LeGrandes' Birthday

For LeGrande's Birthday we went to the beach with all the kids. Cassidy made yummy oreo cookie cakes (that I didn't try because I am eating raw but the kids loved them) The Phungs came pretty late but they brought pizza and everyone just played and relaxed. We had so much fun at the party! I love living somewhere that is so beautiful everyday. Another favorite part was watching Alissa go far out in the water with Ryan on his surf board. She loves to get on the board already and has no fear of the water. I wish I would have got a picture of it but there will be many more.

Launching Iosepa

Ryan is in the blue shirt with a hat on.

Kenzie and cousin Kai.

This is all the kids from Alissa's school who came to sing and sign the song "We are the World". It was an amazingly spiritual experience.

The Iosepa.

Motherhood

Now for my thoughts.  I can not truly describe how blessed I feel to be a Mother.  It is something I dreamed about my whole and never quite knew what having an entire family together would be like, but I still dreamed.  I can now say that although there are ups and downs in a family unit there is nothing that I cherish more in my life than my family.  I am so thankful that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with such amazing little spirits.  They are each so truly unique and special and I am in awe everyday and how much they teach me.  I am growing up thanks to them and I appreciate their patience with me.  As Mother's Day comes around each year I truly feel as though I should be the one spending my day giving thanks to my Heavenly Father for my opportunity and blessing of each child he has given me.  I have to say too that I extremely grateful to have been given such a wonderful example in my life, my mother.  My mother who has taught me how to be a mom by her example.  A mother who is truly Christlike in every way.  I only hope that someday I can turn out as wonderful of a mother as she is.  Thanks Mom!  

Stolen Camera

Well folks.  I just started really getting into Blogging again for all those Grandma's and Grandpa's out there, and then my camera gets stolen.  So, we don't have enough to buy a new one yet, but I am hopeful for my birthday by some miracle I will get one from the wonderful man who lost the camera. :)  Anyways, we had a great Mother's Day here and Alissa made me the sweetest pillow with her hand prints on it from school.  I got calls from my mom and my dad and we talked to Grandma Garner yesterday.  This whole time thing can kind of mess you up.  By the time we got home from church and had dinner and went to call people it was like 10 o'clock on the mainland.  Craziness, anyways, I received a beautiful lei from someone at church on Sunday, a package from my mom and yummy brownies from the ward shaped like hearts.  I also got the most delicious pancakes I have ever eaten (probably because they were made by the sweetest husband ever).  We are still having a blast here and enjoying how busy we are here.  I hope all the mom had  fantastic Mother's Day this year!

Playing Around

The kids were playing around yesterday and I decided to tape them singing songs.  Alissa song are new songs she is learning from her music class at school and then Kenzie made up a few songs.

A Real Neighborhood

On any given day around here, this is what our yard looks like.  We started with just a few and now have about nine little munchkins that all play together all the time.  We have truly never had this much fun anywhere we lived.  There are so many neighbor kids and it is exactly what I always wanted for my children.  On Friday we played so many games that we didn't realize it was past seven o'clock and we had been playing for about 4 hours.  I think my favorite game was when they played red light green light with a red rose and a green scarf from Alissa's school performance earlier in the day.  The only twist is they added Kenzie's blue sword so that you had to jump when the sword went up.  Our days are definitely never dull in Laie!

May Day Celebration

Alissa is in the middle of the screen most of the time. She is in the third row back.  Sorry about all the movement, there were lots of people with me on the stairs filming their munchkins. Alissa sure is a cutie!

Everyone wanted to sit on Lo's lap!

Alissa being silly with her lei from Mema.

Alissa and Lo.

Today was Alissa's May Day Celebration for Laie Elementary at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I have to say that I have been nothing but impressed with the amount of dedication this school puts into their kids and the love we feel from them and their hard work.  Alissa only started school two weeks ago and they were so kind to make her a costume and fit her into the performance.  She absolutely loves her school and all her friends and teacher.  We feel so excited to know out children are at such a wonderful place.  Alissa did such a great job on her performance and we were glad to get there an hour early to get a good seat.

Is Life Really This Good?

