Back on the scene but barely...

Hi friends. Thanks for all your well-wishes, I am slowly recovering, and I made it back to work today, but wow, I'm kinda wishing I was still at home. This one was a doozy! I won't go into the details, but I will do a whole post on why I got sick and what it might mean. Just wait! You'll see. Check back on...Monday maybe. So, for today, I am responding to being tagged again. (Thanks Mel). I might have done this one before, but oh well!

4 Jobs I've Held
1. Pizza Factory Waitress
2. Recreation Therapist @ Shriners Hospital for Children
3. Skills Trainer (w/a little handicapped girl)
4. Office Administrator (zzzzzzzzz)
4 Movies I can Watch Over & Over
1. Dumb and Dumber
2. Any of the Pirates of the Caribbean (love Johnny!)
3. The Notebook
4. Esplin Fam Home Movies
4 Places I Have Lived
1. Sunny St. George, UT
2. Orem/Provo, UT
3. Georgia & Alabama (mission)
4. Honolulu, HI
5 T.V. Shows I LOVE
1. So You Think You Can Dance
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. LOST
4. Prison Break
5. The Office
4 Places I Have Been on Vacation
1. Kauai, Big Island,& Maui, HI
2. Europe
3. Orlando/Jacksonville, FL
4. NYC
4 Favorite Foods
1. Papa John's Pizza
2. California Pizza Kitchen Pizza
3. Cold Stone Ice Cream
4. Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
4 Websites I Visit Daily
1. Yahoo Mail
2. All the lovely Blogs
3. Ebay
4. Mountain America Credit Union
4 Places I Want to Visit
1. St. George, UT ALWAYS!
2. Victoria BC
3. New Zealand
4. South America

I'm tagging Camie, Emma (no camera, she needs an excuse!) Heidi, Lara, Alisha, and Hallie.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!!

The 10-way Phone Call

My little brother, Eric, left the MTC this morning, and called us at 7:30 a.m. Well, actually, he called home at 7:30 (Utah) time. Cell phones are so great. He called my mom's phone, who put my dad on 3-way, who called Tara, who called Kimmy's phone, who called my phone, I called Jonny's phone, he called Krystal in Florida, who called my cousin Monique in Orem. I didn't count up everyone, but it was so cool to have our whole entire family on the phone while Eric told us goodbye (again) from the SLC airport. (Sidenote: 7:30 a.m. is 3:30 a.m. in Hawaii, but hey, we won't talk to him again until Christmas!) He is doing great, and is already in San Diego as I write this. We had him speak some Spanish to us, and we were way impressed, especially me and Samuel, who were the only ones who understood what he was saying, but it's incredible that missionaries can learn that much in 9 weeks. I'd forgotten. The gift of tongues is amazing.

In other news, I'm home sick for the second day in a row, if you didn't guess from my cartoon avatar there on the right. I got a blessing Sunday night, so I know I'm on the mend...but it's a sinus infection, and they don't go away as fast as I wish they would. Oh well. I am grateful for the extra sleep, even though I feel kinda guilty at the $$$ I'm not earning. I get paid by the hour, so I just don't get paid for days I'm not there. We're really trying to save up for when I quit. Anyway, I'm glad I have your blogs to help me get through the boring days.

Baby Shower!!

Saturday night was so fun, I just have to thank my friends for the greatest baby shower ever. It was so much fun, and I couldn't believe all the stuff they gave us for our baby girl, she is going to be STYLIN!! I haven't bought hardly any clothes (it's been hard) but we got darling things, in all sizes, and some other very needed items. I am so grateful! Here's a group picture:
So, remember I mentioned about all the young couples in our ward? These are a lot of the gals, aren't they beautiful? If you look close you'll see my red eyes. This was the end of the shower, and I had to tell them all how much I love them and how much they mean to me, and how they've been like sisters to me, offering advice and support and love, and I was pretty much bawling. Thanks to Melody, front row on the right, who headed the whole thing up. I know you can't tell, but she's 4 1/2 months pregnant (with a girl, a friend for my baby!) and has been an amazing support to me as well. She's a regular blogger too, if you want some great "discipline rules" for kids, check out her recent post here.
And here's a little glimpse of the cute clothes (and other stuff). I'm now way TOO excited to get this baby out here and try on some clothes! :)

