blueberries

i love blueberries, and i love this time of year, they are plentiful and cheap, i buy them up at costco and freeze them. now i eat them on my cereal and in the winter i put the frozen ones in my oatmeal and we have to have them to make our acai bowls! it's a yummy snack too. they are healthy and full of antioxidants!

there is this show called dr. G she does autopsies and is very well know for forensics. she was on rachel ray and said something funny that i always think of when i eat blueberries. she was talking about how people die and said you have to have common sense, "you can eat as many blueberries as you want but if you don't look both ways before you cross the street it's not going to make much difference" ! so eat your blueberries and for sure look both ways before crossing the street!

on another note, i LOVE my car, it is so perfect, it drives great it is a good size and i haven't put gas in it yet and it has had 2 trips to north shore-yipee!

also i haven't been blogging as much, 2 reasons, my camera is hopefully being repaired, i sent it off to nikon and HOPE they can fix it, kiley is going to idaho for her best friend's wedding tommorow and will be taking her camera with her and i hate blogging without pictures. second i have been trying to not be on the computer as much. tommorow i start a month long sub job and will be working as an EA in the resource room on T, W, TH all day so i won't be as bored sitting on the computer reading 30 blogs a day, i will read all of yours though! i saw this funny thing on someone's blog

Turns out that if you spend all day every day

blogging &
facebooking &
spamming &
tweeting &
just generally e-preening,

when people ask you what you do you just say your "in social media"

goodbye old friend, hello sexy!

it was time. the trailblazer's days came to an end for us. i was driving an 8 passenger, gas guzzling SUV all by myself. it needed new tires, the air conditioning wasn't working and matt didn't want to start putting money into it. so we researched and found the best midsize car to buy was the honda CRV. we have never had a honda before but they are good cars. i am excited to have a new car but i am also kind of sad to see the trailblazer go. i carted the kids and their friends around in it and many young women . loaded it to the brim for multiple ward camps and girls camps and used it to haul a lot of stuff. it served its purpose for us for 5 years and was a great car. i will miss it.

but on to the cuter, smaller, easier to park, better gas mileage, drives awesome CRV
i have always wanted a sporty black car, when we bought it we only had a choice between black and dark red and i didn't want the red so i took the black and it is so pretty but it is going to be a daily battle to keep it looking like that! matt even moved his truck out of the one covered spot we have for the little cutie that means it's really special :) i am just so nervous now, the trailblazer was pretty indestructable and a tank, i don't want anyone to take it anywhere!

my heart is with you

when i was posting about education week i could not find this picture, it is not the best picture because of my lovely disposable camera but it is a reminder to me anyway.

i love yasmin she is an amazing woman. she lost her husband one year ago and is going through some family struggles all while getting her masters degree so she can work as a social worker and deal with other people's problems but that is just yasmin. she will always be there for you.

we didn't have enough time to really talk with the farewell stuff going on but i just want her to know that i always have a prayer in my heart for you. i know you are blessed and i know you have trials and i know you are weary but if anyone can make it through it is you.

i love you. thank you for rescuing us and loving us.

me, yasmin and nikki in ephraim, utah at yasmin's house. 8-09

education week

i just got back from education week in Utah at BYU-provo. it is the greatest experience, there was only 1 problem, i was visiting my sister in law kelly and when i was packing up to leave i dropped my camera and it broke, i was sad, really sad. i live with my camera especially on trips. but there wasn't anything i could do so i bought a disposable camera thinking how bad can it be, well i am very grateful for the technology we have now, it is awesome. anyway i have a few that are not great but hopefully i can get some from someone else but for now...

our friend holly smith that used to live in hawaii and now lives in utah, picked us up from the airport, we went to ihop for brunch and then i went to my sister in law kelly's house. i got to see my great neice, bekah's baby skyler. she is the cutest, smartest baby i know. i got to read her books over and over again, i wish we could be closer to the 2 niece babies, the other one harper was in california, i missed her but it was good to see everyone.

kelly took me to meet nikki and holly at snowbird. it is a lovely ski resort in alta. nikki and i decided to be brave and ride the zip line, it was really fun and i want to do it again. we spent the night there and woke up to 39 degrees, snow on the mountain and hail. utah is funny!

this was outside our window, you can see the snow on the right side of the mountain from the night before. besides not getting to sit in the hot tub from the storm it was a great time!!

then it was off to meet kelly bastian from florida, we picked her up and went to eat at cafe rio the best food ever and the best company anyone could ask for!

