Pinewood derby

 

One year

September 5th marked one year since cael started his missionary service. He seems to be doing really good in Cambodia- having lots of adventures, struggles, and figuring out what it means to love and serve 

Brecon worked really hard and passed his road test to earn his drivers license. It is so nice that he is able to drive himself to early morning seminary and home from school! I know I am glad I don’t have to be his mom- Uber 

It sure is nice to see so many rainbows — even when it rains when we want to play pickle ball.

Connor got a new haircut to commemorate Caels 1 year missionary mark. Some people could not even recognize him! He does look different— in a good way!

Brecon Gabe and Noah at the ward Labor Day lunch party 

We even had a dunk tank and Brielle didn’t mind jumping in the water with her clothes on! I think everyone had a great time!

Working on the pinewood derby cars - the big races are next Saturday . I hope everyone has fun!

We are sure proud of Elder Platt- he has really grown a lot since he’s been away— we sure miss him but we know he is doing well and working hard at being a good missionary- also doing silly things that make us laugh- he marches to the beat of his own drum 😂😂

Mermaid cave

We had such a fun day at the beach. The kids did not have school and so we made plans to go to one of our favorite places and show some friends the mermaid cave. We got there about 9 o’clock in the morning and some more friends came after we went and explored the tide pools and jumping off into the ocean we just went and played at the beach. Most of the friends left around lunchtime. They had other things to do but we decided to just stay until we ran out of snacks or water Which ended up being until 5 o’clock! A full beach day!

Some of our new friends are hosting  high school exchange students from Germany and Spain, and they seemed to have a fun time soaking in the Hawaiian son and enjoying the Ocean as well. A few games of Uno and scum… we finally convinced them to come under the shade after Brecons shoulders started looking bright red. He needs to remember his heritage— does not do well in sunshine 😂

Cannon started to have fun, jumping off and doing some cool twists off of the ledge

Brielle and Connor are not afraid to go through the cave. Sometimes he bumped into the coral rocks and come out with some scrapes on your knees and they did pretty good

When Cannon was little, he used to call these hot tubs. They’re just fun to get in and the tide is low.

Such a pretty spot so glad that we got out and enjoyed some sunshine today!

 

First Day of school

Summer just flew by and before you know it the kids are heading off to school. Brecon at Leilehua High School for 10th grade Connor eighth grade a Wheeler middle school Brielle six grade at Wheeler middle school and Cannon third grade at Daniel K Inouye elementary.

I am sure it is going to be a great year of learning for these kids. We are excited for them all.

 

 

Last week of SUMMER

Monday 

School supply shopping 

Bowling for lunch 

6:00 evening Soccer with family/friends 

Tuesday

Leave at 8:00 am

Paddle board Mokulii island

6:00-7:00 pickle ball 

Wednesday 

6:00 am leave for Koko crater stairs bring flashlight for the “cave”

Shave ice at Ululani’s— so good!!

11:00 Dave and Busters 

2:50 Connor Ortho

6:00 Game night with friends 

Thursday 

8-11 Connor at wheeler

6:00-7:00 Pickle ball 

Friday

8-1 meet and greet teacher middle school Connor Brielle 

1-2 meet and greet teacher Cannon 

7:00- Game night at our house with the Wynns and Maygren’s 

Saturday 

Early Waimea Bay for gabe birthday 

 It was a super fun last week of summer. I think the kids felt like we played hard enough and so they were ready to go back to school by the end of the week with all the beach time and hikes and fun we felt like we had a really made our time count, and part of that was actually planning what we were going to do :) weird that actually works 😂😂

High adventure

 

The first week in June, the young men from Wahiawa 1st Ward went on a hike to Haleakala national Park on Maui, Ben, Brecon, and Connor went. The top of Haleakala is almost 10,000 feet. They started at the top and hiked down into the crater. The first night they camped on the west side of the crater and had to deal with sleeping in the clouds. They started the hike above the clouds and hiked down into them.  The second night they hiked to the east side of the crater. And then the third day they hiked out of the crater and down to the ocean where they slept on the lawn of a local church. The boys all had a great time and no one got seriously hurt. 

