Kickin' It With Ka Keiki

One of the highlights of my trip was hanging out with the Keiki (That's Hawaiian for kids). Anu and Kawai have always called me "Uncle Bunny" and now I'm Uncle Bunny to Kody and Jessie too.

It was so endearing to take the keiki to school and to have them introduce me around. Everyone there refered to me as Uncle Bunny as if it was perfectly normal - even the teachers, cafeteria ladys and administrators. No one ever asked if I had any other name or a "real" name - it's so rare to find that level of acceptance on the mainland, especially when so many people have trouble spelling or pronouncing "Quartknee".

Their school has no hallways, all the classrooms face out to covered walkways, much like the elementary school I attended and there was a strange familiarity about the place even though I've never been there.

As you can imagine, I created quite a stir in the cafeteria from the moment I had to duck my head to walk through the door. Kawai is the biggest kid in his class and someday he'll be the one towering over the munchkins but today it was me. They introduced me to some of their friends and to the cafeteria ladys. I joked around with them that I would be checking the tops of their refridgerators to see how clean they are.

I served food at school from third grade all the way through my senior year in high school and it felt almost nostalgic to be in a school cafeteria again.

When they weren't in school, we walked around their hilltop neighborhood on a photo expedition. We also had fun shopping. I had to keep them on a short lead while their mum picked up a few essentials...

While we were waiting for our sushi, the Keiki were teaching me some Hawaiian & Japanese words... I'm not going to try to spell them and of course Jess had to teach me a few of the naughty words too...

We had so much fun just tooling around town together. Of course Uncle Bunny had to give a lot of piggy-back rides and as you can see from the photo below, kody helped me make sure everyone got their turn.