Hawaii

After 32 years Mikko has been able to cross this off his list... tropical vacation. Mikko received an extra dividend a few months ago so we were able to have a Hawaii vacation. The picture above is Waikiki beach in Honolulu. We chose Oahu since I had already been there and knew there were lots of thing to see and do on the Island. We stayed 5 days and that still was not enough. We decided if we go again it will be a minimum of a week.

Here is some countryside on our trip out to Laie to visit the PCC (Polynesian Cultural Center). We did not rent a car for the whole trip so we paid for a lot of shuttles. This one was nice the PCC provided it and we had a little tour guide that gave us some great insights.

This is my cousin Carol who lives in Laie and works at BYU Hawaii. Carol greeted us with leis and they smelled wonderful. She met us at the PCC and got us a screaming deal on tickets. We were so thankful for her since everything in Hawaii is so expensive. We tried to stop by in Laie on Sunday but we did not get an answer. We were sad to not be able to visit some more but that gives us more incentive to go again.

Our fist stop at the PCC was the Samoan village, this guy showed us how the coconut tree is the tree of life. Anciently they used every part of the tree from shelter to cooking utensils food. This guy climbed the coconut tree all the way to the top to get a coconut and he was barefoot. He was pretty buff and really funny.

They have a canoe pageant in the afternoon and they have a boat that represents 6 of the different villages. This one is Tahiti.

Mikko tried his luck at the Tongan spear toss, he did pretty good for a white guy.

Here they are taking out the pig for all of us to see before we started eating at the Luau.

Here we are waiting for our turn to go eat at the Luau. We had yummy pork and chicken and purple tarot rolls and a couple of other interesting Hawaiian things.

Mikko splurged on a fancy drink and he said it was well worth the $7 it cost.

Our battery was charging on our camera so this is a crappy still we took with our video camera of the Arizona memorial. We also stopped by at the aviation museum so Mikko could check out all the vintage planes.

Sunday we headed up to North Shore. We stopped off at the Dole pineapple plantation and enjoyed some pineapple sorbet and man that was some good stuff. We then stopped at the beach at the Turtle Bay resort. It was really nice and Mikko got to snorkel in the bay. He is the one in the middle with the yellow snorkel. You might want to click on the picture so you can see it bigger.

Then it was over to Laie once again we stopped by the beautiful temple and watched a film in the visitor center. Unfortunately we did not go to a session this trip cause both of our recommends have expired and we were not able to get in for interviews before we left. It's called poor planning on our part.

This is the view from our hotel room on Waikiki. We stayed at the Embassy Suites, it was really nice and the beach was just a block away. Thank goodness we had Hilton points so we could stay there.

Our last day in Hawaii and we head to Hanauma Bay so Mikko could do some more snorkeling. I have been snorkeling three times before, but the last time I went was here a few years ago and I started hyper ventilating. The things in the water just freak me out. So I don't snorkel anymore. I just chilled out on the beach. In the shade of course.

Shot of Hanauma Bay from the top of the ridge. So beautiful even the picture does not do it justice. The blues were much more vibrant in person. We would love to go back again. The weather was nice 85 for high and 72 for a low. Sure beats the 30's we are experiencing in SLC at nights now. But I do admit that it would at least be nice to have cooler weather for Christmas just seems weird to be able to go to the beach on Christmas Day.

Binki

The binki is finally gone. I was worried it might be hard to get Kaleb to sleep without a binki he only had it for naps and night time but about 5 days before we left for Hawaii I tried naps with out it as well as that night. I was so surprised that it went so well. He does still have "George" his sleeping buddy toy thing but hey at least that wont affect his teeth. So goodbye to pictures like this. Yeah!

Shoes

Kaleb loves to wear shoes especially his. He gets mad at me when I take them off. He also tries others shoes as well and a few weeks ago he put on some of Mommies shoes. He had a little bit of difficulty in the heels but hey I sometimes have a hard time with them. Hopefully he will not continue to wear high heels throughout his life!! :o)

Whats Happening When It's Quiet

The other day Kaleb wanted a cookie so I said OK you can have 1 cookie and that is it. So I give him a cookie and I left the box on the counter. Kaleb took the cookie and started running around. I then went downstairs to do something on the computer. It had been a good 10 minutes and it had been too quiet. I though to myself I wonder what that kid is up to, he is not making any noise. So I decided to go take a look upstairs. He was not in the Kitchen so I walk down to his room and this is what I found. He had grabbed the box of cookies crawled up on the rocking chair in his room and was munching down. Just made me laugh.

