Christmas

With Christmas approaching and many of our friends without family here we chose to host Christmas eve, besides we love to host a party.. That all said we felt so lucky to have people that we consider family and love spending the holidays with.. We decorated the back yard, put lights on the back house and garage, set up pretty tables with candles.. I was in love with my yard. We hosted 3 families, the 4th joined us after the "Hawaii Bowl game. " and the 5th decided to rest as they had a constant flow of family and friends for the last few weeks.. (we could so understand.)  It was so nice to just sit back, relax and enjoy our company. Christmas came early for Tatum this year as Josie and I decided to take the girls to Wicked. Tatum had been dying to go and I think it rubbed off on Lauryn. So that all said we bought tickets and surprised the Girls on Sunday Morning. Tatum was speechless and didn't know what to say since we had told her really was not going to happen.

She loved the show and came home and downloaded the soundtrack and that is all I have heard since..

I was Thankful the kids finally let me take some pictures of them.. They are not fond of the camera these days

 Christmas eve was a great night to celebrate with everyone and do a little gift exchange.

 I am so thankful to know that our children have found such great friends in Patrizio family, as have we..

Christmas eve was a nightmare. After our friends left Santa was waiting to make his visit but our kids were so excited they would not go to sleep. On top of that poor Carson had a big of a asthma/allergy/coughing attack. Needless to say Santa finally visited around 12:30 and at 1:30 I was visited by two little boys in my room saying " I cannot sleep" followed by "go to bed".. this cycle went on till 3:30 when I finally got up and went to their room and turned on the tv and set the timer for 1 hr. What do you know in hour Carson came back.. "my Tv turned off" Logan was asleep by now and so I turned it back on for 30 mins, during that point he somehow feel asleep. UGHH. Thankfully they let me sleep till 7:15, where I found them all cuddled in Tatum's bed watching tv.

 Santa brought a new 6ft board for the boys to share.. they were both pretty excited..

 Grandpa sent the boys some games and apparently it was the right one, cause they were elated!

 This little girl loves her Justin Beiber.. Carson had Tatum as his secret Santa so he got her the Justin Beiber perfume/lotion set and this calender.. He knew exactly what to get her!

Jon and I decided to surprise T with a trip home. It was a spur of the moment idea since we had a American voucher to use..to bad the idea turned into a nightmare. Needless to say American was not the flight she took home. We ended up using mileage (which to my surprise was a small amount of mileage needed for the 24, 25, and the 26th..) She flew home on the 26th and returns on the 6th.. I used less mileage to fly her over xmas then i did over the summer..

 she was totally confused when she saw her own jacket wrapped up, especially since it has been hidden away in her closet!

                                                         What is this......

                                 Good thing She is book smart, cause she has no common sense..

                                                     Ahaaa.. I think I get it.

                                            OMG.. THANK YOU... FOR REALS? REALLY??

She was so excited and even more so when we told her she was leaving the next day.. She had to keep it a secret for another day since it was a surprise for Taylor and Jessie as well. But man she ran upstairs to pack so fast.. She flew Hawaiian and they were so good to her. She is no longer and unattended minor so the flight crew does not have to take care of her, but they so did .. They moved her  to the very front right outside of first class and gave her a row to herself, she said an off duty attentendent talk to her and was super nice to her... To bad she has to fly Alaska home, where she is an unattended minor on that flight and they still do not give her that kind of attention.


This gift was my favorite gift of the year!! I do not have to hear the little songs that go along with their games anymore and they can all listen to their own music in the car!!

All in all we had a wonderful Christmas. I am more thankful and blessed each day and look forward to the New year..

the lowdown...