So, we have now been in paradise for two weeks and I can truly say that I have several moments a day where I say to myself , "Is this for real?" I have never lived somewhere this wonderful before. I Love the people, the location, the ward, the school and the lifestyle. We have truly been blessed to have come to such a wonderful place. I feel so happy to know I am lucky enough to live in Laie, Hawaii and never want to have to leave. We hope you are all happy and healthy too!

Happy 28th Birthday Ryan!

We had a great party tonight with the Phungs, Lo and LeGrand.  They all came over for dinner and then we had  "Dream Cake" from Teds Bakery at Sunset Beach.  It was such a great night and Ryan even got his own homemade Lei's.  We got to meet our new ward today too and that was a blast!  I am glad that Ryan had a great day and so glad to have known him for almost seven years!  Love you Ry! By the way Chubbs aka Taft spilled Lasagna all over his shirt and turned it orange.  I am not sure I can get it out but it sure was funny to watch.

Lunch at School

So, last week I had the opportunity to go see what it was like to eat lunch in the cafeteria because Alissa was saying she was not getting enough time to eat.  I had the best time ever.  I sat at this end of the table and watched the class.  In Alissa's class there are about 16 kids and only five are girls.  I went thinking I would chat with Alissa most of the time but the sweet little girl on the end kept saying, "Auntie, Auntie I have a story to tell you Auntie."  It was so much fun to here all her exciting story, even the one about her mom getting in a fight with someone at the park.  It was hilarious.  I am so glad Alissa is making friends so easily and having fun at school.  Her grade doesn't even play at a playground for lunch, but they sure have fun with "the recess lady"  playing games of all sorts.  I am glad I got to go and see how much time Alissa really gets to eat and how much fun she has.

The Plane Ride

Well, it is time to write about the plane ride.  When we left California everything went great. My mom was able to get a special pass to help me get to the gate with the kids and it was really easy.  once at the gate everyone started getting a bit restless, so I was getting nervous.  At the gate I went to check and make sure our seats were all together and the flight attendant put an extra seat in the middle of us, so that we ended up with five seats!  This was great news! I figured due to lack of sleep that the kids would be exhausted and sleep the whole way, but after about 45 minutes I knew that was not going to happen and had tried every activity book my mom had packed for the kids.  Now they were fighting sleep and the poor stewardesses were trying to help but I caved and decided to rent the portable DVD players.  To my surprise they don't take cash so I have to ask a stranger if I pay them cash, if we can swipe his card to purchase the quieting devices for my children.  Finally, settled for a few minutes.  Next, comes dinner which to our surprise is pasta salad that none of my children will eat and there are no other options.  Oh, except the food I can buy but I am out of cash and have no cards because Ryan has them all in Hawaii.  So, we just deal with pretzels for dinner.  We actually make it through two movies okay and then Taft cries for about an hour and everyone crashes.  Well, I now take the great sigh of relief but only to hear the captain that we will be landing in about 40 minutes.  Everyone but Taft stayed asleep and once he woke up everyone was cracking up because he was talking really loud about animals and kids and just about everything random you can think of.  We finally landed and I was able to call Ryan and tell him about the gate pass, so he was at the gate waiting but could not come on the plane.  The flight attendants were nice enough to try and help figure out how to get two extremely passed out children off the plane while holding three huge carry ons and a baby.  So, I took Taft off first to Ryan and then came back for Alissa and the flight attendant had Kenzie in his arms and the other attendant had all of my bags.  We managed to get off just in time for them to clean them plane.  I was so relieved to be off of the plane and see Ryan there waiting for us!

Our First Beach Day

Were Here

BUSY AGAIN!

