Jason & Candice Wihongi

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

March

3/1 to 3/7:

Sunday Bishop Ishino called me to be the Ward Mission Leader. I was hesitant and not too excited about that but reluctantly accepted. I'll need the Lord's help for sure because I feel totally inadequate for the job. I'm not a good missionary and not a good organizer but I said I'll give it a shot. Mina had her final volleyball regular season game on Tuesday and lost to a good team from Kennedy. They played the first playoff game as the 2nd seed and beat Wasatch on Thursday 2-1. On Saturday we did a lot of cleaning the house because Candi is coming home. We went to get her after we ate dinner at Burger King and stopped at Target to get lotion because they got sun burned in Fiji swimming at a hotel while waiting for the next flight.
We waited only about 5 minutes before they came out. The plane arrived at 8:20pm. Erana had glasses made out of pipe-cleaners that she wore the whole flight home. It was so wonderful to see them again. My wife looked as beautiful as ever. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. We got home and Candi unpacked her bags and gave us lots of stuff. Shirts and lollies. She got watties, passion fruit syrup and even feijoa syrup and jam. Heaps of chocolates and cookies. A jar of beet root radish and kamo kamo radish, bone carvings and stuff. Later on when the kids went to bed we had some quality time catching up with each other.

3/8 to 3/14:

The daylight savings time jumped forward an hour Sunday night and that mixed with Candi and I staying up late and her and Erana with jet-lag we just slept in and gave church a miss. Candi showed us all her photos after I took them off the phones and flash disks. Tuesday Candi went back to work. Mina's team played Churchill Junior High on the east bench off Wasatch blvd, 4300 S. Mina twisted her ankle bad before the game started and didn't play. The other team was well drilled and didn't make any mistakes. They made Bennion look like beginners and beat them 2-0. Bennion didn't look like themselves but would have lost at their best. I took Mina to the ER at the Murray hospital to get x-rays. They came back negative and said it was badly strained tendons. Mina got crutches and an ankle brace. Was a bummer way to end a great season. Candi and I had lunch at the Joy Luck chinese restaurant in Sandy Friday afternoon. It was not bad. Saturday we watched Tyrell play the Orem team for his first game of rugby. They lost. They'll get better, they looked rusty. We ate at Sconecutters in the evening, good stuff. But I felt like a fat pig after.

3/15 to 3/21:

Went to Jared's baby TeAriki's blessing at their portuguese ward. Ate at his house after. Visited with Romaine Marshall. Mina got her learners permit Wednesday. She failed the test the first time but took it again. I've let her drive a few times to her friends home and on other simple drives. She's getting better but still a little scary. Kids had no school Friday. Tyrell played rugby Saturday against East, last years HS champs and Wasatch beat them but Tyrell got tackled and broke his collar bone. He was in a lot of pain. He was mad I walked so slow around the field to get to him. We went to the instant care in West Valley. I gave him a blessing in the room while waiting for the doctor. He broke it right through. He got pain medicine and just laid down at home for hours. I fell bad for him but he is a tough kid and handled the pain really well, better than I could. He sees the orthopedic doctor on Monday. On Sunday Jaxon was set apart as the Deacons quorum president.

3/22 to 3/31:

The doctor said to just let it heal on it's own instead of having surgery. It will stick out some and he'll lose about 1 cm of length from the collar bone. Poor son. He said it shouldn't affect his range of motion. I hope he knows what he's talking about. Tyrell left on his school choir tour Tuesday night to Hollywood. They took buses. We hoped he will be ok. He got home Sunday around noon. He didn't text or call or anything the whole time. He had fun and enjoyed himself. We watched his videos when we got back from church. Candi and I had lunch together Wednesday at Zupas after we got our HealthyUtah testing done at my old work building. Friday we visited with Uncle Taylor and Auntie Cairo Tarawhiti at the Bakers home. Was good to see them. Saturday morning we took the kids to Wairhouse a trampoline place for Scott's 40th. In the evening we went over to their house for cake and ice cream. Visited with Casey and Lindsey.