Well I obviously have been MIA!! All family has come and gone and now we get the news my parents are coming back.. YA!! We are thrilled. They will be here for almost a month and then return about 6 weeks later for about 5 weeks or so! I love that they will be here to celebrate J's bday and see the boys start of baseball season. I know my dad really loves seeing the boys play. They will then come back at spring break thru end of April to celebrate my bday as well as the boys.. I seriously could not ask for a better present then to have them here! That all said, things have been pure chaos here. We had a wonderful time with Jons mom and sister and I was really sad to see them go. Hoping they will come back ASAP.. (hint hint..) T's soccer is taking off and I am so in love with the person she is becoming on a personal level and a competitive level. The boys start baseball tonight, which seems to weird to me but will play thru July.. J has been very busy at work and finds his relief in surfing these days. I think he is finally getting used to the demands of the job especially since he is seeing the fruits of his labor paying off! Now, for me the last 2.5 months have been a nightmare.. besides being celiac, anemic and fighting my poor body on a daily basis over what it needs and wants vs. what my poor tummy can handle without making seriously ill I have been fighting a never ending sinus/ear infection. This last battle was the worst and I seriously felt worse then giving birth. It happen to occur on a night we had a party, so needless to say when I could not fall asleep after our last guest left at almost 2:30 am.. and began to walk around my house moaning, crying and began taking anything and everything in my medicine cabinet to alleviate the pain (which nothing worked..) my head, ear and cheek hurt soo bad. But no one in this house was capable of driving me to the ER.. I finally feel asleep around 8 am only to sleep till 3 which then my hubby was sober enough to drive me to the er.. another round of antibiotics and painkillers led us to finally realize it was a tooth issue. I went to the dentist and low and behold I had a cracked tooth that needed a root canal and it was the "root" of all problems. That all said I had it done yesterday and the funny thing was it was the best dental experience I have ever had. I went to a endodontic since my dentist did not have time to fit me. He was amazing and super nice. I walked out feeling no pain and am painless today, other then the flu or food poisoning J and I seem to have. I swear I cannot win. My body hates me and I cannot wait to meet with my dr and and start to figure all of tummy issues out. In the meantime J and I have started training for the Hawaii half marathon in March. I am super excited to have something to focus on and keep me motivated..So that all said we head into Christmas. I wrapped all the presents today and it seems so weird that just this weekend we had a soccer party for the holidays at the beach. I love the sun, but it just does not seem like Christmas. I will update after Christmas as I do not want to give away any presents.. we do a small holiday here and we are all ok with that.. We have no room or need for anything.. But the kids have some big surprises coming there way, especially T.. I will just say J and I win parents of the yr this year.. HAHA.. Her first surprise comes this Sunday and she will be so caught of guard I will see tears.. ( at least I better.. )  then the best gift of all is still coming and tears for sure will be involved! The boys are getting a Big Santa gift to share and I think they will be pretty stoked as well. It was hard to buy for them this year as they both only had 4 things on their list. I truly think they realize it is more about family then gifts. We did 2 big Christmas things for others this year. The boys adopted another little boy and got his some star wars legos. They felt very proud of themselves. Our other gift of love was a combined effort. T's team adopted a little girl their age who has aplastic anemia and is very ill. As a team we got her an Ipad mini, new shoes, new flat iron ( t picked it out.. ) clothes, hair accessories and some gift cards. A few of the girls, T included are presenting her with it all on monday. I so love the life lessons they are learning from these experience and hope they really take it all to heart and realize how truly blessed we are!  Happy Holiday to you all..

Introducing Hurley....

So we made it as long as we could without a dog. After leaving Portland and having to leave behind Ono because of all the quarantine issues we just thought we would wait awhile and let the wounds heal. It was harder then any of us let on and for Jon and Logan it seem to hit hardest.. I constantly heard " I miss Ono" or Jon's famous line of " you made me leave my dog behind." As if I had any say in the matter or Hawaii state laws and their dog quarantines.. which is a nightmare!  That all said we started just looking for dogs sometime around Christmas last year to see that because of all the quarantine laws dogs here at a hot commodity..A pure bred Lab with papers starts at 1200 and can go as high as 1800. Now for us who have had 3 pure breed labs and never spent more than 500 that was just ridiculous.. Even a mixed lab can go as high as 1000 and people pay for it. It made my stomach churn and the thought of a dog seemed out of reach as neither Jon or I were willing to spend that much money on a dog. Months passed and several dogs came upon us that were the last in the litter and owners were willing to pretty much give them away to move on, but it never seemed right. We always had something going on, or were saving money for other things, so we passed on them. We both agreed to drop the search as it was really heartbreaking to us to get excited then just not be able to "pull the Plug" per say. In July our friends the Cargiles moved here from Tigard and brought their dog.. Chloe is a golden retriever and adorable, and Logan seemed to love her..and that's when the constant naggying, crying and heartbroken 9yr old sold us.. We watched "Where the Red Fern Grows" one night and towards the end where the dog dies we heard sniffles coming from the floor.. we looked down to find Logan buried under the blanket bawling his eyes out. Not your normal sad cry, but crocodile tears, huge bug eyes and the most pathetic face I have ever seen. Jon and I both talked to him and he explained how much he wanted a dog and how much he missed ours. From that moment on we knew he needed a friend.

