February 2026- The Rains Came Down, and Brent hosts a conference

 February was the rainiest month ever! Luckily we had the Olympics to entertain us this month instead of the beach :) 

Coen was cracking us up- he wanted to wear his Donald Duck that clips on to your shirt to church. We had just gotten back from Tokyo and he was so excited about it still. Here he is taking his turn in singing time while sporting Donald.

Mr. Kai on his first day of college, at the age of 13 months, haha. Since Kai kept moving his nap and sleeping for the babysitter, we decided to have her come earlier before his nap. Lydia takes a class from her dad on camps during that time and so she started taking Kai to class! She said he's very good and just sits in her lap. 

I got two of our books printed through Shutterfly, for 2024 and 2025! I choose our favorite family pictures for the year and this is the only way we have any pictures actually printed.

Audrey celebrated her 100th day of school. She was very excited about her crown (which had 10 sets of 10 dots). 

The kids got their report cards from school. Coen's said, "Coen is a really amazing student. He has the highest reading score in the class! He is a great complex thinker and always does his best work. He can work with any of his classmates and is always willing to help others out when he finishes early." 

Audrey's said, "Audrey is a great classroom contributor, and her love for learning is truly wonderful to see! She takes great pride in her schoolwork, she is confident, and she has a drive to excel and succeed. She scored a 96% on her Quarter 2 math assessment and a 97% average on her 3 language arts tests." 

Kai thinks Audrey is hilarious. If the other siblings did this, he probably wouldn't laugh, but anything Audrey does is super funny and super cool.

We love our happy boy!

Brent invited students from his classes to join him in the baptistry on a Thursday night. He had about 20 come, and then they had treats in the pavilion afterward. Here are a few of them with Brent and Brother Gordon, Brent's temple bestie :)  

We decided to make homemade pizza on a Friday night. We haven't done this in a long time (like since we've lived in Hawaii, since it's so hot here to turn on the oven). It was a cooler day so we could handle the oven being on. We had a party to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and realized pizza was an excellent choice since the Olympics are being held in Italy!

Ava and I really enjoyed watching all of the figure skating. Kai liked it too, and practiced saying a new word, Wow!

Ava and Aspen were working on their History Day project (a documentary on women in animation). They went to visit a lady nearby whose brother worked at Pixar. While there, they got to meet her bird.

Coen joined the early morning orchestra at school. They practice at 6:45am! He has always wanted to play the violin (maybe some encouragement from me), so we are excited he has this opportunity with the new orchestra program. 

This month it felt like the rain never stopped. Kai loves playing outside so much, so one day I decided to just let him go outside and play in the rain. He was so happy as you can see in this video: 

Brent made pizelles for a movie night when Ava's friends came over to watch Wicked.

We went to our little neighbor's (the Cluff's grandson) birthday party at the church on President's Day. It was nice to have something to do on a rainy day off school.

Kai liked the car theme, and pulling down these flags.

Brent submitted a proposal for a video podcast studio in the library on campus. It got approved and there is fancy equipment in there which is handy for his podcast club, students recording for different projects, and of course our kids recording History Day projects :) 

Our cutie Audrey who is now 6 AND A HALF.

BYUH hosts an employee appreciation night dinner in February so Brent and I got a date night with some yummy dinner. 

Audrey lost her front tooth and the other front tooth she lost at Christmas still hasn't grown in, so she's toothless. You can see she's in her fancy gold leotard for gymnastics- she loves walking down to her class at the end of our street.

I went to a Galentines Favorite Things party. It was a fun night with friends! 

Saturday morning I slept in because it was a rough night up with Kai. I was laying in bed when I realized I was supposed to be to the temple in about 10 minutes for my initiatory appointment. I thought I probably just had to miss my appointment but Brent encouraged me to just try, even if I was going to be a little late. What's the worst that could happen- they would turn me away. I hurried and threw on a dress and drove over to the temple, and got in! 

Right after the temple I took Coen to his basketball game. Here's Coen getting a rebound, but then having the ball stolen away from him. He's so tiny compared to the kids his age, and not aggressive at all!

Valentines night- Brent and I had a date to stake conference. I really love the evening sessions of stake conference. Kai was not being happy for Ava, so we took him with us, but listened to the session on zoom from our car in the church parking lot, where he could climb all over and be loud. 

