Super Kids

On Saturday morning, I heard little feet tip toeing down the hall. I looked up from my bed and was surprised to see two super heroes on a special spying mission. They were hush-hush and wanted to surprise daddy.

Primary Program

So, we had our primary program yesterday and the kids did so well! I am so pleased with how well they did, and I consider it a miracle considering our rehearsal the week before was chaos at best.

The most funny part, however was after the program was finished and the closing prayer was being said, MY SON, ducked under the sacrament table cloth and started eating the sacrament bread! Christian just about died and gave a serious threatening stare / warning with his eyes. Even despite the warning, Alexander persisted in grabbing bits of bread and eating them. Oh, this wasn't such a fun game when the meeting was over! I am holding onto him in the picture while he is squirming out of my hands and onto the floor.

Hello again...

Someone said that posting a blog is like creating a journal entry. Writing on Facebook is like saying something that is on your mind in one or two sentences. I just started Facebooking last week and I love it because it is so easy. That said, I still want to keep up on our blog. So, here is my effort to do a better job on updating our blog.

Above is Alexander using my bundt pan as his costume in a "fashion show" that he and Emma were having in their pajamas. He was marching around the house using the bundt as a sort of megaphone, boy was it loud! Emma was wearing her butterfly wings, crown and butterfly scepter in her costume. I guess puzzles were a part of the show too.

One morning last week, I thought it was amazing that the kids weren't up earlier. I waited until 7:00 and then went downstairs to wake up the sleeping munchkins. Emma's room was empty, so I checked Xander's and this is what I saw...see below photo.

Emma was dressed in a Taekwondo outfit and Xander was in his batman gear and she was reading him "The Rooftop Mystery." I turned right around and went back upstairs to get the camera. I love it!

Xander is a boys' boy. He loves his trucks and cars. He often parks his cars on his bed all in a line. It's so cute. Whenever we check on him, we remove the cars, toys and books in his bed because he moves around a lot while he sleeps. Our cute booter boy.

Our apartment needed new A/C units because our current units drip all over everything, quit working for no reason, and make noise like a hamster running around inside a wheel, etc. So, we have moved to a new apartment down the hall for two weeks so that they can do the work they need to do. This is what our house looked like after they prepped the area. Above is our kitchen, below is our living room. We put all of our things on one side of the room and they used a staple gun and tape to put the tarps into place. I have a feeling the work will be messy.

I had to crawl under the tarp to get some things today and it was pretty tricky. I cooked and baked all last week to freeze some dinners to make life easier for us in temporary housing. I didn't want to have to take all of my spices, cooking tools, sauces, etc. with me. So, let's hope it all works out okay and I didn't leave too many necessary items buried in corners under the tarps.

Daddy's Birthday

Yes, Happy Birthday to Christian...but first, some favorite photos of late.

It is all I can do but hold my gags down while looking at this photo! She is having SUCH a good time I love her expression and hate what she is playing with! What is it with kids and toilets?!?

Yeah, we finally got a picture of Emma and Hillary from the other angle, which shows both of them much better.

Xander discovered how to use the translation equipment at church and last Sunday he was speaking and singing into the microphone and listening to himself in the headphones. You can see his concentration - he is very focused on what he is doing.

And now for the birthday daddy - we had 3 blue candles and 6 white candles on the cake to represent the big 36. We didn't want to create a torch or anything ; ) I made two small cake rounds with the extra cake batter - pictured above. This recipe made a LOT! I ended up taking over half of the big the carrot cake into his work today to share with co-workers.

I made special arrangements at the Halia (a Singaporian restaurant) for dinner. He was embarrassed when the staff came out singing "happy birthday to Mr. Christian" - good! Goal accomplished! We had a wonderful dinner and every bite was culinary perfection - yum!

Meet Secretary Clinton

Hillary Clinton came to Hanoi for the ASEAN Conference today. We got to have a special "meet and greet" with her. We'll post more pics as we receive them. It's kind of hard to smile and say cheese and take a picture at the same time. She gave a nice speech and was very genuine. It was a pleasure to meet her.

She stopped to talk with Emma directly and asked for her name. We don't quite have a good pic of this yet, but you can see the top of Emma's head.