North Shore Campfire

I don' t know if I've mentioned this, but we live about a mile away from the University of Hawaii. So, lucky for us, we have a lot of married couples in our ward who are going to school. We have had the best time with all these friends, everybody gets along so well and we get together all the time. Some of the couples have kids, and others don't, and right now we fall into both categories! About a month ago we drove to the north shore (about an hour away) and did a temple session with two other couples, the Olsons and the Moultons. Afterwards we went to a beach and had hot dogs and s'mores. The guys were so cute, doing their "hunting/gathering" thing and building the fire, roasting everything for us (I think they felt pretty good taking care of the women-folk) and we all had a blast until about midnight. (I'm enjoying these things, since staying out with friends til midnight might not be happening in the near future.) Anyway, we are grateful for good friends, it makes it so much easier to be so far away from family.

Big Island Pictures

Here's a few pictures of the Big Island. History lesson: This island is the "youngest" of all the islands, and it's the one with an active volcano that still oozes lava every day. Most of the island is covered in hardened lava (as you can see from the picture in the bottom-left.) Like all the islands, it has a "dry" side and a "rainy" side, and the rainy side is the garden-like lush land of waterfalls and tropical flowers. Now, here are some very bad pictures of me and Samuel. There's your proof that we are not very photogenic. :) This waterfall is called Akaka falls:

Then this is a picture of us looking tired after playing all day in a different waterfall, called Pe'e Pe'e falls, yes, take out the apostrophes and its Peepee falls. Anyway, they pronounce it like Peh-eh Peh-eh. We have some pictures on a waterproof camera that are getting developed.
So we ate at this Mexican restaurant, and the service was soooo bad, I started to wonder if we were on Candid camera, and they wanted to see our reactions...turns out the service was just horrible, food, not too bad.
Then we went to sleep. Comfy huh. Don't you love it when you have friends who catch you in moments like this? Yeah, that double chin is like an inch thick. Maternal fat stores?

Burn Baby Burn

Well, we really did have a great time on the Big Island, but we are paying for it now. Our last day there (Monday) we went kayaking, it was my first time, and it was really fun, we kayaked in this beautiful bay, stopped and snorkled for awhile, then kayaked some more. I put all kinds of sunblock on my arms, shoulders, and face, but I didn't put any on my legs, because I don't mind if they have some color, plus, they take longer, ya know?? Samuel only put sunblock on his face and back. Well, our friends wanted to finish sooner than we did, and drive down the road to another spot. We decided that they would drive and meet us there, and we would kayak there. We thought it was just the next bay over. We were wrong. It was like, 10 bays over, and we were in way over our heads. We just kept paddling and paddling, and still, the bay wasn't there. It was so discouraging, and we started praying for either a boat to come save us or superpower strength to keep going, or we were going to die. (That sounds dramatic, but I started to worry that we were going to get tossed by a wave and be left in the middle of the ocean to fend for ourselves. And I get tired so fast, I'd be the first to go.) Well, anyway, long story short, after about 4 hours (total) kayaking (and some superpower-strength from above), we saw the bay. I was in tears that it was there, and not 10 more bays away. Our friend took a picture of us kayaking in, (we tried to cover up as best we could, and I even had my legs covered for part of the way, but not my feet :( Do we look totally exhausted?)
For now, all we have to show for it is the most painful sunburn we've EVER had, on our legs and especially our poor feet. I wish the pictures showed how lobster red we are, but it barely captures it. Oh well. My feet are so burned that all the skin around it is swollen so that I can't flex my foot, and it feels like needles are permanently embedded in them. See?? No ankle bones!! Pudgy feet!!

