Ries Elementary 4th Grade Award Ceremony

Thursday I took a trip to the Elementary because Mote got an invitation to their award ceremony. I was exhausted from work the night before but was so glad I made it. I knew he was getting honor roll, but was surprised when they called his name for 3 awards that day: Outstanding Citizenship, A/B Honor Roll for the 3rd trimester and A/B Honor Roll for the entire school year. I almost cried seeing him on stage with his awards. I'm so proud of this little guy. He has been a great leader to his brothers and a wonderful help to me while his dad is away. And on top of all of that he has managed to work hard in school and earn honors.

4th Grade Wax Museum

Mote's class put together a wax museum for their end of the year project. He chose to be Babe Ruth. It made me a little nervous at first because we have NO baseball gear whatsoever at home. But I think we did pretty good. He was so cute in his little costume and did a great job at memorizing his speech.

Apex FunRun

The boys had a fun run today to raise money for their school.

Mote completed 32 laps...

Nic finished with 27...

And Siope surprised us all and completed all 36 laps!

I'm proud of all of them, but am seriously shocked with Siope. We always tease him that he's lazy. He is definitely book smart, but doesn't really carry an interest for any physical activity lol. He's not in to sports as much as the other 2... So when he came home and told me how he did I was blown away. I know he is capable of doing whatever he wants... it's just getting him interested and motivated that's the tricky part :)

Sick Little Bug

Ms. Ella isn't feeling well. Poor baby :*( I wish I could just drive out to Cedar and give her a big hug. She is too cute for words.

Llamados a Servir (Called to Serve)

Yesterday Ti sent me a text to notify us that Po received his mission call in the mail! Later that night, thanks to modern technology, we were able to listen in as he opened his letter. Before he read his destination aloud, we went around the room and gave our guesses of where he would be called to serve. Our house guessed Tonga... of course :) While we were on Skype with Jr & Tina, Ti Tonga was FaceTiming on his phone from Arizona to listen in as well. It was hard to contain the excitement and sit quietly as he began to read his call. Then it happened. We heard that he would be serving in Chihuahua Mexico and the jumping and screaming began. The response in the room was priceless. We cheered along with our family in Salt Lake as we celebrated the journey that Po has started.
I can't explain how amazing it has been to see this kid grow up. To be honest, I didn't know a whole lot about Po til just recently. Although me and Ti have been married for 10 years now, me and Po have never really bonded. I mean we talked of course, but I don't think I got to know the real Po until he moved here to Vegas. He is pretty mellow and a "go with the flow" kind of guy. He reminds me a lot of Ti Tonga. Pretty reserved, so I just let him keep to himself. He moved in with us last year and my kids grew so attached to him. This kid has a heart of gold. He is so accepting and forgiving. I will never be able to repay him for all that he has done for my little family. Not sure if he knows how much his help with the kids meant to me. It has been a wonderful thing to see him grow and to make the decision to serve the Lord. We are extremely proud of him and have faith that he will go forward and bless the lives of many in Chihuahua. Congratulations Elder Fangupo. We love you!

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving 2012

I feel like it's been so long since we've been out to Salt Lake. Me and Ti were planning on spending Thanksgiving here in Vegas, but got to talking about how much we missed our family back home. After only a couple minutes we changed our plans and decided that we would be driving out to Utah to spend the holiday with our families. We got a hotel room this time because Ti thought it would be fun to be downtown near the lights.
Wednesday night the boys wanted to spend the night at Grandma's house with all the cousins (of course).

Look who we saw as soon as we got there!! Little Miss Ella

When me and Ti were back at the hotel we were notified that Ti's grandma had a stroke and was in the emergency room :( So Thursday morning was spent at the hospital with Ma. I am so grateful that Ti was able to be by her side holding her hand.
Afterwards we went over to my moms house and I cannot even begin to explain how delicious the food was. If you have been lucky enough to taste my moms cooking, then you know I am not exaggerating when I say this lady is the best cook!!!! We've come up with a weekend strategy when it comes to the holidays. Often times we have so much food leftover it's ridiculous... so she cooks traditional Tongan food on Thursday, Friday we eat those leftovers, Saturday we cook our traditional American food (turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.) then Sunday we eat those leftovers... Voila - a weekend of amazing food to celebrate our culture and livelihood here in the U. S. of A. :)

Mafileo & Ruby Mei

Diaper pals: Lucky & Ella

Later that night we went to Ova & Monica's and me and Monica attempted to do some "Black Friday" shopping at Walmart... and we came out of the store traumatized lol.

Friday after breakfast we went to Gateway and watched Life of Pi in 3D.

Salt Lake does it fancy with their 3D glasses

When we walked out of the theater we were greeted by Sau & Suliana. We had lunch with them at Tucano's ... yummmmm!!

Friday night we planned on going to Temple Square with my family so each of my siblings got hotel rooms as well so we could spend the entire day downtown. As soon as we got back to the hotel the kids invaded the pool. They swam til the sun went down.

After getting dressed and filling up with cocoa in the lounge we headed to Temple Square where we walked the grounds admiring the beautiful Christmas lights.

Saturday we took family pictures which is always a struggle when you have 3 rambunctious boys. We had dinner that night at my Moms and Sunday we checked out and headed back to Vegas. It seriously was such a great trip, that as it came to a close, we decided that we would head back for Christmas :)