Hawaii Pearl Harbor

Hawaii Trip

We are in Oahu, Hawaii with our friends the Keller's. You may remember Carla from my wedding pics, she was one of my brides maids. Her husband John is in the army, stationed here in Hawaii for the next 2ish yrs. We decided to take advantage of free room and board and Army discounts on activities. WOW what a difference. We are able to do sooo much. We have already been to 2 beaches. Day 1 was Waikiki, in Honolulu and the other is Bellows, an Air Force beach where we cooked out. Beautiful soft sand and beach surrounded by mtns. Day 2 we went to Pearl Harbor (we are heading back again today to see what we couldn't) and then we took an Atlantis Submarine 120 ft under the ocean about a mile off shore to see wreckage under water. There was an airplane and a ship with tons of different fish. No sharks though. Poor Mikayl kept wacking her head on the glass portal. Actually we all did it a few times, but Mikayl did it the most. Today we are heading back to Pearl Harbor, going snorkelling, and hiking up a mtn called Diamond Head. I already told Carla I will come back for another visit during John's really long trip away form home next year. OK, I will add more pics tonight.

Hawaii Day 1

Jones Wedding Pics

Fall Family Pics

Stevenson Wedding

Game Night

My Man's New Gig

Jefferson has been so excited as he's been asked to join a little church band that meets Thursday & Friday nights for a Celbrate Recovery bible study that celebrates recovery form addictions. It's been great for Jefferson to broaden his love of singing and venture into a love of playing guitar. He plays everyday now and has been improving so quickly. It's been a really fun new hobby for him.

Pumpkin Carving

Meet Oreo!

Meet OREO!

So, I was driving to work on Saturday in Sandy and saw a sign on the lawn for "Yorkie Shih tzu puppies". I quickly turned my car around and thought "can't hurt to look!" After months of talking about getting a dog, especially because Mikayl just adores dogs and Jefferson is like a dog whisperer, we decided not to get a one until we had a back yard with a fence and grass. Mikayl mentioned it again just last week even and I told her the same thing. Well, when I saw the 3 little black balls of fur, I fell in love and could not resist calling Jefferson and sending him pics over the phone. Then all of these families showed up with little kids wanting to just see them and hold them, but not buy them. I continued to hold one puppy and after Jefferson gave me a little hard time on the phone (apparently it was fake because he knew he was going to say yes) he said to get him. The 2 other puppies were bought within that 45 min time also! I took the puppy up the street to meet Jefferson on his route and he was like a proud papa. Baby talk started immediately and he was in love too.

The only hangup was that I knew Mikayl wouldn'[t get to meet him until Wed after school and that was just killing me! I wanted to run over and show her the puppy but we decided it would be better to train him a little at home first and make it a big surprise. We love surprising her! We also decided to wait and let her name him so for 5 days he was puppy, pupster, little big dog (he thinks he's huge!), little briches, and squirt.

Yesterday, Jefferson picked Mikayl up form school, told her to go upstairs and make her bed first thing before doing anything else. Meanwhile, I hid the puppy under her covers and hid in the room across the hall with the video camera. As they entered her room I brought the video camera to the doorway behind them and she said "what's under my covers?" She saw him and squealed "it's a puppy!!" Oh it was worth the wait! She decided first thing to name him OREO and I laughed because that was one of the first names I thought of too.

To be honest, I needed someone home with me during the day to love and care for. And since we haven't gotten pregnant yet and haven't saved up for adoption yet, this puppy is filling a void and I love every minute. It's been really fun for me, which is funny for those that know me well because I've NEVER been a dog lover. Oreo just melts my heart!