Well everyone,
It is official. Ryan leaves in about 3 hours and is finishing up packing as I type. We have had the most busy few days I think I can ever remember. We had a very fun weekend too! My second mom, Donna came into town this weekend on Friday to visit and it was so good to see her. My mom, Donna and I went to the temple and dinner just the three of us and it was wonderful. We also got to see Blake and his friends for awhile which was fun! Here are a few highlights of this week. We sold the tramp and the swing set in the same day. Also, on that day we had great friends come play and Ryans dad come and help redo the tile in our bathroom and save us a ton of money. We are so thankful for all of these blessings. Then we had a soccer game amidst selling all of our furniture and things except for about five pieces, three of which were my grandparents antiques. We had the piano movers too! In fact, so many things have happened I have already began to forget. The other fantastic news is that Ryan's sister Shayna had a sweet little bundle of joy named Trystan ,which I have not seen yet but can not wait to see when I am invited to see him. Ryan got to go see him today since he is leaving today and said he is precious. Yesterday we garage saled all day and made lots and lots of money which is great! The best part of the garage sale though was all the free stuff we got to give away and all the great deals we gave to people who were truly appreciative. It was such a wonderful feeling! Next, we anticipated the sale of our truck because we are obviously down to the very last minute and can I truly say miracles happen. We SOLD our truck and to some of the best people we could want to have it! So, today I am sitting here at my moms house because our house is pretty much empty (after just watching Donna and the boys drive off to Northern Utah with the truck and their car) and all I feel is extremely blessed to feel the love of the Lord pouring down on our little family. We have been blessed by so many amazing miracles and I am just in awe at all that has happened for us. I did not have the opportunity to watch General Conference this weekend and I can not wait to do so. But I have to say that my testimony has grown so much this past few months from all of the wonderful lessons the Lord has given us the opportunity to learn. Especially in the last few days. I will be without my computer for about two weeks while Ryan is in Hawaii with it but I will try to keep everyone updated on how things are going. Thanks for all the love and prayers!

Although I am missing about nine blogs from the past few weeks that I promise I will get up before we move, I have to post about our night last night.  We had the opportunity to go on a date with Ryan's parents.  We went out to the Mongolian Grill in town and I had a blast loaded a bowl higher than I had ever seen one.  It was exciting! After that we went to the St. George temple for the rest of the evening.  I have to tell you that I have never had such a truly learning experience.  Thanks to Ryan parents my knowledge of things unknown is so much clearer and I truly gained a better understanding.  I will always remember this day and be thankful to have married into such a wonderful family who knows so much about the Lord and his gospel.  How lucky I truly am! 

Tim and Sonia!

We had the most wonderful surprise on Friday March 20.  Ryan's brother Tim and his wife Sonia came to visit us before we leave for Hawaii.  They drove here all the way from Tempe, Arizona to come say good bye.  It was a very special weekend.  We spent all day Friday just spending time together playing games and talking.  It was the best.  That evening we went to say hi to Ryan's parents and then Ryan's sister Shayna and her husband Trevor met us at Pirate Island Pizza.  we stayed up late, but had a blast!

Sandhallow Reservior

I can not believe that after living here for over a year and a half we had never taken the opportunity to go to Sandhallow.  So, Wednesday March 18th we decided to go out to the lake for a few hours.  This lake is within about 5 miles from our house.  Aren't we lucky?  Everyone had a blast.  The sand was so incredibly fine and orange which was fun for a change.  There were so many bugs that Mema and I spent most of our time avoiding bugs in our mouths.  I am really glad we took the time to do this before we left and wish we would have gone more often.

Zion Hike

ON Tuesday March 17th we had the opportunity to go to Zion National Park with Ryan's parents.  We went on a fantastic hike!

This picture is of everyone playing hide n seek.

We tried to cross the river but it was too cold.

So pioneer like, this one. I love Grandma carrying Kenzie across the cold water.

Isn't Papa strong?

We had such a fun time thanks to such wonderful grandparents!

Way Behind

There is so much going on here and so little time.  Ryan leaves for Hawaii in about a week and so many fun things have been happening.  I promise I will post everything new by Sunday, so check back Sunday night! Hope everyone is good.  

Highlights:

Spring Break

Sandhallow

St. Patrick's Day Party

Jenna came to play

SURPRISE! Tim and Sonia came to see us

St. Patrick's Day Parade

Pirate Island Pizza

Mema's Birthday

Family Barbecue

Easter Egg Hunt

Packing and more Packing

Alissa's school presentation, Christopher Columbus

Ryan Adventure Runs

Zion National Park hike with grandparents

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa Garner

These are just a few of the fun things we have been up too! Details soon!