54th Healthy Baby Contest

This past weekend, we entered Kiana in the Healthy Baby Contest at Pearlridge. There were over 1000 participants!

Each child will be judged in 3 categories - healthiness, personality, and physical appearance. The top 50 children will then move on to the finals at Ala Moana on September 22nd.

Here is a very short video of how she did.

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Koganji Bon Dance

We took the girls to their very first Bon Dance Festival and they really enjoyed themselves. The only bad thing was that it rained, but it was fun nonetheless. It was something Harmoni would have loved!

First Day of School

Can you believe that today was Kacie's first day of Kindergarten?

She'll be attending Holomua Elementary in Ewa Beach. I went for a parent orientation last week and was very impressed with the campus. It's a pretty new school (little over 10 years old) and everything still looks really clean and all the classrooms are air conditioned (thank goodness!). They're also very big on computers and have at least 6 in each classroom.

The principal, Norman Pang, recently won the Leeward District Principal of the Year and the 2007 Masayuki Tokioka Excellence in School Leadership Award. I had a chance to talk to him at the orientation and he was very nice but a little goofy.

The school currently runs on a multi-track system which basically means that there are too many students to attend school all at once, so they take turns. Kacie is in the red track which means she'll be in school for the next 2 weeks then will be off for 3 weeks. After that, she'll be on for 2 months, off for 3 weeks, on for 2 months, off for 3 weeks. Crazy, huh? Luckily, with our work schedule we can handle this. I don't know what families with 2 full-time working parents do for childcare!

After the drama of beginning pre-school, we were a little worried about how Kacie would react to this new adventure. We tried to prep her as much as possible by telling her what a great school it is, the new friends she'll make, and all the time off she'll have. It must have worked because she did very well. When it was time to go to her classroom, she gave me a hug and walked in. No tears. No hesitation. Our little girl is growing up.

Excuse me while I grab a tissue. *sniff*

The Okamoto Family Reunion

Here are some photos from the Okamoto Family Reunion held on July 8, 2007.

Our Disneyland Vacation

May 2007

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Keeping in Touch

Hi everyone!

I know how busy our lives can get on a day-to-day basis now that we all live in different places and have children to chase after. So I wanted to come up with an easy way to keep everyone updated on things that go on in our lives.

For those of you who are not familiar with this means of communication, this is called a Blog. You are able to post whatever you'd like including photos and videos.

If you'd like to share anything by posting it here, just let me know and I can set you up and send you the password.

Hope everyone is doing well!