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Hawaiian Night With The Soul Signature Ohana

August 4, 2017 in Chris, Kitty by Chris | 1 comment

We’ve been in Hawaii for almost a week catching up with family and friends.  We’ll share some memories in another post.  This one is dedicated to the amazing night we had with the Soul Signature Ohana.

When coming to Ohau this time I wanted to add more story from my right 1/2 sleeve onto my left and Kitty wanted to get her first tattoo. Lopeti (Raspets) was who had done my previous piece and we both wanted him to help us with these new ones.  Lopeti is an amazing artist and soul.  He really puts the love of his craft into his work and was able to capture Kitty’s story perfectly.

Soul Signature is truly one big Ohana.  Sua Suluape Toeutu’u Aisea was welcoming guests, tattooing, and playing the occasional drums with the keiki.

Kitty’s took several hours and afterwards it was my turn.  This time I was getting a shoulder cap on the left side.  Lopeti added so many elements of my family and heritage to the piece it turned out perfect.  You’ll notice Kitty and I both have the Enata representing our marriage and 3 kids.

All pau at 2am?  Not yet…

As luck / fate would have it there happened to be a gathering of the top most venerated artists in the world.  Soul Signature was ground zero for the gathering.  The tattoo legend Freddy Negrete checked out both our tattoos and took some time to get a pic with Kitty.

Most of the night people were waiting for the arrival of the master and father Sua Sulu’ape Petelo. His plane landed after midnight and he came right over. He is such a kind soul and took time to talk story with us for awhile before the crowd arrived.  Watch the video above if you’re not familiar with him but he is also a tattoo icon and cultural legend.

It was a long night for the kids they danced and partied as long as they could till they eventually passed out on the tatau mats for pe’a and hand tapping in the back.

People from all over the world showed up while we were getting tattooed.  We met some amazing people from Tahiti, Samoa, New Zealand, Europe, modern Hawaii torch bearers, and even Rich from the Honolulu Tatau MC.  Check out our little Ohana in the background.  It was an amazing night with some of the most Aloha we’ve ever felt.  It was truly a special night at a special place.  Mahalo nui loa to Lopeti, Aisea, and the entire Soul Signature Ohana.

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Aloha From Hawaii

July 31, 2017 in Autumn, Chris, Kitty, Luca, Mia by Chris | Permalink

 

 

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Pumpkin Patch 2015

October 18, 2015 in Autumn, Chris, Kitty, Luca, Mia by Chris | Permalink

It’s our families favorite time of the year!!  Here are some highlights from this years trip to the pumpkin patch.

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Island Style

May 18, 2011 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | 2 comments

It’s been awhile since our last post, but we’ve been pretty busy.  We bought a house in Portland and will be moving the beginning of June.  We are all very excited to have a nice house so on the weekends I can listen to my Hawaiian music with the sounds of birds and fountain in the background, Kitty can garden outside and sew in her sewing room, and Luca can play on his play structure and well… hide in every cupboard, climb every stair, and crawl around roaring like a lion.

While we were doing all that and visiting with friends and family we took a little break and flew over to Hawaii.  It was our first trip with a more evolved Luca.  The trip was so much fun and yet somehow tiresome at the same time.  Luca enjoyed daily trips to the beach and parks and loved exploring anything outside.  He would quickly exclaim “THAT!!!” every time he saw a bird then make his chicken noise “bock bock bock”.  Along with the birds Luca saw actual chickens, whales, lots and lots of sea turtles, and made many gecko friends.

While at times the trip was relaxing, like sipping coffee with Kitty after sunset on the lanai listening to my local radio station, it was also quite an adventure.  I won father of the year several times including the time I excitedly lifted Luca into the air and right into a ceiling fan… “thump thump thump thump”.  Luca found sand, played in sand, and ate the sand.  I got a chance to go paddle boarding.  We ate  several of our favorite local plates, grilled some ahi, and had plenty of mangos, papayas, and pineapples.

I made the trip that much more exciting by getting food poisoning on our last day.  Yay outdoor salsa bar! I don’t know if you’ve flown on a plane with food poisoning, but after trying to explain that I wasn’t drunk, didn’t need medical assistance, and convinced them not to take the plane back to the gate and ditch me, I was approached by two nice flight attendants in gloves and masks 🙂  They asked me to wipe my hands down and wear a hepa filter mask for the duration of the flight.

