Fruit basket, story telling & fun videos!

Amazing right?! Two posts within one week! Both Kai & Koa did something cute in the last two days so I wanted to note it for posterity before I forgot!

On Monday night, we had a family home evening at our house with Brock, Allison, Mason, Zach, Calvin, Ben, Melissa, & Braden. It was a lot of fun. We had dinner then Melissa did the lesson on family - it was a cute lesson so I'm going to digress! She compared a family to ingredients of a cake (in our case it was brownie cookie bars). She asked them if the ingredients would taste good by themselves. Of course not! But, if we mix them all together (she had them all mix them in bowls) it becomes a delicious brownie cookie bar! Brock jokingly asked who was which ingredients and they were naming who would be the chocolate. So I spoke up and I said if anyone should be the chocolate, it would be me since I have brown skin! I said I ate so much chocolate thats why I have brown skin! Mason and Zach looked at me in awe and wonder believing me & I started laughing and said I was joking but they didn't look like they believe me! Brock and Allison (who were also laughing) said that they just knew that the boys would be laying in bed that night continuing to wonder if that was true or not!

Okay back to where I left off. After the lesson and closing song (Koa loved singing along even though he didn't sing words!) Allison had us play games. We played fruit basket! We had some interesting fruits in our fruit basket! Lychee (that was mine) guava, boisenberry, papaya and of course banana, orange & apple. We had a chair set in front of the tv so that we could kind of have a circle to play with. It was a blast!

After we were fruit basketed out, we just sat around talking. So Kai put his booster seat onto the chair in front of the tv and climbed into it. Then he said "Let me tell you a story, once upon a time, firebird trapped in a cave. then he trapped in a cave and lost. He dropped a firebird feather and it flew away to rockets house. " (I couldn't remember exactly what he said last night, so I just told him to tell me the story again and thats what he told me) The way he told it to us was so animated! He is a great story teller! He had great voice inflections and facial expressions! For your information, the story he was telling us is a Little Einsteins movie. It was really cute! Then he went and grabbed a book and started reading it to us - showing us the pictures and everything! When he was done, he closed the book and said AAA-MEN. By this time I had grabbed our video camera and was ready when he got another book. This next book he took a lot longer to read because sometimes he flipped the pages one way and then other times he flipped them the other way! It was still cute and he still finished by saying AA-Men! Allison and Brock still wanted to stay and watch him but by this time it was 10:30 ish at night so they had to leave. Then Kai brought me a book and I started reading to him and he fell sound asleep before it was even done. It was a cute, fun night!

Yesterday, when we went to Bill's office I had my hands full so I couldn't carry Koa so he walked behind me. As we entered the warehouse, Justin was walking in from the opposite direction and said something like "Hi bud!" to Koa. Koa broke out in a huge grin and started running towards him like he was going to hug him! But at the last minute, he stopped inches in front of Justin, turned around and squatted above Justin's feet like he was farting or trying to poop on them! It was hilarious! Whats even funnier is Bill installed security cameras just the other day, so its caught on video! Maybe we'll enter it on America's funniest videos or something!

Wow, I sure write a lot don't I? Oh well, better more to remember than less!

Family in town

It's past midnight so I'm just going to jot a few things that happened so that I don't forget!



Last weekend, Bob, Krista & Jackson came to Utah just because they wanted to and because Delta had a sale! Kai LOVES playing with Jackson! It's really cute! We had fun hanging out with them! I made my Chocolate Trifle and put it in my Pampered Chef Trifle bowl for our sunday dessert.

Doesn't that look delicious?

Then, this weekend, Brock, Allison, Mason, Zach & Calvin came partly for work and partly to escape Hurricane Ike (they live in Houston). At first, only Brock was going to come but at the last minute, they all decided to come. Its a good thing too because they currently don't have power or water at their home in Houston and they don't have any idea when they'll get either back! In fact, one of their friends called them yesterday and told them that they were driving around in their car because their kids were bored so they're watching a movie in there while finally sitting in an air conditioned area and charging their cell phones! Man, the things we take for granted!

Yesterday, Brock's family and me and Kai and Koa went to the BYU/UCLA football game in Provo. It was a blast! It was sold out but Brock had tickets for his fam he had purchased earlier. So I found a couple of scalpers and bought tickets for our fam. It was a fun game but man it was HOT! No shade is no fun - even in the low 70 degree temp we were having yesterday! I spent more than I would normally buying drinks and ice cream! But it was well worth it! Did I mention BYU won 59 - 0? It was amazing!