Xander was so excited about seeing "Mary Clinton" - I guess "Hillary" is a little hard to say. Although he was looking forward to the event, I guess waiting in place so long wore him out. By the end, he wanted NOTHING to do with all the photos that were being taken. He's sitting on the stairs to the side of me.

While the Secretary was speaking, he was bit of a pill too. He wanted to go see Daddy, so I let him go through the crowd behind me to get to Christian - standing just 2 people back. When he saw Christian, he took off running and made a loop around the crowd, and ran in front of everyone to get back to me on the front row. I just about died!!! A security nightmare! The Secret Service are SO tight about events like this and monitor every move.

Playing "Go Fish" waiting for the Secretary to arrive.

It was POURING rain on the ride over to the hotel. I told the kids to be prepared to huddle underneath the umbrella as we ran across the street. It was so sweet, a cute Vietnamese woman saw me pulling my kids one by one out of the car and she smiled really big, scooped up Xander, tucked him under her rain poncho and told me that she would help me bring him to the hotel. She was still sitting there after the event when we came back to the car. The sun was shining and she was still smiling. I am very grateful for her kindness. Xander kept asking where her rain poncho was.

Another very funny thing that happened today was that I accidentally got locked into Xander's room tonight with all the kids!!! We were STUCK in there for 5 hours waiting for Christian to come home and open the door. We had finished our bedtime routine and I asked Emma to go get one more book, when we realized that the door was locked! I tried to pick the lock for a long while, I tried to find the key in the closet for a long while, I read stories for a long while, turned off the lights and told make-believe stories for a long while. Xander finally fell asleep after 3 hours, Emma zonked out after 4, and little Anneliese kept trying to nestle down, but couldn't get comfy. She was a trooper though and kept playing with toys in between her times of trying to fall asleep. After I post this entry, I'm going online to learn how to pick a lock! A skill that could be quite useful. We HAD a key in the room, but Xander found it and put it somewhere. Christian was busy with the Secretary's visit and couldn't come home until after the events of the day were finished - quite late. I still can't believe we were locked in there for so long!!!

Apostle, Elder Oaks Visits Hanoi

Above: family photo with Dallin H. Oaks and his wife Kirsten. They came to Hanoi to have government meetings and to speak to our congregation! Elder Oaks is one of the twelve apostles for our church. Yes, I mean an apostle just like the kind of apostles, or disciples that Jesus had when he lived on earth. We believe that God still speaks to his children (meaning, you and I). He had a good system in place with his previous prophets: Abraham, Moses, etc. why would he operate in a different way? So to continue this pattern, he restored his church to a man named Joseph Smith (see more on lds.org) restoring priesthood power and temple ordinances, just like in the days of the ancient prophets. As in times of old, we have a living prophet and twelve apostles who stand at his side to testify of Jesus Christ. That is their main job, they are called as special witnesses of Jesus Christ. It was indeed, very special to have Apostle, Elder Oaks here.

A photo with many of the members of our congregation and Elder and Sister Oaks along with Elder and Sister Pratt in the front.

Xander playing catch with Elder Oaks. Sister Oaks had given the children "testimony gloves" and that is what they are throwing back and forth to each other. Xander commented that Elder Oaks has a "loud voice," when really he has a deep resonant voice that carries well. When he speaks, people listen. His voice is solid and sure.

He was accompanied by Elder and Sister Pratt from Hong Kong, and President and Sister Smedley, the mission president from Cambodia. Christian got to help arrange Elder Oak's meetings, attend a meeting and go to lunch with him and the delegation. Jennie got to take Sister Oaks and her delegation around Hanoi to see some sites, do lunch and do some shopping. Above is a group of Vietnamese children attending the French School in Hanoi.

A favorite memory of Jennie's was walking around with Sister Oaks on our way to see something and her saying "We're making a memory" with a big smile on her face - and she genuinely was making a memory and enjoying herself in the moment, taking in the journey along the way. She stopped at every opportunity to talk with people and appreciated hearing their stories and connecting with them. You could tell that she has a deep appreciation and love for people. The people in this photo had bright yellow t-shirts on that said "Sweet Family." She was impressed and said - that's what it's all about having a sweet family! Below she is talking to a group of girls at The Temple of Literature who had just graduated from school.

It was a such a privilege to welcome Elder and Sister Oaks to Hanoi! This was an event our family will remember for many years to come.

