Sweet experience

Yesterday we went swimming since it has been unusually hot this week.  The pool felt so nice!! Thanks Aunt Gayle! When we got home, right in front of where we park the van, Scotty was walking into the house and saw this sweet little bird on the ground.  I'm amazed we didn't run it over.  The poor thing was still alive and struggling for breath, so we picked it up and moved it.  Wyatt and Scotty were so concerned with this sweet little hatchling. Wyatt was even trying to dig up worms to feed it.  We also went looking for a birds nest to see if it had fallen from somewhere.  I think it was wasn't even supposed to be hatched yet.  It had not feathers or anything. I think it was supposed to be some bigger birds dinner that got dropped.  I had to leave to get my hair cut and my sweet boys watched over it until he stopped breathing.  This morning, Wyatt and Scotty were looking at it and we decided to bury him next to our blueberry bushes.  Poor Wyatt, he just held me and cried.  After a few minutes of some cuddling, he was able to go off to school and hopefully will be okay.  When Scotty and I got home, he was the one that was crying! So I held him and told him how grateful I was to have such tender hearted sons.  

Ropes Course

This year Atalie has been able to be part of the leadership team at her school.  On Tuesday, she was able to go to UCSB and attend a ropes course "clinic".  I was able to drive her up there and watch all the fun things they got to do.  At first, they were in a group and doing some group activities where they had to work together to do things quicker, to attain their "goals" and to learn to trust each other.  I thought it was very good! Here are a few pictures and hopefully some videos of her doing the ropes!

Spring in the desert

One of our favorite things to do in spring time is to go out to the desert and ride our dirt bikes! Well, this past week, we did just that.  Our spring break was a week earlier than most people in California, so we had the desert pretty much all to ourselves.  I love it when it's peaceful and not too dusty, thanks to some rain we had gotten a week ago.  There were patches of flowers, grass and the creosote bushes have these cute little flowers on them.  We were out there from Saturday afternoon until Thursday afternoon.  Sunday we went to Tehachapi to be with my family for General Conference.  I was out running on Monday and I found a knife and a baby tortoise! He was so cute.  I didn't touch him, of course, but he was probably about five years old.  All our kids now ride on their own bikes and we were even able to ride out to the tortoise preserve, which is about six miles from our camp.  Scotty is so cute on his little bike and he loved to follow around Wyatt all over the place.  We also had fun with Jeremy teaching us some skills he learned from his Shane Watts class. He was getting us to hit our back brake and learn to slide our rear wheel out around a corner so we can learn more control over the bike. I was getting mine really pretty sideways! But coming out of the turn was more difficult for me.  I have to learn to be a bit more coordinated!
We also did a bit of exploring outside our little Cal City up into Red Rock Canyon where there is this tunnel called the Burro Schmidt tunnel. It's off the main highway up a dirt road for about eight miles.  That eight mile long road was pretty long and bumpy and took us about 40 minutes to get up.  The tunnel was hand dug by this man who moved out here from Rhode Island in the 1800's trying to mine for something and wanted to dig a tunnel so he could get his goods to the other side of the mountain faster.  Well, faster was realtive. It took him 38 years to finish the tunnel and I don't think he ever used it to move his stuff! Pretty crazy!
It was nice to be with Jeremy's family and with mine and have fun with our kids.  We had fun being all together, too. It's so nice to be with our family and grow together doing fun things.  I'm grateful for our trailer that shelters us when it's windy, although this time it was gorgeous.

Out on the trail

Looking out the other side of the tunnel

Wyatt and Scotty in the tunnel

Wyatt wanted to drive his RC car at night, so this is what we put on it!

The girls being silly with glow sticks

Wyatt and his Pappy

Beebee gun shooting with Pappy's Red Ryder!

Our trailer being loaded up at the end.

Hawaii, ahhhh.....

