Mr. VHS 2009

I have the coolest little brother in all of Valencia High School! Last night he won the title of "Mr. VHS 2009!" Kenny didn't even want to be in the contest, his girlfriend has to talk him into it and now he holds the crown. 

It was such a great show last night! It took a lot of courage for all those high school juniors and seniors to go up on stage and dance in front of everyone, model their swim wear, and share a talent. I was impressed with all the talents that were shared. Kenny and the second runner up had the best talents. The second runner up beat boxed and it was the best I've heard in real life. Kenny learned how to play the flute for his skit and also played the sax as a duet with another flutist. 

All the contestants modeled their evening wear with their escorts. Kenny and Lisa looked great in their matching tux and dress. 

The top five guys had to answer the question, "Who is your favorite celebrity, and most importantly, why?" Kenny had the best answer, of course. He quickly said Robin Williams because he can act the serious parts, and the funny parts. He can make people laugh and this world needs more laughter.

Kenny really didn't expect to win, let alone get in the top 5. His knees almost gave out when his name was called as the winner. It was so cute. It's great having such a great little brother! Congrats Kenny!

p.s. I've post more pictures and a movie of Kenny's talent (in the movie section) on our Web Gallery

I looked out the window and what did I see?

SNOW!

Granted it was more like hail that melted a little and then froze, but it looks like snow!

We're moving to D.C.!

It's official, Ja was offered the job at PwC today! He will be in the Washington Federal Practice in the Advisory group and he will be consulting government entities. We are very excited to finally have direction in our lives.  Ja has worked really hard in school, in his internship, and in his job interviews so he deserves this great job. 

Congrats Jonathan! I'm so proud of you!

Patriotic

In honor of tomorrow the blog is going patriotic! I hope that the new President will be able to bring hope to his country and put us on the right track for success. Even though I may not agree with his policies, I will support him as President of the United States and hope that he will bring what America needs for the future. 

Go America!

Rambunctious Raccoons

We officially hate raccoons. Just look at those little beady eyes, gross!

Last night we were rudely awaken at 2:45 a.m. by raccoons. I heard them walking very loudly outside on our balcony. My first reaction is to think that it's a person out there trying to get into our house, but soon realized that a person would not be that loud. These raccoons were knocking into the chairs and railing, making a lot of commotion. They were doing this for about 10 minutes and it didn't seem like they are going to quit so I decided to look out the window and see what they are up to. I turned on the outside light expecting them to run away, but what I found was very much to my surprise. Three little raccoons were getting a running start, then jumping onto the edge of our hammock, holding on and swinging with it. Rather than getting upset at these annoying raccoons I actually thought it was comical. It was very "Over the Hedge." Wild animals were having fun on our human furniture. Ja went outside to scare them far away because he heard them under the balcony playing. One raccoon was outside by the neighbors balcony staring at Ja. Then he started growling at Ja so Ja growled back and the raccoon didn't flinch! They both growled at each other a couple more times but the raccoon didn't back away at all, so Ja threw a tomato plant cage at it. Even though the swinging on the hammock was funny, it wasn't funny when the raccoons decided to keep playing around here for another hour last night!

We have another raccoon story that feeds this hatred of ours. One of the first nights we were here, we heard footsteps on the balcony walking all over the place. Ja was sound asleep but I sure wasn't. I really thought it was a person. Then this person tried to get into our house through the sliding glass door! I woke Ja up so he could find this person and scare him away. He opened the curtains and didn't see anyone until he looked down. It was two raccoons mating against the screen door! Ja flashed a light in their faces and they looked up at him like "Oh no, we got caught!" He went outside and scared them away by moving furniture around and barking at them. It took me another hour to fall back asleep because I was scared at any noise I heard outside.

The third experience was probably the most annoying. One night we woke up to the sound of some animal chewing/scratching inside the wall behind our bed. It reminded me of the sound of my old hamster would make as he was chewing through his plastic cage, but much louder. We initially thought it was a rat but as it got louder and louder we concluded that it had to be something larger. This also lasted almost an hour and it moved around the room inside the wall. We tried hitting the wall to scare it but these things aren't scared of people! Now we figure they get into the wall under the balcony in some sort of hole. I really hope that one night it doesn't break through.

