Leila's 8th Birthday

Leila's birthday activities started friday, October 25th. We took her to the Witch Breakfast show at Gardner Village again. We picked her up from school early and surprised her. It started at 10:30am. It was just Leila, Erana, Candi, Mum and I. We ate a lot of eggs and bacon and pancakes. Leila went up on stage a couple times when they had kid volunteers. She even did the cup song with one of the witches at our table. We walked around the village after and she got a new tybeanie boo.

In the afternoon we went to the zoo. The kids had a good time. The weather was nice and not too cool. There was a new part of the zoo we hadn't seen before, the seal and polar bear section. It was nice. Erana loves to see the animal and was very excited.

On Tuesday the 29th we went to McDonalds for her birthday and Dray and Kage came. After she opened presents and had Ninja turtle cup cakes.

Thursday was Halloween. She had another birthday cheese cake. We went over to Jody and Monica's at 5:30pm. We ate clam chowder, boil up, and other yummy stuff. We went trick or treating around the newer neighborhood down the hill. Mina went with Malia and Malia's friend but said they didn't get enough lollies because those 2 were talking too much and walking slow. Mina was a tad bit upset about that. Mina was dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Jaxon was Slenderman from a scary game they play on the pc. Other kids knew who he was and liked his costume. Leila was also a Ninja turtle and Erana was a little skeleton.

October Stuff

Thursday October 24th Jaxon graduated from Webelos and got his Arrow of Light award. Candi went to it. She said Jaxon looked a little hori in his shorts and scout top.

Back on the 7th we went to the annual Halloween party at the Ashworth's home. Erana got her face painted. Kids had a good time.

On the 6th we took some family photos in our backyard. They are for our Christmas cards. We kept delaying it and so the good weather will be going away soon so we were desperate. So the backyard it is, spinarit. We also did some inside. Some turned out ok.

On Tuesday the 1st we had our FHE. We went to Gardner Village and did the Witch Hunt. We got a paper with all the location clues and we went off and found them and marked it off. When it was complete we could use the papers for a cookie coupon.

Funny Things Kids Say

• Erana was watching tv in the reading nook. I (Candi) went to check on her and I see her all happy and smiling and she says to me "fly's my friend". I say "Huh?" Then I see this fly sitting on her leg & flying around her legs. I say, "Ewww that's yuck, I'm gonna kill that fly."  Then her face went all sad and she yells out "NO!" Another day I was in the kitchen swatting flys with the fly swatter, and she hears me and runs to me and says "No Mama, fly's my friend". Another morning I killed a fly in my room, and Erana saw me do it, she burst into tears and wouldn't stop crying until I gave her a lollie.
• I fried up some onions for dinner and it was making everyone's eyes water. Well the next night I fried up some more onions and Leila says "Why did Jesus make onions hurt your eyes?"
• There was a crab on t.v. or something and Erana says, "I like crabs, they are so awesome!" Lol.
• Erana says out of the blue one time, "Jaxon is jealous Mummy." Not sure she knows what that means.
• Erana has a lot of little purses and boxes that she fills up with all sorts of random things like rocks, toys, flashlights, and anything that appeals to her. She's like Jaxon with her little rats nests. She sat on me (Jason) with one of her boxes while I was doing this and said, "Let's play puppet ninjas." She opened her box and gave me a plastic toy knight and she pulled out a little plastic toy ninja man for her. She's so cute.

Cynthia Healey's Visit

August 27th to September 25th 

Cynthia came at the end of August and stayed with us for a whole month.  At the airport, we were caught of guard when the flight was an hour late, so when she finally came out of the gates, Jaxon, Leila, Erana & I weren't paying attention and didn't notice her at all. When I did she had already seen me.  Darn it, we wanted to surprise her.  Leila thought Cynthia was a chinese girl, seeing that she looks asian & the people that were coming out of the gate were mostly asian.

Cynthia stayed in the basement.  While she was here she did a lot of shopping in her first week, & then slowed it down for the rest of her stay.  She also went golfing a lot too, she met new friends while golfing there were firemen & Bryant who ended up being more than a friend by the time she left.  Even though Cynthia was not our child & she is 27yrs old we did worry a lot about her when she went out at night with friends she had just met that day.

She went to the movies, a Halloween scare house, Utes game (I haven't even been to a college game yet), Silver lake and to a country nightclub.

Cynthia tried different things while she was here like, yogurt land (my first time too), In & out burgers, pumpkin pie, lobster bisque, smores with giant marshmallows, nachos, jalapeno bagels etc...