Erana Sayings:
3/27/15
Mina comes home from Maraina's baby shower with pen drawings all over her leg.
Erana: Your body is a temple, and you need to keep your temple clean!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Candi & Erana's trip to New Zealand - 2/11 to 3/7

FEBRUARY 11TH TO MARCH 7TH:

This will be a short and candid story on our trip of New Zealand which was three and a half weeks long, here go's: Sad to say goodbye to Daddy but exciting to go to NZ, well not really excited for the flight but just to be in NZ will be awesome. Erana really liked her first time being in an airplane and flying. LA was dumb cause they were renovating and we had yucky sushi and realized after we checked in and went through to the other side to get to our boarding gate that we should've bought food there!

Had to haggle with the girl that was checking us in about my carry on bags! oi vai! I'm sure I was right, just look at your dang rules and regulations on the internet it says it on there!~ anyways got on the plane and Erana and I were sitting at an end of the middle section where there are four seats. We sat with two aussie guys. Well didn't sleep much, very uncomfortable, just listened to the greatest hits of Whitney Houston, wanted to sing along but ya know lol. At least Erana was able to lay out and get a moe!
Fiji yikes blimmin ghetto, it was dark and rainy when we arrived and it looked like a huge shed that we were going into, had to stay there for a while, and we found a quiet place with podunk couches and rested there.

Finally got to NZ and was so excited I forgot my purse on the chairs while waiting for the time to go meet my sister outside, anyways we were outside paying for the parking when I realized I forgot my purse and then frantically running back praying to god no one has taken it, whew it was still on the seat next to people, a lady saw me and says, "Sh_t you're lucky"! lol

Had a very nice and short stay at my sisters, they have an awesome house in a really nice area. Erana loved being with her cousins Tiffany, Skylar and Akaylah. I took the girls to the park which is across from their school and their school is about a block away. They had an awesome playground with even a flying fox, and a really long tunnel slide, where I grazed my elbows on when going down it. My Mum and Michael were there too, they came from Aussie to stay for a while, that's why I came the same time. Wanted to visit with my grandma but she passed away two weeks before.

There was a fishy smell in Whitney's room and they were blaming it on me and my luggage, but we quickly realized it was Michael and his tuna he was eating in the room. lol
Went to the markets and bought some maori/nz tops, bone carvings and caps. Went and ate at 'Yumcha's' and it was delicious, Chinese food in NZ is way better than in America. Watched 'Frozen' in the park and got free bars of cadbury chocolate bars! Went to the Pokeno market in the morning got a maori carved dish, and had some yummy tiptop passionfruit and mango ice-cream.
Mum and Michael and Lian left to go to Hastings. And Dad came to pick me up, Erana didn't want to leave her new best cuzzies.

We watched frozen at a park, where they gave out big size cadbury chocolate bars for free, you could choose from all the flavors too. We got Pizza etc and had a nice time. The weather didn't co-operate and it lightly rained, but we were prepared and had umbrellas & tarps to cover us up with.

Dad's home in Hamilton was really nice and we stayed for a bit, Cynthia and Tiffany showed up to come with us to Hastings. While in Hamilton we visited Strantz Wihongi at his work. And we also went to Jason's Dads gravesite 'Barney'.

Travelling to Hastings we had to endure Dads mix of his songs, I remember one song he use to listen to it when we visited him in Wellington 'Zoom'. We stopped in Taupo and got some t'shirts & stuff. The weather was nice and sunny, Tiffany and Erana played at the cool playground.

Napier, Pania of the Reef

This was the beginning of many trips to 'Rush Monroes' the best ice-cream ever. My favorite Passion fruit and then Feijoa.

I went to Hastings Girls High School to see if I could get me a 1992 year book. I didn't buy one at the time because I didn't want to burden my Mum with extra school fees. I was willing to pay for it no matter the cost, but when I got there the lady said I didn't need to pay for it.