We tried aloe, we tried lidocaine, we even got desperate and started spraying with vinegar every 4 hours (that actually helped the most.) It's been a miserable 24 hours. We got a laugh out of this one though, Samuel came home from work and took off his shoes and socks, and it turns out his socks are light compression socks, so they kept all the swelling out of his ankles, then the swelling ballooned out at the top of where the socks were. Talk about chicken legs huh!!! So go ahead and laugh with us and I'll post better pictures of the Big Island later.

I couldn't resist

Have you ever caught yourself thinking? I know that's a funny question, cause I know we're pretty much always thinking, if we're not talking...but today I caught myself having a funny self-conversation, which led to an important self-discovery...



I was walking home from work to have lunch, it's only about a 4 minute walk, and I had just been looking at blogs, and I saw the new baby girl that Jessica Thomas had, and I was thinking how darling the baby was, and how she has SO much hair! Then I thought about how she was born just the perfect size, not too big, not too small, which immediately led to me thinking about how big my baby is going to be, I'm pretty sure she's going to be a little bigger (they keep telling me that at my ultrasounds), so yes, that worries me a tad, that she'll be too big to squeeze out, then I think, it's because I eat so much! Then I tell myself, I don't eat THAT much, it seems like I eat about the same as before I was pregnant, with a few extra allowances here and there, (like cinnamelts), then I realized, I eat pizza from Papa Johns...just about once a week.


As SOON as the word "pizza" entered my mind, my mouth watered, and I knew I had to have it for lunch. I mean, HAD to have it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. That's when I realized I was having so many RANDOM thoughts, I had to laugh at myself, but I did think it was interesting how my thoughts had led me to pizza. I think FOOD is like, the center of my universe, everything leads back to it. Then I realized I think about food a lot, I guess that's how cravings work, as if there was a science behind it.


So, I couldn't resist, I had to put up one more ultrasound picture, this is a good shot of Baby Bigler...looking incredibly bored (can't blame her, can ya?) We just thought it was cute how she seemed to rest her head in her hand. Well, there's another post about nothing.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day became a very special day for me- not quite
for the reason it should be....but exactly two years ago, I came to Honolulu
to do an internship at Shriners Hospital for Children, in the Recreation Therapy department. I met Samuel at Bucca Di Beppo (an italian restaurant) only 6 days after I got on the island.
I was with another guy, whom I soon forgot about. I saw Samuel three times that week, at different activities, and he was so charming and handsome, but I just couldn't figure out why he wouldn't just ask me out when he
acted so much like he wanted to. (Now he says it was because he was sure
he had no chance and that I would break his heart, which I guess is an acceptable answer.)

So, remembering what I'd learned at my "Marriage Prep" class at BYU, I took matters into my own hands. (This professor, Dr. Barlow, actually gave us assignments to ask people out. He didn't like girls sitting around "waiting" for stuff to happen.) So I asked Samuel if he wanted to go out with some people from Shriners, to a sandbar. You have to boat out to it, and it's basically a mini-island of sand a few miles off the shore. Depending on the tide, it's usually covered by a few inches or a few feet of water. It's a fun party place. Well, he agreed. I actually have a picture of this momentous first date,


and you can see how different he looked when I first met him, all scruffy with his curly hair all long(and for some reason I just loved it!) Anyway, it took a few hours for me to break down Samuel's defenses, but persistence is the key!! He decided to extend our date by taking me to Star Wars III which had just come out. That was the end of his resolve, we were together almost every day after that and engaged three months later.

Well, this memorial day we got a special treat. A friend of ours is learning to fly helicopters, he's actually almost done and just needs more flight hours. He was able to take us out on a helicopter ride so we could see our island, and it was amazing. (I've been on one other helicopter ride in Kauai, but it was really special to see our own island-home from the air.) So, I hope you enjoy the pictures of Oahu.