We had family prayer, scripture reading, family home evening & went to church with her.  She liked to hang with Mina and do things with her.  They had a girls night where they put beauty masks on their face & did their nails.  Mina ended up spilling her aqua colored nail polish all over her carpet in her bedroom.
We dyed Cynthia's hair at least 3 times while she was here. Christine did it the first time, turned out too light, so Cynthia & I did it again twice.  Now she has beautiful brown hair!

Cynthia put false eyelashes on me just before Jason & I went on our two night anniversary get away.

It was sad to see Cynthia go, but she said she was going to be back next year.  She went to Reno, & I skyped with her she was bored & didn't like it very much, she wanted to come back but couldn't. We then skyped with her while she was in San Francisco for the whole day & night. Then finally skyped again at the airport before her journey back home to New Zealand.

Our 19th Anniversary!

September 17th to 19th

On Tuesday the 17th of September, Jason took me out to the 'Cheesecake Factory' for our 19th wedding anniversary.  We had a very yummy appetizer 'fried zucchini, avocados & portabello mushrooms'. Then Jay got a 'caramel macadamia' cheesecake & I got the 'mango keylime' cheesecake. I like mine better it was tropical & had coconut in it too.

On Wednesday we drove to Wendover and stayed the night at Montego hotel for free. We ate at the buffet first, buy-one-get-one-free. Their choices were ok, meats were a bit over cooked for my tastes. Our room was big & nice, except no hot tub, but that's ok, we had an enjoyable night together.

Thursday we slept in, and then checked out & drove to downtown Salt Lake. We went & ate at Tucano's for lunch and stuffed ourselves so much we could barely move. So we went for a walk around and I got me some white skinny jeans from Old Navy & Jay got him a top.  Got sucked into buying some cookies, which we probably didn't need.

Then we headed to our hotel which was the 'Anniversary Inn' on South Temple.  I surprised Jason with the 'jungle Safari' room, which was a hoot, we had a wild time!

Time has gone by sooo fast we can't believe it has been 19 years together. I have lived here longer now than I did growing up in New Zealand. And I couldn't imagine spending it with no else but my Jaybean! xxx

Written 10/9/13

NEW FLOORS!!!

September 12th

Jason & I went to 'lumber liquidators, home depot & lowes' to check out the floors. In the beginning we were set on having real hardwood floors, but then we changed our minds, to Laminate because of the durability, price & ease of care.

To make things go smoothly and quicker I decided to pick my favorite one from Jason's two most favorite.  Mina and I liked the one from Lowes.  But Jason was being stubborn and wanted the one from Home Depot. Jason was going to have his way, but decided to make me happy instead.

We made the arrangements with 'Carrie' the lady in charge of flooring at lowes.  I didn't really like the way she helped us, which wasn't helpful at all. Like she just wanted us to hurry up & pick so she can do other things. We had to choose side boards to match our floors, but our floors didn't come with side boards so we had to pick from another floor choice.  All I wanted was that the color be darker than our floors! Was that too hard for her to figure out, I mean isn't it her job to know all the colors of the woods or flooring she's selling? NO, she kept on saying that the one we picked 'correlated' with our wood? What the heck, whatever that means?

So because the side boards were the wrong color & I took them back to get the right ones. Which Jason just found online? we were wondering why she couldn't she just show us them online?
It took longer, so when Paul & Dan came to put them in my niece Cynthia was here visiting with us from New Zealand.

Paul & Dan were to older pakeha guys, they were very professional & nice. Paul also covered our trunk we made out of the island that was in the living room, with carpet I had bought from the carpet guy.

Our floors look awesome, it is kinda loud in the house now. But I don't have to look at the ugly stained carpet anymore, until I go into our bedroom. lol

Photo taken 2/1/2014

Mina's 14th Birthday

Our beautiful oldest daughter is getting older. 14 years old now. Time is flying by. She gets A's in school and helps out a lot when asked. She still has spill powers though. She always seems to spill stuff all the time ever since she was a little girl. She had her friends Julia and Sophia sleep over for her birthday Friday night. We had cake Saturday night with Grandma, Camila, Talia and baby Alessandra visiting. She got clothes, money, a red ukulele and a red xbox controller.

Wednesday, Sept 4th Mina's mutual activity was a Stake Daddy-Daughter Prom at the chapel so I went with her. They had decorated the gym and had punch & cookies and music. We danced a little whenever they had a good song. Most weren't. Bro. Morgan kept doing his funny sprinkler dance to every song. He called it the sprinkler but looked more like a pistol.

Monday, Sept 2nd was a day off for me for Labor Day. I didn't do much but we had dinner at Scott's house.