After stake conference we came home and did legos for our date. Brent has gotten very into legos the past couple of months, so he opens up a bag of legos to work on the project each night. This project was Wall-E and Eve.

Ava singing in the stake youth choir in stake conference. The kids were fascinated to see themselves up on the big screen :) I watch this video and I think about how grateful I am to have our kids grow up around so many strong amazing families. Our sweet Laie really feels like a refuge, which is what it was originally hundreds of years ago.

Kai after stake conference- he wore his aloha shirt.

One evening I had Ava take Kai to her room to play for a while. I was going about my normal evening things when it occurred to me that I hadn't put Kai to bed yet. I ran to Ava's room to check on them and found them like this:

The high school basketball team won the state championship and so like most celebrations around here, they held a homemade parade to celebrate. They went through all of the streets of Hauula, Laie, and Kahuku. Here we are watching from our porch. They even threw candy to the kids!

I took the kids to the library to celebrate Chinese new year. Kai was fascinated.

There is a tradition of feeding the dragon a red envelope with money. I was surprised my kids wanted to get close to the dragon because I remember being so terrified of these dragons when I was younger.

Ava was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. She works very hard and cares about her grades. Way to go Ava!

Kai just being cute:

A friend from our ward asked if I could come be a guest speaker in his new venture finance class. This class was for future entrepreneurs and the title of my presentation was "smart business choices from an auditor's perspective."

Brent went with Ava and Aspen to the podcast studio and they recorded their history day documentary. 

We were forecasted to have a kona low storm which is a cyclone coming from the west (usually our winds blow from the east, or the windward direction). The storm was going to bring tons of flooding, which means the road to town can close down, so I picked up Brent on a Friday evening and we went to Costco to get groceries. Here's Kai being cute before we got him in his car seat for the hour drive into town. 

It had been raining so much all week and was starting to rain again, so the mountains were full of waterfalls.

This has to be one of the most understated pictures I've ever taken. It's a little hard to see since it was dark and we were driving, but zoom in on this picture. Each of those white streaks are huge waterfalls coming down the mountainside! I count 19 in just this picture. It was absolutely spectacular to drive through this. Poor Brent was driving and couldn't look, but I kept saying WOOW!!

The next day I took this video during the storm. A February weather report:

Creating a Little People world with neighbors on a rainy day.

Sunday, the sun came out! It felt glorious to go on a walk to the beach. I don't think we had stepped foot on a beach since we came back from Tokyo about a month before. 

This toothless girl with so much personality!

After all of the rain that we had, Ava discovered that the carpet in about a quarter of her her room was soaking wet. We called BYUH facilities and they came to vacuum up the water and try to find the leak source. It was coming in from cracks in the outside of the house, so they had to re-seal that.

Spaghetti night- Kai loves red sauce.

We had the hugest moth living in our garage. One morning when I was taking Coen to orchestra I saw that it tried to get in the car with him. The moth barely missed getting in the car with Coen, as Coen closed the door just in time, totally unaware of it. When we got to school and Coen opened the door, the moth appeared (apparently he had been closed into the door) and flew toward Coen. Coen let out the loudest, highest pitch scream ever. I laughed SO hard. Coen walked into the school, looking back at me a little embarrassed and a little giggly, as I kept laughing. 

Audrey drew this about how she can be kind. It says "Wen my mom ask to tec the chrash out." There's a picture of her taking out the trash.

Brent spent all school year planning a conference with his friend and colleague Joel Campbell, who he convinced to spend a year at BYUH as a Visiting Professor before officially retiring from BYU after 32 years. They organized the Latter-day Saints and Media Studies Symposium, that was hosted at BYUH at the end of February. Several hundred people came, and about 70 of them presented in different panels throughout three days.

Brent's good friend and mentor from the U of O, Seth, was the keynote speaker. We had so much fun chatting with Seth and Tiffany in the evenings at our house. In this picture Seth is speaking and Brent's running around taking care of food. Brent ran around for 3 days straight like a chicken with its head cut off.

Ava let Kai out of his car seat on our street, and he loved looking out the window like a dog. Every day after picking up Ava from school, Kai came to expect this!

I found this paper in Coen's school work. It says to draw somewhere outside that is important in your life. Coen drew Tokyo. If you zoom in, you can see the details that Coen drew- all of the places we went in Tokyo like the lego store, Harry Potter store, his favorite rides at Disney, the subway, and even the bathrooms because those were a hit, haha. Seeing things like this and hearing the kids talk about Tokyo and asking when we can go back, makes me so glad we gave them this experience. 

