Aloha!!

 Kev and I took trip back to Hawaii, it was the first time we've gone without the kids! It was really nice, but we also want to take the kids on a trip back there soon. They love hanging at the beaches like we do and it's such a fun place to visit for us since we lived there and know our way around and still know locals.

 We stopped at the Admissions Office at BYUH campus and found our old Bishop, Arapata Meha. He looks exactly the same as he did while he served as our Bishop. Kevin actually served as one of his counselors in the Bishopric during our time there, so we got to know him and his family well.

 This was the best place to snorkel on the North Shore during this time, Turtle Bay (at the Hilton Resort). It's a perfect little cove and safe from many big waves. It was perfect.

 This is at Sunset Beach, the Vans Triple Crown was going on and I was so looking forward to it. Hoping to catch a glimpe of Kelly Slater and I did get my picture with him, but it was not as I had hoped.

 We hung out here to enjoy some of the surfers and get some sun. (Sunset)

 Sunset: this is a body boarder, they are still cool. :)

 This is my favorite place to snorkel on the North Shore: Sharks Cove. These waves make it untouchable, although it was beautiful to watch.

 I took this picture just for fun. I love the sign to this little surf town. We spent several of our nights here having dinner at Pizza Bob's, shopping and just hanging out.

 This sign is outside of Surf and Sea, my favorite shop in Haleiwa. And, I was so excited that they had pyramids on sale for $12 each, that I bought one of every color in my size. I took a picture of the sign so Kevin can make me one with our new cnc machine at our warehouse.

 Near the Harbor at Haleiwa. We were walking around and I figured I needed to take more pics of my guy. He really doesn't like being in pictures.

 In Haleiwa at Matsumotos.

 My own personal snorkel caddy. Our snorkel gear took up most of our suitcase, but we figured we'd be in our suits most of the time anyway and we could shop along the way for what we needed. It worked out good.

 Prepping his snorkel gear. We have dive fins, so we only snorkeled about an hour. They are longer fins for scuba diving and can create some muscle fatigue when you are just on the surface.

 So happy to be with his hot wife in the place he fell in love with her. :) At least that's what I'm telling myself.

 We snorkeled with this guy for about an hour. We kept diving down and swimming with him and watching him eat. He was a beautiful one. We saw lots of fish, but this guy kept us pretty entertained.

 Kevin took a picture of me with Kelly Slater, as you can see here. That's as good as it gets people!

 See the lighthouse on the mountain? We hiked the trail to it (actually you go a lot higher than the lighthouse) and then we went off trail and found these awesome tidepools. Unfortunately, my camera wasn't working during our hike. I had to use my phone. But I filmed a blowhole down there and got a pic of Kevin in the tidepool. It was really cool. I never knew that place existed.

 This is a picture from the top of another hike we did, the Hau'ula Loop trail. We lived like 10 minutes from the trailhead and never hiked this either. We decided to hike early in the morning to take advantage of our time here and see a couple places we had never before seen. It was a beautiful hike and we had the mountain all to ourselves.

 We met up for lunch at L&L with George and Hani Niania, our friends who now live in Laie. They visited our ward in Ohio one Sunday as they were passing through town and we had them over for dinner. We've been friends ever since. We have some mutual friends from New Zealand, Samoa and Australia, so it's always nice to catch up!

 Laie, Hawaii LDS Temple at night.

 View from atop Diamond Head.

 Walking back down the trail from Diamond Head.

 After Diamond Head, we went back to the North Shore and hung out at Chinaman's Hat beach area. Kevin acted like he was a photographer as I walked along the beach and this was the only picture where I don't look ridiculous. I started laughing pretty hard after this point.

 This is Tafiti at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We weren't originally planning on going since we have seen it many times, but we decided to last minute and I'm glad we did. It's always so lovely there.

 Kevin with Shamus, who has been at the Maori Village at the PCC for a long time. He was at BYUH the same time we were.

 This is Kevin standing by Iosepa. We were living in Laie when they were constructing it and we were actually able to be there for the launch of this magnificent vessel. It's something we hold close to our hearts and read about every chance we get. There's so much that goes into it that I cannot explain it all here. If you get a chance, read about it.

 PCC night show. And I forgot to take a picture of my pineapple delight, which by the way, is different than what they usually sell. It used to come in a hollowed out pineapple, now it's in a bowl. So sad.

 Pearl Harbor Day practice, so we got to see some amazing men and women. He is one of the few remaining survivors of that day.

 

USS Arizona Memorial and USS Missouri Battleship. We've toured the USS Missouri before with the kids, so we skipped it this time. We always visit the USS Arizona Memorial though.

 This is in the hallowed room of the USS Arizona Memorial. This is always a somber experience. I'm so grateful for this country and our servicemen and women.

 The sunken USS Arizona.

 Last day of Matsumotos. I tried the coconut (with the red beans and ice cream). It was legit. And I bought some jewelry for my girl here.

 We planned on leaving Wed. night and getting home Thursday morning. About an hour into our flight, our captain said we blew and engine and was turning back to Honolulu. So, they gave us vouchers for food and cab and sent us to Ala Moana. They booked us 2 nights there so that we didn't have to check out since we opted to take the next red eye flight rather than in the morning. Might as well spend another day, right? We hung out and had fun in the day and then got take out and sat out on the lanai of our room before catching our flight.

View of Waikiki from our hotel. Aloha!

Released.