 Many of you know and many do not, but Logan started as twin. I miscarried around 7.5 weeks and I am always telling Jon I often feel like Logan is "missing" something.. as in his partner. I know twins have that innate sense of "twinness" and long for one another and he does not have that but I seriously feel like sometimes he's a lost soul looking for his missing half. He is so going to be that guy that marries his first love and he will fall hard!! After Logan's display of emotion we literally began looking again the next day, only again to find ridiculous prices for dogs. We even considered golden retrievers and boxers. We looked at craigslist daily for any new litters or leads on litters. Then one day we happened upon chocolate labs on Kauai.. Still asking 1200 and we knew we just couldnt spend that for a dog, so we waited a few weeks and the price dropped to 1000, then 800, then 600.. At this point Jon called to see how the process would work. There is no quarantine for dogs born within the state, so that was good, but there was the issue of getting the dog to Oahu.. The breeder (whom is the Chief of Police on Kauai) was not willing to budge at that time to ship and only take 600.. so then we would have had to either fly over and get him or freight him over.. another 200 at least. We just could not stomach it. we waited another week and Magic.. He still had 2 left and one was the one we really wanted. At this point they were 9 weeks and he was ready to be done with the litter. He was willing to take our offer of 500 and he had a friend coming to Oahu so the dog flew with him. Problem solved and we had our new dog..

this poor ball will never see a practice or game again.. it drags it around like a rag doll

                                    Favorite spot is the kitchen floor where it is nice and cool..

We had kept this a secret from the kids and T was off with friends when Hurley arrived so we took the boys to the airport and pretended Daddy had a package arriving. To see my boys faces light up when daddy walked out with a puppy in his hands was priceless. That is when the journey really began.. Poor Hurley came infested with TICKS!! I had never seen one before and it is really common here in Hawaii, but gross.. We went 2 full days without noticing and then bam.. I went to put him in his crate to take the kids to school and I saw 5 large nasty ticks crawling up my dining room wall. I wanted to run and hide.. I called my neighbor Josie since where they used to live in California they have ticks.. she gave me the 411 and bam I was on it. Vacuumed up those suckers, Sterilized the vacuum, bombed the house, carpets, washed all bedding, cleaned floors with pure pinesol, sprayed the wall with tick crap, sprayed our yard and then began removing at least 25 from my poor dog. It was as if I was dealing with Lice again. YUCK!! Needless to say when we went to the vet they blew it off as normal, WTF?? and gave us his medicine to keep them away. We do a daily tick check and Have been tick free since, but man it was nasty and terrifying all at the same time.. but with all that I would not trade him for the world. He reminds us so much of our first dog Bailey. He is mellow, sweet and loves to play soccer with the kids. They have all been troopers and shown they were ready for a dog.. They each walk him daily or all go together. They all pick up dog poop and take turns feeding him. We lucked out in that he was pretty much potty trained when we got him and only had 3 accidents in the house. With them all loving him we would still say Logan is the best with him and they definitely have a little bond. I love to see my kids happy with their new friend.. I love that we live in a place he can come with us everywhere and it is so nice out no one fights over walking him. We love our little Hurley.. 

A day well spent..

As I have mentioned many times we are in the heart of visitors season here at the Griffin home and with that you do not get a lot of alone time or Family time.. I have never really been one for either of those always preferring to have "company" join us but with time I have learned to enjoy and relish these moments and get a little crabby and selfish in wanting more of it. That being said I love having visitors here but for those that know me well this totally throws me off my "schedule and Structure " and leaves me feeling very vulnerable and out of control. Ahh, yess Control.. I must have it or I completely shut down. I am learning to cope with it better than I have in the past but man it is hard. What makes it worse is I am beginning to see these traits in my children.. Especially Carson..I have to laugh when I see him get flustered or off his "schedule" its almost like a mini panic attack.. His eyes bug out and he takes deep, I mean really deep, long breaths. It is hysterical for me to see till I realize it is so me. Lord help that child he has no idea what life holds for him with anxiety like that. Ok.. back to my point.. last Friday was one of Mike and Jens last days here visiting and we wanted to take advantage of the day. Jon took the day off.. ( yes, I said it and you read it.. he actually took a whole day off!) We went to the gym and worked out together, which I love doing with him, to me this is very sexy.. We then met Mikey and Jen and went Hiking. We drove into town and hiked Manoa falls. I have done this hike with friends and I knew it was a good, but fast hike, but this particular day was humid, hot and muddy.. It was really slippery with thick, fresh mud..which made it fun and hard..Once we got to the falls, Mike saw a path to another trail, I had never done it and had no idea how long it was or how long it would take. Right off the bat I was out of my element. It was steep, very slippery, muddy and left me feeling unsafe. We went about half way to a beautiful Banyon tree and then realized that it was bunch of switchbacks that seemed narrow and steep.. For the girl who is afraid of heights I was so hoping someone would suggest turning around, and thank god someone did.. We headed back out and back down to the car.. From there we headed to the guys favorite bakery for Chocolate drop cookies, empanadas and doughnuts. This was painful for me as I crave sweets and well non of that is gluten free or "Clean" for that matter so I just watched and tortured myself as they devoured their treats. Once we made it home we cleaned up only to head back out. This was the first time had left the kids with a sitter since we moved. Yes, 14 mths of no dates.. well, we have had one but we are so homebodies now.. Anyways, we left the kids with Sonja, my Gf Julie's daughter and we headed back into town. We went to one of our favorite restaurants "Hula Grill" and walked around Waikiki. It was since to sit and have an adult conversation and nice meal without feeling rushed or like I had to make sure my kids were on their best behavior. I enjoyed my company and the fact that I was dressed up, had make-up on and actually did my hair. It was reminder to me that I love getting away with Jon and feeling pretty. Now I did have a moment between hiking and heading back out where my tummy hurt and I was so tired that I just wanted to stay home ( once again Homebody) but once we got out I was so happy to be out with great company. We have become such a close little family that I hate leaving this kids, even if they seem to love it, but I realized how much we need it. It is not necessary every weekend like we used to do but once a month would not be bad. Once we got home I thanked Jon for spending the day with me and let him know I looked forward to more days like that, as long as I am in control of course.