IF someone is reading this i am not done, BRB -Ok so funny!! i was doing this and i hate putting things in drafts so i just posted it and thought i would finish it thinking no one would really read it yet but i woke up to 7 comments, hope you come back and finish! asher halstrom (our friends son for those of you who don't know) fell and hit his lower chin on the bathtub, they brought him over to have matt look at it, matt didn't think it was bad so steri stripped it and put a good bandage over it to sit for 24 hrs to close up. i hope it works, matt is not an ER doc or a plastic surgeon:) so i got sidetracked and didn't finish last night.

on sunday we went to our friend yasmin's house! i miss yasmin living here and seeing her all the time! their good friend's son who also used to live here was having his farewell, eric ross is now at the MTC heading to Peru. on sat. night they prepared large amounts of pork to make kalua pork and sunday morning we shredded it all, gotta have a tradtional hawaiian lunch for everyone coming over. actually there are a LOT of people from hawaii that live in utah and tons of people came for the farewell. nikki asked the bishop if we could sing aloha 'oe so at the end of church all the hawaii people went up and sang to eric ross, it was really special. i just want to thank yasmin for being such a great friend, she drove to kingdom come for us and we love her!

then it was off to ed week with my special friends!

ed week is a week long conference i guess you could call it there are 1000 classes offered and you just choose the ones you want to go to throughout the day. i went to classes on nutrition, the scriptures, being an instrument in the hands of the Lord, supporting your husband, memory, the commandments etc. i even went to a blogging class, but i was offering information in that one! there is everything including gardening, law, money etc. you are on a spiritual high and then you come back to reality:) but it is a great experience and so fun to be able to spend time with my friends i never get to see.

holly, kelly and nikki
we asked some nice girls to take our pictures, poor things, we had 4 cameras and kept changing spots because the sun was too bright . holly had to leave us on thurs. for her cute kids to start school.


beautiful BYU campus, the"Y" at the end of the sidewalk and up. i would not want to do school there in the winter but the summers are awesome.

i have said before that i read a lot of blogs and nieniedialogues is one of them, she was burned in a plane crash and it was just the one year anniversary of the crash so she decided to hike to the "Y" i didn't find this out until i got home, i am so sad i did not do this with her, anyone was invited and the news was there, she is such an inspiration, maybe another year!
i miss my sisters already, there are a few more friends we want to get out there someday, we are not planning on next year but the year after for sure!

holly thanks for driving us all over and for taking me to get my hair cut, we love ya!

i know this is really long and i hate reading really long posts but this is my journal for now and i have to get it all down.

i learned a lot this past week and i really pray that i can implement the things i learned, i think the biggest one for me is to prepare my son for his mission and i learned some things i didn't know and am going to try to do them. i am really grateful to matt for always supporting me to do this and for the wonderful opportunity to spend time with other members and be uplifted and edified.

Notes

Eunice shriver died. i know she was really old but she was an amazing woman. she started the special olympics which is an unbelievably worthy event and she was an advocate for disabled persons. i love maria shriver, she has written several cute books that i have read and she is ever devoted to her beloved mother. it must have been amazing to be a kennedy but she didn't treat her children as priveliged, she married a sargeant so that had to help with the work factor for her children. she was a cool woman in my book and my heart goes out to maria today.

hurricane felicia- luckily it has been downgraded several times from hurricane to tropical storm and then to tropical depression. we tried to be ready for whatever came which now should only be lots of rain and wind but we are still waiting. they say it is coming so we wait but it shouldn't be too bad.

i am leaving tommorow for utah with my friend nikki and meeting our friend holly and kelly there! i am so excited , we try to meet in utah for education week at BYU as often as we can, i think this is the 4th year. it is so much fun. you can bet i will be blogging when i return but i am taking a break because i am not going to have much internet access and i feel like i need to just leave the computer behind, it is kind of like adult girls camp, leave the world behind! so i will miss you all but hope to find fun blog posts to read when i get back! if anyone sees my family just make sure they are eating something other than fast food and walking my baxy!

P.S. it is wed. and it is finally raining in mililani, not hard, not a lot! i guess the storm fizzled out which is great but we did need a "little" rain. happy to miss the first hurricane but it is good to get prepared which we are not we went through our 72 hr. kits and had to throw it all away, time to start over!

i am not the only one with an obsession!

caleb also has a problem-SHOES! he is obsessed with tennis shoes. for his birthday, christmas or just because he asks for shoes! it can only be nike's or vans if they are cool enough. he worked hard all summer and really hadn't spent any money so off he went to purchase a cool pair of new nike's that are supposedly {special} and no one else will have. last night he said do you want to blog about my shoes- sure when it benefits them they want me to talk about them! the cute thing was that ki and cabe got into taking pictures of the shoes and were being silly, i LOVE when they are silly together. it is really nice having both of them home right now, it will end shortly and caleb will be an only child again which i am pretty sure he thinks is torture!

shoes in order of purchase!
kiley is down there at the other end. these shoes are not kept on the front step with all the other shoes as it goes in hawaii, these are kept in caleb's room or when he wants to drive me crazy lined up inside at the front door! i guess there are worse obsessions!

