The Activist

My Mom has never been one to sit on the sidelines and watch life go by. She doesn't watch things happen, she makes things happen. And while she has always been this way she has really lengthened her stride in the last few years when it comes to politics. She reads up on all of the issues and isn't afraid to put up a fight if she sees things happening that worry her or just don't seem right. She has her Congressman and Senators on speed dial and yes, they hear from her a lot. So when she heard her congressman Jim Matheson was still undecided on how he would vote on the health care bill this weekend Kristen K. swung into action. She tried to get as many people together as she could to march outside of his office to let him know how they felt. The opposing side caught wind of the demonstration and turned up, too. It was democracy at its finest and all of the news channels were there to cover it. Not only was my Mom interviewed, but my Dad was interviewed as well and appeared on a different channel. If you watched the news at all last night you might have seen one of them






So, I was already proud of my rebel rousing parents for making 2 different newscasts, but the coverage didn't stop there. I opened the Deseret News this morning and found my Mom had a staring role in the newspaper's write up on A6, "Hundreds engage in healthy debate at Matheson's Utah office"

(The article calls her by her last name which I have replaced with Kristen)
. . ."Kristen P., of Salt Lake City, began reading the bill after it became available on Thursday and became increasingly concerned. She said she had never been to a rally before, but this was important to her.
So (she) called her friends and agreed to meet outside Matheson's office in South Salt Lake Saturday to encourage Matheson to vote no. Shortly thereafter, Nikki Norton, state director of Organizing for America, heard about the planned rally and began gathering supporters of the bill to counter Kristen's group. . . .
. . .As the rally of support for the bill came to an end, the rally against the bill picked up with (Kristen's) group of friends growing to match those on the supporting side still in attendance. The two groups faced each other and chanted their respective slogans of support and dislike.
"If there's one bad part of this bill, then it's a bad bill," Kristen said. "I'm not against health care reform, I just think we need to start fresh with health care."
Kristen said she appreciated the freedom that each group had to gather and express themselves, and she wants to preserve that right.
"I feel like the bill is laying down a foundation to take those freedoms away." Kristen said. . ."

My Mom, the activist.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This is how my kids feel about green eggs and ham.

The Fake Out

Daylight savings.  It's great in the fall, not so great in the spring (especially when I have a 7:30 a.m. meeting Sunday morning).  I went around the house last night at 6 p.m. and changed all of our clocks to 7 p.m. without telling my kids.  Adam chuckled everytime I mentioned what time it was while getting everyone in bed, "Oh, it's getting late, let's get going. . ."  The kids didn't have a clue and it worked like a charm.  I tried to fake myself out, too, but that didn't work quite as well.  I went to bed an hour earlier, but didn't fall asleep until the normal time, bummer.

Here are a few pictures of Hawaii:

The Laie Temple is closed for renovations and it was getting dark when we finally got there, but we made it.

The Kona Temple.  It was my first session in a smaller temple. I loved this big palm tree.  It was so unique and different.

What can I say? I'm a tree hugger!

Yup, we're dorky (and proud of it).

Beautiful

My first time snorkeling.  I'm a fan.

It was the height of whale season and we saw a lot of whales.  That black thing coming out of the water is a whale jumping up.  They made huge splashes coming back down. It was awesome!

They have wild donkeys and goats on the Big Island.  It's not everyday you see signs like this.

Macaroni Grill

This is what we looked like when a random man came up and asked us where we were from.  When we told him he smiled and said he had just bet his wife $20 that that was where we were from. "Is it that obvious?" Yes, it is.

My last view of the beach before we left to pack our bags and head for the airport. (sigh)

Ready to go home.

It snowed yesterday. . .I'm not bitter, though. (Ok, maybe I am, but just a little)

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Ok, it's time to get caught up on normal life.  Adam did well doing the solo parenting thing for an entire week, but has decided that he doesn't want the life of a single Dad.  While I was soaking up the sun Adam was dealing with a few things that weren't so fun.  First of all a TV entertainment center fell on Korinne (she wasn't hurt, but it sure scared everyone) and then he was rear ended in our van by some lady while trying to take Jenna to gymnastics.  The lady's insurance is paying for the back of our car to be fixed so we are sporting a rental car this week which has been very exciting for the kids.  For some reason going on errands in a car that isn't your own is super duper exciting.  I wish they were always that excited to go to the store or the post office.

My kids got a wild hair this last weekend and decided to make a fort in the family room.  This is code for--bring every pillow and blanket in the entire house and make a HUGE mess.  Personally I don't do well with complete chaos in my main living space (we have a designated playroom for a reason) but because I was still in my laid back Hawaiian state of mind I decided to let them have fun for a day or two.

Ok, so I only twitched involuntarily a few times and told myself twice to breath in and out to remain calm.  I let them keep it for 60 hours, a record to be sure.  Believe me, if I hadn't of just spent a week in Hawaii it would have been cleaned up after 2 hours.  Korinne and Jenna were running around in their swimming suits and making name tags for themselves.

The tag says, "Hi, my name is Korinne and I work here."

