Aloha!!

 We were fortunate enough to be able to go to Hawaii this summer with my parents and five of my brothers and sisters and their families.  My sister Else lives there, so of course, that was another reason we had to go and visit! It was such a fun trip.  Our kids are at the right ages to all be able to swim, snorkel, go on hikes and relax! We all are missing it so much and would go back in a heart beat! OUr kids even helped us save their allowance money so we could go.

 My sweet sister greeted us all at the Honolulu airport with leis! Flower ones for the grown ups and candy ones for the kids! *Sigh*

 Our first sunset there.  Else planned a picnic for us at a beach close by the airport so we wouldn't have to sit in traffic.

 Diamond Head in the background.

 Most of our group trekking it up Diamond Head.  It was sunny at the bottom, but on the walk up, it was pretty soggy.

 Hence the reason we look like drowned rats in this picture!

 Cute boys who forged the way ahead for us!

 This was at the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  I love that my sweet son still likes to hold hands and give us hugs and kisses.

 I took a ukelele lesson at the resort we stayed at in Kolina.

 The Hawaii temple looked like it was glowing! Jeremy and I were able to go inside with Cozette so she could do some baptisms for some of our deceased family members.  It was very small, but beautiful!

 Cute kiddos on Laie point.  We have a couple of different friends who live in Hawaii.  One of them let us stay with them the first night we got there.  Else's house was busting at the seams with 18 people inside!!

 Our family trying to do a jumping picture! I know we got one good one, but clearly it wasn't this one! We tried to take lots of family pictures.  Last year when I went to do our Christmas card, we hardly had any nice family pictures!

 These awesome turtles we found on Turtle Beach on the North Shore.  The beach definitely did not disappoint! We saw so many turtles and swam with them.  I love these guys!!

 We were pretty much always in the the water! Except of course for Amelia until about the day before we left.  Then we couldn't get that girl out of the water!

This is still at Turtle Beach.  It was so fun to snorkel with these kids.  Cozette at first was almost on top of me each time we would go out and snorkel, but after doing it every day, she got comfortable enough to go out with Hans.  It was fun to see the progress.  Wyatt was a snorkel/water fiend.  That boy LOVES the water.  He was in it all day every day, snorkeling, paddling, at Waimea he was letting the shore break push him back and forth up and down the beach.  Scotty can swim and had his own little snorkel mask and snorkel, but he wanted to be in a little water ring.  I would just hold on to the ring and we snorkeled all over the place.  It was really great.

 Here's Wyatt paddling on our friends Paddle Board.  OUr friends Joey and Sujin were so good to us.  They drove all over that Island to meet up with us and snorkel or paddle or whatever.  It was so great to have them their.

 Erik and his boys paddled over to Goat Island (in the background).  Not an easy paddle.  Wyatt and I got most of the way there and decided to turn around and come back on the paddle board.  Then Wyatt just hung on to the back of Erik on a boogie board and got towed to Goat Island.  They went over as a group and walked around this little island.

 The famous north shore shaved ice!! I even tried the aduki beans mixed with ice cream in mine.  It was pretty good!

 And of course the legendary shrimp trucks! Pretty good as well!

 This was the morning we left.  We had to leave Laie about 5:30 AM.  We loaded up the kids and poor Scotty some how got car sick and threw up.  Fortunately I listened to this prompting that he wasn't being dramatic about feeling sick and handed him a bag just in time.  So we had hardly any clean up! And we got to see this amazing sun rise!

 This was at Laie point where the beach house was that we rented.  It was huge and slept at least 18 people in beds.  Each of us couple even got our own rooms! At the end of the point, there was this probably 30 foot cliff we could jump off.  Jeremy and I did it, my dad, Erik and Steffen, Jonathan and Kirsten had Isaac do it, too.  It was fun.  Wyatt was going to jump, but then decided it was too high, so Jeremy walked him down the ravine you climb back up and we snorkeled back to Bikini beach.  That was a bit scary since the tide was low and we were right on top of the coral (although most of it was dead) and the swell was dumping water into our snorkels, we couldn't see well, etc... We made it, though, and Wyatt still likes the water! In the above picture, Wyatt is flying the kite we made as a family.  My mom gave a lesson on kites and we all made them out of string, trash bags and bamboo skewers.  They worked! Ours flew right away, but we put a bigger tail on it to stabilize it.

 My Dad jumping off the point.  He met some Danish girls that were there jumping, too!

Erik with the Go Pro, doing a silly jump off the cliff.  We got lots of underwater footage of all of us snorkeling.  We videoed more of us then fish! So much fun! It was hard to leave Else, but fortunately we all left on different days and not all at once.  Haans only has one and half more semesters before he is done with his Masters and we hope they will move back here. I miss her so much! Luckily she is having a baby in November and I get to go help her in December! I really can't help looking back at these pictures with pure joy! No stress, no worries, just time together with our ohana!

Spring happenings with the kids

These are going to be a little out of order, but I'm too lazy to try and drag them around and put them right! So here we go!

