Wordless Wednesday

Race for the cure

Last Saturday our little family got to participate in a 5k to find a cure for Breast Cancer. My sister in law Celina invited us. Her Mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer this year. We love Ievise! She is a pillar of strength and hope to all of us especially to those with Cancer. Our team name was "Got Susu" it means got milk/breast in Samoan.

Ray and Leka were not very happy about being woken up at 5:30a.m. on a Saturday. But when they saw their cousins there they quickly changed their attitudes. We had a blast. It was a great way spend a Saturday morning!

New Orleans, LA

2 weeks ago Jr. and I went to New Orleans. We went for a conference my job was having. Kristina and Riley (Kristina's my boss) went also so it made our trip pretty sweet. Here we are visiting a memorial made out of aluminum for Hurricane Katrina. It is so creative.

New Orleans I realized very quickly is not my cup of tea. I would probably never chose to live there. It was a great experience to have though. The people the food the atmosphere was so different to what I'm used to. I'm pretty sheltered. Walking around Bourbon Street I kept thinking in my head "we're not in Utah anymore". We flew in Tuesday night and the city was a ghost town. It had a creepy eerie feeling about it. It was pretty empty up until the Friday night.

Kristina and I were busy from 8a.m. to 4p.m. everyday learning new things about our dialer system we use at work. The training was awesome. The conference was very well put together and very organized. 

Jr. and Riley had a bunch of free time while we were at the conference to see the city and eat. Which is what they did majority of the time we were there....EAT!They ate at the Harrah's buffet for lunch everyday. They raved about it all week. Oh they also got to take naps everyday.

At night we'd all go to dinner together. It was awesome. There was a restaurant there that served frog legs and we left shortly after we read over the menu. Everything in New Orleans is so expensive. I'm not sure what prices were like before Hurricane Katrina but some of prices were ridiculous.

We walked all over the city. Honestly we probably put in 10 miles everyday. We all had blisters on our feet because of all the walking. It was good for us though because of all the eating we were doing. The last day we were there we wanted to get out of the city and drive around so we rented a car for the day. We decided to go to Alabama. On our way there we stopped in Mississippi and we loved it there so much we never made it to Alabama. We found awesome outlet stores and a beach. Long Beach is what it was called. The boys even got to do a little surfing. lol One of my favorite things about the south is white sand beaches. 

Jr. and I do not care for California beaches. The sand is so pebbley it feels like tiny rocks not like sand. It made me wish I was in Florida.

We got back into New Orleans around 10p.m. and the party just got started on Bourbon street. No more creepy ghost town. We had a bad experience the night before on that street so we opted to just drive around it instead on walking it. It was basically the same thing because we had to drive so slow because of all people. What can I say......the people were insane. We saw both male and females urinating on the street, we saw topless girls, intoxicated people stumbling around everywhere and we saw a lot of young kids. People actually bring their children around all this madness. We figured the parents that brought their children to Bourbon street were probably brought by their parents when they were young so it wasn't anything shocking to them. 

Anyways, overall it was a great trip. I do feel thankful to live in Utah. I feel more comfortable living around people that for the most part have the same values and beliefs as I do. But it was also great to see what different parts of the U.S. are like.

Wordless Wednesday

So proud!

I just wanted to say Congrats to our nephew Corey for being elected Student body President of Mountain View High next year! He's come so far............. and now he's a straight A student, attends Seminary, stars in plays, etc. There isn't anything this kid cant do!

Family Night

My family and I lived with Jr.s parents for the first 5 years of our marriage, so with out really realizing it, we seemed to always count on them for Family home evenings on Mondays. Since we've moved out and been on our own for a while we haven't been very good or consistent at holding spiritual/meaningful home evenings as a little family unit. Lately Ray has been a little chatter box at school and has had recess taken away from him quite often b/c he doesn't know when to zip his lips. (Again I don't know where my boys get these habits from :-) So recently a lot of our Family nights is talking to him about being obedient in school, listening and being respectful to his teacher.
Long story short, about 2 weeks ago Jr. said to me that he noticed Ray isn't enjoying Family home evening when it's spent scolding him. He doesn't want Ray to grow up hating it b/c it's the time he gets lectured. I instantly had flash backs of Monday nights when I was a kid and realized that I was repeating the same cycle I grew up in. I love my parents so much but as I kid and teenager, Monday nights were the worst for me. I felt like it was "what did you do wrong this week" night. I do realize it's important to address issues with my children and they need the counel and discipline from Jr. and I but I need to find a happy medium and that Family night should be fun also.

Two weeks ago we attended Corey's play for family night. He had the lead role in The Tempest at Mountain View High. He was so awesome. A natural.









The boys had a blast hanging out with Tiera and Kyra. They absolutely adore their cousins.



Leka and Ray have been quarreling a lot lately and I've heard the words stupid, annoying and hate come out of their mouths a lot. So my lesson today was on Forgiveness. We played the Wii as our activity and had a family talk about having a testimony which Jr. discussed with the boys. We acted out silly skits and Leka came up with a human train game of course. This is Ray's crazy skit he and Jr. came up with one night. The upside down face.

It was a blast. I've had several "a..ha" moments in the past couple of weeks. I feel so blessed to just have this time together as a family. Soon my boys will b
e off on Missions and College and I'll never get this time back with them. I'm going to cherish every second of it. I'm still their favorite girl so I better take advantage of it!


I'm SO thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all that it teaches me. I dont know what type of Mother I'd be with out it. I'm so looking forward to Conference this weekend. Cant wait!!

Those Salt Lake people

I have lived in Utah county for about 7 years now and I've grown to love the Provo/Orem area. I grew up in West Jordan and could never see myself settling down in Orem or anywhere in Utah county. But here I am and I honestly love it here. It's weird but there are a lot of stereo types put on people from Utah and Salt Lake county and I'm sure the BYU/Utah rivalry doesn't help it. Jr. and I go to Salt Lake county at least twice a week. Jr. for band practice and we go as a family to visit my family just about every Sunday. Almost every time we go there we are cut off on the freeway or people tailgate us and we'll find ourselves saying "Freakin Salt Lake drivers" or once we pass the point of the Mountain and we see the inversion we'll say " it's so smogy in Salt Lake County" the list goes on and on.

It's so silly to think that Utah County drivers are safer drivers or that the weather here is so much better and the air quality, etc. But we cant help to mention it to each other every time we cross the point of the Mountain. This past Saturday Jr. had a show in down town Salt Lake and guess what we see?!? A carriage pull up to the Carl's Jr. drive thru window. We laughed so hard and said to each other "Only in Salt Lake". Go Utah County!