I wrote in my travel journal about the first part of our trip, and thought I would just type out the rest on here for now.  We got to Laie where my parents rented a huge beach house for all of us to stay in.  It was so fun and for the most part, everyone got a long really well.  I had one moment of temper tantrum when I wanted something and I wasn't getting it, but I don't need to go into anymore detail then that!  Jeremy was able to stay with us the rest of the week, which was sooo nice! We would've missed him so much and he would've missed out on seeing the turtles and lots of snorkeling and shaved ice!  Monday we went to Shark's cove for the first part of the morning.  Cristin and I ran six miles before that, too! Shark's cove was great! Lots of fish and clear water.  Cool rocks and some coral.  I loved having my kids for snorkel buddies, especially Cozette and Scotty.  Scotty was wearing his snorkel and mask along with a colorful blow up tube that I would hold on to and pull him around.  Jeremy made himself a pole to mount his go pro on so he could get a different angle and go a little deeper if he wanted.  It was a great tool! He took lots of videos of us swimming around and snorkeling.  I guess we are a lot more interesting then the fish! After I got out of the water and was trying to dry off, we got hit by rain and I actually got cold! It did rain every day while we were on that side of the island, but it sure was green and pretty! It felt like the true Hawaii!  After we had lunch at Shark's cove, which is actually Pupukea beach in the tour books, we drove down to Turtle Beach.  There it was nice and sandy, hot, there were waves and the coolest turtles ever!! There were two huge ones up on the sand and we saw several while we were out in the water.  I just love how they'd swim by, check us out and then keep going! I love turtles! I'm so glad we all got to see them together. They are such peaceful, cool creatures.  After turtle beach, we all caravanned to Haleiwa where they are famous for Matsumoto's shaved ice and just the local North Shore Culture.  It was great.  Pretty happening little town with a main drag that had Matsumoto's shaved ice with a long line out the door.  We had heard that next door, Aoki's was just as good and what was better, there was no line! At least not until after we'd had our shaved ice.  We wandered into an art gallery and a little souvenir store close by where Scotty got this little Hawaiian shirt and matching shorts that he wanted.  Wyatt wanted a shark's tooth necklace, which of course, the latch broke even before we got home! It's fixable, though.
  That night we had a nice family night with everyone, where we sang songs and Hans talked about how a kite has a string on it to help it soar.  He likened the string to keeping the commandments.  And that when we keep the commandments, it's not restricting us, it's actually letting us soar higher.  Pretty cool analogy.  Before all that, we pulled our kids into our room and just chatted with them and then read the scriptures with them.  I loved that we could have some "one on one" time with them.  I really wanted this trip to unify our family and for us to make memories together.  Here we've been home just a couple days and already we want to go back.  It was so relaxing and we really had no stress, which I'm so grateful for!
  Tuesday morning, my parents gathered some supplies and we each made a family kite to go fly out on the point.  They were made from clear packing tape, white garbage bags and bamboo skewers and guess what?! They totally worked! Especially when we got a long enough tail on there, lots more string to send it higher and Jeremy retied it so that it wouldn't wobble back and forth so much.  It was so much fun that we even flew them again the next day! Ours was named the Wager Flyer and it was the best! We didn't even have to launch it on Wednesday when Wyatt wanted to fly it again.
  Tuesday, Jeremy, Erik, Wyatt, Jonathan and me, jumped off about a twenty foot cliff on the point and snorkeled back in to shore.  Wyatt didn't jump, it was a bit high, but Jeremy walked him down these rocks so we could all snorkel back.  There was a bit of a  swell that day and we had to go over some pretty shallow coral with waves breaking on us, so we did get a little scared.  I just kept hold of Wyatt's hand and just kept trying to blow out my snorkel.  It kept getting water in it!  I'd have to try and find a place to stand up and pull it out of my mouth, make sure Wyatt wasn't getting tossed around by the waves and then we'd head off again.  Not too many fish, but the day before Atalie, Wyatt, Hans and I saw a a small eel in a rock.  Wyatt is such a trooper and LOVES the water! He was in it pretty much all the time and he loved to snorkel.  He and Scotty had been practicing in Aunt Gayle's pool and the bathtub before we even left! Atalie enjoyed it, too and wasn't afraid at all.  Cozette was a bit nervous, but after a couple of times, she wasn't afraid to go off without me glued to her side.  I love that she felt safe with me out there.  It's a good feeling as a parent to know you provide refuge for your children.
After lunch, we were going to go to Huki Lau beach, but ended up going past it to goat island where we paddle boarded, saw more turtles and some of the groups waded through the water to get to Goat Island and walk around.  I didn't have any water shoes, but Wyatt and I paddle boarded most of the way out there.  I was on my knees and doing a two arm paddle, which was pretty tiring withe the waves and the wind going against us.  We had fun, though and enjoyed catching the waves back.  He got another chance to go out there with Steffen and Emily and a few of the other kids and Erik.  Meanwhile, that was the second time I got cold in Hawaii!! The sun was going in and out of clouds and starting to go down and the breeze was just enough to make me a little chilly.
       Our last day was Wednesday and we decided to go to Waimea.  A beautiful beach with a very steep drop off, but the boys had so much fun being tossed around by the shore break.  Even Amelia was loving the water, all of a sudden and was trying to go out by herself!  We snorkeled there, too, but the current was a little strong and Scotty and I got a little tired.  It was nice and hot on the beach, so the water felt so good.  Jeremy and some of the kids and my dad took turns using Joey and Sujin's paddle boards that they left with is.  They came back up that night to have dinner one more time and pick up the boards.  It was so great to spend some time with them.  We were going to try and go to their beach, Kailua, but we ran out of time.  So we stopped at a shrimp truck, Giovanni's and had the shrimp scampi, fresh from the shrimp farms there.  It was pretty good and just something we all wanted to experience.  We of course topped it off with some shaved ice!
  We went back to the beach house, watched my dad, Steffen, Hans and Erik jump off the cliff again and fly kites before we headed to our beach one more time.  What a treat and what a relaxing trip.  Jerm and I both have post trip depression! But I can't wait to go back again in December when Else has her baby!!
   The morning we left, July 4, we had to get up about 4AM to be on our plane by 8AM.  Scotty threw up on the way to the airport, but luckily I listened to the prompting to hand him a plastic grocery bag and he made it all on there! Phew!  And because we pulled over to clean him up a bit, we saw the most gorgeous sun rise! It was like a funnel explosion in the sky and the ocean was glass.  We all made it and he didn't throw up again, so I'm not sure if he just got car sick or something.  Since it was a holiday there was no traffic anywhere which made it really nice to drive home in.  We had dinner with the Jenkin's.  They make homemade root beer, onion rings and ice cream! Plus hamburgers and yummy salads and fruit! Nancy is from New Jersey, so she loves the Fourth! Jeremy wanted to get to bed early since he had to work the next day, do I drove him and Atalie home for a bit, went back, got the other kids, got gas, picked up Atalie and we went to watch the fire works over by Cross fit.  We sang America the Beautiful as they went off and then sang it again, this time with Wyatt helping us with the words as we went to go get fresh buttermilk donuts from Rolling Pin.  We had a great time.  Would've been better if Jeremy was with us, but oh well.  I'm grateful he works so hard for our family to be able to do fun things together.  We are truly blessed.  I miss my family and I realized this trip that I could be anywhere as long as my family was there.  I miss Else a lot and wish I could still be with her and her family.  Charlotte and Scotty played so well together and they swam and swam together, too.