What a week...

We made it alive.. I feel like we have been running around with our heads cut off.. Between T's soccer games, C's soccer, school, friends and family its been a constant go go go.. The kids have been out of school at 1pm for the last 10 days instead of having 3 days off for confrences.. I prefer the hr early release to 3 days off.. It to me just makes sense. That being said we had our confrences and I am pleased to say all kids are doing great. I had all 3 in a row and they started with C. He is doing amazingly. He was always the class clown and still is but was more focused on being silly and funny then school and wow that has all changed. He is reading at a 4th grade level in fluency and comphrension and a few yrs ahead in math. He and another student who happens to be his little crush are being pulled out daily to go to another class for extra work to continue their progress. They are also being sent home with extra assignments and as much as I hate the extra work on top of his homework I appreciate that she is taking the time to push and challeange him and not let him ride it through. They grade on a letter scale here ME is exceeding, MP is meeting grade level goals, DP is approaching and WB is well below... Carson was very please to get all ME.. it would be like all 5's at home. Next up was Logan.. We were a little concened as he has not been as focused or driven at school not sure what is up but we think it is just "boy" laziness.. But once again he is doing just fine. He too got all ME's with a few MP's.. He has always been a fast reader but we have always questioned if he understood it all, and it is catching up with him. He is still ahead in fluency but his comphrension is not as far ahead.. Still ahead, but starting to catch up with him. So we are taking time now to read and go over what we have read to make sure he understands. Otherwise he is doing very well, I think he is laking some confidence these days in general and Momma is on the confidence boosting trail.. Maybe it is just middle child syndrome. Next up was T.. I do not worry about her. She is always on it when in comes to school, she ahs the drive and passion to be the best student and leader she can be. She was accepted into the Gifted and Talented program which is the IB prgram for our elementarty school and she stays and additional 1hr 2 a week for class. Her confrence lasted all of 5 minutes. She too got all ME's and her teacher has her doing spelling and reading at the 8th grade level. She is ahead in math as well and a peer leader for her class in this. Her teacher also has her reading from the HS books since she has tested out of the Elementary school level reading program. Her teacher runs their class in groups since they do not switch anymore for diffrent subjects.. She has a group for Exceeding, on level, lower on level and needing some assistance. T is in the exceeding group with 5 other students. Poor thing has atleast 2-3 hrs of homework a night plus GT work, plus soccer. But she manages to do it all and we are proud of her. She just truned in all her paperwork for the IB program next year at her MS and will start her interview process shortly. Her teachers gave her glowing recs and our fingers are crossed that she gets in. We are especially proud because she chose to give up and elevetive to do the program! SO as for schoool things are going great and we are proud of each one of them. It is obvious to us that when their life is successful they are much happier and willing to do more.. 

 T has blossomed in soccer lately scoring 4 goals in last 2 weeks and 2 assists in addition.( I had wrote this on friday and never posted.. she scored 2 more this weekend.. one was a true goal and the second was a awesome cross that was deflected in by the defense so she got the goal..)  She truly has become the leader on the field that they have been pushing her to be and it makes her feel good.. warm fuzzies all over..  Carson is playing end to end on the field and so much more aggressive than anyone out there He too has 3 goals and several assists. ( scored 2 more on saturday with an assist.. I think he was showing off for uncle Mikey and Auntie Jen..) We are now in search of a club as he has proved himself worthy. Logan and Carson both  start Baseball in the next month and all 3 have decided to run track this summer.. Busy busy but I would not have it any other way. To see them smile with pride in life makes my heart full.