Official Mormon Mom

I believe that I have officially become a Mormon Mom! Last weekend and last night was my first attempts at canning and all my bottles sealed! It is such a proud moment for me. But I must give credit where it is due.....thanks to the Internet, McKay, who corrected my mistakes while doing my salsa, Mom was not home when I called but McKay was there to save the day. And most of all I want to thank my Mom, after canning I have even more respect for her and I am amazed that year after year for 60 years she has canned numerous bottles, of peaches, pears, tomatoes, beans, cherries, jams, and has froze peas and corn. The time my Mom put into that year after year is amazing. Canning is so time consuming and I did it when Kaleb was gone or in bed there is no way I could have done it while he was awake. But my Mom had nine children and still canned year after year. I now know why she does not sleep. For years she was up at night bottling everything so that her family could enjoy wonderful food year round. She spoiled us that is for sure, buying canned fruit and vegetable from the store can't even come close. THANK YOU MOM! You are the best. I love you for the great example you are to me.
I made salsa and stewed tomatoes the first weekend and the above peaches I did last night.

Kaleb loves Mommy

It really amazes me that day after day Kaleb still loves his Mommy or as most of the time he calls me Daddy. He is a little confused. Anyway as I was saying it amazes me how much love little kids have for their parents. Day after day I get after Kaleb telling him "no" and I even lose my cool and yell, but within 5 minutes he loves me again. I am grateful he has a short memory and I hope he does not remember everything from these early years. But I am really grateful that he is in our family and that I get to be his mom although it would be so much easier if I did not have a child and just had a job in the "work" world. Let me tell you a 8-5 job would be so much easier than being a MOM. 

At the end of the work day when Mikko gets home from work, I am waiting for Mikko to take over so I can get a break. Kaleb is excited to see Dad but then he is there hanging on my leg wanting to be with me. I have had enough and am exhausted but deep inside my heart smiles.

Puikkonen Reunion

We had a little time to play some badminton at the Puikkonen gathering. We have a small yard but just enough room to play but if you get a little crazy we have to go search for the birdies that fly over the fence. Here is Kaleb and Elina having a good time. Elina is Mikko's cousins daughter so I don't know what that makes them. 2nd cousins???
We had a little family gathering with Mikko's side of the family. There is only Mikko's Dad and his brother from the Puikkonen line and we are fortunate that they both live here in Utah. So on the Puikkonen side Mikko has one uncle and two cousins. So with Mikko's immediate family and extended we had 11 adults and 3 kids there. Kind of a little different than the Brown side but we had a good time. All were present except for Mikko's cousin Karina.
We got a little family shot in too. Kaleb was pretty funny that day. He sure does like to tell people what to do and sure was chatty. Just wish we knew what he was saying!

Kaleb loves to play t-ball. We hope he continues to enjoy athletics we are pretty sure he will have a build for sports.

Farm Vocab

Sunday I went out to check on our garden and when I came in I told Mikko. "you are going to be amazed by the bounty I have harvested". Mikko says "ooh big farmer words". I have enjoyed the fruits of our or should I say my labor this year. Between the east farms and our little garden we have at least one night a week where it is all veggie night. Mikko wonders what happened to the meat but it sure is yummy.

This is our little garden this year I tried, strawberries, green peppers, cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes and we have a enjoyed some of all. The berries only produced 4 berries but they were yummy. We also got a shed last week you can see the back of it on the left. Mikko said as he was watching the guys we bought it from.."that was worth every penny not to have to put it together ourselves". I agree they had it done it two hours. If we would have bought a do it yourself kit it would still not be done! :o)

24th of July

Yeah I am a little slow at getting these up. We went to Kanab for the weekend to visit family turns out that Brandon's homecoming would be the same weekend so alot of family came down too. The kids had fun at the parade on Saturday, I must say that the parades have gotten bigger since I was a kid. Kaleb is funny when he finally figured out that is was candy they were throwing he decided to get in on the action.

Kaleb enjoys hanging out with his cousins. It is fun to watch him watch older boys he is just facinated by all they do.

Kaleb thinks he is helping Grandpa with the gardening.

Kaleb 1st introduction to fire and he thought it was pretty cool as well as the steps to Matt's firepit, he kept going up and down them. We had a great weekend, it's always fun to visit with family. Thanks!