Mexico Pics from Cruise

CABO SAN LUCAS

We used the company Ocean Riders and they were AWESOME!

Perfect for our trip, professional, nice equipment, easy going and nice.

Cruise ship in the background, and all geared up ready to speed across the ocean - literally, we went super fast and it was so much fun!!! We whooped and hollered the whole way.

On Lovers Beach with the engaged lovers, Maile and Michael. Beautiful rock formations, gorgeous water and perfect sunny, but not-so-hot weather! This beach connects with a beach on the other side of the island which faces the open sea and is more violent, hence the name Divorce Beach. We liked Lovers Beach better.

Our gang ready to swim around the rock behind us to go to another beach and caves.

Snorkeling! It was awesome!

They fed the fish from the boat and we saw SO MANY striking and strange fish. We snorkeled in a couple different places and it was beautiful, so peaceful and amazing. Our guide was so good to give us some instruction for the new snorkelers. It made me wish that I would have had known these pointers when we went snorkeling with the dolphins in Zanzibar. Now that I know, I'll be looking for more opportunities to snorkel in the future. I had always shied away from it before.

MAZATLAN

Parasailing, riding horses on the beach, shopping and sunning...

Mom and Briant and The Last Supper made of sand! Now THAT's a winner in the sand castle contest.

Riding our boat out to the play site. On the way we stopped to see some scenic white rocks off the coast, which happened to be white because of the amount of bird poop on them! Then we saw some seals all crowded on top of a big rock. The ride on this boat was SO rocky there were quite a few of us who felt entirely queasy toward the end. I think it didn't help that the guide was loud and kind of obnoxious. He had a megaphone that he talked/yelled into and he was difficult to understand. Plus, he kept saying things like: Who let the dogs out? arf, arf, arf, arf... They did play some fun music later on which was fun and reminded us we were on vacation.

Parasailing! I would have never done this had it not been for Briant first taking the plunge. This was quite thrilling and surprisingly peaceful to be soaring over the ocean. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Riding horses on the beach. Beautiful experience and so funny when the horses decided to trot all of the sudden, and then more horses in the pack decided to follow suit. We loved it!

PUERTA VALLARTA

Riding several zip lines through the rain forest! Vallarta Adventures was the company we used and they were AWESOME! They were extremely professional, safe, fun and we had a great time...until at the very end when they wanted to charge us a million dollars for each photo. That was a downer which dampened the unbelievable experience.

"Shaken, not stirred" is how we arrived to the zip line starting point. We took a safari-like jeep/bus up to the top of the mountain and we were literally only held down by the seat belts we wore.

It was better than a ride at Disneyland!

All geared up and ready to go - a little surprised that all the gear was all wet, but it soon made perfect sense as some of the zip lines ended in pools of water. Our arms were all sore the next day. I didn't realize that you brake with your hand - hence the heavily padded leather gloves. There seemed to be a perfect balance of your hand hovering above the line, ready to break, and actually breaking. It seemed that I needed to 'rest' my hand on the line in order to 'fly' straight. That heated up my glove to a nice and toasty burn.

Riding mules up to the top - we were given instructions on how to ride the mules. Interesting fact, mules are a cross between a horse and a donkey, and they can't reproduce. They are incredibly stubborn and my mule protested the whole way up the trail. I started in the lead and ended in the rear of the pack. This was even despite my best efforts to nudge it into gear - kicking my heels in and making 'smooching' sounds with my mouth. They said it would work, but in the end, my mule went just as fast as it wanted to and my lip muscles were all tuckered out by the time we got to the top.

Yippeee, the exiliration after my fist real zip line! So much fun and what a rush! Mom's got to build a better zip line in the backyard now that we've all done the real thing. At one point, they had two parallel zip lines and I raced my sister Emily. She went flying at the beginning and I was going slow for some reason - I told myself 'no way!' and figured out how to go faster. I felt like a bullet sailing through the air. The speed was awesome! I ended up winning the race, but I also won a fat lip from hitting the end of the line so hard that it flipped me up and hit my face. No regrets.

Rappelling down a waterfall. I thought I was being cautious but quick. My sister Emily schooled me in what quick was : )

The free-fall drop from a ledge down into a pool of water. We had a blast! It was an incredible experience and so memorable. Now that I look back, I can't believe we did so much in a one-week timeframe.