I am getting really bad at keeping up with the newsletters. I thought that I should be able to keep up with writing something once a month, but may be that was too ambitious. So I will try to remember what happened in May since I am now writing this in July.

     We had Bob and Randi from California stay with us in the tree top. This was a fun month because we had friends stay with us. First my friend from work, Karl and his girlfriend, Kim stayed in the garden apartment. Karl had lived on Oahu and loves coming back to Hawaii. We had fun going out to dinner and also out to breakfast. They liked the relaxed atmosphere and felt being at our place first (they went on to Maui and then Oahu) was a great way to forget about the mainland stress. When Karl and Kim's stay was drawing to a close, Todd's friend from boyscout camp came to stay with us on his honeymoon. Todd hadn't see Ron in many years and it was great for them to catch up on old times. They were so busy that we saw very little of them. I think they went and saw more things in a week than we have done in one and a half years.

     I finally got Todd to go to the dentist. The dentist wants about $800 to fix Todd's tooth he broke with the pry bar. (Several months back when Todd was fixing the garden apartment lanai roof, the pry bar came up unexpectedly and nicely removed half of a tooth). Todd who is always such a cooperative patient wanted to know what the guarantee is on that tooth for the bargain price of $800. The dentist said it was guaranteed to the door. So Todd is still missing half a tooth. I took my yellow belt test for tae kwon do and passed it. I got some back and blues on my knees from getting kicked. I am now third in class behind two teenage boys that are about half my age and twice as tall. I really like the class. It is Hawaii, so the class is friendly and relaxed. We do work hard, but it is not like the cobra kai in the Karate Kid movie. Our master is not out for blood and he takes in to account each person's abilities.

     Our baby (Louie) got fixed this month. I thought it would keep him from humping Buddy's head, but he still must have some residual hormones flowing through his body because he was back to his old tricks the next day. I also thought it would calm him down some. However, Louie is still full of energy. When he runs, he leaps. Todd gets the biggest laugh out of throwing a toy for Louie to fetch. Louie does play fetch unlike Buddy who runs (or walks in most cases) to the toy and plops down to play with the toy where it landed.

     The tree top apartment roof looks a thousand times better. Todd has finished the painting. Once again a project that he thought would take a certain number of days turned out to be much much longer. It was worth the effort. The roof is now protected, looks nice and the roof is much cooler. When the metal was rusty, it would get so hot that you couldn't walk on it. Now Todd can walk on it just wearing socks. I am letting Todd take a break before starting on our house or the coffee shack.

     Happy Birthday to Todd's brother Scott and to Charlie. Also Happy Birthday to our twin nephews, Tyler and Casey. They are getting soooo old. They are seven now. This month we had our friend's Tim and Maki and their daughter Mana over for dinner. Their dog Kukui and Buddy and Louie ran around like lunatics. They had lots of fun and Kukui who is part lab jumped in our little pond many times. We hadn't seen Tim and Maki for quite some time and it was great to see them again. We agreed that we need to make time to get together for some fun. It is too easy to get wrapped up doing all the things you think you have to do and you forget to do the things that make life worth living like spending time with friends.