 This is Wyatt last month (May) giving us a tour of his part of his classroom "aquarium".  He had this little speech about starfish memorized.  They had other classes come into their classroom and each child played a docent for their particular creature.  It was very cute and the kids took it so seriously!

 This is us at his Mother's Day breakfast.  All the kids came in and sang to us, one song in Spanish and one in English.  It was so cute!

 This is one of the treasures he made for me! He also made me a clay heart necklace that Scotty accidentally snapped in half. But we taped it together and it's as good as new!

 My sweet family finishing up my Mother's Day breakfast and making rolls for our dinner that night at my parents house.  Jeremy's mom was sick, so she didn't get to join us for dinner.  We missed her!

 This is how Scotty and I get to Cross Fit when I work out or coach.  We have a great time riding bikes together, picking flowers and exploring.  He is a great companion!

 Scotty at swimming lessons.  He did great and I think we are going to sign him up again starting in a week.  I wanted him to feel comfortable in the water before we go to Hawaii.

 He loves to climb trees and have his picture taken.  I had to help him up into this tree.

My Mother's day stash of cards!  My favorite part about mother's day is spending time with my family.  I love to play with them and be fun mom.

 We had our niece Amelia with us for two weeks in March and we miss her a lot.  She was a lot of fun, most of the time ;) and we all enjoyed having a cute baby girl around.

 Cozette and Atalie were able to perform in a play called "A Whole New World" where they sang and danced.  They really enjoyed it.  I'm so glad they have these opportunities to perform and try new things! We also loved the director who is a good friend of ours.  She is amazing!

 I took the kids to Leo Carrillo with my mom during Spring break.  This is a great beach to enjoy tide pools when the tide is low.

                                   Hans, Atalie and Cozette showing off their sand creation.

                                                   Wyatt and Scotty climbing, as usual.

 Wyatt loved having Landon here with us.  We had him in April for about two weeks as well.  He is so cute and my kids really enjoyed taking care of them.  It's so sweet to see that.

 Audrey and Cozette got to sing in a youth choir that performed and had a workshop with Dallyn Vail Bailes.  Another great experience! His voice is amazing!!

We've had a pretty busy spring and are looking forward to a fun summer as well! Fortunately I didn't turn into monster mommy with all the things we were doing (at least not too often).  And hopefully when I did get stressed, my kids will look back on the events with fondness and not remember their crazy mom! :)

Jeremy's knee (pictures might be a little graphic!)

I don't know if many of you knew, but Jeremy had recently been diagnosed with a torn meniscus.  A meniscus is the cartilage padding that sits on top of your tibia, your shin bone, and cushions the femur, your upper thigh bone.  Mom currently has a tear in hers as well and hers is painful.  Jeremy's hasn't been painful, but his knee would pop in and out and give out on him.  More so in the last year.  He has actually had this injury for about eight years, but this last year it has been getting bad.  He got it checked out and found out what he had.  In the meantime, he has been seeing a personal trainer which has really helped strengthen his legs and gotten him ready for the surgery.
So yesterday he had surgery and all went well.  I waited with him until he went in to surgery and then waited about an hour and half for the doctor to come out and report.  We were lucky to have one of our friends as his post op and recovery nurse, so she took good care of us!

If I can I will scan and post the actual photos from the inside of his knee! They are pretty awesome.  There were actually two different spots that needed to be shaved off.  One piece had torn and flipped over on itself.  The other part looked like a pea under is knee cap.  Waking up was a little rough and we woke up a few times during the night to keep the pain medicine going.  Our smoke alarms also decided to wake us up, too, twice!! For no good reason!
We took the dressing off of his knee and it all looks really good.  Three incisions, minimal swelling, lots of fluid and rest.  He's able to get up and walk around, although it's a bit stiff.  We are also icing it about twenty minutes every hour or so.

We'll try and take more pictures if anything interesting happens.  Hopefully tomorrow and the next day the swelling won't be any worse.  

Easter Photos

I have been pretty bad about having family photos taken regularly, so I decided that since our kids looked so nice for Easter, we would do it then! So here they are, our beautiful family! I can't believe how old and gorgeous our girls are looking, especially! And our boys, I think, are so handsome, like their Daddy! ;)

Wyatt 7 years old!

Cozette 12 years old

Scotty 4 years old

These boys are sweet brothers to each other.  Most of the time they play really nicely together and treat each other with love.  They are a joy to have in our family!

Sassy girls!

These girls are my right arms! They are such good helpers to me with most anything I ask.  When we had our niece here for two weeks, they were so helpful!  What treasures!

Atalie 10 years old

Some Valentine Fun

Just some fun things we did to keep the love alive in our home this last Valentine's.  These sugar cookies were a hit and we had fun delivering some to Gramma and Gramps and other loved ones.

 This was our "love jar".  Each day we would all draw a name for someone else in the family and do something nice for them. After we did the nice thing, we would leave a chocolate heart for that person. It worked pretty well for the most part! Sometimes it was hard to think of something, but that was good for all of us to try a little harder to show love!

