Door-to-door salesmen

This week was ridiculous with door-to-door sales men. They just kept coming. We had a magazine guy, a Schwan's frozen food guy, a lawn guy, so on and so forth. I answer the door and stop them in their tracks before they even tell me their names and send them packing.  Jason, on the other hand, appreciates a good sales pitch every now and then and invites them in.

The first guy that we let in this week was a guy from Latvia (on a map you can find it west of Russia) selling books.  I wasn't interested, Jason was.  In the end we did end up purchasing some Math books for the ladies and elementary school subject study books for the little man. 

 I hate to admit it but we are really excited about the books we got and don't even feel bad that we just spent next months grocery money and car payment.  The math books teach you math beginning with elementary school problems and move up thru college math (calc, stats, trig.....).  Considering the amount of time I spent on-line this year trying to figure out Kahau's math with her, these books should really stream line our "how the heck do you do this?" process next school year.

The other books?  They are for fun, enrichment and they have fun little projects in them. 

 Here's to knowledge!

*****

The next guy we let in (okay, it was me) was a Kirby vacuum salesman.  For the low, low price of  $3,450 he would sell me a fancy-schamcy vacuum that I would love forever.  Honestly I just wanted him to vacuum my floor and clean an area rug.  To be fair I did open with the "I'm not going to buy anything, but I'll let you clean my floors."  Surprisingly the longer he was at our house and the more Jason said "no" to his price-- the price kept dropping. Shocking.  In the end he offered us his rock bottom price of $1,349.  In his words "An offer too good to pass up."  We did the only thing we could do with a price like that, said no way Jose and sent him on to someone else.

Wonder who'll show up this week.

7 footers

We have this fence in our backyard.  It's old and it's ugly and it isn't ours.  For the past little bit we have been trying to figure out how to hide it.  Seriously, it's that ugly.  A few weeks ago we talked to a friends of Jason's parents and arranged for 7' arborvitae's put in.

Ta-da

A little more private, a little more colorful, another thing checked off our to-do list.  Next rock and bark dust.  My parents are coming next week--maybe I'll put Grandpa in charge of bark dust to pay him back for having to mow the lawn growing up.

....Oh wait, he never really made me do that.  And I like to mow the lawn.  Looks like he's off the hook.  Wow, he dodged that bullet.

11 yr old day camp

Our stake puts on an 11 yr old day camp for the ladies preparing to go to girls camp next year.  Braley was super excited to go and get a glimpse of whats to come. She made a craft, practiced her outdoor skills and met new friends.  She really had a great time. Of course she did....she loves getting older and being able to do all the big girls things.

Love this kid.

Ansen lately

This boy could not wait for summer to start this year.  He was so over school and waking up early and school uniforms and well, like I said, the school year.  What can I say?  It's rough being 8. His sister's are into dressing him in different era's lately and he willingly goes along with what ever they want...most days.

Yesterday was 50's day.

Lately he has been very into "what would happen" questions.  For instance, the other morning he came quietly into my room at 5:15am....mind you it's summer....and said:

 "Mom, what would happen if I slept all day?"  

My answer: 

"I guess we will never find out."

 

Ansen has also been building every kind of race track know to man the past few days.  Most courses end with his cars flying off some sort of cliff.

Gotta love this boy!

Braley lately

Man, oh man.  We have entered the tween years with this child of ours.  She is trying her hardest to strike out on her own and while we are excited about that, we need to reign her in as well.  She is so super excited for middle school to start but finally admitted that it freaks her out as well.  There is nothing she can't conquer and we all know that.

She's been (unconsciously) working on her identity lately and finding out her true likes and dislikes.  One like she has had since she was little is music.  I think, in her eyes, her life is one big musical.

As a reward for her awesome school year we decided to let her pick out a "Congratulations! You're a smarty pants" gift.  She chose a shiny new beach cruiser.  She can't wait to get on that thing and ride, ride, ride.  Too bad it's raining cats and dogs.  Someday soon.

Gotta love his girl.

Dance festival

For the last 6 months I have been working with kids in our stake to get ready for a Tri-stake dance festival.  It has been a lot of work,  a lot of e-mails, phone calls, texts, a bit of frustration (at times).  Most of all, it has been fun teaching the girls that I worked with and great getting to know them.
These past few weeks were full of costuming, floor mapping, convincing girls to participate since they have been practicing the past 6 months and so on and so forth.  Hey, someone has to do it!

Friday Dance Festival/Youth Conference began at 8am.  It was a day full of practice, practice, practice and more practice.  Things went pretty smoothly for have 700+ 12-18 year olds running around.  After all their hard work the past few months, it was fun to see what their dances looked like with them all in costume.

The opening number was a pioneer square dance.  Here are my awesome Beehives.

Then it was time to practice our 80's dance.  These girls looked liked 80's barbie dolls.  They were cute and sassy and rockin!

