Oh what a busy day!

Today was a crazy day; in the morning I played in the OIA individual tennis tournament, and then I rushed over to my Vocal Motion Heritage Festival competition. I was supposed to start my match at 8 am, but the school of the girl I was playing against was late, so they put other people on the courts first! So I didn't start playing until around 8:50 or something. Then my match took around 2 hours which is a lot longer than usual, partly because my opponent took so long in between serves and switches, and she bounced the ball like, 20 times before every serve; oh yeah, we had a lot of long rallies, and the score was pretty close too. But I lost. Anyway, by then it was like, 11:00, so I just had time to take a shower before rushing off to Windward Community College for our vocal motion competition. We did okay, but it wasn't our best, and something was wrong with the CD. Halfway through one of our songs it skipped to the next song, and we had to stand there and smile for a few minutes while they figured it out. But we still got Gold despite all of that :) It was a pretty good day, but I'm just glad this crazy week is over!

We had a fabulous ski trip north of Eden Utah. It was warm, sunny, and beautiful. To make things even better, we ran into a family zip lining. They were so generous and let us zip line with us. They had all of the necessary equipment and knowledge. We had to climb the tree and onto a high 3x2 platform to hook onto the zipline and jump. (It wasn't until I was half-way up the tree that I remembered I was afraid of heights-Heather). We enjoyed visiting with this nice family. On our way back, we enjoyed some glorious scenery. What a nice way to spend time together! Note that the top picture looks black and white, but it was naturally colored and stunning that way.

Here are a few pix from my trip to England. It was a cold two weeks, but wonderful to see Robyn, Paul and Noah. And I made it just in time to welcome little Eli to the family.

We Got a Rabbit!

Well, we finally replaced our two flooded and totalled cars. We got something that can sort of be a combination between my Miata and our VW Passat. So....we got a Rabbit. It's small and easy to park, but we can still fit 5 people and it has cargo space if we put the back seats down. We bought it "used"--it had 200 miles on it, so basically it is still brand new. We are excited not to have to look for cars anymore. It is a stick, so we are back to just us being able to drive it.

Back In Our House

After nearly seven weeks, and a whole lot of shopping

and work to get our house ready to live in again, we finally moved back

in on Friday, December 30. Here are some pictures that show the finished

product. Bonnie is especially proud of our new travertine tile floors and

the backsplash behind the oven in the kitchen. It was a heck of a way to get

new floors and a new kitchen, but we're pleased. There is still some work to do on

the house, and we still have boxes that need to get packed, a lawn that hasn't been

mowed for two months, and a garage that needs to be cleaned and organized, but

we'll be settled soon enough. In the end, our house will be better than ever, so all's well that ends well.

New Beginnings

Sean and I arrived in Hawaii just in time for the aftermath of the flood. Our family, along with thirteen other families on our street, had to evacuate their home for major restorative repairs. We also found that our Mom's mazda miata was totaled, and our VW passat was sitting in a shop. In short, our poor family was homeless and carless.

Sean and I are a benevolent sort and thought that we should lend a helping hand to our poor family. We immediately began the hunt for a temporary home and transportation.
We would have been happy with anything, but to our pleasant surprise our findings exceeded our expectations. We found some cozy quarters on beachfront property. We also found a large vehicle with great air conditioning and plenty of room for all of us. We have been so blessed this Christmas season.