Ties that bind

We have 2 guys in our ward that were getting ready to leave on missions, kaleo and aaron. matt had them in young men's when he was young men's president. they told matt that they thought that they wanted to start a new tradition that you get to pick one of your young men's presidents ties that you take with you on your mission. matt would do anything for these boys and told them they could pick which ones they wanted. Kaleo left 2 weeks ago for ghana, africa and picked this tie,

today aaron had his missionary farewell, matt had left for me the tie that aaron had chosen and said to be sure i took it to church today. i know matt wishes he could have been there today but hopefully both of these boys will wear these ties and remember the love that matt has for them. they are wonderful examples and i know will be GREAT missionaries!

belated b-day

my friends threw me a little belated birthday lunch along with my friend keli who's birthday is the same day as mine, it was so fun. we went to my friend dawn's house and everyone brought something, i could eat almost everything. dawn is so good to me, she always tries to make things i can eat. she made a yummy quinoa salad and hummus with veggies i am still thinking about it:) she also made me a gluten free cake which is so good, i really appreciate her always thinking about me when she really doesn't have to worry about what i can eat. i really appreciate all my friends coming and celebrating with me and keli.

hanging out eating with all the non school kids
my boyfriend noah came, i love you noah!
marj got us a cake, even though i couldn't eat it it was so sweet and cute!
my good friends!! even sondra took off of work to come, we never get to do fun stuff during the day with her!

sonya, marj, dawn, juli, amalie, sondra, keli, me and joy. thanks guys!

toe update

when kiley was in spain her toe started hurting her really bad, they were walking hours and hours each day. as soon as she got home we took her to the dr. and after x-rays etc. they said she had a sesmoid, i don't really know what that is but i guess it is a problem with a bone in your toe that is like your knee cap on your knee so it is very hard to fix they have tried a few things but nothing worked. she went to seattle and worked at costco and rode the bus and had to walk everywhere again and it just kept killing her so we tried a new dr. he was an idiot so matt was talking to a guy at work and he offered to see her. matt kept telling me he was a little crazy but a good guy and surgeon. we went to see him yesterday and he was a little crazy, just hyper, but we liked him, he really talked to ki and told her what her options are. surgery is the last option and we are thinking after talking to him that we really don't want to do surgery it is pretty grueling. for now he is going to do an MRI and then do a steroid injection into the toe. he said it is pretty painful but she is pretty tough! hopefully it will help a lot so she can go back to school and walk around ok. i'll continue to update...

what to expect

kiley and i have been spending a lot of time in dr.'s offices lately therefore reading magazines. i just had a birthday and turned well, the one before 40! so today reading a magazine in the dr.'s office i turned to this page, what to expect, the 39th year(like the what to expect baby books) i thought it was quite funny! click on it the picture to enlarge it and read it:) i think i am mostly on track except for the conversation on federal spending?! and i am a little past the diaper changing stage but i can do it in less than 2 min.!

oh yeah i ripped it out secretly and brought it home to blog about! am i sick??!!

started my day off with a BANG!

i was sleeping in my bed at 5 a.m. matt is out of town so baxter was in bed with me. he starts barking like crazy and i made him go under the covers to be quiet, about 3 seconds later i heard an undescribable bang, and then an orange flash filled our house. i thought someone crashed into our house, i went running out of my room and could see when ki was coming out of her room that there was a fire outside, my neighbors mustang was on fire. i told ki to dial 911 but ended up grabbing the phone from my room and calling. then we all ran outside with the rest of the neighbors, everyone was getting hoses and fire extinguishers and trying to 1. put out the fire, 2 keep their house from catching on fire since our townhouses are connected. it was really scary the windows started blowing out then the tires so there was just all this loud popping, it seemed like forevere until the fire trucks came, i should have gotten my camera then but it was just too intense to even think about it! so while we were all waiting we start realizing a few things, there is a gas tank in front of the car, ki saw kids standing in front of the car when it was on fire. the kids who live there were no where to be found. it is just 2 boys, 18 and 15, their dad is in iraq and they are there alone. a lot of sketchy things have gone on lately and i think they are in a war with someone, their other car has been egged etc. finally one of the boys comes from behind the house completely dressed with shoes, hat etc. it was 5 a.m. what were they doing??!! well the fire got put out but then the investigation began, there were shoes, a hat and a jacket that were left on the ground, i don't know if someone caught fire or what and then the gas tank so to everyone's best guess someone poured gas on the dad's mustang and lit it on fire! for the next 5 hours the police were here, detectives came and the chief of police. i don't know what is going to happen but i just don't think you can leave you can leave 2 teenagers to their own vices, things happen!