Saturday was more dress rehersals and 2 live performances. Look at them and how excited they are. Well, most of them.  Some wanted to puke because they were so nervous to dance in front of 1,000 people. For all the nerves and "I don't want to's" they nailed it. They came off stage just beaming at their terrific job.  I am seriously so proud of them.  They are now counting down the days til Girls Camp when they can be together again for a whole week.

My job over the two days was to man a tunnel.  Sounds easy right?  Let the kids on stage when it's time/get them off.  You would think. It's amazing how hard it is to get kids in a line-up/make sure everyone is there/ and keep them quiet. It's exhausting.  I was able to work with some awesome ladies who helped everything run smoothly.  I was also so grateful for my councilors (Yay! Tab and Em, we survived!) who took 2 entire days to devote to these kids.  On Friday we wondered how this was ever going to come together and go smoothly.  By Saturday morning we had hope that the show was going to run smoothly.  Both shows went so smoothly, safely and as scripted.  What a miracle.

And now to my little dancer.  Isn't she sassy?  She had a blast, she made new friends, re-found friends from when we lived in Tualatin, and loved her first Youth Conference.  We decided in January when we started practicing that we weren't going to tell people we were mother-daughter. 1) Because I didn't want her to be embarrassed by me and 2) Because if no one knew then I wouldn't treat her like my kid and I'd treat her more like everyone else in the room.  We didn't hide it, we just didn't flaunt it.  On Friday the cat came out of the bag and the girls were flabbergasted that we were a team.  I guess it helps that she and I don't look alike.  Thankfully (on my part) she got a lot of "That's your MOM?  No way! That's so cool" and no "Ewwwww, she's your Mom?"

We did have some fun together.

I'm grateful for this experience and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Kahau lately

 1. She has developed her first celebrity crush.  Superman.  It's cute.  She loves looking at the poster above her bed.  Daddy took her to see the midnight showing on opening night. She loved every second. I showed her a picture of Henry Cavill whilst not wearing his Superman costume and she wasn't too impress BUT, in his blue and red suit, girl is crushing. 

2. For the past 6 (yes, 6) months Kahau has been working with all the Beehives in our stake to learn 3 dances for a tri-stake dance festival.  The festival is tomorrow and eeeeeek, she's excited. Here she is in her 80's costume.

Gotta love this girl.

Honor Roll

 Who's a smarty pants?  This girl. She was able to maintain above a 3.5 GPA all year so she got this neat little certificate and a pin.

 Great job Kahau!!!

Last day of school

 Even though the last day of school was almost a week ago I still need to tell you about it.  It was field day and the kids had so much fun.  This year's field day theme was: Carnival and man, oh, man it...was...fun.  All the kids at the school absolutely LOVED the dunk tank.  The Kinder, 2nd,, 3rd and 5th grade teachers all took a turn getting dunked.  It was so fun to watch in fact, that this summer we plan on getting a bunch of our friends together letting the kids dunk each other all day long.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

 There was also a reptile show that was super fascinating. The kids were able to pet snakes and learn about all sorts of reptiles.

Pretty fantastic last day if you ask me.

Fence-ing

 When we moved in we knew we would need to put in a fence on the side of our house.  This last week it finally happened.  You know you are a full-fledged adult when a fence makes you giddy.

Before:

After:

On to the next project!

Chicken little

 I was loading the dishwasher the other night and there was a super loud noise outside our house.  The next thing I knew, our very own chicken little was standing in the dishwasher and trying to hide.  Needless to say the dishwasher and the dishes got an extra good cleaning.

Father's Day

Ohhh the excitement of Father's Day.  Or, if you are looking at Kahau's face, the fact that it is Father's Day doesn't seem to excite you at all. Like, not even a tiny bit.  Actually, everybody was excied about Father's Day and I think it went fairly well. There was minimal fighting and the sun was shining. Not too shabby.

This year it's Grandpa Widing's birthday on Father's Day as well.  To celebrate Jase, Ansen, Mark Jr. and Grandpa went to a baseball game and then today we all went to a nice dinner. For Father's Day/Birthday/"You've-been-working-so-hard-laetly" gifts Jason and Bob got to share a gift.  Noting but the best I tell ya!

On November 3rd they will be flying down to Oakland to watch the Eagles play (and hopefully beat) the Raiders.  They are so excited to go watch Chip Kelly take a crack at the NFL.

They can now cross this off their bucket list.

Happy Happy Father's Day.

Ansen: 1st & last

This kid just didn't know how to feel about school this year.  He loved it, he liked it, he tolerated it, he loved it.  Boys.  Even with his roller coaster of emotions he had an awesome year with an awesome class and a fun teacher.  This year he even grew out of some of his school clothes and we had to buy bigger sizes!!!

Nicely done this year Ansen! We are so proud of you!

Up next, 3rd grade and getting to have the same cool teacher 2 years in row!

(l)first day of school (r)last day of school 2013.

