When life gives you Big Lemons,...

Make Lemonade!

I have never seen such big lemons before! We went to a friend's wedding and Melia picked up four of these off of the ground! We were able to make an entire gallon of lemonade for each lemon. Ahhhh, Hawaii.

Attack of the Cane Spider

It was 10 a.m. on Monday Morning. We had laundry going and dishes in the dishwasher, and Melia, Sophie, and I were having ourselves a great time on my bed, talking and laughing. Suddenly we heard a small, strange sound, like the tinking of metal somewhere in the room. It was such an odd sound. I didn't think I'd heard it before. I looked around, but couldn't figure out where the noise had come from. I heard one of the girls say there was a spider. Right there.
The girls were moving away from me. I looked down by my side on the bed.

There it was. The huge, ugly, fist-sized spider. 
It had dropped down from the overhead fan!  The clinking of metal we heard was the spider losing its grip on the chains hanging down right above us! And it landed right in the middle of us, just an inch or two away!

In an instant, we were all up and staring at the thing. The harmless, ugly, unexpected guest. Yuk! I still felt brave and tried throwing a bowl on top of it trap it.  But it bolted!

I screamed.  Load and high, just like the movies. The girls jumped back and clung to my legs.

After a few seconds of staring at my bed, I decided to see where it went. I saw it hiding on the backside of my headboard.

After I took its picture, it escaped.

We looked all over my room, but never saw where it went. I hope it left. I still slept in my creepy bed that night.

Back to Brunette

Today I made my way back to brown.
My hairline is still black from the dye and my hair is so brown it is nearly black, but it supposed to lighten up. Let's hope it doesn't lighten up all tacky red.
I really feel at home with a brown shade!
Blonde was different and fun! ...But definitely not me.

This is my frizzo-fried hair the day after I tried to body wave it over my already stressed, bleached locks. Yikes! Trailer, anyone? ...Now I'll just have weird, dyed-looking hair for the next year!  Ha!  But my adventure was worth it anyway!

Count Your Blessings

Today I woke up feeling a little ornery, so the girls and I made grateful lists...

Melia is grateful for:
the sun, the Thumbelina movie from Mommy, Sophie, Grandpa Bob and Wendy, Grammy and Papa, to have a poodle someday, wonderful stores with toys in them that I want to buy, my wonderful teddy Boodah, to go visit back to fernley some time, a wonderful family: Daddy, Mommy, Sophie, and Me, Gigi, to take naps, barbies, Cinderella horse from Grammy, our pictures that Mom put up in the house, little piggies, that I am feeling better, my little baby, Jaycee and Keira, Rex, my fish, Chun-Li, learning the alphabet ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 12345678910 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30, my potato head, Wal-mart, Costco, and Target, and Ross, Ellie, Lulu, and Jackson, My back pack to bring camping, to go camping, leaves, snails, and lizards, roses, our house in Hawaii, Dallas and Brenna and Sadie, ant poison in our house so they can die and not bug us, our body, how we move, Grandma Joyce

Sophie is grateful for:
DADDY, MOMMY, GRAMMY AND PAPA, WENDY AND GRANDPA BOB, EE-AH, AND SOPHIE

I am grateful for:
my girls, my mom, my new orange flower earrings, scoop neck shirts, when I feel confident, curly hair style, library books, sisters blog, simplicity, a good husband who is my friend, kind friends, parks for my kids, Sophie's obsession with pretty dance outfits, Melia's singing, family time together in Hawaii, birds singing, the sound of water and the ocean, art, computers, the limitless resource of the internet, my new exercise videos, Sophie's nose freckles, going to Utah to see family (hopefully soon), swimming pool we can use these months in HI, a nice car, liberty and freedom, the preschool program for Melia, Beach days with Anielka

Pine Trees

Crabby

Sweet

When I looked over my shoulder to check on my girls...

Ballet Sisters

Melia and Sophie get to take ballet class together this month. Sophie is so excited to be old enough to try! Melia isn't very excited about ballet anymore, as she already took lessons for five months last year, but she is willing to give it another shot. 

I enjoy watching the girls do "pretty hands" and point their toes. I like when they are asked to try something new that challenges them--like skipping or leaping. Melia impresses me with how she pays such close attention to the teacher and focuses hard on getting the moves right. Sophie is very coordinated for a young kiddo. 

They are beautiful to watch.

Tsunami and Hotel Getaway

Danny has been working hard and needs a break. And our neighbors are retiree women who are sick of our noise and we are sick of their scowels, so we needed to get away too! We reserved a hotel at the Marriott 30 minutes up the coast for one night.
The morning of our reservation, we were supposed to head to the beach first thing and spend the entire day at the resort. But instead, this is what happened: We woke up to phone calls from the Elder's Quorum President in the early a.m. hours telling us to come to their house if we weren't high enough to be out of the tsunami's reach.  What?
We got online and watched some news and felt reassured it wasn't likely to happen, yet we couldn't help being excited, as the loud tsunami sirens were sounding every 15 minutes for the next five hours. So we filled up some fresh water containers and watched some more news and waited around all morning for that tsunami to come.
It didn't.
And so we headed up to the Marriott and had a delightful stay.
I have to say, it is a strange thing to be disappointed when a natural disaster doesn't occur. What a strange and fun weekend we had!

HIPPY

We are enrolled in a free community preschool. We get together with all of the kids in the group once a week. The kids have many stations and activities to participate in while the parents go over a week's worth of curriculum for our children. I like it a lot. Melia and Sophie get the chance to play and socialize with their friends, and then we have about an hour of learning activities to do together each week. 

Pictured with Melia and Sophie is the Cat in the Hat (or Stacy, our assigned teacher) and two of Melia and Sophie's favorite friends, Gwyneth and Ryen. 

Sometimes Gwyneth and her mom, Anielka, go with us to the beach.