Lei making (2)

The girls enjoyed their second lei making class earlier this week. With their new talents, perhaps our visitors can expect to be greeted with homemade leis on arrival (yet another reason to come visit!).

Gymnastics

The girls tried out a gymnastics class at the Hawaii Academy this week. They had a great time and basically had a private lesson. The gym focuses on tumbling and trampoline and has some students that are world class trampoline gymnasts!

The class was originally supposed to be an acrobatics class from a teacher that we met while hiking at Makapu'u our first week here. Apparently there were some scheduling conflicts with her, so the class was their standard intermediate level. The gym is near downtown Honolulu, so we have to fight traffic afterward. We may try to find a class on the windward side of the island once we get into our apartment.

Storytellers at the Bishop Museum

We had a wonderful time at the Bishop Museum at a Native storytellers program. It included natives from (of all places) Hawai'i, Alaska, and Massachusetts! Their stories, dancing and music were fascinating! It was very interesting to see some of the differences (and similarities) among native cultures that are thousands of miles apart!

The performers helped each other tell stories and performed as a part of the ECHO project (http://www.echospace.org/). Their performances are coming to Massachusetts soon. Check out their schedule and try to make it to a performance!

The Alaskan natives (Anupiaq and Yupik) were wonderful to watch. They had us come up on stage to learn and perform (we'll get pictures from friends as soon as we can)

The Massachusetts representatives were Cape Verdean and Wampanoag of Aquinnah. We enjoyed talking with Jonathan Perry, the Wampanoag storyteller!