So much to be Thankful for!

What a weekend. We've had a good time. Thanksgiving with my family, then the Daniel and Virga Stevens family reunion, which Grama Cottam was so excited about. It turns out none of her siblings came, except Uncle Derral, he lives here though in a home, he's special needs, just older than my Grama and she's always cute to take care of him and include him. But a handful of my mom's cousins were there and it was fun.
I think Grama loved it!

The Frei Guys were in charge of breakfast, it was delicious.

Riley and Grama

Cute little Ann in the outfit her Aunt Kathy bought

Andee's Twins

I guess Gunner was ready to eat!


Isaac loved listening to the stories about my Great Grama and Grampa, then he said "I'm going to orgainize a Ison family reunion! For next summer." I said "Okay, just remember we'll have a little guy by then, so I won't be much help." And I guess that's the other news but I'm not so into blogging about it, not yet anyway, we're excited though. The name game is on...we'll see, we do know that he's a boy though.

This little onsie is how we told my mom we were expecting (I have an Ison 10 shirt, cuz that's the year we got married) and it's perfect because (if I can count) he'll be the 11th grandkid on the Ison side.


I've done minimal shopping over the weekend -too bad thinking about it doesn't count-but I did make this cute sign for basketball. Coach did it when I played for him. We loved it, and now I just think its part of basketball season for Santa to come in December.

I accidentally deleted the pics of my dad playing the Wii after thankgiving dinner, my brother brought it over and it turned out to be quite the family entertainment. TOO FUNNY.

Isaac's thinking about more school again. I'm trying to support him in that and wrap my mind around all it might mean. It's scares me to death, but I want him to be happy so for now I'm just helping him study math and I can support him taking the test...and we'll go from there.

This morning we woke up to a little snow. It's always such a fun thing in St. George. AND Isaac didn't want me to put up a fake tree, "It's not his style." Funny guy, but when I saw this in the back yard I told him he might not have to go cut one he said "I already thought of that..."

No pics this week but basketball is in full swing. Actually I missed quite a bit of the madness with our Jr. League last week while I was in Hawaii. I have the freshman and a few sophomores and they are great. I love it, so far (okay its only been 2 days of practice but...) they work really hard for me. I like planning practice and even laying in bed at night worrying which drills will help us most with certain things, do most people actually SLEEP at night? That's crazy! I miss the being more involved with the older girls, sometimes I feel so disconnected from something I invested so much time and effort into. But I can't really do any more than I'm doing and I wouldn't trade. I have great kids.
As for this week, did something besides basketball happen? I wouldn't know. School just goes by, Isaac is still building fence and actually get to see my family once in a while, and he went to the auction on Friday. He's still adjusting to the married a coach thing but I need to do a better job priority-wise too. Maybe I could cook him dinner sometime...sure didn't happen this week!
We did get to go to the RS dinner together on Friday, and took a plate over to Bro and Sister Birks. We visited them last Sunday, they're great and turns out they like us too. Yesterday we went to the temple so we actually got 2 little date nights in, it was fun. And Uncle Will brought us a book he wrote about with the life stories of all the high priests in our ward, its great, we've had a lot of fun reading bits and pieces about people we know.

ALOHA...

Holy Cow! Perfect Vacation. Generally I don't even like vacationing, pretty much for 2 reasons, it is expensive, and unproductive. But this one was paid for, and I (in a limited time) got to do all that I could to try and help a softball program that I was once part of. I always say I hated it there, but really I just hated losing (still do). So it was fun to share my perspective on what needs to happen to change that. BYU-H is a special place and it was so neat to get to go back. Oh and Isaac and I had a BLAST.

The first morning we got in early and headed over to Pearl Harbor.


We found this old timer there to talk to while we were waiting for the boat (of course we did, it's Isaac) but it was fun. He was 14 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I'm not sure but that's gotta be pretty close to the same as Grampa Frei.

Standing on the Memorial the "Mighty Mo" in the background.

Isaac read and read while we were there, I had been before and kind of had softball in the back of my mind but it was still way cool to be there.


From there we headed to the North Shore. We stayed at Turtle Bay...nice! Here's the view from our room:


It was so great to just leave the door open all night and sleep listening to the ocean. We loved it.

