Nothin' warms you like catchin' fish in the cold

Today I took little Hema and my nephews Dallan and David to the lake for a little winter fishing. (Marilee & Brandon are in Arizona so their kids were staying with us.) We were ready to drill through some ice but the marina we went to wasn't iced over...so we fished the docks. The fishing was awesome! Dallan and David probably took between 30 or 40 between them and little Hema would have caught more if he didn't have those darned Cheetos there to distract him (all fish were released). Hema still managed to catch 8 or so before abandoning his pole. The boys kept me busy baiting hooks so I didn't even get my hook in the water. I don't mind, especially when the kids are having so much fun. We used night crawlers and wax worms for bait and by the end of trip the boys were experts at baiting their own hooks. We caught lots of big bluegills, several crappie, and Dallan managed to hook a largemouth bass. We had a great time and can't wait to get out again. Little Sarah made us promise to take her fishing next time.

Dallan with one of several crappies he caught.Here the boys show off the huge bluegills we got into.

Dallan also landed a largemouth bass that uncle Hema dropped while unhooking it...which means no picture, sorry Dallan.

I think these 3 boys are hooked for life!

Ute's & Dino's the perfect mix!

Last Friday our family joined the other 40,000+ Utah football fans who lined the streets of downtown Salt Lake City to celebrate the Sugar Bowl victory earlier this month. It was such a great thing to see the community come together in support of the Ute's. We parked at the Gateway shopping center and rode Trax into town. Little Hema really loves to ride the "train". We watched the parade on the corner of 100 south and State street. Then we joined the "sea of Red" as they followed the team to City Hall (400 south) where the Coaches, some players, the Govenor, and the Mayor addressed the crowd. We caught Trax back to Gateway just before it let out to avoid the rush. We grabbed some Brazilian grub at Tucano's before heading over to Energy Solutions Arena for Walking with Dinosaurs. While walking to the Arena little Hema asked where we were going, when we answered he let out the loudest scream of sheer happiness. It caused several people on the street to stop and stare. The show was so cool! If your not familiar with it they have life size realistic looking dinosaurs. Our family's favorite was of course...the T-Rex!

After a day like this...it wasn't just the kids who were exhausted...and sore.

We love Dinosaurs!!

For our family home evening activity tonight we of course headed over to the dino museum (and yes we are going again tomorrow morning). But seriously, with this cold snowy weather who doesn't just need a great place to run around and play? (This picture isn't very clear, but is an attempt of Daddy Hem to feed Little Hema to T-Rex.)On Monday nights the museum does different little activities for FHE and tonight they hid pictures of dragons in the museum for you to find and and count. Little Hema had so much fun looking for them. The museum is so awesome and even though we go there a lot, I still see cool new things nearly every time. (It is the worlds largest display of mounted dinosaurs, which means there is a LOT to see.) Here is one of my favorite things there. It is a giant turtle that is nearly 16 feet across! It is so cool. And I have seen pictures of this dinosaur (the Platybelodon) before. It is so weird. It's like a small elephant but the trunk opens like an alligator mouth with weird big teeth at the bottom. So strange. Just today I noticed that they had this skull there of one. Totally nasty and yet, really cool! Vela is loving being able to run around and not being stuck in the stroller. She follows Hema and copies what ever he does.

This coming Friday we are going to this neat Walking with the Dinosaurs show at the Energy Solutions Arena. We are so excited. We bought the tickets months ago and both Hemas love to sit and watch the clips online and talk about how much fun it will be! Our lives would be much less exciting without all these dinos!

And now off topic, here is a picture of the kids on Sunday. Hema loves to try and hold Vela so she doesn't walk away when we are taking pictures. Vela doesn't love it so much. This is another of the cute Tongan dresses grandma Katoa made her!

A fun visit and a boy growing up too fast!

We got to visit with Vela's birth mother and her full sister on Saturday. It was wonderful to see them. Here is a picture with Vela and her sister Leiana. Leiana is 6 months younger than Hema and as tall as he is. Vela definitely has those same tall genes.

Vela's birth mother is so wonderful I think Vela looks a lot like her. It was so great to see her and also get to meet her cousin Tilynn. It was fun to go to the dinosaur museum with them and then go to dinner. (I know, it sounds like we live at the dino museum, but we do!) We love you Chelise and Leiana! We are so grateful for you and your decision to place Vela with us!

And finally, my little boy is now in Primary!! I can't believe that he is that old. Here is a picture of him with his teacher (who is wonderful) and a few classmates that wanted to get in the shot. He wanted to take my scriptures with him since they are smaller and easy to carry. He looked like a little missionary. I feel like if I blink, he really will be heading off for his mission! I am trying to take advantage of every moment with Hema.

13-0 What a Season!!

You know the old saying "If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy??" Well at our house if Hema ain't happy (Utah football winning their games) ain't nobody happy!!! And needless to say we are pretty happy around here. Everyone said it couldn't be done, Utah beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, but 31 to 17 can't be argued with!! The Utes have the longest winning streak in the nation and longest consecutive bowl game winning streak in the nation. We think this is pretty sweet sugar! The only thing that could have made it better would have been going to the game! Oh well, at least we got to eat sushi and watch it! And Hema is just smiling, very humbly, about all the smack BYU fans talked this season! GO UTES!!!!!

Happy New Year!!

We had a great a great New Years and hope you all did too! Our tile is nearly completed now... but wasn't done in time for the party, so my sweet mom offered to have everyone at her place. It was fun to get together and eat, play games, watch some pretty sad little fountain fireworks and hang out with family. We got home very late, or I guess not too early in the morning and slept a bit before heading over to the Katoa family party. It was so much fun. We had a way better turn out than we thought we would. We had around 150 people come. Four generations we represented!It was so fun to get caught up with everyone. We ate, played basketball, played rock band, watched movies and visited. Little Vela had a fun time walking around everywhere. Yeah!! She has finally decided to walk rather than crawl at nearly 15 months old!!!

Then we slept at my mom's again last night so we could spend some time with Jess, Sterling and little Sterling before they left town. Today we are sealing grout, installing the new baseboards, putting the washer and dryer back in the laundry room, trying to catch up on laundry and sleep, cleaning the house and watching the Utes bowl game!

Go UTES!!!!

It has been such a fun Christmas break, we are going to be so sad when Hema goes back to work on Monday!