Halloween

Halloween is amazing here. Everyone goes all out. All houses are decorated like it is Christmas. Lights, cobwebs, skeletons, tombstones and so on. Most people sit on their porch and hand out candy and the fact that it is 75 plus degrees makes it nice to see kids costumes and the millions of people out. We started Halloween on Monday with team bonding. Hawaii pacific university put on a trick or treat festival downtown with  bout 25 booths of games, a band, haunted house and free food. It was a blast. About 10 girls from her team and their families came. All 3 coaches were there and the girls had a blast. It was fun to see them all getting along and hanging out, and it is so obvious it is helping them on the field. The kids all left thanking us greatly for taking them and telling us how much fun they had. I loved it as we had never done anything like it. In Oregon there was that sort of thing for younger kids but this was very appealing to any age! All 3 kids went in the haunted house and J joined them.. C thought it was dumb, T was a little spooked and Logan was devastated.. He hated it.. poor kid!  

So when the day of  Halloween rolled around out bags were already half full from the festival.. We went with our neighbors Jacob and Lauryn and their mom Josie. We headed out around 6:15 and by 7:30 Carson was done. His bag was full and he wanted to go home and hand out candy. Logan and Jacob lasted another 15 mins and they too were done. T and Lauryn could have gone all night.. at about 8:10 we told them time to head home.. They proceeded to Lauryns to "trade" candy.. T finally walked in the door around 8:45 and was exhausted and a little spooked.  Many porches had people hiding and would jump out and scare you. T doesn't like that and it was obvious when she ended up sleeping on our floor that night. Poor kid came in our room at 1am talking about the people dancing in our hallway.. Not quite sure what that is all about, maybe our house is haunted.. but needless to say the grabbed a pillow and blanket and parked it on our floor. Halloween was a success we have 3.5 bags full of candy and I am hoping to throw 3 bags of it out! Not so the kids don't eat it, more so that I don't eat it!! I do not think many choices are gluten free or dairy free and somehow my little mind says "eat it" anyways, which always ends with an upset tummy for days.. I must have more willpower, oh but chocolate is soooo good!!

Tsnaumi...

While having a lazy Saturday night and just sitting down to eat dinner I heard a familiar sound from the tv.. Mind you it was the Tv upstairs, but I still heard that annoying "beep.. beep..beep" I told Jon that is what I was hearing and he blew me off..then both our phones and the ipad had a USA today Breaking news of "Tsunami warning" issued for Hawaii. We both jumped on to computers and starting seeing what what going on.. We also turned the Tv on downstairs and low and behold "beep.. beep.. followed by all the info we needed.. "We had plenty of warning to evacuate if needed. The warning was issued around 6 for a 10:28 wave arrival.  The sirens started going off immediately , followed but what we always make fun of in PDX and refer to as the news "winter weather watch" where its only the newscasters on TV for hours.. Since we have only been in one other warning which was cancelled right after being issued we found the news entertaining. We had already been drinking since the beaver game had been on so we figured we would stay put and when we saw the line up of cars to get out of Ewa Beach we knew we made the right choice. It was bumper to bumper for at least 6 miles to the freeway. Tatum had gone to scholfield army base with her friend Abby's family for some Halloween festivities and that was the only thing that stressed me out. It really is probably the safest spot on the island being that it is so high up and in the middle of the island per say. She called around 9 and said that they were on their way home and it made me feel a lot better. She got home and told us all about the traffic and that all the grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants were closed. The streets just below us were on mandatory evacuation and the police were going door to door and driving around with bullhorns telling people to evacuate. The boys were very scared and had a hard time falling asleep, to them the world was ending and it sounds like a lot of people thought the same. The gas stations were packed with people filling their cars up that many stations ran out of gas. The stores were packed as well and I don't think I could find toilet paper or water if I tried. Oh the joys of small island life! I finally went to bed around 11, T had an 8:30 soccer game and had to be at the field by 7:30 which meant we had to leave by 7 or so. Honestly, I was hoping that with all the pandemonium the game would be cancelled. But nope, we played on this am! Thank you to all of you who called, text or Facebooked to check up on us. I guess this is just the beginning of all the crazy natural disasters that may or may not occur down here in the pacific. But even with all the scariness, I would not trade this life for a second! I will tell you I got a thorough science lesson on a tsunami and so not what I thought.. Seems you are always learning something new!