November 2020

Gideon fell and hit his eye on the curb while he was trick or treating

Malachi and Gideon made this for Travis when he got home from JRTC

We went to the Olive Garden for dinner with Austin and Betsy, and Travis ended up making a fork sculpture.  It was pretty entertaining, and the staff kept supplying him with extra forks, to see how high he could get it.  

Gideon is silly, he took my soft fuzzy pants from the dryer and put them on, and told me they were his new favorite thing to wear.  

The Sister Missionaries stopped by and brought us cookies.  Gideon really didn't want them to leave, and was crying.  One of the Sisters gave Gideon this picture of Jesus to help him feel better, and it worked.  He keeps it in a special spot, and gets it out whenever he is sad.  

Malachi was trying to make everyone laugh, so he put these face stickers on his belly, and then walked over to everyone and would lift up his shirt, and laugh.  

Travis and I on our Staycation anniversary trip, walking along the turtle bay area

Travis and I got to volunteer at a food pantry to help distribute food to families, along with some of his Gimlet Soldiers 

In a WWII bunker we found some cool artwork that makes us look like angels

     So in November, Travis made it back home, and we were pretty happy to have him be home for a while.  He had a ROM (restriction of movement)which basically meant, he got to work from home for two weeks, so we got to see a lot of him.  Samuel got to start going to field study every Wednesday morning for school at the Hawaiian Plantation Village, so I would drop him off and take the little boys to play at a nearby park.  They had a lot of fun, and wanted me to take a lot of pictures of them.  One night at work, Joseph dropped a crate on his big toe, that already had an ingrown toenail. He filled out an incident report at work, and a few days later Joseph called in to work, because his toe hurt too much.  They told him it to get it looked at ASAP, but Joseph got an appointment for three weeks later, we kept telling him that wasn't good enough, and finally he let Travis take him into an urgent care to get it fixed.  They fixed the ingrown toenail and gave him antibiotics for the infection.  He still took a few more days to get back to work, but is finally getting back to work this Thanksgiving week.  Betsy has been struggling a lot, especially since we did a YW activity at the swap meet, and she was walking around in the sun for an hour and a half.  She is pretty weak, after pretty much sitting in her room day after day, so that made her feel pretty sick for a while.  She hasn't been eating or drinking very much, and feeling pretty nauseous, so I took her to the dr and she admitted to being pretty depressed and anxious, so they want her to talk to a psychiatrist, so we got her initial appointment in, and hope that working with this dr. will help Betsy feel better.   We were able to get Austin's senior pictures taken, and they turned out really well.  Austin also got into BYU-Idaho, she got accepted 4 days after she applied.  I couldn't believe how quick she got in, I remember waiting months before I found out I got into to BYU.  We decided to do our Thanksgiving dinner early this year, since Travis and I were going on a staycation 20 year anniversary the week of Thanksgiving.  So two of our friends helped make the meal and we all met together and had a delicious feast.  I ended up making about 9 desserts, but the kids helped, so it wasn't too bad.  Travis and I have enjoyed our vacation on the North Shore of Oahu.  We have enjoyed hiking, and snorkeling, eating at food trucks and other restaurants, and enjoying our time together without kids.   

October 2020

Malachi loves to play at the beach

                                                We celebrated Travis' birthday before he left for JRTC

                                            Gideon loves the new swing!

                                            The boys love how they can all fit on the swing at the same time.

                                            Caleb lost more teeth!

                                                Malachi and Gideon are aliens!

                                            Caleb loves making Halloween faces!

            The kids each got to pick their favorite tree to get a picture with, and this is the one Gideon picked.  Caleb was a little upset that Gideon didn't pick a "cooler" tree.  

                                                Malachi loves cactus!  When we were learning about them for school, he would just want to stare at the pictures, so we went on this botanical garden hike, with a cactus section, and he loved it!  His favorite were the cactus balls, and cactus trees.  

 

Finally my month of being stuck inside was over, and we enjoyed going to the beach, and going on hikes, and walks.  I loved being able to go on my morning walk around the 3 mile loop each morning with my 2 friends, and taking my little boys on outings.  I also was able to teach my piano lessons again.  The downside was that Travis left for JRTC (training in Louisiana), for about a month.  We got to watch general conference at the beginning of the month, and that was an inspiring experience as usual.  I love listening to the prophet and other speakers, they are so inspiring!  Joseph finally got a job, working a couple nights a week at the NEX stocking shelves.  It was only about 15 hours a week, but at least he is finally earning some money.  He still needs to lose some weight to join the army, so hopefully this helps.  I'd been telling the kids that we wouldn't be trick or treating, since I didn't want more candy in the house, and the CDC said we should be trick or treating anyway.  We were going to go to the beach for Halloween and then come home and have pizza hut pizza for dinner (that Austin made, since she is working) and watch Halloween movies. But, the kids decided that since it was a full moon they didn't want to go to the beach, because that is when all the jelly fish are out, and wanted to make sugar cookies instead.  So we started making sugar cookies, and then the neighbor kids begged me to let my kids out, and Betsy said she would take them out, so I let them go, with the understanding that they needed to turn in all their candy.  There was also a neighborhood Halloween parade earlier in the day.  They were jumping on the trampoline in the backyard when the parade started driving through, and started throwing candy at the kids, so they climbed over the fence and ended up getting a bunch of candy.  So I set all of that candy out for trick or treaters, and got rid of all the candy, but they still got a lot of candy, but they each ate two pieces and I locked the rest up.  4 year olds get so upset about the most ridiculous things.  Gideon had a pair of jeans that had huge holes in the knees, so I cut them off at the knees to turn them into shorts.  He was so upset, and cried about it for almost an hour.  He begged me to sew them back together, but leave the big holes there.  I was going to do it for him, but the parts that had been cut off, were already thrown out to the dumpster and then he forgot about it.  I think we spend half our hikes taking pictures, the boys love to climb trees and pose in them.  At the end of the month, we finally got to start meeting with the YW for activities, with a maximum of 10 people and we have to wear masks.  It was really nice to start getting together again though, most of the young women are really struggling with being cooped up inside all the time away from friends.  A lot of them are struggling with depression.  Austin seems to do okay, because she has still had a job to go to almost every day, but Betsy has been struggling to get out, so has been sad a lot.