28 Weeks and a New Niece

Aloha friends, I've hit 28 weeks, so we took another picture. One counter says I'm 27 weeks and another says 28, so I'm going with 28, since this baby seems to be further along than we thought. She's having regular dance parties at 11 p.m. every night- I'm glad she's having such a good time in there. I, for one, am not used to my growing belly, and I keep scraping it on things! By the way, can someone tell me if I'm carrying high or low? Some stranger said I was "low" yesterday, but I can't tell. I think I'm carrying straight out in front, with this short torso of mine, where else can she go?? :)

Also, I wanted to say congrats to my sister Krystal on a great delivery of my newest niece, Kyla Collette Trapnell, out in Florida. She weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces. Pictures are on Tara's blog.We're glad our baby will have a cousin so close in age. Well, Happy Memorial Day, yay for long weekends, hope everyone has a great time.

Oh good, it really is a girl!

And we got pictures to prove it this time!! We got to do a third ultrasound so the tech could get a good look at the baby's heart. Someone told me to drink a coke or something to have an "awake" baby, so I thought it would be "better" for the baby if I drank this vitamin-packed "energy drink" with anti-oxidants and vitamins (instead of caffeine) that is supposed to be sooo good for you and all natural, you know, to make sure the baby didn't sleep through the ultrasound like last time. But....it was on an empty stomach. And about 30 minutes into the ultrasound I got major cold sweats and came SO close to throwing up. I had to roll over and Samuel was like, blowing on my face cause I was ready to toss!! Embarrassing. But funny too. My bad. (Baby was pretty wiggly, but still, stupid of me!)

Anyway, I've been looking forward to this day for awhile, I love peeking in on my baby. We saw her yawn and suck on her hand, and put her hand under her chin like she was propping it up, it was just so fun. We got a picture of her little girl parts, but I won't put that one up. It was just nice to get the confirmation. Our tech was super nice and took all these extra pictures for us. I know all babies pretty much look the same at this point, but oh well!!! We're too excited to keep them to ourselves. Here's a nice profile shot: (does she have my nose? j/k)

The tech said they were keeping my due date the same, but that August 17th might be a more accurate date (instead of the 26th.) She ALSO said the baby's leg bones are extra long, and our baby might be really tall. Weird!! I never thought my baby might grow up to be taller than me! She does have a tall daddy...anyway, here's a cute little foot shot

and a "hair" shot- the tech thought she had unusally long hair too, which is kind of funny to me too. Those white lines are her (long?) hair on the back of her head.

Anyway, thanks again everyone for all the great advice, seriously, you guys are like a WEALTH of information!!!!

While I'm on the Subject...

Wow, I'm surrounded by great advice and I love it!! I guess there are some benefits to waiting until age 26 to have a baby! So, I was talking with some friends today that are throwing me a baby shower. They wanted to know what I wanted...and I thought I better run to the blog for help. What kinds of things (besides clothes) should I ask for from my friends at the shower?

In your experience, what things are you sooo glad you had, or the things you will make sure to have the next time? Is there a certain brand/kind of nipples that were great? Certain kind of carseat? (I was thinking Graco Snugride). Also, we don't have a rocking chair/glider/recliner. Should we get one?

I (like Jaesi) love craigslist, and I've already started gathering some stuff. Also, some friends have generously just given us some great things. So, on that note, here's what we already have:

Jeep Jogger Stroller
Bjorn Baby carrier
Electric breast pump (one-sided...should I borrow my sister's double sided?)
Baby Tub
Bouncy Chair
Diaper Genie
Nursing/Boppy pillow

So hook me up with your ideas, I'll be so grateful. :)

Crib or Pack-n-play?

Hi girls, I need some advice. A friend of ours is moving, and they offered to give us some baby stuff (nice!). They have a full sized crib and also a pack-n-play. Their 2 year old has been sleeping in the crib and their 8 month old in the pack-n-play, since he was born. So, my question is, if I had to choose one, which should I choose?