Spring break ‘23

 So last week we had spring break and our family went camping in an area called Bellows. It’s a military  accessible beach and there are some different places you can camp (and even cabins/hotel rooms) and the bathrooms have warm showers. There’s even a little like convenience store that you can buy slushy‘s and drinks and snacks and things so it’s pretty fun. So the young man and the young women in our ward camped out there for a couple of nights as well and since Brecon, Connor and brother Platt are in young men’s I didn’t wanna just stay home. I wanted to go have some fun too. The young men went on a pretty big hike about a seven or 8 mile hike round-trip to get to a really fun swimming hole waterfall and on this day it was so beautiful. Sadly, I’m worried about some of the young men leaders that started to cramp up or hurt their legs on that hike and brother platt was the one that stayed with the whole group that completed the entire hike and he was fine until when they got back to camp he standing up from a bathroom break and his knee just popped and started hurting really bad that’s what happens when you get old!! He was limping the rest of the week 😳 and I felt so bad!!

Anyways… back to the beach—It was so beautiful the water over there just the prettiest blue blue green. and normally it’s quite windy and there’s some waves that you can catch and kind of boogie board up to the shore but this time that we were there I’ve never seen the water so flat, and the wind was hardly blowing at all. But bad news— and you guessed it rookie mistake on the first day. I thought I was putting enough sunscreen on my children but it turns out you could never put on enough sunscreen when the kids are playing in the water and playing in the sand so Cannon was burned so bad all over his body, front back and face especially. Brielle will wear a long sleeve swim shirt, so she was mostly protected, but her face looked quite red at the end of the day. And that was just Wednesday and we were going to stay till Saturday so the kids stayed in the shade for the rest of the week or we just kind of played around, but it was good to just change things up and get away from the house easy Wi-Fi, internet and electronics. But one thing I almost messed up was my Duolingo streak but thankfully I had a couple of freezes to save me. 😂😂
So all the youth left on Thursday and our family was sitting there at the beach and in that moment like we were already to leave but there were some families that were coming out to go camping with us and so we felt obligated to stay and so we stayed and I’m really glad we did because it was just nice and chill and have fun and the kids had a great time playing in the water But it was also very tempting for us to go home and sleep in our nice comfortable beds. And plus Ben’s knee hurt and Brecon and Connor were sad because all their friends left. Oh well.

But school is going good and so are the kids.  I am trying to figure out how to be a good primary president but it is tough when we don’t have enough teachers or we’re scrambling to find somebody to teach a class on Sunday and we have 830 church so there’s not a lot of time for people to get a warning and prepare! I know I’ve mentioned that before but it’s just some thing that I’m constantly thinking about how to improve how things work in primary and also encourage people to spend 20 minutes to teach a cute little primary class. I don’t know why more people aren’t volunteering … weird?

But today there was a family that I’ve just been thinking about ever since I got called into primary and they were there today! I had sent the mom a text with a picture of our family and a little introduction and so when I met her today it was so nice— They have 4 kids and I was so happy to see them at church! 

Brecon and Connor went to a tri-stake youth dance on Friday night and they said it was super fun. They had a kind of photo booth and so you could get pictures printed off with three different poses and I was super jealous. Ive always wanted a Photo Booth at functions like that! Connor came home with two pictures and Brecon took six with friends. It looked like a lot of fun! They also had some oversize games like connect four and Jenga and I guess Connor was that connect 4 champion at the dance. Brecon didn’t tell me this, but one of the friends said that a girl from the another stake asked for Brecon’s number…. He is a handsome blonde haole (white boy) 😉😉😆

We’re heading into our last quarter of school and soon summer will be here. We’re excited about couple of campouts that we’re doing and FSY for Brecon and Connor they’re going to get to go up to BYUH for a week!! Lucky ducks!! Our young men are also going to fly over to Maui and do a 20 mile hike out from the tallest mountain there called Haleakala. That should be a fun memory for them all. I just hope the adult leaders can make it… I’m worried about Ben… hopefully his knee feels better (he did get an x-ray and will probably get an MRI on it to see if there’s any serious damage going on in there) I’m hoping he gets better soon!!