Island Fest!

I have been incapable of posting because my depression got so bad that I was in the most basic survival mode each day.

But I have seen my doctor.

I have talked to my family.

I have been taking steps to do better.

And I am slowly finding light.

Along the way, the kids have been so, so, so busy with Island Fest 2026!

It was yesterday.

Himene Tarava
A song about the planting of the seeds
with Little Princess, Ladybug, Mister Man, Brother, and Beowulf

Haka Puaka

(The Pig Dance)

With Mister Man, Brother, and Beowulf

This dance was choreographed by native Marquesas Islanders who gave this group permission to dance it for this festival. It was accompanied by live music--one musician was born on one of the Marquesas Islands.

Otea

(The Rooster Dance)

With Ladybug and Little Princess

Otea again

This time with Little Princess soloing

(She's the one in the yellow)

Himene Uru
(The Breadfruit Song)
with Lola

Ladybug and Lola got to play Uncle Dave's big drum--the one he used to accompany the dancers.
He's a professor of Polynesian culture at BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Baymax declined the opportunity to dance. He prefers watching the shows to being in them.

They performed twice in the day. In between were dozens of other dances from other Polynesian Islands.

We were so privileged to be invited to be part of this remarkable cultural experience--to be welcomed as family to a group so loving and giving.

I am grateful to have been able to help by sewing for two of the groups--ours and the Samoan group.

When the kids weren't at dance practice, we were finishing up school.

The kids are so, so, so close!

Baymax and Beowulf are finished with their independent school subjects. The others are on the final worktext or chapter or unit of whatever independent subjects they have left.

As a family, we've finished King of the Wind and Habibi, and we are now reading I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, and we picked our Golden Book of Natural History back up again. It's a book that we worked on last year, and for the first few months of this year.

In the past couple of weeks, we've read about reptiles and birds.

It will take us another week to finish birds.

Sir Walter Scott took the kids to a construction site at the hospital complex where he works so they could watch the huge cranes and tractors.

I said, "Wait, where's Ladybug?" when I saw these pictures. It turns out she was just out of view of the camera, behind Mister Man in the photo above.

Then Sir Walter Scott discovered this:

There she is in the reflection!

They all came home high from the excitement of their climb to get a good vantage point (6 stories up) and the thrill of watching heavy machinery at work.

Little Princess has been officially diagnosed with depression and anxiety. She has been in pretty bad shape all year--trying to muddle through to the best of her ability--but it got to the breaking point. Her school has suffered terribly in spite of all of the strategies we tried to use, and she's been so listless. It doesn't seem that way on the surface because she's pretty good at faking it and because her functioning at 30% looks like someone else functioning at full power (kind of like her mom! 🙄)

This diagnosis directly affects her college/career plans.

That's why she fought so hard to overcome it on her own . . . she was afraid of what would happen.

We're taking steps to get her the help she needs, and she's following those steps, so we have hope that the darkness will lift for her.

And we're having faith that windows will open where doors have now closed.

Brother and Beowulf have had half a dozen psych/medical/lab appointments in the past 3 weeks because their white cell count dropped dangerously. (That's half a dozen appointments each.) The psychiatrist is the one who found this, and because one of their meds can have a dampening effect on the immune system, we had to reduce their meds. (Cue PTSD panic attack!)

Fortunately, the boys' white cell counts rose on their own, even before the med reduction, so we can stay on their current med regimen, and the case has been turned over to their primary care doc. But they also still have 3 more psych/lab visits in the next 2 weeks because their psychiatrist is very, very attentive.

In addition, Beowulf had a second unconscious episode (the first was in January) that happened this past week. We've got the doc working on it, but his tests come back normal time and time again.

We had a few CAP promotions.

This is Beowulf's promotion.
I don't have pictures of Mister Man's and Brother's promotions yet.

Nature Angel went skydiving!!!!

This picture isn't of her--it's one she took of her friend.
But it works to show what she did because it looks like it could be her. :)

Nature Angel with her tandem coach (trainer? jumper?)

It was for a friend's graduation--her family offers a skydiving session in place of a party.

She loved it and says she would love to do it again!

Prior to all of this excitement, we had Pixie and Belle come to visit! Belle was a bridesmaid for a childhood friend, and they turned that into an excuse to drive together and visit with us. It was perfect timing to celebrate Mother's Day/my birthday with the whole family!