Thursday we got up and went to the Dole Plantation, we were pretty much on Utah time so we were there pretty early, it wasn't open, which didn't stop Isaac from talking to the real workers across the street. He ended up buying a case of pineapple-straight from the warehouse-of course he made friends with everyone there "made there day" in fact so when the lady was ringing him up he said "You can give me a better price than that if you want." And she agreed and gave him her price. Wheeler dealer this guy.

Here a pic of him cutting up pineapple in our room. It really was delicious.


And the mess...

Which was really only 1/2 of the mess because we tried to save (nasty) coconut water, I don't know, like we didn't want to waste it or something. It was a disaster but whatever.

Since we were up and at'm so early we also had time that morning before softball to go to the Laie Hawaii Temple open house. It was awesome. When I lived there I had done baptisms but it was neat to be back when the open house was going. It was beautiful!


When I got done with softball this day I walked out to find the rental car with a surfboard tied to the top, I should have taken a picture of that but...

Went dinner with Ashley Parry and her boyfriend, that night, it was fun, and later that night went exploring an old WWII bunker with one of his roommates. They were sports to take us.
Too bad my eyes were closed in this pic but I didn't have'm retake it because I figured I was going to close them every time.





Look at my surfer guy! He's happy as can be! One of the days he dropped me off at the softball field and headed to castles beach. There were some other people there taking lessons, so he perked his ears up and was able to get up a few times :)

The next morning we went back, me with camera in hand. But it wasn't quite as successful. The water wasn't as good. But after I set the camera down we had so much fun just playing in the ocean and trying to both catch the waves on the board turned sideways...it was just goofing around but we laughed and laughed I loved it.


Really its taking for ever to make this post. I might have to finish and polish it up later. For now though...here's a start.
But I don't want to leave out my favorite Hawaiian Isaac-isms
"The seas are angry my friend." Apparently that one is from a movie or something.
"Mahalo" and sometimes "Mahalo, I love you" Flying on Hawaiian Airlines he picked right up on this one. And last but not least: Mele Kalikimaka is merry Christmas in Hawaiian but "Mele Kalikamaikoo..."is just part of a song Isaac likes to sing to me, the next line is "I love you" its pretty cute.

One of the mornings, maybe the day we went to the dole plantation...I don't know anyway we were driving back to the hotel and Isaac saw a sign that said "Free Tours" of course we turned around, but what it actually had said was "Free Trees" and he didn't even get to get one because they were only giving them out on Saturdays, of course we talked a good story about going back to get one, but we didn't. Anyway we ended up at Waimea Valley, they were sure ushering cars through there because I guess they were filming some movie there. Journey to the center of the earth?? Something like that. Apparently "The ROCK" who I don't even know who is was there, I of course was unimpressed. When we were driving out we drove through some of the smoke they'd pumped in there for something, that was the extent of that.
But Isaac did find these cool peacocks to feed banana he picked up from the trash, "talk" to, and try to get them to show there feathers. It was pretty dang funny-this little collage of pics doesn't really do it justice.


And supposedly this really old African tree is a big deal...so we took a picture.


And Isaac wasn't so keen on going to the PCC if it was just a "Bunch of Dancing" but he went while I was at softball. He really liked the Samoan village, and then he watched the canoe parade. Then we went back together after I got done and went to 2 more villages. We also got to see my sister inlaws parents who are over there on a mission. That was fun. They recommended the coconut cake on North Shore for dinner so we went for it. Watch the sunset at Sunset Beach, ate, and had cake left over for breakfast (and Isaac a snack to help him survive the swap meet too)
We didn't take a camera to PCC-oh well.

Sunset

Most of Isaac's head and part of mine, we do what we can :)

Breakfast of champions! Those Oh's were pretty good too.



SO SO MUCH FUN.

My favorite part of blogs are the pictures-but I've got nothing. Isaac ended up going on the jeep trail thing, they had a good time, and I saw lots of pics, we just don't have any of them yet. This week we're going to Hawaii so...I better have pic's next week :) I think we're both getting pretty excited about that little trip. Lately we've been enjoying ball games on the radio-its great we kind of feel like old timers-we just need a porch swing. Isaac's been building a lot of fence for my Grampa, yesterday I juiced pomegranates and helped my mom bottle apples. Really I don't know much about bottling but...I helped peel and cut the apples and it was fun to hang out with my mom and Grama C. And if Isaac's ever lucky I'll cash in on a few of those bottles of apples and make him a pie. Other than that its been some long days at school trying to get ready for a sub + missing Parent Teacher Conferences, that's a catch 22, so glad to miss them, such a pain to try and contact all those parents. Bout it.