Keep in mind: Our apartment is a small one-bedroom, so the baby will either be sleeping in our room or the living room. The pack-n-play would obviously fit better, but the baby will outgrow it by 30 lbs. But I don't have a bassinette or anything, so do any of you have experience putting a newborn in a crib?

Also: We aren't sure how long we'll be living here, we could be leaving in a few months, or maybe staying for a few years. So I can't base my choice on that.

All your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! She doesn't really get to read this much, but Happy Birthday anyway.

Happy Mothers Day to all of you!

Just wanted to say that I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day, I know you girls are wonderful mothers, and I just wanted to say thanks for the advice in helping me get ready to be one. You guys are great. Also, thanks to Samuel for making the day so special, and for making me the best barbeque ribs EVER!! Love ya!

Spider Bites!

So, before I put up a picture of my spider bites, I have to say two things: 1. I live in Hawaii, but I might as well live in Minnesota with Emma because I'm just as white as she is. (No offense Emma darling, it was the first cold place I thought of.) My first year in Hawaii I laid out religiously, loving my year-round tan. Then, quite suddenly, about a year ago, I started noticing the brown sun-spots and freckles popping up on my face and hands. Some of them were pretty big, and finally I saw the light and stopped toasting my skin all the time. I am now a huge fan of sunscreen and I am trying hard to find products to fade all the damage, but it's taking forever. So, I don't really lay out anymore, and you will notice when you see how white my legs are.
2. This is mostly for my sister, Krystal, in Florida. Don't let Allie (my niece) see this picture or she'll start having spider nightmares again!! (Poor girl actually found a huge spider in a bedroom at her house.)

So, the story, Sunday we had Stake conference, which meant we were done by noon. Nice! What did we do with our lovely sabbath? Took a huge nap of course! I took a shower before bed, and finally noticed the lovely red bites all over my legs. There's about 20 on one leg and 25 on the other (mean spider!). I never felt a thing. I'm not sure if it happened during the nap (spider stuck in the covers?) or later, but now it's Tuesday evening, and the bites are changing a bit...I don't want to go into too much detail, but there's pus involved. They don't itch though, they just hurt a bit. Wow...my legs look oddly disproportioned. Must be the camera angle. Still though, makes me wonder, why am I putting this on my blog again?


Well, that's my fun story of the day, to go along with the cockroach stories from last week!

A few random pics...

On our way to the MTC with Eric, we stopped and did a session at the Manti Temple. It was my first time inside, and wow, it is really beautiful. Here's Eric in the MTC. I didn't even want to put this picture on, I look so awful(but hey, I was sad I wouldn't see him for two years!). So Eric, here's to you, hope you're doing good! So, I'd never heard about this "Wienermobile" but we passed it, driving back to St. George. I guess I need to google that and see what it's all about. All I know is my dad was pretty excited to see it. Love these boys!! Tara and I took them out on a hot Saturday to cool off!! Maddux was a little surprised to find his diaper coming off...Uh-oh!

Then he got a little frustrated when he couldn't get his head through the chair.Nobody can get these guys to smile like Tara can! Well, I think I need to have my baby so I can blog about my own child, huh! Thanks, Tara, for providing all the entertainment in St. George!!

:)

It's only 4:06!!!!

I am at work, and for some reason this day is just DRAGGING ON!!! I go home at five, so just under an hour left, but ARRGH! It feels so far away. My job is really relaxed, but it has some negatives. I just keep telling myself..only 3 more months and I'm done with this place forever!

So, to help pass the time, I'm responding to being tagged again, so Abby, hope you don't mind, I'm borrowing your questions. Thanks.