Braley: 1st & last

Since the first day of school Braley has been focused on getting to middle school. She was in such a rush to go to middle school and be a "big kid."  Then, today as we were driving away from the elementary school she said in a small-ish voice, "I wish I was coming back here next year."

Great, great year Braley!

Up next, 6th grade.....new school, new memories.

(l)first day of school (r)last day of school 2013.

Kahau: 1st & last

7th grade has blown by.  She was a student, an athlete, a club member, a young women, a babysitter, and a family member.  She was a busy, busy lady and she handled it really well. Next year she'll rule school as a WEB leader (more on that later).

Way to go Kahau!

Up next, 8th grade.....eeeeek! So exciting.

(l) first day of school (r) last day of school 2013.

5th grade Student of the Year

I received a phone call from Mrs. Lopez the kid's Principal the other day informing me that Braley's teacher, Mr. Benassi, chose her to be the 5th class student of the year. How exciting for her.  She has worked really hard this year and it was such a nice surprise to receive that recognition.

As a treat for being Student of the Year Mrs. Lopez asked if it was okay if she pick Braley up for school this morning.  Of course I said yes.  But....she wasn't being pick up for school in just any old car.  She got picked up in thisssssss.........

Girlfriend about passed out when she realized the limo was for her.  So cool.

Here's Mrs. Lopez congratulating her on her great year.

 And here she is making herself comfy!

 After I kissed Brays goodbye she was told they were going to pick up the 4th grade student of the year. She settled in for the long ride to the house next door!  One of her bff's Jenni got Student of the Year as well.  Both girls were thrilled to see each other and ride together to school.

Way to go Student of the Year!

5th grade Graduation

What a BIG day for Braley.

Honestly-Braley has been so excited for 5th grade graduation since January.  The fact that it was today was almost more then she could handle.

 This year has been so great for her and she has had one of our favorite teachers, Mr. Benassi which has made the year even that more exciting.

This morning there was a special breakfast in honor of the 5th graders.  There was yummy fruit and pastries to celebrate the end of their elementary school years.

 This evening was her graduation ceremony.  Mr. Benassi hands out a graduation certificate and a special award to each student. For the special award he comes up with something unique about each student and recognizes them for being uniquely themselves.  It's really cool to see what kind of awards he comes up with and how cool he is with the kids.

 Braley earned the Adventurer award.  Mr. Benassi talked about the trips she has taken over the past few years and how she loves to see new places and write about them. He said that someday he could see her A) getting a degree in travel and tourism B)working for a travel company C)keeping a Travel blog of exciting places to go and things to see.

 Yep, that sounds like her for sure.

After the graduation ceremony was done, all families were invited to the 5th grade class room to see posters that the kids made about themselves.  They talked about who they once were, who they are now and who they want to be when they grow up.

Congratulations Braley on a super 5th grade year!

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Like I said a few posts ago, life has been super busy lately. This weekend was no different. 'Tis the season of graduations, end of the year parties, graduation parties, birthday's, babies, and so on and so forth.

Friday night was a great night because the youth had a Temple trip.  Yes, it was one more thing in my schedule but it was the perfect "one more thing" to have going on.

On Saturday morning my councilors and I were able to attend the graduation of one of our Laurels.  Small town graduations are fun and sooooo different then the graduation I had.  But when your whole town can fit in your high school gym things are bound to be a little bit different. For instance, the salutatorian?  She rapped her speech.  There's nothing better than a sunny graduation morning filled with Asian rap. It was fun.

 After Gaby's graduation, we headed out to Grandpa and Grandma's for David's graduation/going away party.  He is off to boot camp next weekend to turn himself into a Marine.  Exciting, scary, crazy all at once.  The kids had a great time with their cousins and have already arranged for lots of time together this summer.  The party was great and the food...well, it was
awesome.
(No, I didn't eat the pigs.  I just  couldn't bring myself to do it.  I heard it was 'ono though.)

There was white people food and Mexican people food, and Tongan people food.
Heaven, I tell ya.
Sunday wasn't quite the day of rest it's supposed to be.  With meetings and having to run to the stake center and work on stuff that had to be done for dance festival things got a bit chaotic but at the end of the day we were able to sit/lay/sprawl out as a family with a Disney movie.
On the block this week we have 5th grade graduation, field day, last days of school, activity days, cub scouts, young women's party, PTA meeting, our new fence going in, possibly some new arborvitaes going in, swimming, work, dance festival practice, a baptism for a friend, Father's day and Grandpa Widing's birthday. Plus, I 'm trying to squeeze in re-doing the girls room.
I think I can make it all fit.

Walk this way

 All year long Ansen and Brays have been asking to walk to school.  All year long I've said no because we live to far and there are too many busy streets we would have to navigate. Once our weather started getting nice though, I really wanted to walk too so we came up with a solution.  Now each morning we park about 1/2 mile away from the school and then walk from there.

 It's a nice way to start the morning and end the school day.

 There's even a house (that is currently empty) that has a great swing we stop and play on for a few minutes.

Good times, good times.