end of year potluck for jojo and kaden

Well...it's the last day of school.

Which means it's the last day of preschool for Jolee and Kaden as well.

Mrs. Neill is the BEST teacher!

She's always preparing fun hands-on activities, yummy snacks and play-doh.  

The last one is nice because Jojo gets her play-doh fix at preschool...hence saving me the hassle of dealing with that particular atrocity at home.  :)

Anyway, today was the last day so it was held at a nearby park.

Jojo with Mrs. Neill.

All of my girls have gone to the Mommy & Me preschool with Mrs. Neill!

Next year, it will be Kaden's turn to actually participate! 

(hopefully...if he can actually sit still long enough to participate, that is)

 First up for the morning was some physical exercise.

Kaden loved these balls.

Unfortunately...he hasn't quite learned the art of holding 3 balls with only 2 hands...

But in the end...he was just happy to be able to run around to his little heart's content in the empty basketball court.

 While Jojo tried to hula hoop...

 And when that didn't quite work out as hoped...enlisted the help of Daddy in spinning the hoop on the ground.

While she chased after it.

This lasted for way longer than I thought it would...

 After play time, it was time for the snacks.

And since it was the last day, we had potluck lunch.

With ice cream.

 Which of course, they loved.

 And chips. 

Which they also loved.

I, on the other hand, went to TOWN on those gyozas (in the bottom right corner?) that another parent made. I made little pigs in a blanket with lil' smokies sausages.  It's in the white plastic bag in the middle.  

Um...and for the record, Mitch is the one that put them in that "oh-so-attractive" container.

Lastly, Jojo came home with her own little flower pot of soil and some seeds.

I didn't quite catch what kind of flower she planted...but if all goes well, we may find out in a few weeks!

Although between you and me...we probably never will.

No green thumb for this Mama, unfortunately...

 

pool day. first of many, i'm sure

The weather has finally started to warm up enough for us to hit the pool!

I usually don't brave the pool all by myself when Mitch isn't here because just watching Kaden is a one man job!!  But, this day was too fine to pass up, so I loaded up the kiddie pool, a few pool noodles and toys and drove the 1/2 block to our community pool with all four kiddos in tow.

 While Kela and Anna swam like little fishies, the younger two simply enjoyed playing with the buckets I brought along.

 Well...to be honest, Kaden kept wanting to scoop out some water all by himself.  

Which I was NOT okay with.

What you can't see in this picture is his other hand which I had a firm grip on, lest he decide to test gravity and tumble head first into the pool.

Jolee-ever the easy girl, was quite content with the kiddie pool.

When he wasn't trying to jump into the pool, he mostly wanted to pour water on the ground,

or, in the pool...

or, into the other bucket.

These two actually play quite nicely together.

And for the most part, played in the kiddie pool with their buckets.

Although I did sense a little "pool envy" on Kaden's part...

 My ham got a hold of Anna's goggles...

Hello Summer!!!

More pool days to follow, I'm sure!

mini sendai reunion!

Yuiko chan, my missionary companion from back in the day! came through Hawaii on her way back home to Japan.  Her husband just finished his MBA at BYU and so, after 2 years of living in Utah, they are headed home.  And lucky for me, they stopped through Hawaii on their way!

She was my final companion in the mission field (Sendai Mission) where we served together for a very short 1 month in Koriyama, Fukushima.

We had SO much fun together, and was truly one of my favorite companions!  :)

 

 I hadn't seen her since the mission field, so that would make it...11 1/2 years?

Yikes, how fast time flies!

And now she has a great husband and 3 super cute kiddos!

I couldn't be happier for her! 

 So, with such a rare occasion, I called up (or, Facebook messaged, to be more exact) a couple other Sendai returned missionaries to have a little get-together over dinner with all of our families.

With 4 families and 15 kids, we bombarded our friend, Josh's large house and had a great dinner reminiscing about the good ol' days back in the mission field. 

Truly a GREAT evening!

 Here's us Sendai RM's.

(Josh, Yuiko, Me, and Brian.)

And here are 2 of Yuiko's kids.

Seriously, how cute are they?

Sure hope they decide to swing through Hawaii again sometime soon!!

san diegoooooo!

My cousin, whom I've actually never met, got married!

When I got the invite, I didn't really even consider going...until my sister put the seed of possibility into my head.  Then, after much deliberation (not to mention contorting of Mitch's work schedule to accommodate it) I decided to fly out with my sister Elika to San Diego for the wedding!

