Coaster Art

Darwin was gone tonight, so I took the kids to Chili's for their Kids Eat Free night.  Brooklin was bored waiting for the food, so she took everyone's coasters and built a tower.  The waitress thought it was great and pulled out her phone to take a picture of her!  hahaha!

Hard Work and Dessert

We spent the entire day today mucking out the garage and going through some junk in the house.  It really needed to be done, and it looks so much nicer now.  After dinner, we took the kids to Ruby Tuesdays for dessert.  They all chose the Double Chocolate Cake.  mmmm, mmmm, good!  (sorry the photos are all washed out...I took them with my phone).

On To Bears & Seminary Awards Night

Isaiah was awarded his Wolf badge last night at pack meeting.  He is a cute little cub scout! =)

Before pack meeting was completely over, we had to leave for Brooklin's seminary awards potluck and auction...which was just over in the cultural hall, so we were totally on time! =)  She got a certificate of completion for the year (Doctrine & Covenants) and a silly award for being the "Seminary Music Fairy".  The last picture is of the three amazing women who teach seminary to the youth.  Sister Spix is an assistant and Sis. Shaffer and Sis. Lamatia are the teachers!  I am so grateful to these ladies!

Progress

Brooklin got her braces on back in February.  We took her in for an adjustment today and within a half hour after coming out of the office, HER FRONT TEETH WERE TOUCHING!!  This has never happened in her entire life!  The piece of her gums that was hanging in-between her teeth was squeezed to the back of her front teeth and is now swollen (and annoying).  We will see if the doctor can remove it or something...

Before braces

14 weeks later (today)

5th Grade Graduation

London graduated from elementary school today!  Isaiah is the lone elementary school kid now.  I can't believe she is old enough to go to middle school already!  We are very proud of her!

Fun at Target

We went to Target yesterday and the kids had fun playing with the superhero costumes in the toy aisles.

Last year to be thirtysomething...

Darwin turned 39 today!  I can't believe we are getting so close to 40!  He got home from Seattle today and we opened presents as soon as the kids got home.

Isaiah got him Lego people

 Caleb gave him a DVD

 Brooklin got him candy

 He got an iPad2 from me

(but only the cover made it to the house before his birthday)

 London was very generous and got him a new laptop

(our desktop died so he gave the kids his laptop and we got him a new one).

 Strawberry cheesecake for dessert!

How We Got A Free Nook

We bought a Nook last June when we were traveling and we all love it.  Unfortunately, it stopped working sometime in December 2010, but I never got around to calling about the warranty until about March. I explained the problem to the guy on the phone (who I'm guessing was in India) and he had me do several of those tricks where you "hop-while-standing-on-one-foot-and-press-the-power-button-for-six-years-and-blink-your-eyes-ten-times" to see if that would fix it.  Surprisingly enough...that didn't work so  they told me they would send us a 2nd one to replace the broken one...and when the new one came, we should put the broken one in the box and mail it back to them (Barnes and Noble).

We boxed up the broken one and turned on the new (pre-owned...I hate that word by the way) one....and it didn't work!!  It kept telling me to enter my registration information, but it would not give me the keyboard to type in the information!  I called tech support again and after having me do all the same monkey-tricks they had me do with the first broken Nook, they decided to send us a 3rd Nook.  We boxed up broken Nook #2 in the box Nook #3 came in and sent it back.  Finally we had a working Nook!

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Last week, a 4th Nook showed up in the mail! I called tech support today about it and after explaining the entire story to the guy (and about 15 minutes of waiting on hold on the phone...where every three minutes the guy would come back and tell me he was working on my problem and I was important to them) they said it was their mistake and I could keep it!! I made sure like four times and they just said they weren't going to charge us for it and it could be registered on our account...no strings!!! I'm so excited!!

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday

We got home from Maui at 10pm on Sunday...Mother's Day (May 8th).  Brooklin's birthday was Monday the 9th and Darwin was leaving for Seattle for a week (for work) Monday morning, so we had the fastest celebration of those two holidays in about five minutes flat as soon as we got home from the airport!  It was actually pretty funny.  We yelled, "Happy Mother's Day!!" and then I ripped into each present...pausing only long enough to have a picture snapped with the gift-giver.  As soon as that was done (seriously like 2 1/2 minutes later) we yelled, "Mother's Day is over now!  Happy Birthday Brooklin!!" and she tore into her gifts.  We were all laughing the whole time!  We cleaned up the wrapping paper, hugged the kids good-night, and then I went and helped Darwin finish packing for his trip to Seattle...his plane was leaving at 9am!

State Track and Field Meet in Maui!

Brooklin qualified for States this year (as a freshman!) in the 300m hurdles.  The state meet was in Maui this year and I was so excited I decided to fly over to support her and her teammates...and visit my favorite island in Hawaii!  We flew out May 5th and the meet was taking place on the 6th and 7th at the War Memorial Stadium in Kahului.  I did not go as a chaperone, so I did not stay at the hotel with the team.  I stayed with our Wailuku Ward bishop and his family (the Wada Family) and I am so grateful for their hospitality! 

We found out a day or two before we left that Brooklin would not be running the 300m hurdles because the officials had decided to eliminate the last heat of qualifiers.  She was lucky though to be able to run in a 4x100m relay.  One of the girls who's heat was eliminated didn't get to run at all.  It was a great experience for Brooklin, and I had a great time visiting with friends and cheering for her and her teammates.  There were 61 schools represented at the meet!!

While I was in Maui Grandma Wada and Sister Wada taught me how to make fresh plumeria leis.  They had several plumeria trees in their yard, so we went out and picked all the fresh ones (with no brown on them) and then they taught me how to string them into leis!  We made one for Brooklin, and one for me and another sister for Mother's Day.

The team flew home on Sunday afternoon, but since it was Mother's Day...and I wanted to see our old ward family and hear primary children singing...we paid extra for Brooklin to get to stay longer and attend church and see some of her friends there.  It was amazing to be able to see all of our dear friends back on Maui!  I sure do miss that place!

Before picking Brooklin up and attending church (at 1pm), I drove myself up to the Pulehu chapel in Kula.  It is such an awesome place.  I was the only one there and it was just so peaceful and beautiful.  I'm so glad I was able to visit there again!

We flew out Sunday evening...after an hour delay...and got home around 10pm.  It was a great trip and I'm so glad I was on a break from school so I could go and enjoy myself. =)