Jeremy and I got the urge to learn and practice our swing dance moves.  Some of the Young Women in our ward put together a swing dance night to learn how to swing dance for an upcoming dance.  Jeremy and I couldn't make it to teach them, but we wanted to learn a new move anyway! This one is called the Lindy helicopter.  We got better and better and the kids a good time watching their dad throw around their mom!  Atalie was our videographer!

2012 Recap

I have been thinking about our year and wanting to recap it in one place, but I'm having trouble even remembering what I did yesterday, let alone a whole year ago.  Last January, Jeremy decided to take an anatomy class to maybe go in to nursing school.  Needless to say, through a lot of hard work and studying while working full time, holding down a weekly scouting calling and being a dad/husband, he managed to get a C in the class.  And yes, he was relieved and happy about it.  Of course he would have liked to do better, but was satisfied with it.

We were able to take a trip to Italy this year, which was definitely a highlight.  We loved being immersed in the Italian culture and getting out of our comfort zone a bit.  We had an answer to prayer while we were over there: Jeremy was a bit nervous to go to church, wondering if there would be anyone to translate for us.  We had a little prayer before we went, almost didn't find it and when we went up into this humble little chapel, there were the missionaries, ready to translate for us! One of them, Elder Green from Palm Springs, had the thought that he would be translating for someone today!
We had a great spiritual feast with these dedicated Italian members.  The closest temple for them was a day or two bus ride away.  It made us realize how easy we have it with some things.
Jeremy is still with Verizon and enjoys it for the most part. He loved his scouting calling, but got released when they officially put me into Young Womens as the Mia Maid advisor.  Now he teaches Sunday School for the 14-15 year olds in our ward and loves it.  We are both teaching the same age group and they are good kids with a lot to offer. Jerm loves to spend time with his family and tries to ride his dirt bike as much as possible.  Truly his passion. Did I mention he loves volleyball, too!

Cozette (12) started the seventh grade this fall after a fun summer of Carpinteria, beach days, lots of swimming, Just Dance parties.  She was a couple weeks shy of turning twelve to be able to go to camp this year, but she is super excited for this upcoming year.  Cozette is a good student and loves to play the piano as well.  She LOVES children and really likes babies and babysitting for other people as well as her own siblings.  We love that she has this gift and enjoys sharing it.

Atalie (10) is now in the fifth grade and is a super student.  She is pretty fluent in Spanish and often helps Cozette with her homework.  She was on the Super Quiz team this last year as part of the Camarillo Academic Olympics.  It was fun to watch her team work together and answer the questions.  They studied out of this book called Earth Matters by DK publishing. A great book for any collection.  She is good at babysitting also and loves to do crafts, sew, play the piano and dance.
 
Wyatt (7) is in the first grade and is doing well.  We've had a few hiccups with a little bit of misbehavior, but he is a fun loving, rough and tumble boy full of life.  He LOVED soccer this year, especially since his mom was his coach this year! That was interesting for me, but I have learned a lot.  Wyatt loves to play with legos, explore outside, ride his bike and dirt bike.  In fact, he lives in his riding gear anytime we go camping and is on his bike from first thing in the morning until it gets dark.  I think he wishes he had a light on his bike so he could go at night. His Daddy is very proud.  All the kids love to ride, and that makes Jeremy really happy.

Scotty (4) is loving preschool this year.  We loves to ride his bike (never used training wheels thanks to his Strider bike) with me to take the other kids to school in the morning and watch movies or play games on the itouch while I'm coaching or working out at cross fit.  He is a sweet boy and definitely a mamas boy, but loves to help daddy in the garage or out in the yard.  He loves to read books with me and go to Gramp's store and get a treat, which usually equals about five treats. We also had a lot of fun going to Disneyland, just me and Scotty and sometimes Aunt Kirsten and Elina, Gramma and Gramps. Although we did take Wyatt for his birthday, too!

I still am running and working out at cross fit.  I do some book keeping for my dad and teach a few piano lessons.  This year I actually got a real piano teacher for my own kids and I LOVE IT!! She is great and the girls practice and are learning much more then me trying to teach them with not steady lessons each week.  I love to work out in the yard and read and have read some great books this year including Unbroken.  I continue to try and not get stressed and balance everything I need to do with what I want to do.  I have learned to love my kids more as well as learned how to enjoy other children more thanks to working in the nursery for a few months at the beginning of the year.  I loved it!  At first I wasn't so sure, but I really feel I have grown this year.  I coached Wyatt's soccer team which was also a learning experience, but a good one, thanks to having great parents on my team.  I also learned that when I get stressed, I turn into a crazy monster and that I need to slow down.  When I take the time to read my scriptures and take care of my Holy Habits every day, I am much happier and less stressed.  Time is marching on more quickly then I'd like, but we are all enjoying the ride and looking forward to a new year with more learning and adventures.