Safari Park fun

August 25, 2011

We're only minutes away from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park so we bought membership and try to visit often. Leiohu and I go there most, because we're home during the day. Leiohu LOVES seeing all the animals and playing at the small playground they have.

This is a stone lion at the playground that Leiohu tries to climb.

Leiohu loves pretending to drive this jeep--and any other pretend vehicle she comes across.

At certain times and in certain areas, park employees bring out a different animal and share facts about the animals in general and the specific animal they have. This one was a cheetah that used to be part of the "Cheetah Run" that the park has in the late afternoon.

The gorilla habitat has a handful of gorillas hanging around. We love going there because of baby Monroe who is growing so quickly. I couldn't get a good picture of him, so I have a picture of the sign below. He was born in June 2011!

This giant pelican is amazing! It doesn't do much, but it's neat to come around the corner and see this huge bird either swimming to or sunning & drying its wings on its favorite rock.

Back to school

August 16, 2011

Anuhea was supposed to begin school on August 15th, but we couldn't get her registered earlier because of many factors. Therefore, she and I went to the high school on August 16th to meet with the counselor. Anuhea chose all of her classes with the help of the counselor, we were able to get fees paid, and she started school right away (around 3rd period, maybe?). She was fine with being in a new school, but worried about lunch time--who to eat with. Anuhea made friends and has adjusted quickly.

August 21, 2011

Seminary! We went to the Stake Center the night before Seminary and the Stake leaders introduced the Seminary program. Then we split into groups to meet the high schoolers' teachers. In our building, the teens are divided by grade. There is a Freshman class, Sophomore class, and so on. Anuhea's teacher is Sister Brenda Knowlton. She seems very nice and like she'll be a great Seminary teacher. Good luck to Anuhea to wake up EARLY every school day! (And good luck to Jason who will be driving Anuhea.) Fortunately, the church building is right next to the high school so the students walk over to school together, and we don't have to worry about transporting Anuhea from Seminary to school.

August 22, 2011

Nalani & Hokulani had a week longer than Anuhea to play, etc. before they started school. Lucky kids. :) Nalani is in middle school and Hokulani is in elementary school. Our house is very conveniently located so that the children can walk to & from school!

Welcome Home!

August 8, 2011

We're officially living in California! We flew across the country and our realtor had the keys to our house for us. We were so excited to get into our new home! I've posted this picture before, but here is the front of our house. We live in Escondido, not far from the I-15 freeway and the Westfield North County Mall.

Call or send us an email and we'll give you our new address. We'd love to have you visit! (Hint, hint, Mom & Dad!)

We have a hammock in our backyard that we sometimes go outside to enjoy. It's so relaxing that we can even fall asleep in it, just like Leiohu has done in this picture.

With all the frustration of not getting our things delivered on time, we were blessed to have help from the members of church in the San Pasqual Ward. They let us borrow mattresses, bedding, and brought in food too. Yay for a global church family!

Fort Wilderness & Disney World Adventure

August 6-7, 2011

Thanks to a wonderful friend of ours in the Oviedo Ward, Liz Cullen, we were able to stay at the Fort Wilderness Resort at Disney World for a reduced price. We also got into the theme parks for free!

This is a picture of the bus that we rode between the theme parks and the resort.

This building was where we checked in/out. Other services were provided there, but we didn't need them.

Here's our cabin! We had just 1 bedroom in the cabin, but there was a double bed, bunk beds, plus a pull-down bed in the living room, so there was enough room for all 6 of us.

The bunk beds:

Living/dining area:

Pull-down bed in living room:

We spent a short time at Magic Kingdom. The children wanted to ride the tea cups.

Anuhea & Nalani in their teacup:

Hokulani & Leiohu in their teacup:

Hokulani & Anuhea on the Disney Transport bus:

We spent most of our time at Animal Kingdom since it's one that can't be found in California (whenever we can get to Disneyland).

Jason holding Leiohu at the entrance to Animal Kingdom:

Carmel, Anuhea holding Leiohu, Hokulani & Nalani at the entrance to Animal Kingdom:

Having lunch at the Animal Kingdom...

Jason, Nalani & Carmel:

Hokulani eating her lunch:

Carmel & Leiohu eating lunch:

One of the best places at Animal Kingdom is the river ride, especially since it's so hot & humid in Florida.

Jason & I had to take turns riding the raft, because Leiohu couldn't ride, but the girls could ride with both of us. Anuhea & Hokulani chose to ride both times.

This is the ride with Jason, Hokulani & Anuhea:

I can't remember what this was called. Sorry.

Tiger

Bats

Komodo Dragon

The 4D show "It's Tough to be a Bug!" was fun. We saw it before when the children were younger so they didn't remember it.

Anuhea in the 3D glasses:


The Tree of Life:


We spent a brief time at Epcot to get our passes into the theme parks, then we returned in the evening for the fireworks display.

After a whirlwind overnight trip, Leiohu just couldn't take it any longer. She fell asleep on the way back to the Howards' home.

Movin' Out

August 1, 2011

We moved out of our home on August 1, 2011. It was so strange to see the home where we'd lived for 4 years empty.

We were lucky to have movers (Allied Van Lines through Sorensen Moving & Storage), but we experienced some glitches that made the move somewhat frustrating. If any of you are planning to move from Florida, then I don't recommend using Allied if you have to go through Sorensen. We planned for the movers to come a week ahead of when we'd fly out, because the moving consultant told us it would take that long for the moving truck to get across the country. Also, all of our household goods plus our vehicles would be transported at the same time so we would get them at the same time. Then, a car transporting company called us and arranged to pick up our vehicles, because (according to the representatives at Sorensen) there were too many people moving at the same time and they couldn't fit our vehicles on the truck. That made our vehicle arrival time one week LATER than our belongings (and us). When the movers came the day after our things were boxed, the driver said he was told to have our things in California by a certain date, which was almost a week later than we'd be there and than we had arranged. We were NOT happy. We were fortunate to have help from the members in our new Ward from church, but we still did not have our contract met. We got reimbursements for the "mistakes", but they weren't full reimbursements. Ugh!

Because we still had another week before leaving Florida, we needed somewhere to stay. The Howard family was kind enough to allow our entire family to stay with them. We love that family!