Cole took this pic of Kevin and me. I have makeup on, we're both looking at the camera...so this is considered a good picture in our family. :)
Our ward boundaries were re-configured for our neighborhood and we are now just outside of our old ward and that puts us in to a different ward, same building, different time. Kev served in the Young Men's presidency for almost 2 years and loved it and I am guessing the boys are going to miss him. He got to go on all the scout camp outs and always had fun stories to tell after coming home. He also went above and beyond by picking up the Teachers Quorum (14-16 year olds) before church and making sure they were there in plenty of time to set up the Sacrament. They also set up all the chairs in the overflow, primary and Relief Society rooms. He would never admit it, but he's a wonderful leader to those young men and I can tell because they sometimes text him random things just to keep him in the loop, I guess. One example is when we were on a date, Kevin got a text from a kid named Cory. It said something like, "Paul just went into the girls bathroom in Taco Bell! hahah!!" or something to that effect. They are a great bunch of kids and I know Kevin will miss being in their quorum as well.
I have been serving as Relief Society President and I'm just grateful for the opportunity. It was a wonderful time getting to know so many new sisters in our ward, having the opportunity to teach RS lessons occasionally and serve with my counselors. We grew to nearly 730 people in this ward, and had about 200 RS sisters in all. It's so different being in Utah where nearly all my neighbors are LDS and you get to know one another so quickly and easily. I'm looking forward to attending our new ward and getting to know the people on the other side of the 18th hole! (Although I do know some of them already, just not like I do our own neighborhood.) We've had so many people calling and visiting (and bringing treats!) to let us know we will be missed. The top half of our street will be attending the ward on the other side of the golf course, so our ward will lose just a few families and go from ginormous to huge. :)
In other news, we are getting some neighbors right next door! They are almost done building their home. They are the Christensen's if you can believe that, and they have 4 kids! My daughter Saydria is already friends with their daughter Karlie, they are in the same class at school. We are excited to have neighbors instead of that empty lot! I'll be sure and post a pic of their home when it's finished! One of my neighbors (Janine) has been taking pics of their house each week since they broke ground and she's putting an album together for them as a house warming gift. So sweet!! She is a wonderful woman and we love having them as neighbors!

Fall has arrived...

 

 I made this little craft! We are getting new homes on either side of ours and I asked the workers if I could snag their scraps for our campfire. My kids were way too excited about pillaging the site, so I ended up with a ton of extra blocks and decided to do pinterest-y craft.

 Kai picked these at Thanksgiving Point gardens for his cub scout meeting one night. They did some service in the gardens and in return, got to pick veggies to take home. He was so excited to show me what he picked for our family!

 This is what our dog does after the kids go to school. He is so bored after they leave. I really do try and play with him. Now that it's cold, it's not as fun to walk him. I actually do love taking him for walks. He just loves it when the kids come home though.

 I printed out one of those pinterest things and framed it.

 A friend of mine made this frame thing for me and I wasn't sure what to do with it! I found this pumpkin guy at the dollar store and put him in it. I think he likes it. I need to use this frame for things like this I think.

My mums have frost on them! I planted these last year and they are huge now. When we lived in OH, they never came back the following year, so I didn't expect this. I need to dig them up in the Spring and see if they will mind being moved back about 6 inches closer to the walkway. They are crowding my boxwoods. Happy Fall everyone!

Spring Break

 This is pretty overdue since school is already out. But this is what we did for our Spring Break this year. Hiking Red Rock Canyon in the Las Vegas area. Note: Kevin's sister Jennifer in the background holding her daughter, Shaeleigh. She was just scared since we were up kinda high. It was all good.

 Kevin with Kai and Cole. This one just makes me smile. :) Kai is pretty excited to be on top of the world here.

 Off to Mesquite, Nevada for a few days with our friends Kai and Amy. We met them at the Clark County Fair and hung out there most of the day, then ate dinner at Kai's parents home, then back to the fair for the night time festivities. It was a long day, but all the kids had a great time.

 These girls just party like it's 1999 all the time. Share a bag of cotton candy and get right back to life without a thought about their figures or their teeth. :)

 This was a fun part of the evening, they are watching some baby piggies eat dinner from their momma. Cole apparently thought it was hilarious.

 In the morning, we found our MEN doing this. Kai doing the cooking and Kevin doing the supervising.

 Getting ready to say goodbye again, but hopefully not for too long. It's been so nice living somewhat close to them and being able to see them at least yearly! We love our dear friends from Hawaii!

This was taken more recently, but I'm missing him now since he's at scout camp as a leader, but also there for some of the time with Brayden. Saydria has also been in St. George since last Friday with Grandparents. I've been staying up late and sleeping in since it's just the two little boys and me. Something I rarely do. I've got a great neighbor who watches Jane Austen movies with me and even brings me a Diet Coke occasionally. She and I were friends from day 1 when they moved in a year ago.

Buffalo 100 Run

I've tried putting the pictures up for this, but it's not working. It happened with my Jazz post also, so I will have to update it later. My youngest of the Brazier Brothers, Drew, just completed a 100 mile ultra marathon! We are all so proud of him. He was weighing in at 340 and has come a long way...now weighing 175 and running like a machine and eating healthy. He is such an inspiration to me. He was required to run the first 50 miles alone (without a pacer) and he ran it fast...and in the dark! My sister Heidi started running with him at mile 51 and went the rest of the race with him. I joined in at mile 88 and ran the rest of the way. We picked up 2 more brothers Nate and Bud, at mile 94, Dad at 98 and some extra kids around 99. It was so much fun to run to the finish with so much support! We definitely had the loudest cheering for our crew!

Utah Jazz!!

Kevin got some cheap tickets to the Jazz game one night and so now the kids think we need to make this a regular occurrence. However, it makes for a long morning after!!

Saydria wanted her picture with the Jazz girls as they greeted us. She was pretty happy about it!!

 

 

 

It was easy to get Brayden to stand next to the girls. I'm pretty sure you can even see him blushing. :)

Brayden wanted his pic way up high here! :) This was after the game was over..and the Jazz won!!