Kalaheo Ward Luau

Our annual summer ward party this year was held at Salt Pond Beach on Southern Kauai. Our prior Bishop, Bishop Barino roasted a pig in a pit over night and other members of the ward each brought different foods that are served at Luau's. Each different organization practiced for weeks, learning random hula dances. Above is our elders (with John in the middle in his blue hawaiian shirt and joined by his good friends Brady E. and Dale K.) Below is our Primary teachers. I didn't join in the fun because I was 8 months pregnant and it just didn't seem natural for me to hula at that stage in pregnancy.The primary children were taught two basic hulas and did a wonderful job. Hailey is standing in the middle in her light green Hawaiian dress, and Alyssa is setting on the far left side in her red Hawaiian dress)

Abby loves to show off a little and while she is still in nursery she didn't join the other primary children. But, that didn't stop her and many of us got laughs from her dancing over on the side. I would say it was funner to watch her than the others, but I am a little biased.

Each of our girls had lots of fun, played with friends, had a wonderful dinner, learned a little Hawaiian culture (thanks to Auntie Nani Higa), and did their normal beach exploration.

Abby and Brad Wilcox have always had lots of fun together, she will sure miss him next month when he leaves for his Korean mission.

Alyssa and Kyleigh the two unseperable girls

Labor Day in Hanalei

We spent our beautiful Labor Day in Hanalei with so many family and friends this year. The weather was just perfect and so our girls and us had tons of fun playing their by the boat harbor. Layton Companies (of Hawaii) had there annual summer family party and then we all went to the Cooks house in Princeville for a fabulous dinner. Some families brought their kayaks and Hailey absolutely had a fabulous time riding around in it (thanks Bishop Herr). We were going to take our kayak, but..... due to some bad circumstances we no longer have a working kayak.... and someone's car has to have a few scratches from running over it :)

Abby did get lots of sand time in, but she preferred to float around in the ocean with either John or I at her side at all times. Alyssa loved just floating on the boogie board or thanks to the Clarks, a queen size air matress that lots of kids floated around on. It was amazing how the waves were just right for a fabulous day.

The Hanalei sand tends to make really great sand castles and a good friend of ours is always having fun creating 3-6 foot sand castles, here's an old picture of one.... but while my girls don't create these spectacular sand castles, they love to try!

Sept 6th was the 1st annual Kauai Marathon and it was started in our little town of Poipu right down the street from our house. My sister-in-law Michelle thought it would be fun to run in this marathon and so she came to visit us for about a week. The marathon was definately not an easy one with the continuous hills and canyons you run through, but she did it! Great job Michelle!

We also had some of our friends from our ward running/walking in the half marathon. It was fun to see them come in. Congratu

lations to Ikaika and his mom Ulu Perriera (pictured) and to my visiting teacher Debbie Lindsey! You all did a great job!

Hailey's Birthday

This month is full of birthday's for our family. We started out the month with Aunt Brooke's birthday on April fool's day. Next we had our cousin Brooke born on April 2nd, congratulations Eric and Aimee on the new addition to your family. We move on to cousin Makel, Alyssa, Uncle Pat, Hailey and end the month with my mom.

Hailey had a really good day, at home and at school. They were able to go to a neighboring school to see a drama production in the morning, and I brought cupcakes in to all her classmates in the afternoon. They really seemed to already have enough energy and no need the sugar, but you know 6-7 year old can always use more!

She wants to thanks all of you for sending cards and gifts this year. I can't believe in a year she will be old enough to get baptized. I have taken her to activity days with me before and the age difference seems so big that it's hard to believe she will join them in a year.

The weather here has been so sporadic this week. Monday we were able to go to the beach for a beautiful morning. We thought about going again today at noon but it was awful this morning, now we have blue skies (1:30 pm) ..... anyhow you never know here, it is always changing. John did take the girls to the swimming pool yesterday afternoon for Hailey's birthday. Alyssa is going to start her swimming lessons next week and needs all the practice she can get before beginning them.

Alyssa is 5

No time to post, but I thought I would add some pictures of our sweet little girls big 5th birthday!!!

Alyssa and her friend, Kyleigh, made Easter bunny houses for her birthday!

What could a little girls want more than a new makeup kit! (I didn't buy this)

She was thrilled to race through the house on her new scooter!

Alyssa opted for no cake this year, all she wanted was cupcakes.

Hailey's front teeth

Hailey's little(I mean big) smile has went through quite the transformation in the last month, here she is the end of January and then the 1st of March. I can't believe she is old enough to be loosing all of her teeth.

Just outside of Koloa is the Koloa Sugar Plantation. Though is has been shut down for quite some time, it is still a magnificent building to look at. Kauai once had 5 sugar mills up and running on this Island, now they only have one and it is on it's last season of production. That will mean that the only sugar mill in Hawaii is one left running on Maui. It's really sad how things like this are shutting down everywhere.

After our camping in the rain expedition, John and our girls decided to make a 'fort' in our family room. They used every blanket and sleeping bag to form this fort. I wish they too would have had to clean it up, I think it took me almost two hours to fold everything up and put it away. But they did have fun and played hard for a few days.

Camping in the rain

We had had plans to go camping for a really long time, yet the weather never quite works with our plans. We went camping with 3 other families, Rusty & Mandy Cook, Mike & Holly Cook and Will & Karen Summerhays familys'. I really need Mandy's pictures for this as my camera's batteries were all dead. We really did have lots of fun, but this week lots of records were set in HI as the coldest weather ever.... I guess that's what you get when so many people from Utah move here.

The girls had lots of fun and we stayed dry in our tent, not all families did :) :) :) I think Mike said that his rain gauge showed we got 3/4 inch of rain during the night. We did have to cancel our Saturday hike and just headed home after breakfast, but John did get to use his new grill for the first time, he got it for Father's Day last year!

Abby loves chickens (bak bak's) and she loves to chase them around, we went for a walk together and I think there were about 50 of them following us back to camp. We really didn't want that so we had to jump and yell and chase scare them a little so they would not follow us anymore. It was rather hilarious to see her trying to scare them.

I'm still working on my scrapbooking a little. Here is a really quick page of Hailey and Alyssa as they were having a sword fight with their Mickey Mouse Light Sabers. The looked really funny with their swimming goggles on too!