Wednesday, March 15, 2023

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!!

Friday, March 10, 2023

Daddy daughter date




Name tag said Pratt not platt
 I got a rose 

Daughter I love you— you’re the best thing that ever happened to me…. Don’t tell your mothers 

6) we started eating and what they had was salad  rice chicken and more rice and more rice and some chicken and some beef and mashed potatoes after eating the dance floor was open. Dad talked to people and then we started dancing 

Dad did some poop de poop fliers he skinner me and I flew up in the air 

So after that we kept on dancing of and they didn’t even serve us dessert dad had to keep drinking water. I had to go to the bathroom but I didn’t want to be rude so I held it in. When we got home I had to go like four times!!

So we left and we talked about getting ice cream but we didn’t want to make mom sad… but we could have. We ate popsicles at home :) 

I was so glad I got to have a date with my dad !!

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Friday, March 3, 2023

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Monday, January 2, 2023

New Zealand Play by Play

 New Zealand 2022

Monday- jet lag arrive and drive to rotorua pizza dinner at the house evening lantern walk at the redwoods


Tuesday - rained out zip line everything soaking wet! Chill back at the house rained all day. Dinner at house of spice Indian - walk Kuirau park. Cannon croc falls into hot thermal lake Gwen wants to sleep and is grumpy


Wednesday- hobbit on movie set tour. Pond farm and hillside climb. Skyline luge … let’s do it again! Cannon croc kicked off track. Cannon croc falls off while riding down


Thursday- yummy fresh bakery waitomo spellbound glow worm caves private tour- veronica (late and missed her tour) joins us and our tour - feeding eels in the river bush walk picnic rain otorohanga kiwi house hail storm Chinese takeout for dinner 


Friday- 3 hr zip line and okere falls walk (Brielle cannon Gwen Chad horseback riding) souvenir shopping kerosene creek (everything smells like sulfur for days) pizza for dinner 


Xmas eve Saturday redwoods mountain bike trails. Gwen and Isabelle want to quit after 30 minutes. Ben says he will bring them and they Try to get back to the beginning but can’t. After an hour, they Finally make it back to the starting place and me Ben and cannon go for a little ride. Cannon does great! Drove to mount manganui Waterfall hike and swim. Very strong current the boys make it to the rope and climb next to the waterfall. Grocery shopping ($200 for 2 days) beach at sunset Christmas Eve pass the parcel New Zealand  children’s story, whirligig candle and Luke 2


Sunday Christmas morning stockings and yummy coffee cake for breakfast. Eat candy all morning, listen to piano guys on YouTube get ready for church at 12 nobody there.  Talk to elder platt go to the beach. Steak and potatoes dinner hike to the top of mount mainganui. Brielle broke Eva’s sand dollar :(  we thought cannon did it and so we played truth or dare to get him to tell us the truth. Brielle was so scared when she broke the sand dollar she dropped it and ran away. We all had to clean it up. She confessed in the car ride and cried. Across Eva would be so mad- but she wasn’t. 


Monday potatoes steak eggs breakfast clean up house beach parking full so Ben drops us off- Brielle cannon and Connor do trampoline - we rent scooter- play at fun beach ocean for 1 hour pb jelly at the park drive to Auckland for flight to queens town — hustle worried about making the flight.. plenty of rain and wait. Fly all the way to queen town (1.45 hr) and try to land twice. Pilot decides to fly all the way back to Auckland — what a crazy turn for our trip. Stranded and rebooked flight for Wednesday. Late booking for Airbnb take 3 Uber - everyone so hungry we walk to gas station and get donuts, milk and some weird fried meat Pattie’s through a tray box. 


Tuesday Auckland Museum walk downtown arcade games food court at the mall and avatar movie


Wednesday early flight from Auckland to Queenstown jet boat river crazy spin driver “I wanna go home” freaked out when it started. All over “I wanna go again”-cannon

Bungee jump for sam Isabelle Chad picnic at the bay walk downtown swimming and shopping - fish and chips. Walk back to the parked cars. 


Thursday pack up for overnight fjord boat cruise drive 2 hr to ferry.. bus ride 45 minutes then get on overnight boat - weather then Windy and raining seals and waterfalls. Kayak and boat rain and really wet. Dinner is delicious and small portion dessert- lemon sponge cake or chocolate tart- yum 😋 


Friday sunshine in the fjord cruise bus ferry car ride and cannon puke… eat and hang out- turn in rental car too early for flight back to Auckland 


Saturday goodbye Bangerter’s 😢 drove to skeens house and bakery lunch pies chicken kebab and treats strawberries picking visitors center. Melted chocolate and gorge on strawberries. Fish n chips for dinner playing and fun. Kiwi Hotel and watch castaway. Cannon enthralled 


Sunday check out of hotel breakfast and candy chocolate milk from grocery store airport line over an hour- security and airport lounge for food and drinks. 3 hr to Fiji — airport Lounge food and drinks. 7 hours to Honolulu arrive at 3:30 am January 1st - home and in bed at 4.