Tonight Isaac is hanging out with his dad and uncles-who are going on some Jeep trail trip, I knew more but I wasn’t so attentive to the details so…whatever. Anyway I’m behind in blog’n so Game on.
Tonight I grabbed a (delicious Café Rio) bite to eat with my best friends Angie and Lindsay, oh it was SO FUN, I think we could have stayed all night and just visited. Good times. And it was so fun to see their kids. SO SO CUTE.
Last week might be a little too long ago for me to remember much but I’m sure that Thursday night we took off. We stopped at the auction and Isaac did the car thing, I don't know much about it. We also met the Turners there so they could sign some papers. I want to set Brittany up with my friend Bo so I started texting him (Brittany wasn't there but I was having a blast and hey, it kept me occupied so game on. PLUS I swear I'm not trying to marry either one of them off -although Matt and Nichole, Hiedi and Jay...my success rate is not bad...just kidding! Anyway all I'm saying is it was fun and we'll have to double with them one of these days) Then we drove up US 95 to the booming metropolis of Beatty NV, traveling's not my thing but whatever we made it, and then kept going 5 miles to Baily Hot Springs where we camped...here's the evidence

too bad the picture of us hauling the tent on top of the car -because we initially set it up in the wrong spot- didn't turn out. (I tried to take it on my phone but it was videoing taping it instead and Isaac might not have been having his most patient moment...) The little white building is where the hot springs are, I was pretty skeptical at first but it was awesome I loved it, and I felt like it was clean and not gross at all. It definitely helped that we got in at 7:00 in the morning and it had been running all night but it was just cool and my skin felt awesome afterward. "Mineral Bath's" they called'm, whatever, it was cool. Then we finished the drive out to Laur and Dale's. It was great to see them, I'm SO GLAD we went, it just so far away that it really is too long in between trips. Isaac drove into Reno Sat. morning to meet with a guy about a potential work deal but I just hung out. It was great! And of course we ate and ate delicious food...its just part of going out to Laur's! Sunday we went to church and headed home. SUCH A LONG DRIVE, UG! But we made it. Monday I didn't have to work so we kind of regrouped, got ready for work a little, Isaac made my seating charts for me-that was cute of him. We went to the temple together in the morning, ate Costco dogs for lunch, ran a few errands, visited with Grama and Grampa Frei, went for a little walk, ate popcorn and listened to the Yankee's get crushed :) on the radio for FHE it was just a good day. Now its back to the grind, but I really had such a great time with my friends tonight, easily the highlight of my day!
Oh and one more thing...potential Hawaii trip...looking like the real deal, we're pretty excited more to come on that though...like when it happens!

So I forgot to Blog yesterday, but I was really excited because it was 10-10-10. That was about the extent of the excitement. School was hectic-more math enhancement. Basketball open gym, we're getting a lot of the younger girls out, that's good. They should help us. Soccer got rained out so I had to do that Sat but it was the last one :) yippee! And they actually won, that was a pleasant change. And it bought them a playoff game, but then I'm ready to have those girls at basketball so ... we'll see.
Isaac went with the YM/YW up to the BYU game (and they actually won) he called me shortly after to check the Utah score, I think just to make sure I knew he was not converting to liking BYU football.
I went to "Wild Wild West Days" in Leads with my mom. Her and her sisters did another craft booth trying to raise money for my cousin who has breast cancer. They did a ton of work but I think it was a success.

It was really stormy, 2 SC kids actually got struck by lightening. I really made me think about that CPR class and stuff and how I could end up having to use that. Scary stuff! The report is that both kids are doing well though-so that's good.

Here are some cool pics of the rainbow after the storm, one out our front window and one out the back. It was too big to get it all in one.

Not the most exciting week, in fact-pretty much nothing to write. We watched conference at my folks house, that was fun.
At school we started this Math Enhancement program at lunch so that we have an intervention that is part of the school day. I recognize the benefits and it is a good thing but it seriously is going to kill me off. It makes the day SO LONG, no breaks, no lunch except what I can shove in my face while they're coming in, and no adult conversation. I pretty much hate it and poor Isaac just gets tired of hearing me complain. His solution is "I'm sure its not part of your contract." But it doesn't really matter. Hopefully it gets better.