Ku'uliko's Birthday Party and Vegas

So we've been quite busy recently. First of all, my aunty Pearl and cousin Jared Furtado came to stay with us on Thursday the 1st. They came down for General Conference. Then my mom came the next day. Kainoa's parents were still here so we celebrated Ku'uliko's birthday early. Her actual birthday isn't until the 26th. We'll probably celebrate it again but just us. I know she felt left out this summer when we celebrated Kalei's birthday 3 times.

Anyways, we had a party for her at her cousins' house in American Fork. Thank you to everyone that came. She really had a good time. There was 'ono food of course. Ku'uliko wanted to eat "brown chicken" (teri beef) so I ordered some meat from the Springville Meat Company (the local butcher) and soaked it in teriyaki sauce. I have to order it there because you can't get meat sliced that thin at the grocery store. I also made crab cream cheese won tons, and potato mac salad. Kainoa made the spam musubis. Kainoa's mom made chili, hotdogs, and pumpkin crunch. My mom made her spinach dip and clam dip and decorated the castle cake. I made the chocolate frosting for the cupcakes and decorated the Happy Birthday cupcakes and Ku'uliko's cousin Emma decorated the rest. It was a My Little Pony party and she got tons of My Little Pony stuff. She was so happy and had so much fun playing with her friends and cousins. It was a full house. Here's the guest list: Ama (my mom), Tutu and Man (Kainoa's parents), Bumpy (Kainoa's Aunty Heather), the Todds (it was their house), Uncle RJ and Aunty Emi, Aunty Pearl and cousin Jared, Kainoa's cousin Nalani and her husband, the Sanchez's and Melia, the Snows and Fredricks (Emi's family), the Po'uha's, and Uncle Sheldon and Uncle Lono. I think that was everyone. It was a great party and Ku'uliko enjoyed herself.

My mom was able to get us tickets for General Conference. She went on Saturday and we got to go on Sunday to the afternoon session. It was awesome to be in the presence of the prophet and the church leaders. The choir was awesome as well.

I'm going to rush through the rest of this since Kamalu just woke up and I'm typing this with one hand. Kainoa had the next week off from school so we drove to Vegas with all three kids, my mom, and Shaun. Our Explorer has a third row but it was pretty tight. The kids did so well on the ride there and back. They did it without a DVD player. Of course we stopped in St. George to go to Jack-in-the-box. We met up with some family friends, the Monsons, and talked story. Kainoa was driving pretty fast so we made it to Vegas in good time. We stayed at the Circus Circus Hotel. We got a good deal. We shopped at the outlet mall the next day. Then we played tourists on Friday. We walked a lot. We went to the MGM, the M&M's and Coca-Cola stores, and the Miracle Mile shops at the Planet Hollywood. We met up with my good friend Lehua that night and ate at this place called Hash House-a-go-go. The portions were huge. Then on Saturday we took the kids down the Circus part of the hotel. We played some games and saw a circus act. My mom stayed at the hotel with the kids and we went to the football game with Lehua and Shaun. It was an awesome game. BYU 59 UNLV 21. RJ played so well. The highlight was getting phone calls telling us that we were on TV twice. They even did a close up on us. It was so funny because I stood up right as they did the close up. I had no idea.

Anyways now we're back to normal Utah life. I was enjoying the warmth of the sun down in Vegas. It was kinda chilly when we got back. The weather was better today thank goodness. I'll be posting more pics soon. That's it for now. Adios!