Beach Day Courtesy of MLK Jr!

We love to have a reason to go to the beach! Combine company with an extra day off school and we will find some sunshine! We had to haul a couple of boys back to the beach for this picture:
Grandma chases Tanner back to safer waters -- he's our fearless kid, thinking he's as big and experienced as Teagan and Grandpa, who were out with boogie boards quite a way from the shore (or at least too far for a 5 year old!)
Uncle Brad keeps cool in the shade!
Taggart kept this grin on his face the whole day (except for when his swim suit disintegrated right off his body - he didn't really like that!).
Tanner comes up for a little air -- he loves his snorkel mask!
Brad tries to tell the girls to head to Dad. Brad stood there being the policeman for a while, without any sunscreen on at all. He kept standing and yelling at the little boys and didn't go back to his umbrella for about 15 minutes. Then, Mom and I kept telling him that he really did need some sunscreen since he was out and there was a lot of reflected sun around (sand and water). Finally, we kind of ganged up on him with the aerosol can of sunscreen, only to have Brad scream about that and wipe it all off his face. He managed to not get sunburned, after all.
Talm is loving it!
Tanner had the boogie board out a little too far for my liking, and Teagan came to the rescue, getting out to him far faster than I ever could have. This is just as Teagan is trying to send Tan back closer to the shore.

Tag's Baptism

Last weekend, Taggart was baptized a member of the church. He was really excited about this. He started things off by singing " The Things Jesus Asks of Me", singing really well and bringing the spirit to the service right from the start. Grandma PenGwen and Teagan gave the talks.

Mom did great, but I was most impressed with Teagan's talk, relating the Spirit to the sword of truth from the armor of God. He used the Samurai Code as well, finding great parallels between it and gospel truths. He talked about how when a Samurai baby boy is born, a sword is brought into the delivery room and presented to the child. We receive our sword of the Spirit when we are reborn through baptism. Teagan also talked in church this past Sunday and built upon his baptism talk. In it, he quipped that the sword at birth is pretty cool, especially since he wasn't allowed to even have a pocket knife until he was a Cub Scout! Teagan ended his talk for Taggart by saying, "And now, Taggart, today you get your sword."

Now to me, the cool thing in all of this was that I had NOTHING to do with it. Teagan came up with it all on his own! Awesome!

This is the only picture I took of Tag's special day, since I had to keep the girlies in control and try to keep Tanner from spending the afternoon outside climbing trees. As I get other pictures, I might add them-- Janille took a great one of Tag with his mountain of leis! But here we all are, after our regular church meetings.
I think Taggart would agree: 8 is Great!

The Torch Passes On...

So I've had a great excuse to not get to the blog for a few days. Here, in the last photo shoot of their stay, is some proof that Mom and Dad and Brad really were here!!

Dad and Mom with their Nak Grandkids
Proof that Brad got at least a few feet from the water! He's even smiling about it!
We watched the little black crabs (a local delicacy!) and some tiny coconuts in the water
Dad had willing subjects for his camera (we hadn't brought their swim shorts and they were still in their school shoes, so that helped them be more willing)
Staci and Sydni, however, had a much harder time being willing. Sydni had taken a nap during our scenic drive and had a rough wake-up. but Staci didn't have an excuse. Shan took 4 pictures and in 3 of them, Syd and Stace each had facial expressions identical to each other!
Teagan had fun hanging around (but not upside-down since he didn't want his ipod to fall out of his pocket!)
Tag poses pretty (but the dolphins missed the shot!)
And Talmage shows his dimples. Now, you might wonder where Tanner was for the pix -- well, Dad had him off posing somewhere and Shan never captured him (we had to keep retrieving him from a variety of places for the group shots as it was!). He also wanted to climb on top of the heiau, but we discouraged that, not wanting to bring bad luck with Dad, Mom and Brad traveling so much in the next few days.

So now I pass the torch off to Paul. I will post more of the Krump visit over the next few days. And you'll get some of those unmistakably-Brad moments too!

Aloha!

Jay's Day

Just a quick blog today. Jaylene's wedding is this afternoon and I have been thinking of her (and the whole crew there) for a while. We got to see Jay in September (and here's the afghan - the softest thing!!).So with her marriage, we wish her great happiness and best wishes, and also good luck through all the changes, transitions and adjustments that happen when two people join their lives! Hope we get to meet Lamond soon!
Someone was nice enough to take a picture of the whole group of us - name this location (Marci should have a BIG advantage!). This was such a fun event to go to with our favorite college freshmen! Oh, the memories!!!