical Center after a difficult labor and an emergency C-section, Matt was rushed to Kapiolani about an hour after he was born.  I didn’t even get to hold him or comprehend what the doctors and nurses were telling me.  After three days in the hospital, I was finally discharged and we headed for Kapiolani.  I remember thinking how odd it was to see him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) because he was a whopping nine pounds at birth.  He was definitely the bruiser in the NICU until another baby girl came in a few days later topping out at 13-pounds!  That was such a difficult period for us.  As young parents, you never imagine that you’ll have a child born with medical problems and those “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”  books do not prepare you for these situations.  Despite his early struggles, Matt grew up to be a healthy boy and a terrific athlete.

So Matt, happy birthday baby!  You’ve come a long way since those scary days in the NICU and we’re so proud of your accomplishments.  We miss you and can’t wait to see you in December!  Not sure your brother Micah would agree though.  Love you!

Watching from afar…

Matt’s Cross Country season has started and I have to admit, it’s kind of weird not being able to watch him run in person. Now we have to wait for the boy to call us so we can find out how he finished.  Lots of new stuff to learn too since they run longer distances in colleges.  I was pretty good at predicting his high school time for 3 miles but now I have no clue what’s considered “good!”

Last week, he ran in his first college race at the University of Wyoming and finished 5th for his team.  Matt and two other freshman (one was his roommate Ben) were in the top five finishers for Northern Colorado.  That meant he qualified to travel with his team to the University of California Irvine Invitational today.  He had a great race today too, finishing third for his team with a time of 27:31.80 for an 8K run.

Today, Matt had a cheering squad at the race.  My cousin Tracey and her family live in Anaheim Hills so while she took their two younger sons to soccer, her husband Brian and oldest son Caleb came to Irvine to watch Matt run.  Brian took some great pictures that Tracey promptly posted on Facebook.  I was so happy to see pictures of Matt but I have to admit that we were all cracking up at his tan lines on his legs.

For those of you don’t follow running events, Cross Country uniforms consist of a tank top and shorts.  Not just any shorts, but super-duper short shorts.   Back in Hawaii, Matt would solve this wardrobe crisis by wearing compression pants under his shorts but he must not be allowed to do that in college.  So there he his, standing in his really short shorts with major tan lines showing!  LOL!  Why the shorts have to be that short (and they are super thin too) is beyond me.   Even if you’re fit like Matt, those shorts are not flattering at all.

So laugh if you must at Matt’s tan lines.  Everyone on Facebook is giving him a hard time anyway.  We all know what he’ll being doing during his winter vacation…trying to even out the color on his legs!  Although I can’t imagine how he’ll accomplish that with those long board shorts that he wears.  Uh never mind.  I don’t want to know.

Ben, Matt and Caleb. Ben and Matt are roommates at Northern Colorado.

Check out those legs!

Can I cry now?

Tonight was our last night with Matt.  We took him out to dinner (I’m actually surprised that he wanted to join us) at Texas Roadhouse.  This is a very popular steak house in Greeley.  There is a ton of U of Northern Colorado sports stuff all over the place.  Think the Applebee’s restaurant that’s featured in the TV show “Friday Night Lights” and you’ll get the picture.

After dinner, we drove him back to his school.  We got out of the car and gave him some last minute shopping purchases and said our goodbyes.  It was anti-climatic to say the least.  You see, Matt is a cave boy.  His usual form of communication is a grunt.  I don’t know why he’s like that because he was always such an outgoing child.  I suppose I can chalk it up to being a teenager.

So no, there wasn’t an emotional breakdown on my part.  Just a few tears as we got back in the car and a few more as I read comments from friends and family on my Facebook page.

I know he’ll be okay on his own.  I just wish I knew how he actually felt.  Is he scared?  Is he already homesick?  Is he happy to be away from us, particularly me?  (I’m guessing it’s the latter!)

All I can do at this point is hope and pray that he’ll make the right decisions and make the most of his college experience.  He knows how proud I am of him and how much I love him so I guess I’ll have to settle for the occasional long-distance grunt now and then when he calls me for money.

I’m ending this post right now.  Can’t seem to see the computer screen through my tears.

Colorado Updates

It’s been a crazy couple of days in Greeley, Colorado.  We arrived yesterday around lunch time and drove straight to Greeley, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Denver.  After checking into our hotel and resting for a bit, we headed to the University of Northern Colorado to check out his suite.  After dropping off some of his luggage, we drove to Target for dorm room shopping.  I think we were there for about an hour and left $250 poorer!  We then went to Best Buy to buy him a TV.  Yep, another $300 out the door.  That’s ok though…I didn’t have to pay for that purchase, Barry did!

This morning we went back to campus to get his ID card which is used for access to practicially everything on campus including his suite.  Then we opened his bank account and moved all the Target purchases and his TV to his room.  As we were helping him unpack and set up, his roommate Ben arrived with his parents in tow.  They brought the refrigerator and microwave.  I spent another $60 at the campus computer store to get Matt a printer and miscellaneous cables; another $70 for UNC apparel at the bookstore and we went back to Target yet again to buy more stuff that we didn’t remember to buy the first time around.  You guessed it…another $200 out of my wallet.  Granted, some of those items were not for Matt, but still!

So here’s a rundown on Matt’s fancy “suite.”  It’s a 2-bedroom suite that shares a bathroom and a living room.  The suite comes with free cable, free Internet and free phone service.  I’ve included some photos with this post.

Matt seems pretty happy with this living accommodations. He was even happier when he found that his roommate Ben has a car on campus!  I’m not sure when these kids are going to study because Matt brought his Xbox and he asked us to send up his Rock Band equipment.  Sigh.

Micah is enjoying the greenery on campus.  He picked a branch from the acorn tree to bring home.  He’s never seen an acorn (except on TV) and he was happy to see a few squirrels.  We’re also admiring the “Christmas” trees all around campus.  They look like Noble firs but they have a bluish color.  This campus must be beautiful in the fall when the leaves turn color.

More trip updates later!

This is the entry to the suite. Bedrooms across from the vanity.

This is the living room. Suite comes completely furnished.

The all important HDTV with a built-in DVD player. See the Xbox below? Unfortunately they have a ton of space in the living room so they can play Rock Band.

Matt’s bedroom. He also has a desk and a pretty good sized closet that has lots of storage.

I Can’t Believe It’s Here!

Well, it’s a little past 8 p.m. and we’re going to board our plane soon.  The first leg of our trip to Colorado.  Matt finally packed today but he still kept his grandpa waiting when he arrived to take us to the airport.  After checking in, Barry, Micah and I made our way through security while Matt hung around outside to say goodbye to his friends.  Glad I didn’t stick around to see that!

I’m doing ok so far.  I’m starting to feel a bit “ferclemped” as Mike Meyers would say (I don’t even know how to spell that word, if such a word exists) but no tears yet.

I’ll try to post an update tomorrow after we get settled in Greeley.  Wish me luck!