I love it raw and spontaneous. I love a genuine laughter. I love the late afternoon light. I love a rusty old motorcycle and hop balls. I love when adults believe they can be kiddos again for an afternoon (with the bonus beer earned by the age). I love when I kick my fattening butt out of my nest and get to have a blast with friends. 
Walter turned 5. Meanwhile we had a baby and are expecting our 2nd. Can someone please tell me how this happened so fast? I am holding on to my camera more than ever in a hope to keep some memories alive for our old days. 

I have been told this car will be Walter's first car in about 10 years. I say : lucky boy!

First Monday of 2016. Time to play catch-up with the Holiday photos before they get buried under the millions memories we are about to make. 
Christmas morning was my favorite part of the Holidays. Manech first woke up to use the toilets, walked right passed the xmas tree and did not notice any of the presents that had appeared over night. He ran back to bed with us and we were able to enjoy some more sleep all together. When I finally decided it was about time to get up, I asked him if he had looked at the tree this morning which made him curious enough to jump off of bed. His look when he came back to the bed was the most precious thing in the world. It was filled with surprised, excitement, wonders...How I wish we would remain so innocent for the rest of our lives.

Close to 6 month.
​Terrified to know what the near future holds for our world. 
I choose Love and Laughter.
And if I could, I'd have a glass of wine, a pinte of beer and a middle finger pointed towards assholes. right. now.
Do not excuse my French. It's in my genes. 

A place to cherish. Old friends to love. 

Photos taken a few week-ends ago. ​
all photos credits : Happy-Bandits

My friends have the radest ol'bad ass truck.
Detail I Love about it? Its owner's British accent. 
Look beyond the rust, always.

Surf was really good last week. I got one of my best longboarding session in a very long time. Four of us sharing waves after waves. Long glassy waves to make it even better. I got to do some walking-on-my-longboard and this alone got me smiling for the rest of the week. 
There has been some long family beachy-sandy days with friends and a little boy thriving in the ocean. 
We had our very first diner party in our new home celebrating our new hand-made-by-hubby dining table and the return on the island of Manech's very own Oncle Kala. 
We had a little boy turning 2.
The islands have been on a major hurricane watch over the week-end with 3 category 4 hurricanes forming at the same time in the Pacific Ocean, so far the one that was supposed to come close by disappeared and we woke up this morning to a sunny sky.
I am still adjusting my way back into my work rhythm. 
This is life right now. No complains. Challenges come and go and it's okay.

I can hardly believe it has been a month since I took the plunge and shared here the little project I had been working on for the last few months. 1 month! I thought you might be interested in getting an update on how things are going and if not for you, I think it's good for me to take a moment and reflect on those past few weeks that have just flown by like seagulls on ecstasy.

First of all I want to take a second to thank You for Your support. Seriously. The happy words some of you have sent my way have meant a lot and helped me gain more confidence to open doors. Sharing my website, liking my fb page, following @banditsofhawaii, all of these have helped.

Here are a few thoughts so far in no particular order other than how they come up to my mind : 