Fish in the water

Since the winter Olympics happened and I saw an LDS mom on there get a silver in the Skeleton, I got bit by the olympic bug.  Not that I want to do the Skeleton or anything, I have to go with what I am good at: swimming! I haven't swam competitivley since high school, although I have swam lots since then and I have been in really good shape since running and cross fit.  
Last week I called the coach for the Masters swim team here in town and today I tried it out. Wow, was it awesome/hard and great all at once! There were high schoolers there swimming as well and I looked over at them and thought, I must have been that fast at one point! So, my goal at this point is to swim three times a week with the masters, cross fit the other three days and maybe throw a run in there so I can keep that mileage up/maintained. Here goes nothing! I am looking forward to this new challenge and see how far it takes me! Yes, I would love to get to the Olympics in Rio de Janiero, Brasil-2016, yes I would love to swim in the trials even, so here goes nothin'! I have to start somewhere!

Some July happenings, not all....

We flew home from Hawaii on July 4th which was actually a great day to fly.  There was hardly any traffic to and from both airports.  Friends of ours knew we would be home just in time for their traditional Fourth of July BBQ, so they invited us over.  Jeremy wasn't feeling so great, so after the BBQ, the kids and I dropped him off and then went to watch the fireworks be shot off at the high school.  We went to Callegus Creek (by my Cross Fit gym) and sat there and watched them together.  They are such great kids.  On our way home, we were a bit awake due to being on Hawaii time, Cozette suggested we go get some donuts.  It just so happens that I had been wanting to take them to get fresh donuts sometime and this was the perfect "sometime"!

 Our favorite donut place in town is called Rolling Pin donuts.  They start making fresh donuts about 8PM and have the buttermilk ones ready by about 9PM.  Let me tell you, those fresh buttermilk donuts are amazing!! We did miss Jeremy, but we made some good memories together! And now that I have an iPhone (we got it right before Hawaii.  Before that I had a flip phone...) I can take pictures any time I want!

 These are some yummy red flame table grapes we grew in our very own small backyard! The fruit flies sure liked them too as I would go to pick some, get swarmed by fruit flies and find that they ate all the insides and left the skin of the grapes!

 This is all the peaches we came home to plus some limes, grapes and tomatoes in there! It's good for me to see this so I feel like my gardening skills aren't completely worthless!

 Fresh grilled peaches over homemade ice cream!

 We took the kids to our annual "fiesta" here in town and they all wanted to climb the rock wall.  This guys was really nice and let them climb multiple times.  Even Scotty almost made it to the top! He's only 4!

Wyatt and Atalie on their way down.  I think they were racing each other at some point!

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!