1. COMICS OR NOVELS? Novels
2. NEAT OR SLOB? I LOVE a spotless home/car, but it just isn't happening..
5. CHOCOLATE OR PEANUT BUTTER? Both, together, forever!
7. COLD OR HOT? Cold...milk....and cold room to sleep in. Hot...days playing in water.
8. TALK OR SLEEP? Sleep of course!...but did you ever stay up all night on the phone with a guy you were totally into?
15. BEING TOLD YOU'RE LOVED, HAVING TIME SPENT WITH YOU, GETTING A PRESENT, HAVING SOMETHING DONE FOR YOU, BEING TOUCHED.WHICH DESCRIBES YOUR GREATEST NEED?
Is this like the 5 Love Languages? Great book. Touch and Being Told...both.
16. WHICH IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE SEASON? Well, there aren't seasons in Hawaii...I've forgotten.
18. DO YOU LIKE YOUR PHOTO BEING TAKEN? Not particularly.
20. HAVE YOU EVER BLABBED A SECRET WHEN YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T? I can't remember, probably.
22. WHO DO YOU THINK HAS THE MOST INTERESTING LIFE IN YOUR SOCIAL(blog) GROUP? All equally interesting to me!
25. DO YOU EVER FANTASIZE ABOUT HAVING A DIFFERENT LIFE? No, just a house and my own car...ahhh.
26. HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO START YOUR LIFE ALL OVER AGAIN? Kind of, when I moved to Hawaii. I had no money, no friends, and only a few outfits. (I was only supposed to be here three months. Two years later...) I guess that works.
27. WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN A RELATIONSHIP? Equality, commitment, feeling "complete."
26. WORDS, TONE AND DELIVERY, OR BODY LANGUAGE: WHICH DO YOU ABSORB FIRST? WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT? Tone/delivery- so revealing!
30. ARE YOU A GOOD COMMUNICATOR? I thought I was a great communicator til I got married, then I realized I have lots to learn. But I think I'm getting better.
31. DO YOU THINK YOU TALK TOO MUCH? No
32. CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH? Sometimes the truth hurts, but what can ya do.
33. HOW OFTEN DO YOU CRY? At least weekly, because I watch lots of baby deliveries, and I cry most every time. Thanks to A Baby Story on TLC.
36. WHAT SOUND ANNOYS YOU THE MOST? Farts and Belches. And the garbage truck that wakes us up every Monday at 5 a.m. SOO LOUD! I can't even describe it.
44. WOULD YOU RATHER BE SINGLE, DATING, ENGAGED, OR MARRIED? Married for sure
47. SIGNIFICANCE, SELF-WORTH, OR SECURITY. WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT? Self Worth
48. IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERHERO POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Fly Fly Fly like in my dreams
50. DO YOU THINK YOU'RE A GOOD DRIVER? I am not the best driver, but I have a clean record...
52. WHY DO YOU GO TO WORK:
1. So I can read everyone's blogs all day
2. I would be so bored at home!
3. Money of course
53. WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE TEACHER? WHATS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT? Teacher, Mr. Christensen "Coach C" was so patient with me in my years of high school math...lots of great professors. Subject, I loved Anatomy. And English.
54. WHO'S SURVEY ANSWERS WOULD YOU MOST WANT TO SEE? Everyone who hasn't filled this out yet.

Ahhh...now it's 4:33, I just killed 27 minutes, sweet! I am tagging everyone who has not filled this out yet. You know you want to.

St. George

Okay, so I might have a few more photos than I thought. Here's a funny one of Malakai. My uncle is a professional masseuse, and he brings his massage chair over to our house to give us free massages. (He works wonders on my back.) We thought this was a cute picture of Malakai acting like he wanted a massage.


