So it's been a super long time since I posted anything. School started, we LOVE the kid's teachers, yada yada, here's some pictures of the past few months:

Below are pictures of our camping trip to Lake Pleasant in September. Poor Israel had a fever and fell asleep early. Jada and I went swimming in the lake while Donovan cooked up some awesome rib eye. D and I slept with Israel in the back of the truck and woke up @ midnight when we heard a skunk getting into our water bottle trash...oops, should have put that away. The scariest part was that Jada and Vika slept with the tent door wide open to stay cool and we all watched as the skunk walked right up to the door and thought about going in...no pictures of that, but lesson learned....put up trash and zip up tents :) Next morning we found a tarantula while going to the public restrooms :) Pretty fun to see this slow guy moving around.

The beginning of October my mom invited Donovan to present at the school's career day. So we went up and enjoyed the awesome weather, family,football game and yard. Becky even threw Sam and impromptu cousins Birthday party. LOVE watching these kids with their cousins.

In the bottom left corner, you'll see Lauren and Sariah changing the jeep battery, pretty cute stuff. Top left are from Sam's party. Right side are pics of the city the kids drew with Jada's 3-D chalk on the driveway. Bottom right are from Andrew's game, and the rest are from hanging out.

Okay I realize these are not in order. The weekend before going to Lakeside we went Andrew's game in globe (bottom right) and Jada and I made strawberry jam. Other 2 pics are just of my cute boys.

1. First column of pictures are from our ward trunk-or-treat. Click on the picture to make big and fully appreciate our new friends, the Wincek family.
2. Second column of pictures are from our next 2 trunk or treats, this is where Melissa (one of my BFF's) came up with an awesome illusion where she made a cup float...when I tried to accuse her of using her thumb she revealed that she has no thumbs....totally cool :)
3. Third column is from Israel's Egyptian school presentation. They just finished learning about Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt and concluded with an Egyptian party.

Stay tune for more fun adventures with the Seguritans :)

My New Toy!

Hey family and friends! This is Donovan. The only other time that I have written in this blog was when I got my truck and since I got a new toy a couple days ago, I decided to drop another post. Let me start with a little background info:

When we lived in Hawaii, I competed in a couple triathlons, both sprint distances which means about a 400m swim, 10 - 12 mile bike, and a 3.1 mile run. Nothing too serious but still lots of fun. For both of those events, I had to borrow a friend's bike.

Fast forward to a couple months ago, some friends at work challenge me to join them in a Labor Day sprint triathlon and I agree to do it. Now because the only bike I own is an old $5 mountain bike from a yard sale that is somewhat broken, I decide that I need to borrow a bike. A good friend of mine who has done some triathlons, including the AZ Ironman, was gracious enough to loan me his road bike to train and use in the event. I end up doing OK and actually start to like these triathlon events. This being the case, I decide it's time for me to look for my own road bike.

I have searched through most of the bike shops here locally and have been on craigslist and ebay for 2 weeks straight. I end up going with the Fuji Roubaix ACR 3.0; from what I can tell it falls in the mid-range of all the entry-level performance bikes. That means it doesn't cost an arm and a leg which keeps my marriage entact - love you KT.

Lots of fun!! OK Dad - now you need to get one!

Lovin' Summer!

Donovan's cousin, Kristy, came to AZ from Lai'e for a Disneyland trip. Before we all took off for Disneyland we first celebrated Madison's birthday. She's such a cute three year old!

With the exception of "Tower of Terror" and "Space Mountain" my kids had a great time. Have to say that the level of "great" differed between kids. My boys could handle about 2 hours before their legs stopped working...weird. BUT they magically worked if Dallas came around. Or Kawika just LOVED the Play House Disney stage show and buzz light year. Israel likes the little mousetrap type ride called Mulholland Madness that is a fun roller coaster. But they were both MUCH happier at the beach or in the Hotel.

Jada, on the other hand, is a girl of my blood. She could play all day long and keep walking. In fact one day she put in 12 hours! One of her favorite days was spending the day with Jada Johnson (friends from when we lived in Hawaii.) I think Indiana Jones and the water raft ride were on top of the list. However, she HATES Tower of Terror. poor thing. For the record I DID NOT TRICK HER to go on this. I gave her disclaimers, but hadn't ever been on it myself. I mean she saw Peni and Dallas leave the line as we got closer and she could of changed her mind. So yeah, no likey for her :)

We took half a day off from Disneyland to enjoy a little Newport Beach time. My boys had more energy here then any day at the park. Must be the salt water awakening their inner fish :)

Got back from Disneyland Saturday, family left on Tuesday, which is when the kids and I also took off for Lakeside and Donovan to San Antonio. It was SOOO nice up there. The kids created a "fun club" behind dad's shed in which they paved their own walkway, built a bridge, knocked over my dads wood pile...oops was that a secret :) They also helped wash grandpa's truck and supported Tyler, Ryan, and Sam in their ball games.

Home Improvements

If you haven't seen us for a while, or we always have a focused look in our eyes, it may be because all we've done since the day Donovan took his CFP test, March 20th, is make repairs/remodels to our home in preparations to sell our house and move to Colorado....So yeah, we're not moving anymore...AND we're not selling anymore, but it sure was great motivation to start getting things knocked off our list.