Both Kai & Koa were really cute during the game! Kai was so hot, he wouldn't keep his shirt on. Koa, on the other hand, just lay back and enjoyed the shade provided by the slightly larger woman standing next to him! He just lay down, head on the diaper bag with the popcorn bag on his stomach and ate his snack while relaxing! I took pics so I'll have to upload it later!

On the ride down to Provo, Kai said the cutest thing! He was playing with Mason & Zach in the back row of Dave's Tahoe and they were being rowdy little boys as usual. Suddenly Kai starts yelling in an attention getting voice "Lorinda! Lorinda! Lorinda!" As if that wasn't funny enough, when I asked him what he needed, he said "Mommy, I need chopsticks." Everyone bust out laughing really hard! But not Kai! He was dead serious and a little annoyed that we were laughing at his request! Eventually he just started laughing with us. Too cute!

We finally bit the bullet and bought a Wii. I'm addicted to Mario Kart. We haven't even had it for a week and I've unlocked almost all the games in all the levels! I also am participating in a little fantasy football with some of my family! It's fun!

We bought an Emperor something or other fish from Aquatic Dreams. It is a gorgeous fish! I'll have to take a picture later and post it. He's very sociable and is nice to our other fish in that tank (2 black clown fishes and an orange anthius).

Koa said "bottle" today for the first time!

I'm really tired so I think thats all for now!
Goodnight!

Our recent happenings...

Here are a few moments I wanted to note:

On August 14, 2008 Kai learned how to say his full name! What is it you ask? You can ask Kai as he is so proud and is willing to tell anyone and everyone his full name! But just for the record, his full name is Ryan Keali'iokekai Ying-Long Griffiths. And yes, he actually does pronounce it correctly! Even more so than Bill! LOL! I wanted to note this because everyone always asks me when I learned how to say my full name when I was a kid and I have no idea when. This way, Kai will have an answer for people when they ask him!

I don't remember when, but since my last blog, Kai learned how to pedal his tricycle, so we bought him a little bike with training wheels. He loves it!

We went to Arizona at the end of July for Bill's brother Ben's baby Braden's baby blessing (how about all those b's!) and for Bill's other brother Kevin's missionary farewell. We played Wii and hung out at the pool most of the time! All of Bill's brothers were there with their families, so it was a fun mini reunion!

The following week, Ben, Melissa and Braden moved up to Utah since Ben works with Bill. They rented an apartment in Ogden so we helped them move in. We've had lots of fun with them since they moved up here! I'm sure some of our fun times are to follow in this blog!

We went to Las Vegas for a short trip with Ben, Melissa, Braden and Aaron and met up with Bryan from ReadyLift and his family. Bill had to go for a business meeting so we all packed up and went for fun. We rented a house in Henderson with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a private pool, hot tub and a pool table. We had a blast. We stopped at the M&M factory and Game Works and spent some of our winnings there playing games. On a side note, Virtual Bowling sucks!!! Aaron and I tried to play a game and it didn't even register the bowling ball path correctly! Back to our winnings, yes, we sinned and loved every minute of it! I won 800% of what I spent! I played a $0.25 slot machine 6 times and won $8.00 after only starting off with $1.00. Not too bad! But not as good as Bill either! Bill took Aaron (who was the only unmarried and kidless person in our party) to the strip early one morning while the rest of us slept in with the kids. Shortly after everyone had woken up, Bill called my cell phone and all I could hear was clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink etc. Bill had won the jackpot and won 20,000 credits! The funny part is that he was playing a nickel machine so 20,000 credits ended up being $92.00! Still, winning $92 is better than losing $92! All in all, it was a fun road trip!

On Sept. 2nd, Kai started preschool at Mary's Little Scholars in Kaysville. He loves it! He is going with 2 of our neighbors, Hailey Sillito and Jackson Stott. Its funny because just from 2 days of school, the 3 of them have become best of friends. Yesterday after school, they continued to keep playing together riding their bikes around our cul-de-sac and jumping between our houses until 6 pm. When we separated them, they all started throwing tantrums because they didn't want to stop playing!

Yesterday Bill finally got his big red sign on his building making us so much more noticable from the street and easier to find! It looks REALLY good! It looks so official too! See?