East Farms Inspired

Back in March a lady in our ward told the RS sisters about buying a share into a farm and you get fresh veggies. I was interested about it so I checked it out. It works like this. You can either buy a share or half share of crops from East Farms LLC. Then you get fresh produce every week for 18 weeks starting in June. We just pick it up at a drop off location not far from our house.

I thought this would be a great way to get some fresh veggies into our diet so I signed up. I thought the half share would be to much for our little family so I actually share it with my neighbor and we only pay $5 a week for it. So the first week came and we got tons of different kinds of lettuces, ones I have never even heard of so from trying this out I have googled recipes cause I am not sure what to do with some of the stuff. Turns out I have kinda been a little culinary. This first picture is of a Feta arugula pizza I made and it was yummy. There is no meat and it even satisfied Mikko's appetite which is amazing. One week we got some radishes and I did not want to eat them raw. So I googled and viola that night we had onion radish soup! Yes everyone says oh that sounds interesting but yes it was delicious. Last week we had a bunch of veggies and I needed to use them up so I made a yummy beef veggie stir fry but did not take a pic but it was good.

This bottom picture is of a yummy apricot faux pie. I have never fried apricots before and it was yummy! Thanks to my neighbor she had a bunch of apricots she got from her family so I tried out the recipe from BHG and it was a hit, but I did add my own fresh mint that I grew!

Positions

It is funny how kids can sleep in any position. The other night before crawling into bed I went to check on Kaleb and crack open his door. This is how I found him sleeping. I had to take a picture cause I just thought it was so cute.

My only wish now is that when he falls asleep in his car seat that he would sleep more than 30 minutes. We are headed down to Kanab this weekend and I dread the 5 hour car ride when he wont sleep for very long.

Our Jewish Friend

Mikko's Mom recently came home from a two month visit to Finland and one of her friends from the ward back there gave this hat to her and told her to take it back for Kaleb. So Kaleb tried it on and he loves it cause he loves to wear hats. Not sure if it is really meant to be a hat for a girl or little baby but he is a cute kid no matter what he is wearing.

I let him wear it all he wants in the house and to the neighbors, but yamika doesn't go further than that!

4th of July

We had a great time on the 4th of July, well July 3rd and 4th, in Davis county they have fireworks on the 3rd at the EagleRidge Golf course so we went to dinner with two of our Neighbors at Costa Vida and then headed up the hill. We were amazed at how many people were up there. It's beautiful up on the "east bench". We had to park far away but we enjoyed the company. Amazingly Macey Anderson and Kaleb stayed awake until 10pm for the show. Kaleb watched them for about 5 minutes and then fell asleep. The trek back to the car was fun carrying 30lbs of dead weight. We are great parents, we did not think to bring a stroller or chairs or treats but we had fun anyway.

The following morning we hurried to get to the parade in Centerville that started at 9am then ended up waiting 45 minutes for the first float to get to us. We were at the end of the route. Centerville does a great job and Natalie's favorite parts were the bagpipe band and the fly by that started the parade off. They had 4 fighter jets go by along with some other huge plane. An older lady gave Kaleb this flag and he enjoyed waving it. I think Kaleb is a cutie and I have alot of strangers say he is the cutest kid. I like to think they think Kaleb is the only cute baby around but I am sure they say that to alot of moms, but he is the cutest kid to me!

I thought this was a great shot that we took while waiting for the parade to finally get to us. Kaleb is funny he finally gets to this position but begins to cry cause he does not know what to do next, I am thankful that he's not too mischievous. After the parade and a nap we headed on down to Orem to my sister Kanani's home for their annual water fight and BBQ, we missed the water fight but enjoyed the great food we had for dinner. They usually do fireworks too but they had tickets to the Stadium of fire to see Miley Cyrus, so after giving them a hard time about how much fun they were going to have we headed back home and lit off some fireworks before bedtime. Mikko bought the fireworks and bless his Finnish soul he lights these ones and nothing happens there is no fuse. I asked him what they were and he said some snake thing. I laughed and told him that you actually have to light the snake on fire for it to coil and told him they are not that exciting. So we just enjoyed the spinning flower fireworks and next time I will purchase them. :o)

Tonka

A couple of weeks ago we got a new cat. Mikko was really not on board for it but after I saw a mouse in our backyard that sealed the deal. Funny thing is Tonka likes Mikko more than me, go figure. Kaleb screamed and screamed the first day we brought Tonka home but by the next day you can see that he loves him from the picture above. We plan to move him outside cause I am not a fan of pet hair on clothing and furniture and we have family that is alergic and I don't want them to think they are not welcome in our home.