We had a birthday party for Tara on the 23rd, and a farewell party dinner for Eric (same night) and tons of people came over. I got to see Tara Haynie, some of you know her, she's my longest friend, when I say longest, we've been friends since we were four years old, and we're still great friends now. We used to refer to her as "Big Tara" and my sister as "Little Tara" when we needed to distinguish. Can I just say it was kinda rainy and FREEZING that day? You can see a little of the park that we loved having in our backyard (as Little Tara mentioned in her blog.)
This is the view of the temple from our backyard, my parents bought this lot for the view, and I love it.
And this was after our Pizza Factory lunch, these are my three best friends from high school, Genis, Suzanne, and Katie. We played volleyball and basketball together, now Genis, Katie and I are all having babies within a month of each other, and Suzanne recently had a baby boy. It was fun to get together, and brought back tons of memories. Genis and I worked at Pizza Factory for two years, and we saw all these people we knew. Fun. Love those breadsticks.
Okay, one last thing, we did the free trial of Blockbuster online and Netflix, where you get the movies in the mail, and we LOVED it, now we are subscribing. It saves us a lot of money, renting movies is so expensive these days! We liked Netflix better. They offer a free 2-week trial, but I just got an email offering a free month to my family and friends. (You can get up to three movies/TV series at a time, and get an unlimited amount per month.) And it's totally free. So if anybody wants me to forward the e-mail so you can have a free month of netflix, just let me know.

Back to Business!

Hi everyone! I'm glad to be back! The week was amazing and flew by. I am happy to say that I did get to go to Cafe Rio, Charlie's, the Olive Garden, Pizza Factory, and the Quilted Bear. (Um, now I understand how you can spend $200 on bows, Kristen, they are expensive! Bracelets too! But sooo cute, a must have, and I might as well buy them now while I'm still working, right? That was my excuse for spending $60.)

I'm sorry I didn't get to see a lot of people in St. George and Provo/SLC. We weren't even in Provo for a full 24 hours.

I don't have a lot of pictures, but I will put some on later. Most of them are of Maddux and Malakai, (could they be any cuter? They were the best entertainment all week.) I was especially excited to be there when Malakai started taking his first steps, which by the end of the week, turned into fearless walking wherever he wanted, falling along the way of course. Wow, that's the cutest thing to watch.

The good news is, my flight coming back to Hawaii was overbooked, and they gave me a $400 voucher for a future (Christmas!) flight, and put me up in a hotel in Vegas for the night, for agreeing to come the next day instead. Score! I love free flights! That will especially help us out when we're poor. My boss was kind of mad that I took an extra day, but could I care less? No. I'm quitting soon enought anyway.

So, now I have lots of blog-catching up to do, I'm glad everyone is doing good.

Happy Birthday Tara!!

Today is Tara's GOLDEN birthday!! She is 23 on the 23rd.

Eeven though you beat me up a lot when we were little, we get along great now! (You know I had couldn't hit you back, since I was older and supposed to "know better"!!) Anyway,
I'm excited to be with you on your birthday. You're an awesome sister and a wonderful mom. Have a Happy Birthday!!

Utah, We love Thee

I know, I'm cheesy! But I'm pretty sure I learned Utah's "state song" in fourth grade, and that is the only line I remember, because I think that's what the song is called.



ANYWAY, I am going to Utah tomorrow, yay! My little bro Eric is leaving on his mission (farewell on Sunday, MTC on Wednesday) and I can't miss it. Eric and I have a special connection- he first introduced me to the best musical of all time (Wicked) and after listening to the CD nonstop, we decided we HAD to see it. That was a FUN spur of the moment trip, we got to New York and found out we DIDN'T have tickets to Wicked like we thought, but at the last second somebody put some on ebay, we bought them, and went to Wicked. It was in December too, so we got to see NYC at Christmastime. Fabulous. Well, we've been close ever since. I'm going to miss him! He'll be in San Diego, so close, yet so far away! He did just find out that the missionaries get to go to that gorgeous temple once a transfer (every six weeks)--which is rare for missionaries. Could he BE any luckier? (In Chandler Bing style...)



So, this might be my last trip to Utah for awhile, so I'm compiling a list of places I must go and eat and shop, so I hope you guys have some ideas! Besides visiting friends, my only plans are Charlies (for a shake) and Cafe Rio (for...the whole menu.)And...I've heard there's some great new places to eat in St. George...help me out guys!!! And when I'm in Provo, I want to go to that store where Kristen gets cute bows...where is it at Kristen? Oh wait, Kristen's in Cali!! I'll google it!!