Today me and the kids drove up to the office and Kai said "Mommy! Daddy got a red sign! Lets read the letters! Uh, S, uh B, uh zero, uh B, uh uh T, uh A, uh F!" He said it so triumphantly it was cute! Then I asked him "What does that spell?" He cheered back "Daddy's Office Building!" It was adorable! (In case you didn't catch what Kai was spelling, he spelled Fat Bob's backwards- substituting a zero for the O!)

As for Koa, hes just the same Koa! Laid back and fearless at the same time. The other day, he had 2 binkies in one hand, another binky in the other, a binky in his mouth and a bottle tucked under his arm! We've decided that his bottle is his wubby. If he's crying all we have to do it hand him a bottle full or empty and he'll stop crying (unless he really is thirsty- then he gets mad!) He thinks everything is a game. If we tell him no, he tries it again and when we go to stop him -again- he starts belly laughing. We have to keep a close eye on him because he will climb anything in sight! One day at the office, the guys left a ladder up and before I knew it, Koa had climbed all the way to the top! He even got down by himself. Don't worry, I was right there to catch him if he fell, but he knew what he was doing! He also loves to run/stand on tables. I have no idea how to stop him from wanting to do this! Then when we were swimming in Vegas, he would copy Kai and just jump in sometimes before I had even recovered from catching Kai! We sure had fun! I have a feeling Koa is going to give me some sleepless nights throughout his life!
He is very cute though, too! He loves to watch Dora, Diego, Little Einsteins, Super Why, and of all things, Family Guy. And out of all those shows, which one do you think makes him belly laugh? If you guessed Family Guy, you would be correct!

As for Bill and I, Bill is the same -working every minute every night and day! As for me, I still go in almost every day and I still teach piano. Melissa and I have been going house shopping for them quite a bit too. It's pretty fun! It almost makes me want to buy another house! The big news for me and Bill is that we are going on a trip to Mexico! We're going to take a baja tour in Ensenada! Here are 2 links- one is the actual website of the company that we're going with and the other is a youtube video of some guys who went on the exact tour we're going to go on. The trip is at the end of September and I can't wait! Bill and I have never had a real honeymoon or vacation without family, kids, or friends, so this will be our first! Melissa will be watching Koa and the Sillitos have offered to watch Kai and take him to preschool. Kai will be in heaven! Not so sure on Koa, but hes the most familiar with Melissa so if anyone has a chance, Melissa does! It's the first time we're leaving him overnight with anyone else so this should indeed be interesting. I know you think I forgot about the website links, but you're wrong!

http://www.wideopenbaja.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD8n1P5UQkM&feature=related

Here are some pics from Kai's first day at preschool

Okay, I think I've got most things caught up on. TTFN!

I forgot a few things... In a period of 3 weeks, 3 of our cars were in accidents. Logan was driving our Jeep Wrangler when he ran a stop sign and hit a car. The damage was pretty throrough but we had Kevin Wood who owns Precision Body Shop (not Kevin D Wood - one of our employees) fix it up. We had him paint it a different color too which was a good thing- but I'll get back to that later The very next week, Kevin D Wood was driving our GMC Sierra 2500 on the freeway and jackknifed into a trailer . So we called Kevin Wood (not Kevin D Wood) again. The very next week, I was backing up into a parking space at Bill's office in my Toyota Tundra when I backed into a tree. Yes, I have rear sonar sensors (they were unfortunately turned off at the time) AND a rear camera (I have since started using it!). So once again, we called Kevin Wood (and once again, not Kevin D Wood) to help us fix it. Here is where it was a good thing that we changed the paint color on our Wrangler. We matched the color to our Tundra. So since Kevin Wood (not Kevin D Wood - is that getting irritating yet?) had the paint color already, it was relatively easy to fix the truck bed door. But I will never live down the fact that I backed into something with rear sensors and a rear camera!

Here's our wrangler (fixed) and FJ Cruiser

Another car related issue we had was Bill ran a red light in our Chevy Malibu Classic - wait, I've just been corrected by Kevin D Wood. Bill was actually in our FJ Cruiser- thanks Kevin. There also happened to be a cop right there, so Bill pulled over before the cop even turned on his lights. Whats even funnier is that he had been stopped at the light and when a different light turned green he started going! The cop came to his window laughing and asked him "What happened there?!" A funny side note: The cop that pulled him over was husband of my bowling friend who is a bailiff at the District Court where I used to work! In Bill's defense, that intersection he was at is pretty confusing!

Anywho, thats all I have to say about that! And NOW I am done!