If you like the stair rail, that was all my brother. We took down the walls and helped him install it, but he put that together for us and we are so Grateful for his three 2 hour round trips to get this all done. If you are interested in his mad skills, here's his e-mail [email protected]

And the best part is we found out a couple weeks ago that Donovan passed his test!!!!! I know that may seem easy, but this was over 2 years in the making/stressing. We feel super blessed with all we have done to our home and with Donovan's success with the test and know that everything has been a blessing from our Heavenly Father. This post is not intended to brag, but we are proud of our hard work and wanted to share.

Field day, Colorado, Disneyland, & home improvements

Jada had field day on April 21st. It was interesting as the day before it was a nice warm/hot day and then the day of field day came and it was COLD! Not just cool, but if you didn’t have a jacket there were goose bumps, and that was when I came to pick up @ 2:30….they were there since 8:00! So we(adults) were pretty amazed when they all got into the water games…well, some children chose not to play…don’t blame them.

Here are pictures of Jada with some of her best friends.

If you haven’t heard we were getting all ready to move to Colorado for an opening Donovan had at work. We were pretty excited for the move because the relocation package would have helped us get out of our house. But last Wednesday we were told we will not be taking that position as there are other opportunities for growth by staying here.

So that kind of made us sad for a moment as the adrenalin of moving left our bodies….so we asked….”wanna go to Disneyland?” Turns out, we did :) We used our free tickets we got from “give a day get a day” and price-lined a room the night before and we were off Friday after school. I was totally stoked when the lady at the front desk upgraded us to “the Kids Room” because we were only going to be there for one night. It was such a cool room. Too bad we only had it from 11 PM till 8 AM.

We enjoyed our day at Disneyland and played as hard as we could till about 5:00 and then drove home and got home about midnight.

In preparations for Colorado we have been making A LOT of changes to the house to help it sell better. We haven’t taken pictures of all of it, but here’s an example of updating our fans. For about $27 a fan we painted the gold silver, flipped the blades to the prettier wood side and bought the new light kit. I was pretty darn stoked :)

Spring Break, Birthday, Field Day, Easter

Spring Break began on Saturday when we all went to the Aloha Festival @ Tempe Town Lake and enjoyed food, entertainment, and shopping. Then the kids and I took off for Lakeside on Sunday to spend a few days with my parents while Donovan had the week off to study for his CFP (Certified Financial Planner.) It was kind of chili up there but warmed up. The highlight for sure was my dad making a stained glass for each of the kids. They picked out a design(or in Israel’s case I designed it for him.) Then they were suppose to help but it ended up being me and my dad, which I really enjoyed actually. I am just so happy that my kids will have something to hold that their grandpa made and that can be passed down. I didn’t know my grandparents too well before they passed away and I’m grateful for the relationship my kids have with both sets of grandparents.P.S. I also taught a hula clinic Tuesday night.We got back from Lakeside on Wednesday night and of course we all got sick with sniffles. Seems like we can’t go there without some sort of consequence…but we never learn our lesson.

The next day we spent with Donovan and then Friday and Saturday were his test. Saturday was also his birthday. So when he finished with all the testing him and I went out on a date and then Sunday we had the Ericksons and Smiths over to celebrate his birthday.I signed up to volunteer for Israel’s field day knowing that Kawika would be accompanying me. We lucked out to be assigned the “Drag Race” in which the students were to drag their teacher on a sheet from point A to point B. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the sheet wouldn’t hold up all day so we made a new plan….Drag Kawika!!! Everyone LOVED this plan, especially Kawika. And if there was time leftover they could drag each other. On Good Friday my parents, sisters, and brother from up north all came down for the Easter Pageant. They were all staying in a hotel in Tempe so we thought, “what they hey, lets stay too.” Because the Easter Bunny always comes before the kids wake up on Easter and we’d be in a Hotel, he thought he’d better come before we left. So that awesome fellow came while the kids were at school and left water launchers that would conveniently be used at the pool that weekend. Smart Bunny! Even left Kimmy a treat in her purse.We returned Easter Day and after watching General Conference we went to the Young’s house for Easter Dinner. Our 3rd year in a row! She does a full on rack of Lamb and everything. Super yummy! My parents came as well before heading to their Condo in Sun City for the week. (PS they came over during the week to help us put all new door knobs on our interior doors….sorry no pictures.)

March 2010 (plus 3 new posts below.)

Last week Donovan was giving Kawika a blow kiss that tickled Vika's lipa snd made him laugh like crazy. If I can figure out how to put the video on here I will because it is stinkin cute! The other two kids finally heard the fun and came in for a family kiss.

Yesterday Kawika turned three years old! We opened presents in bed then went to church. He wanted to go to a meeting with Daddy after church and so the other 2 kids and I came home and decorated for a quick surprise party :) He was totally surprised and showed it by saying his famous, "What the What the!" Then we all danced and sang happy birthday.

Kawika got a card that sings, so these top two pictures are of him breaking down :) The bottom are pictures of from our dinner and cupcakes with the youngs. Oh, and we celebrated the night before by going to build-a-bear where he made a dog he named T-Rex with some birthday money from grandparents. Kawika is a joy for the most part. We have our moments, but the good outweigh the bad. He's a great kid.