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We are home finally (2 weeks is a long time to be away from home), and it’s back to reality. We had a great time on our trip, but I’m glad to be home in my own bed. We did and saw so much I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just post some pictures with a little commentary.

Our first stop was Seattle where we hung out with family and friends

This is my nephew, and my best buddy. He calls me everyday, and tells on his mom when she’s being mean ;0)

We had dinner at the most white trash restaurant ever, but the food was good.

Notice the onion rings that you order by the foot. Seriously by the foot. My dad ordered 2 FEET, who can eat 2 feet of onion rings. Come on people.

Then it was on to Hawaii. Of course no trip of ours would be complete without a major disaster. This time it happened to be a natural disaster.
We arrived at the airport to find that not only was their a category 4 hurricane headed for Hawaii, but they had a earthquake earlier that morning.

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Our first stop was the USS Arizona

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Cole was obviously impressed.

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The quit reverence, and calming spirit were amazing.

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This is part of the ship that is still sticking out of the water, and oil bubbles out every few minutes.

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This is the original anchor for the USS Arizona.

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Cole woke up long enough to shoot the guns.

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Well this is turning into a novel so I’ll post more later.

MIA for a few weeks while we are on vacation. I’ll post pictures later.

I’ve had something weighing heavy on my mind and heart for the last year. My daughter turned 12 years old in the spring and leading up to her birthday I started feeling a sense of dread. It’s the same feeling I got when she was baptised. She went in for her bishop’s interview and all of a sudden I was panicked. Did I teach her enough? Does she really know what she needs to know? Have I completely failed her?

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While in with the bishop I was amazed at the answers she gave. I attribute her very mature answers about the gospel to wonderful primary teachers who loved her and taught her well. I am eternally grateful to all those who teach my children and set good examples for them every day.

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I’ve spent the last 8 months worried about the reality of raising a teenage daughter in the world today. While contemplating this I attended Women’s conference a few months ago looking and praying for some inspiration on how I might do this. A little voice whispered to me “teach her, her divine nature and the rest will come.” As I thought about this answer I realized that knowing that you are a daughter of God is the key to everything. If we truly knew who we were I’m convinced we wouldn’t make some of the choices that we do.

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I know that this has been a problem for me my whole life. In theory I know that I am a daughter of God. I feel his love and influence in my life, but my self esteem keeps me from really believing that he worries about little old me. In theory I believe it all, but I struggle to feel it. I know that if I truly felt my divine nature I wouldn’t have made the mistakes that I have. I think that knowing you are a daughter of God is a gift and a talent that some are born with and others have to work at.

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I was reading a blog yesterday, and it was about this very topic. It really hit home to me that I’m on the right track with teaching my daughter. I’m focusing on divine nature, and self esteem and praying that the rest will fall into place. Of course this isn’t an excuse to not teach the other basics, I’m just setting my focus in this direction and living on faith.

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Go check out Segullah, and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do. It is not only inspirational, it’s inspired.

You know when you give your husband permission to do something and then wish you hadn’t.

Like I did a week ago. I told my husband he could go to his geek dinner on my birthday and now I wish he would just stay home and do something fun with me. Pout!

Oh well I’ll just go get my self a yummy treat and then feel guilty that it isn’t in my diet. Double pout ;0(

The last thing I said to Ash before falling asleep last night was “I’m going to sleep in tomorrow for my birthday.”

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I woke up at the crack of dawn to my 4 year old saying he is going to throw up.

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Happy Birthday to me.

I came up with a brilliant plan to hike Timp Cave with my Cub scouts. It was a great plan in theory until 6:00 am when my alarm went off, and then it didn’t sound so fun.

We met at the church building early in the morning and headed up the canyon on our adventure. Lucky for me only 4 boys decided to roll their butts out of bed this morning other wise it could have been very ugly for Kama and I hiking up the trail with 12 eight year old boys.

As we got started I started to doubt that I was going to make it to the top with how out of shape I am. The trail is VERY steep, and is about 1 1/2 mile up. The elevation rises by about 1500 ft. I kept having to remind the boys to stay away from the edge.

Kama taught us all a cool trick. If you stand behind someone while going up hill and put 2 fingers on their back it makes it so much easier for them to hike up hill. You don’t need to push, so it isn’t a strain on you but it gives the other person a huge boost. The boys took turns trying it out, and couldn’t believe it really worked.

It took us about 1 to 1hour 15 minutes to get to the top. Not bad considering last year I took a group up and they only made it 2/3 the way up before 3 of them were whining that they were going to puke their guts out and we had to turn around and come back down.

When we got to the top we rested for 15 minutes and then our tour started. The guide was awesome, and let the boys help her guide the tour.

Here are some pics of our great adventure. Enjoy. Oh and by the way we made it all the way up and back down with out any bodily injury ;0) This is more than I can say for another group who had someone smack their head on a low rock in the cave that required a hospital trip and stitches. Yeah for us, no blood.

Wow it’s a long way down!

By about here I thought I was going to die ;0)

Yeah we made it to the top, and no one died.

Check out the elevation!

This was our awesome tour guide. She deserves a raise.

How awesome is this!

…Photo style, curtosy of my early Birthday present a digital camera. (my b-day is Thursday)

Cub scout Pack meeting rocket race. Big fun!

Cub scout Day camp with 16 boys!

This is supposed to be rafting, but it looks like a dock to me.

My boys painting with daddy.

Working hard.

The finished product.

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Oh and by the way 2.7lbs. until I hit my first goal. I can’t believe how good this feels. I’m still not even close to being done, but it’s a start.

Yesterday I got the pleasure of spending the whole day up at Cub scout day camp (I know me at day camp with the Cub scouts is pretty funny, but you can stop laughing now). Despite my fear, we had a great time and the camp is run really well. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves and were well behaved. I don’t know if having 16 young boys with fully loaded BB guns is the best idea, but we made it through with no bodily injuries.

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With two hours left to go in our wonderful adventure I get a phone call from my sister-in-law. This really puzzles me since she knows I’m in the mountains all day with 16 boys. I know she didn’t forget because I’ve got her son. So of course there isn’t enough reception up their to answer the phone so I went out to the parking lot (for better reception) and called my messages.

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Her message is a little frantic, and she is saying something about my mother-in-law (who is in the middle of chemo for breast cancer) and something about calling 911. Well now I’m totally panicking. I ran to the office and asked to use the emergency phone to call home.

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To make a long story a little shorter I find out that she had a seizure, hit her head pretty hard on the night stand, and bit through her lip requiring 4 stitches. She also had a second seizure on the way to the hospital but after a CAT scan she was cleared and headed home to rest.

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I was pretty worn out when I got home so I took a brief nap. Then had to run to my kids school for a back to school picnic in the middle of the worst storm I’ve seen in Utah since I moved here. We all got really soaked but they had fun so that’s all that matters.