Our Halloween

Isabel dressed up for her school Friday the 29th

I just thought it was so cute with her backpack on and everything.  This was her idea to go as catgirl by the way.

Halloween isn't a very big deal here. They didn't have a costume parade or any Halloween activity at her school.  They just let the kids show up in their costumes if they wanted.  So I asked her teacher if I could take pictures and this was all there was to take a picture of.

This was a Pumpkin Carving Event that the PTG put on for Izzy's school.  Parents and kids would set up their pumpkins, carve them while listening to Halloween music, and displayed them on the stage.  The kids had a blast running around with all their friends while the parents did the carving.

This is a very nice family from our ward who's son is in Isabel's class.  Laurie, Josh, Asialynn Horita

I carved Izzy's pumpkin, tracing her hands and doing a rendition of "Scream" from Van Gogh.

Shaun did Ian's with a deviled earred skull.

The kids all counted to three and the lights turned off to reveal the lit up pumpkins.  It was great.



Saturday the 29th our ward (combined with another ward) put on a Potluck/Trunk-o-Treat/Game activity.  Isabel dressed up in her catgirl costume and Ian was Superman.  I originally had this fantastic dragon costume for him from Old Navy but he changed his mind.



Luckily it didn't rain that night considering it rained all the week before and the week after.  Thats the church behind the kids.

Shaun's been teasing Ian about Asia being Ian's girlfriend because he likes to play with her in Nursery.  She is simply adorable, my little boy's got good taste.

This is Hailey Wallace with Isabel.  They are very close friends.  They family moved into our ward from Korea(father is in the airforce) just a few months ago and Izzy hit it off right away with her.






This awesome boy is the son of a really good friend, Aikea, from our ward.  Recently divorced with three adorable boys.  They love playing with Ian.  My friend named her boys, Mathias, Elias, & Zacharias. Pretty catchy I thought.



Heading to the Trunk-o-Treat part to get some free candy.

I love their costumes!  They are Polynesian Firedancers!

This is at the exit of the Maze the youth put together.  I have to say it was one of the best maze I've done.  They taped together a lot of refrigerator size cardboard boxes on their sides so you have to crawl through on your hands and knees.  Secret panels, spider webs, dangling moss, rubber rats and bugs.  Even had a fog machine going and it was pitch dark in most of the maze.  You even had to push through a secret door and crawl out onto a wet moss feeling thing, that grossed me out.  Once you figured your way out you slide down a cardboard slide out to the exit.  I was scared, and scaring the kids, and Shaun of course was laughing.

I know it was Sunday but treak-or-treaters were still going to come to the door so I let the kids pass out the candy which they absolutely loved doing.
It was a very lovely Halloween.

My twin (what Shaun calls it)

(I had attached a picture of the teratoma that I got from Wikipedia, but Shaun was so grossed out by it that he asked I delete it and just add a link to it instead for those who really want to see it.)

This is so gross, I can barely look at the picture.  I'm typing and blocking out the picture at the same time, but this is what was in my left ovary for who knows how long.  Its a teratoma dermoid cyst.  I just had surgery yesterday to remove my entire left ovary since the cyst was inside and not on the outside like they thought it might be.  They are going to cut my ovary open and look inside and let me know at my next appointment all the gory details.  Seriously, this is really disgusting, mine was worse than the picture, mine had teeth!  Blechh! 
I'm recovering OK so far.  Problem is Shaun is really really sick and is not getting any sleep.  He's having a hard time poor guy, taking care of me and mostly Ian.  That boy is really testing Shaun's patience.

Ian's SuperHero Party

For Ian's 3rd Birthday I wanted to do a Superhero theme since he was always running around saying "Superhero, to the rescue!".  So my ideas just grew and grew, and the accumulation of it all was pretty awesome and fun.  We had a Superhero boot camp so to speak.  I set up an obstacle course to test their endurance.  Then set up swinging pendulums with a bad guy punching bag for their agility.  Last I had a whole bunch of water balloon 'bombs' with a moving target 'Shaun' to test their marksmanship.  Once they completed the course they became official Superhero and I had capes and masks ready for them.
Then we fought the Evil Eye (pinata), and had Superhero cake and ice cream.  It was a complete blast.  Ian loved it.  We especially had such good friends to share it all with too.

I completely ran out of time.  Its supposed to be covered in blue sky icing, with the cupcakes in white icing so that it looked liked superman was flying in the sky.  Oh well.  It tasted really good though.

Here he is, 3 years old!  He's wearing his dinosaur shirt that Gma Chelle & Gpa Bill got for him.  He wore this for three days straight till I convinced him to let me wash it.  He ask for it by the dino's name "I want my Triceratops shirt!"

Like, the best day EVER!

First let me say that according to Shaun this took months of planning, and a trip to Saipan solely for the purpose of getting the money to pay for all this.  And because of all the hard work he did, I had an AMAZING 31st birthday yesterday.
The layout of the 21st of August, my birthday:
Woke up early at 6:30am so we could be up at the North Shore area for my first Skydive.
Flew up at 9am to over 15000 ft!  Normally they only fly up to 14000 but Shaun said nobody was complaining so why not go higher. (by the way I was gripping my knees the whole way and trying to remind myself to breathe!  The anticipation is always the worst part of it)
After 15mins of flying they popped the door open and out we went.  It was intense, and fun at the same time.  I honestly think I could do it again.
Once we landed it took me a long time for my body to stop shaking from the nerves and adrenaline rush.  Also felt sick to my stomach the longer I was on ground.  My fault because I was too nervous to eat much of a breakfast.
Ate at a Mexican restaurant to calm down my stomach and reminisce how no matter where you go you'll never find as good of Mexican food as when we lived in El Paso.  Oh, it was so good there.
Of course we had to get one of the local shaved ice cones.  Its soooo good with the ice cream mixed in there.
Next we hit the beach, Pupekea to be exact.  Ian fell asleep so I opted to relax and read my book while Isabel and Shaun went snorkeling.
We then hurried home to get ready in time before the babysitter shows up at 3:30pm.
Shaun and I arrive at the Aloha Tower and walk to Pier 6 and surprised me with tickets to go on a Sunset Dinner Cruise!  Such a wonderful husband!  I absolutely LOVED it!
We had a five course meal of :

Cocktail shrimp

Salad

Lobster

Beef tenderloin w/ veggies and mashed potatoes

Chocolate cake

We could walk around on the decks anytime we felt like it to enjoy the view of the Island and the ocean.  They even had hula dancers and a Hawaiian singer playing throughout the whole cruise.  It was so romantic and just perfect ending to an already amazing day. 

Thank You Shaun!

This is my Skydive instructor John.  He was awesome.  He helped feel calm, and excited about my first time.
The photographer was Dan, he made it really easy for me to smile.  Pretty cool guy as well.

Whoo Hoo!

Boarding my first romantic Sunset Dinner Cruise!  Isn't Shaun amazing!?

We had access to the fore and aft deck anytime we wanted while we were cruising.

So excited to be doing this.  Always wanted to for years.

The lobster was a bit hard to crack, but still good.  Seriously though, does anybody eat the meat that's in the main part of the body?  Anything that looked that mushy and a bit green tinted is not going in my mouth.

Handsome fellow isn't he?  That's Diamond Head behind him.

And this was the Sunset part.  It was perfect.

After church we went to the beach to and took a bunch of fun pictures.

Shaun felt completely at peace.

First Shaun tried it.....

....then I had to try it too.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't do it!  I'm such a wuss.

Beautiful Isabel

Precious Ian