(Not-so-quick) Glimpse on the Past Month

Much has been going on this past month! Here's a brief rundown of a lot of things that have happened:

Grandma Gushiken was sooooo nice and sent us a box from Hawaii! Chocolate covered macadamia nuts, Motobu t-shirts, guava drink mix, dry seed, wet mango and other fruit, and guava jam! We love her much and feel so spoiled!

Jeff got to go fishing and camping up at Strawberry Reservoir with his dad, Ryan and his dad, and Bennett! (I think that's all who was there...)

Jeff and his dad slept under the stars.

They woke up to a beautiful sunrise!

Using sagebrush for their fire's fuel...apparently that was really smoky.

Happy Mother's Day! We made these delectable Mini Cheesecake Tarts with strawberry sauce...mmmm!

We watched Derrick play in one of his ultimate frisbee games! He's on a team with the Orem City League again this year. Check out that good defense!

He was wide open! Nice catch!

There was a swarm of gnats that were following us EVERYWHERE! I thought it was because Jeff was sweaty and sticky from washing windows, because I would walk away and they would stay by him. But, no! It was the BLANKET! I don't know if the colors attracted them or what, but they stuck around wherever it was!

I liked my shadow. :)

Jeff and Derrick spent many, many hours to organize PawPaw's woodpile, which was HUMONGOUS (and also a huge fire hazard)! This is what it looked like before, along with all the wood they had already thrown out (see below).

This wood is going to be used for all of the nights out around the fire pit that Derrick is planning on having!

A huge slug that Jeff found in the pile. He said he later found one that was even bigger! Grooooosss!

This is after a few days of hard work! Phew! It looks great!

Jeff went a little crazy from throwing wood everywhere for hours on end...

I corrected a TON of GramMi's students' tests and worksheets over many days near the end of her school year. Boy...it was monotonous and frustrating at times. It was a good insight to appreciate all of my past teachers more!

Jeff and Derrick working on PawPaw and GramMi's garden. It looks loads better now; I'll have to take more up-to-date pictures soon.

Jeff surprised his parents by extending their garden for them! He spent all day while they were at work cutting the lawn, rolling it up, moving grass over to the grandkids' playground area, moving the brickwork to include the new part of the garden...wow! He broke his back and blistered up his hands pretty good to finish it all. I helped, too...for about 20 minutes. That's all my back could take before it quit on me. I'll have to get a more up-to-date picture on how it looks now!

Moving the grass over and fitting it together in the playground area.

Beautiful blossoms at Gardner Village. We caught a ride with Jeff's parents to Bennett's preschool graduation up in Roy (yay, Bennett!!!), and on the way back we stopped by Gardner Village to look around. It was my first time being there...so fun! I learned a lot of neat things about Kae's family history, and they showed me the house where she grew up. We also saw the old Thomas family home in Syracuse. Awesome!!!

Daniel was in SLC for a four-hour layover on his way to Texas. We went up to meet with him for a bit and have Chinese food. Thanks, PawPaw and GramMi!

We we we so excited!

Broskis. Daniel's shirt matched the occasion perfectly!

Memorial Day! We bought some flowers and cut some from our yard to put on Grandpa Wakamatsu's and Haley's graves. Love and miss them!

Later, we had a BBQ! Derrick made some awesome baby back ribs (they took about 3 hours to make because he wanted them to be the real deal...and they WERE!) and Jeff grilled up some asparagus, bell peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

Yum!

This is the project I've been working on for the past month...making leis for OHS graduation! I made about 40 of them. I wasn't as successful in selling them as I wanted to this year, but hopefully next year I will be able to advertise and get the word out better and make more moolah!
In the past week, my belly seems to have become a bowling ball! This picture was at 23 weeks......and this one is at 24! Zoom in if you are doubtful of its size...but I'm huge! Every time I look in the mirror, see my reflection in a window, or look down, I do a double take. It's crazy how it just popped out so much all of a sudden!

Today was PawPaw's birthday! I made his favorite, lemon meringue pie, again this year. Sadly, because of a series of unfortunate events, it didn't set too well and was a little runny. But, it still was delish!

Last, but definitely not least, of this long-winded post (sorry! I really need to make short and sweet ones!). Jeff and I were a little sad that we weren't able to sell as many leis as we had hoped. We went back to GramMi's, more than ready to cheer ourselves up with some pie and ice cream. Ok, in reality we felt a bit gloomy about the situation and were going to sulk and eat pie and ice cream. I went to the bathroom first, and when I came back out I saw this:

In case you can't tell, it says "BOX of FUN" and "Weeeeee." Jeff is so great! He can turn any hard situation into one worth laughing about. I'm so glad I have him!