So here we are back in pdx. With the nicer weather we’ve made some trips around Portland including a trip to the zoo.  Hopefully we will have some more posts soon.  With three weeks till we move in to our new house, we’re headed to Corvallis this weekend to visit family, and then we head to Illinois to a friends wedding.  Ok back to packing… A hui hou

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Walk

March 20, 2011 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | Permalink

We have made a few adjustments since moving to Oregon. Probably the biggest change has been weather related. Coming from Hawaii and LA we could pretty much go out and do whatever we wanted when we wanted and just assume there would be good weather. This doesn’t really hold true during the winter months in Oregon. So today when there was a break in the rain we decided to head out for a walk.

Hey Luca you want to go for a walk?

yeah walk!!!

Hoodie... check... Chucks... check... lets roll

This way mom

Luca and Dad taking some time for some monkey business

Oh hello

The cat yields to Luca's mind control

Playing with his new friend

All pau time to go home

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Ready Luca Swim!

March 19, 2011 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | Permalink

Luca has been working on his aquatic skillz for awhile now.  He’s gotten more comfortable at the pool and now does all the dips, dives, and dunks.  We are taking a trip back to Hawaii in April where he can put all his water training to use and catch some waves with his dad.  Here are some pictures and a video of some of our recent trips to the pool.

 

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Weekend at the Falls

July 31, 2010 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | 1 comment

As we talked about in previous posts Luca has started eating solid foods.  He’s really taken to it and devours anything we put in front of him.  Today was no different.  Before heading out for a hike around Multnomah Falls Luca carbo loaded and ate a bunch of oatmeal.  Apparently he’s read that oatmeal does wonders for the skin and decided to spread a little on his face between bites.  After breakfast/facial we headed over to the falls.  Luca really loves being outdoors.  He’s fascinated with all the plants and creatures and it seems to calm him down when he’s fussy.  At the falls Luca enjoyed the mossy trees, scurrying chipmunks, birds, and sound of the water rushing over the falls.  He even took  a moment to dip his chubby baby toes into the water just for a bit.  Kitty and I just enjoyed spending time with our little Ohana.

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Catch Up

May 11, 2010 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | Permalink

It’s been super busy since we all got to Portland.  I started work and, while I don’t like to discuss work on our family blog, I will say it’s surpassed any and all expectations I had.   The hundreds of lunch carts downtown  are nice as well….mmmm blog post coming soon.  While I’ve been busy working on the internet superhighway, Kitty has been at home taking care of all the business associated with moving into our new home.   We found a nice three bedroom house with lots of room and in a great NE Portland neighborhood. Luca has had lots of family time including time with his great grandmas.  Auntie Libby, who lives just down the street, has been especially helpful and it’s amazing to have her so close and involved in Luca’s life.  We have so many photos and videos to post, but since we just got our internet connection back today we will start with the few below.

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New Family

February 23, 2010 in Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | Permalink

We’ve been a new family for 3 weeks now, and what an adjustment it has been!  We sleep sometimes, change lots of diapers, spend hours feeding, and the rest of the time simply marvel at the wonder of our little baby.  Luca is growing and changing fast – he’s already a different little person than the day we came home from the hospital.  These days he moves and wiggles a lot, so much so that I have to wrap his arms up tight so they don’t get in the way during breastfeeding.  And he’s becoming more alert while he’s awake, staring more intently at our faces and looking around his environment.  So far he enjoys walks around the neighborhood in the stroller, sleeping chest to chest on mommy or daddy, car rides, and being held and cuddled.  We’ve also discovered that the sound of running water from the faucet magically calms him down when he’s fussy.
Luca has already met many people in his three weeks of life.  He spent lots of time with my mom, who stayed with us to help out for several days after he was born.  He has also been passed around between several of my coworkers and friends from PT school who came to visit.  On Valentine’s Day he met the three other babies who live in our condo complex, one of whom was born just a week before Luca!  Our latest accomplishment was giving Luca his first bath, which he really seemed to enjoy.  I think he could have been quite happy to stay in that bath for the entire evening.  You can check out bath time pictures here.  So although we are tired and can’t seem to get anything done around the house, we are thrilled to have little Luca in our lives and are enjoying this new adventure of parenthood.  Off we go!

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Thanksgiving

November 26, 2009 in baby, Chris, Kitty, Luca by Chris | Permalink

We decided to fly home for Thanksgiving this year, as I will be too far along in the pregnancy to travel during Christmas time.  It was so nice to be in Oregon for the fall – it has been years since we’ve seen the leaves changing color.  And we ended up having very pleasant weather for almost the whole week – it rained only on Thanksgiving day, of course.  Baby put on a good show with lots of moving and shaking, which I guess was his way of saying hi to his grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Chris’ family joined my family at my Grandmother’s house, and we had a lot of fun cooking good food, chatting, and playing Cranium.  It sure was hard to leave this time, knowing things will be so different when we see everyone again!

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