Edward Jones Open House

We held Rob's big open house celebration Friday Sept. 10, 2010. It took Rob a year to earn the office. Then he designed it and had it built according to his specifications. His new office is in the R&T (Research and Technology) Park in Kihei. It is on the 2nd floor of a very beautiful building with views of Haleakala out his windows. Because he is in his own office now, he also has a personal BOA (Branch Office Manager). This is what his office looks like as you walk in the front door. His BOA, Sharon, sits at this desk to greet clients with aloha.

The is the back room -- Rob's desk -- where he personally meets with his clients.

This is Rob, Kai and I with Rob's regional manager, Jennifer. Rob worked within her office for the first year until he earned his own office.

This is Rob's new BOA, Sharon.

It is a tradition in Hawaii to have a Hawaiian blessing at an open house. This is the Auntie who performed the Hawaiian blessing for Rob's new office. She chanted and prayed in Hawaiian while waving the palm leaf you see on Rob's desk (in the picture above) and sprinkling each of us (each family member and Sharon) with water. Luckily, every adult woman in Hawaii is "Auntie" so I don't have to remember her name :-).

Here is Jairin "guarding" the food. We catered it ourselves. I don't think Rob slept for three days.

We had three tables full of food. Although we called it "heavy pupus ( hors d'oeuvres), it was truly a feast. This is the hot food table (Pineapple rice, Broke Da-Mouth Meatballs in
Peppered Tomato Cream Sauce, Five-cheese sour cream potatoes, Honey-glazed ham, 8-layer dip, Spinach-artichoke dip, Sausage Cream cheese dip, Orange-glazed Chicken, Gemelli in Genoise Basil-Tomato Cream Sauce and Steamed Rice)

This table had fruit and vegetable trays, green salad and five kinds of cookies (M&M, chocolate-chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip and Mexican wedding cookies) and two kinds of brownies.

The third table was dark chocolate fondue and caramel fondue with chocolate pound cake, buttermilk pound cake, Oreos, pretzel sticks, strawberries, pears, apples, bananas, marshmallows and shortbread cookies.

This is the beautiful courtyard in the center of Rob's building. We set up tables and chairs so that people could eat out in the courtyard while they listened to the entertainment provided by Kevin Gavagan (a member of our church congregation) and Adam.

Adam played his first uke solo -- a song by Jake Shimabukuro, of course.

All the Brantleys dressed up in blue and red aloha wear so that everyone could tell who we were.

Kamri and Jairin

Joelle and Lana

Miri, Joelle, Lana and Kamri

Kai

Miri

Rob sang several songs as part of the entertainment. And then, Miri and Jairin each sang a song as well.

Aria, Lana and Kai

Aria and Kai

We had lots of food left over. We were eating it for several weeks after.
Thankfully, many kind ward members helped us to clean up, or we would have been up for another full night.
All in all, it was a rousing success. Wish you all could have been there.