I'm not exactly sure what they were doing, but they had a great time doing it.

Last Saturday night I went checked on the kids before I went to bed and found Jenna still reading.

Or so I thought.  She had really fallen asleep with the light on and the book to her face.

In other news my presidency was reorganized this last Sunday.  I'm still the Primary President, but now my 2nd counselor is my 1st and I have a new 2nd counselor and secretary.  Just to keep things exciting my 1st counselor had a baby the next day, my new secretary had surgery last Thursday and I'm getting ready to go to China in 2 weeks.  I guess I just like to keep things interesting.

Speaking of babies, my little Korinne is feeling a little left out. 4 out of her 5 preschool classmates have had a baby born in their family during the school year.  She keeps saying, "Mom, I want a baby to be in your stomach, too" or "I really want a baby brother or sister."  Poor girl.  Someone's got to be the youngest in each family and she gets to be our youngest. It's a tough job. I told her she can share Cara's little sister (born on Monday) and every time she wanted to see the baby she could go and visit for a minute.  She seemed pretty happy with that. Crisis averted.

Aloha

Hawaii already seems like a distant memory--I've been back for 2 days now.  I've struggled with how to make this post for a number of reasons:

1- How do you capture an entire week of the most perfect vacation ever in a single post?

2- Who really wants to read someone else's travel log?

3- I don't have any pictures yet. We put all of our pictures on a single computer and my friend Malin is getting a CD ready for each one of us

So, get ready for the Cliff Notes version of "The K-1 Crew Goes to Hawaii".  Pictures will follow.  For now, all I have is this:

First of all let me start out by saying we were truly charmed during our trip. 

All of our flights were on time and smooth,
we had perfect timing in all that we did ,
we were able to do everything on our list but never felt rushed,
we never ran out of things to talk about,
and never stopped laughing.

Yup, we were charmed.

Highlights: Polynesian Cultural Center, Pear Harbor, flying out of Honolulu just a few hours before the Tsunami warning was issued, snorkeling, Akaka Falls, the boiling pots, Rainbow Falls, Waipio Valley, Kona Stake Conference, attending the Kona Temple, The City of Refuge, the beach, whale watching, and seeing dolphins and sea turtles in the wild.

Here is Hawaii by the numbers:

5 -number of times we told fellow travelers we had 25 kids between the 6 of us and were roommates in college 15 years ago.

1 -number of fellow travelers who were actually glad we told them our story unsolicited. (We stopped after the 2nd day)

30 seconds -amount of time it took for us to pick up and be ready to go to the next location. Having 6 Moms and no kids is a LOT easier than having 1 Mom with 3-6 kids. 

1 Tsunami warning issued while on the Big Island of Hawaii

3 -number of husbands who called in the wee hours of the morning after said Tsunami warning was issued

10 -number of times we repeated the word "Aloha" back to the speaker during the Kona Stake Conference we attended.

1 -number of picnic lunches we "crashed" after said Stake Conference.  It was yummy and yes, a few of us even had seconds.

4 -number of times we had to stop for cabbage leaves.

40 -number of K-1 trivia questions submitted for our personal trivia game.

3 -number of questions Cyd got right.  We are just glad she remembers us because she certainly didn't remember much of our time together in college.

48 -number of random wikipedia-like facts Heather gave us during our week together.  Her new nickname? "Wiki"

1 -number of times someone on the beach came up and said he had just bet his wife 20 bucks we were from a particular state that will remain nameless at this time.  Kaylynn's response was, "Is it that obvious?"  He was very happy to have won the bet. I guess we did kind of stick out like sore thumbs.

942 -approx. number of pictures taken by the 6 of us during our week in Hawaii.

102 -approx. number of pictures we have each appeared in during the last 10 years of our lives. We are usually the ones taking the pictures, not being in the pictures.

64- number of times we used the word "charmed" during our trip

6 -number of AWESOME husbands who essentially said, "Go. Have fun with your friends for a week and don't worry about anything here."  Seriously, they were SO great.

4 -number of minutes used up on the camcorder of us walking away from the camera so we could see what our own walk looks like.  Just one of the many super dorky things we did during our time together.

4 -number of clear syllables in the way Heather says the word "interesting".  In-TER-est-ing. The rest of us only use 3. In-trest-ing.  Interesting, isn't it?? (Or is it "in-TER-esting?" You be the judge.)

8/ ea. -number of post cards Malinda and Kaylynn mailed to their kids.

35 -number of times Cyd spontaneously bursted out into song.

3 -number of injuries I sustained while snorkeling/playing in the ocean.

0 -number of injuries everyone else sustained put together.

6 -number of minutes Ker-dog and Cyd spent trying to speak "whale" (think Dorie in "Finding Nemo") in an effort to get the whales to jump out of the ocean.  It must have worked because we saw a LOT of whales during our trip. 

2015 -the year we want to go on our next trip!!

The trip was such a success we decided to go on another one in 5 years.  That will give Keri time to move to a new location so we can go and visit her all over again.  She was definitely the "Hostess with the Mostest" that is for sure.

Thanks girls.  I had the time of my life!