this is after when the police roped off our circle
this is the mustang obviously but our neighbors love that blue mitsubishi, they have put a lot of money into it and it got burned too. look at the gutter, there were very high flames and a ton of smoke and water did not help only the fire extinguishers so i am getting one and learning how to use it!
GOOD MORNING NEIGHBORS!

blogging obsession

hi my name is kelly and i am a blogaholic! it was fun when i would sit forever and read all my friends blogs and maybe peek at their friends blogs but this whole blogging world has gone crazy!! now i can sit for a day and read blogs until my eyes can't make out the words on the screen! i am still taking baxter for a walk , speaking to my children, eating and sometimes making dinner so i guess i am taking care of my "responsibilities" but it sure is fun to be immersed in blogs! i don't know how to make things link when you type them so if you are interested you can go look up a few of my favorites:

themeanestmom.blogspot.com

sensiblystyled.com

thepioneerwoman.com

mormonmommyblogs.blogspot.com

everythingispink.blogspot.com

nieniedialouges.blogspot.com

makeandtakes.com

lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com

younghouselove.com

and more...

some of them i have found from your blogs, some of them my sister tells me about the rest you find off of their blogs! there was even a blog convention in chicago and i was sad i missed it. i am going to education week and there is a class on blogging! it's CRAZINESS i tell you!

happy blogging!

this week

this has been a kind of busy week and i haven't blogged much. so a little of what went on this week...

matt has been waiting forever to get his triathalon bike. he made an appt. with the store for his fitting on wed. the day came and matt was really quiet, i asked him why he wasn't so excited to finally get his bike, this bike is expensive and it was a lot of money even for matt and i think he was feeling a little aprehensive and guilty. he deserves it! this is his life long goal to complete an ironman and you need the right bike for a 125 mile bike ride! he actually dropped me off at whole foods, i am supportive of him doing this but i still didn't want to be involved in spending that much money, it makes me a little sick:) don't even ask how much it was, we are not discussing it!

it scares me to death, the seat is so high and he has clip shoes so if you fall quickly you are road rashed!
looking good!
ready to go on a ride! the training has started!

matt received a gift of an assagio's gift certificate for 100$, more than we would spend at a restaurant but it was really nice to go on a real date and splurge. we ate very well and kind of did an early b-day dinner since it was just a good night. caprese salad, filet mingon and chocolate covered ice cream was pretty tasty!

on thurs. i got to watch my baby noah, i was kicking myself for not taking any pictures but it was so fun to play with him!

ki came home on thurs. we are happy to have her home. she got to see her jeep for the first time, she was not quite sure about it but she will take anything for school. so then next was teaching her to drive it. caleb does not know how to drive a stick either and needs to know how to drive the jeep so i took them both out to teach them.

caleb learned, ki did not. i know she can get it! caleb loves it now and has driven the jeep ever since, she may have lost her chance with it?!

sat. was my birthday so on fri. my good friend dawn took me to lunch with kiley and her girls, it was so fun, i really appreciate her! she also made me a cool bag that i love!

on sat. for my birthday, kiley and i made a gluten free, chocolate, chocolate cake and then we went to ala moana and went shopping and had bbq ribs for lunch and then rented a movie, pretty low key but i am getting pretty old and birthdays just aren't what they used to be. the highlight though was that caleb got me a card and flowers, that is a big deal and made me so happy. ki gave me a little book that you fill out about yourself, it is very cute.

i told matt i just want to shop in utah next week when i go! that is my best present!

then i got to watch my friend juli's 6 month old baby heidi, she is so sweet! i had a little fun taking pictures of her many faces, sorry juli i am stealing her for my blog!

on sunday we had a bbq at the mozo's house, my birthday and lola's is on the same day so we celebrated together! what a week!
i am happy to have both kids home for a little while. school starts for caleb tommorow so i guess it's back to bedtimes and cooking real dinners -UUGGHH! this summer went by way too fast!

on a sad note matt's uncle suddenly died, he is leaving for utah on tues. to go spend some time with his family and then he is on to san diego. our prayers are with their family, his wife and his 16 yr. old son.

matt and i cross trips so i won't see him for 20 days:(