Any ideas on how to get rid of these annoying animals?

Or do you have any animal stories you would like to share?

Oahu Pictures

Here is a link so some of our Oahu pictures. There will be more to come!

Our New Home

Here are some pictures of our new house. It's soooo nice to have enough storage space for everything. We even have a huge garage! It's very bright and warm in our condo and we have great views out of the front and back. In front of us is a golf course. Just this morning I saw a male deer eating the grass right in front of our house! We have two balcony's in the back and both look over the hill and we can see L.A. in the distance. We do have two empty spare bedrooms if anyone wants to come visit!

Welcome to our home!

The living room that is so bright and cheery. The sliding glass doors open to one of the balcony's.

The kitchen that is great to cook in. It also has a dishwasher and washer/dryer!

Our huge, sunny bedroom.

One of my favorite parts: a walk in closet!

p.s. Provo just got over a foot of snow and it's a sunny and warm 64 degrees here! California is too nice to us.

What a fun Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas this year! 

We did a few things out of tradition: 

1. On Christmas Eve we open presents with my dad's side of the family. We usually sort the presents out to the respective person and then open them one at a time in birth order. This year my Aunt Karen suggested we try something different and randomly grab a present under the tree and have that person open it. When that person is opening his or her present all eyes must be on that person! This part caused problems because one person would leave the room, or someone would start a conversation, etc.  My cousin Derek solved this problem by grabing a present under the tree then announce, "This present is to Laura from Cody!" in a great announcer voice. Then the whole family would cheer, we don't know for whom, but we cheered. All in all Aunt Karen had a great idea, we all laughed and had a great time.

2. My dad had to work on Christmas day :(. Luckily, we was patrolling in a nearby city so he was able to come home to open presents. We knew that if he looked lost and was staring into space he was listening to his radio in his ear that none of us could hear. Ja and I made breakfast for everyone. We made cottage cheese pancakes and eggs. Apparently no one in my family likes cottage cheese so they were call concerned about the pancakes. When we presented them with the pancakes we told them we changed our minds and didn't make the cottage cheese kind. After they said the pancakes were really good, we told them they did have cottage cheese in them. They were very surprised! 

3. On Christmas we decided to make ginger bread houses for the first time. Thank goodness for Ralphs being open on Christmas for people like us who change their mind and need to buy load of candy and graham crackers. I really had a great time making 2 houses. As you can see my first house had a roof cave-in because a huge avalanche fell on it. Even the "For Sale" sign fell over.

Jill and Ja worked really hard on their house. It was the quietest they have ever been. 

It was the biggest and had a great roof. Ja was the architect and Jill was the decorator. They had a car, a pond with ducks, and a snowman who kept falling into the pond.

My dad started with just two graham crackers and some frosting. It was his Indian tent house. Then he started building a real house. He even added Rudolph the Red-noised bear to the side of his house. He also made a man who is playing frisbee. 

Kenny started making a huge house. He got the walls up then realized it was going to be hard to put a roof on such a big structure. He opted for the flat roof with a support beam inside. He said it looked like a temple so he made a sign that said "Holiness to the Lord." For some odd reason he put blue frosting on the roof so it turned into a Jewish church.

Jill's friend Shawn came over because his dad is Jewish and wasn't celebrating Christmas and Shawn wanted to take part in something Christmas-y. This was his first house and he definitely made the most modern looking house.

Unfortunately we didn't get a good picture of my second house. The roof wass a lot simpler and I made sure to not put anything heavy on it. 

3. Usually we visit with my mom's side of the family on Christmas. Since Stacie and Randy came into town late we decided to get together on the 26th so Stacie and Randy could be there. We had a great time there opening presents too. My 4 cousins, who are 12 and under, are a wild bunch which makes for fun present opening. 

4. We saw Wicked again with my sister Stacie. We had great seats, and the musical was still amazing the third time through.

5. Ja and I went to Hawaii with his parents and 2 younger brothers. We had such a great time. We stayed in Honolulu and did so many things! We went parasailing, on an outrigger, spent a whole day at Pearl Harbor, and went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and Dole Plantation.

Now we are back in California settling into our new life.