We initially tried to fly directly into San Diego, but due to an Alaska flight that went kaput, they rolled over a ton of passengers from Alaska...bumping us off.  SO, we instead flew into Las Vegas on a red-eye with an impromptu road trip thrown into the mix! 

Here we are....finally off to Vegas!

 See?  Proof we drove along the strip.  Which is pretty much all we saw in Vegas.

 Oh, except for the inside of Hash House a Go Go.

Where I was supposed to meet up with a friend, however I got the restaurant wrong and ended up in a different Hash House than her.  My bad!

Here's me with my NY Times recommended Chicken and Waffles.

It was ginormous!

 Do we look tired?  We were!

And...here's the "after" shot.

Seriously, I ate one waffle and maybe 3 bites of a chicken and took the rest to go.

I think this plate was made to feed 4 people!

 

Ahh...road trip.

This was my very first road trip.  As in, where I actually did the driving!

Can you tell I was nervous!

Plus, running on very little sleep, I was a tad worried about the 5 hour drive to San Diego, but fortunately we made it safe and sound!

 So, needless to say, when we got to San Diego, Elika and I were pooped!

We took a short nap at our hotel before picking up our Dad to do some sight seeing.

We happened upon Old Town San Diego...on the busiest weekend in the history of the area!

Yup, Cinco de Mayo weekend in Old Town= huge festivites & NO parking!

But we managed to squeeze into a spot (which turned out to NOT be a parking spot...you'll see the results of THAT fiasco later) and strolled around this little historic park.

 Where we bought ourselves a pretty authentic taco.

(Sombrero not included.)

Our taco. Which was pretty yummy!

 This cute little touristy town had a ton of fun shops like they did back in the day...with people dressed in costumes from that day, to boot!

We bought some yummy chocolate from this little shop.  :)

 And got ourselves some yummy root beer float from this shop. 

And then got back to our rental car to find this.

Yup, apparently our "parking spot" wasn't an official parking stall after all.

Grr....perfect ending to a LONG day.

 Oh, but this almost made up for it.

Yelp'd a yummy sushi place near by to console our tired souls.

 The next morning was the wedding day.

This was my very first time visiting the San Diego temple...and it was BEAUTIFUL!

 It was especially nice being able to spend some time with my Dad as well.

This was my very first trip without any kids...so to be able to relax and spend this time with my sister and Dad was so great!

I love this temple!

 Me in front of the temple...or, I guess more to the side of the temple.

Ah, and the wedding couple.

Weird to say, but this was my very first time meeting my cousin Kei!

 Here we are with my Auntie Midori and Dad.

Haven't seen my Auntie in years!

And it was so great to meet our cousin Kei!

She was a beautiful bride and looked so happy!

I love weddings!

 After the wedding, we had a little while before we had to go to the wedding luncheon and then reception, so I had to sneak in some fish tacos.

These weren't at any fancy place, but some chain restaurant in La Jolla...but they were still super yummy!

OH, and lucky duckies that we were...we stepped outside to discover a Sprinkle's Cupcakes (From Food Network's Cupcake Wars) right next door!!

Had myself a chocolate marshmallow cupcake from there.

The Verdict:  It was aaalright.  Nothing to toot any horns over, but I suppose the novelty of eating one of their cupcakes was worth it!

 So, after resting a bit, we drove out to the reception site.

A cute little barn in the country.

See the plates of sushi?

Elika and I cut them all up!

My plate of food.  I pretty much snacked the entire time, thank you very much.

 The wedding cake.  Purple was her theme color.

 The welcome table.

It was a really cute and simple reception...just like Kei and her new husband, I'm sure.

 So, after a whirlwind of a weekend, we are headed back home.

Here we are at San Diego airport...where there must be quite a lot of old folks because they have rocking chairs in the waiting room!

How fun is that?!

 Yea, we kinda got a kick out of it.

It was a super short but jam-packed trip for Elika and I.

And by the end of the 3 days, we were ready to go back home to our families and our own beds.  

I know I missed my kids...and I don't doubt that Mitch was anxious to release the parental reins back to me.  

Elika and I kept saying how after 3 days away from the kids and work (not for me since I don't work) and etc., we felt rejuvenated and ready to get back into the swing of things.

Which happened much earlier for me since we got home on Sunday and as soon as we landed I had to gather the kids together and head to church for 3 hours...but all-in-all, it was a great trip and I'm so glad I was able to go!

Thanks Mitch (and Dean) for watching the kids and letting us get away for a couple of days!!

To check out all the pictures I took from our trip, click HERE!