-Launching a website is a bit scary, mostly exciting. Especially when you've made it all yourself. You're just SO happy to be done with it for a second!
-Getting traffic to your website isn't as easy as you'd think it might be. I had read a bunch about it so I was quite prepared (there are nearly 1 billion websites out there. . . ! )
-Transforming traffic into actual sales is..hard! 
-I am Thankful for family & friends who have supported my little biz so far.
-Tattoos have been sent to :  Hawaii / the Mainland / France and.... Cambodia! No joke. 
-Love your product/concept and chances are people will love it too. I could see this happen when I started going into stores here on Maui to introduce the Happy Bandits of Hawaii. Being a rep doesn't run into my veins and I will admit that at first I was slightly petrified. A cafe up in Makawao (a little town here) already wanted to carry the tattoos which helped me with the knocking on more doors process.
-Surprise : every door I have knocked on so far has said : YES! We want to carry your cool tatts!
-Better : So far I have only knocked on doors of boutiques I personally love. And I love that they love the @banditsofhawaii tattoos too! It truly makes me happy.
-Tricky : they ALL want to be exclusive. Which is a concept I understand but it also puts me in somewhat of a tricky situation as I can't really afford to give exclusivity to one store in one town (we live on a small island!). Because hey! Let's face it, the tattoos are a pretty inexpensive awesome product and if I want to make it worth it for me and my gang of Artists, I need to be selling quite a lot of those! 
-Learning : I am learning how to negotiate in order to make everyone happy. I am so thankful for every single store to jump into the adventure with me and I really really want them to be happy and feel the respect I have for them. So far so good.  
-A key : SMILE! BE ENTHUSIASTIC! HAVE FUN! BE YOUR NICEST SELF! And loving what you do makes this so much easier and natural.  
-Numbers :  6 retailers. Over 450 tattoos sold. Tons of smiles. Over 50 stamps stamped (note to myself : get a sponge already!).
-Sending text-reports to the Artists has made me happy and kept me motivated. I do have a mission. 
-Learning to keep the focus on focus. Meaning there is so much that needs to be done in order to get my products out there but being a solo mom entrepreneur, I can't do it all at once and I need to prioritize. The important is to keep on taking small steps towards small goals that will eventually lead me to reaching bigger goals and taking bigger steps. Keep moving but no need to try and be everywhere at once. Focus on efficiency. 
-Everyone tells you how social medias platforms are some of the best inexpensive marketing tools out there. Right. Agreed. But dude it's hard to make everything look sexy for the audience!
-Doubting about everything you're doing may happen and instead of freaking out I am learning to step back and remember why I started it in the first place. Doubts can come in many different colors and shapes and are often unpredictable (at least for me). Doubts can lead to abandons, doubts are a great reason to give up on an idea (or an ideal), doubts are good to listen to and good to sleep on. 
-I am thankful for my husband to listen to my doubts.
-And last but not least : BREATH! I have to remember to breath, to take a break, to walk away from my computer if I don't feel inspired to work. It happens and it's okay. Nothing good can come out of me if I'm not feeling happy with what I am doing. It can take a walk, a drink, a dancing session, whatever it is I try to remember to take that moment to get the good focus back on if I ever feel like I'm losing it. 

Looking back at that first month, I can say happiness is dominant because I am slightly proud of myself to have taken an idea to a reality and the numbers are fairly good which is welcomed as a good bonus. Exhaustion probably comes in second and stress in third :) ! 

And you out there are still a precious help to me. 
Don't be shy to share the website and become friends on Instagram & Facebook! (But don't worry, I won't start begging!).
Oh and get your tattoos! Please? Begging, am I ? 
xx

Aina = Land, Earth

On a rainy day we like to go for an adventure. We want Manech to welcome the rain with a smile, we want him to know that rain = life. When we wake up to a rainy day here, I often find him running naked outside on the deck trying to catch rain drops. I beam when I hear his laughter and leave him naked outside as long as he wants to be there (it's still warm even on a rainy day around here!).
Embracing the day we get to live.

Tonight was rodeo night on Maui. It's a 4th of July tradition here, one that I have loved for many years. Hawaii is well known for its beach lifestyle but not so much for its Cowboy culture. We call them Paniolos (Hawaiian for cowboys). There is a rather large community of Paniolos living upcountry on Maui. They ride horses year long and cultivate a cowboy lifestyle. Every year on 4th of July they put together a rodeo show, one that I don't want to miss. I wasn't sure if we would make it this year with Manech, but Gurvan got home from work early and we packed our bags, jumped in his old truck and headed to Makawao, the cowboy town hosting the event, 10 minutes from home. We got there a bit too early and had to wait for the show to start but this gave us a good opportunity to watch people. Almost every single person must have gone through their closet to dust off their cowboy's boots and hats. Watching the crowd is a show of its own. Let me say that this has nothing to do with a corrida, it isn't a bullfight. I don't think I could ever handle watching one of those and the torture made to the animals. Here you get to have a peek at the Paniolo's skills : riding their beautiful horses with a style that only cowboys can master. The bulls have a head gear to protect them and are freed right away, there is a strong sense of respect between humans & animals. The Paniolos and their horses, their speed and power left us breathless. 
Happy 4th everyone!