Friday night the conference moved over to the IMAX theater at the PCC for a special screening that Brent had helped arrange with the director of Meet the Mormons and Sharing Aloha, Blair Treu. The screenings included behind the scenes for these two films. The highlight was a never before seen segment of Meet the Mormons about the PCC and BYUH and a bi-racial couple from Laie combining their customs and cultures. After Blair, the heads of marketing for the PCC, and John Dye (organizer of the Light the World and the Giving Machine campaigns) spoke on a panel. 

I was really looking forward to going with Brent, but one thing after another kept happening. Ava was going to watch Kai but got home late, Kai was being grumpy etc. I finally just put Kai to bed and decided I was just going to call it a night, and I got in my pajamas. Right after that, my friend sent me this picture of Brent presenting and introducing the speakers. Ahhh dang it. I need to go. I quickly got dressed and drove over to the PCC where I was able to enjoy most of the show since they had gotten a slightly late start. I was very proud of Brent and all the hard work he put in to make this a successful conference! 

I was happy to see Brent for a little bit that night because after the screening he went to his office and worked all night, only coming home for a few moments in the morning to shower and change his clothes and get back to the conference.

Saturday was the kids' district competition for History Day at the community college in Kaneohe. Brent was in his final day of his conference and I was not up to taking Kai there all day alone, so our sweet friends took Ava and Coen with them. Coen's documentary is on the influence of German Expressionism on the horror genre and Tim Burton, so he wanted to wear his "Tim Burton shirt" with checkers. 

Friends sent me pictures and updates- Coen rocked his interview! Coen's documentary is titled, "From Shadows to Scissors: German Expressionism's Revolution and the Tim Burton Style." 

Ava and her friend with their arms around each other during her screening. Ava's documentary is titled, "Ink, Imagination, and Inequality: Women Revolutionizing Animation." 

Ava and Aspen rocking their interview. These kids get such great experience from this process. 

Both kids did well and moved on to the state competition, to be held in April. 

Meanwhile, back at home, I played outside with the kids. Audrey and our neighbor were Anna and Elsa.

And Kai got into the dirt! It's all over his face. 

We were exhausted after a busy week. 

In the afternoon our neighbors invited us to go to the beach with them. I had been wanting to go to the beach but don't quite dare go with only the younger two and no other adult back up. So it was perfect to go with them and finally get a beach day after such a rainy month! 

January 2026- Kai Turns One!

 This post covers the parts of January when we were not in Tokyo. 

On New Years day we were all tired and grumpy and feeling a bit stir crazy. Then the sister missionaries sent me a text asking if they could do service for us. We said they could come help clean our windows and take down our Christmas decorations. It was so nice to have their help and it went very quickly. Then we had dinner with the sisters and played games. We got out the sparkling cider to celebrate the new year. We love having the sister missionaries in our home and are particularly close to these ones. I think the way they served us the most was bringing the light of Christ to an otherwise grumpy home and cheering us up. 

January 2 - Kai turned ONE! It is simultaneously heartbreaking and happy to have your baby grow up and turn one. We love our little Kai Guy so much. In the morning his siblings sang happy birthday to him and gave him their birthday cards.

Opening presents with grandparents on the phone:

I took him outside in his new outfit to play. 

This is what I wrote on Facebook. Kai turned one and has brought immeasurable joy to our family. The other day I read that Dolly Parton said, "I was born with a happy heart," and that is exactly how I think of Kai. He came to us as such a HAPPY soul.

Several years ago when we were deciding if we wanted to have another baby, I was paralyzed by fear. I worried if I could love another baby. I feared that the baby might disrupt my other kids' lives in a negative way. I feared what a new baby would do to mine and Brent's relationship. After much prayer and fasting, I received an answer that I would love what this baby would bring.

It is interesting to look back at what I feared because not only did my fears not come true, but the opposite happened. Kai has brought happiness to our home and increased the love in all of our relationships.

That evening we went to our friends, the Foster's house for dinner with several other families. At the end Nina came out with a cake for Kai and we sang to him. 

A video singing to the birthday boy:

Kai's babysitter, Lydia, wanted to make Kai a cake for his birthday. She let me choose a theme and I chose the ocean since that's what Kai's name means, and he loves to swim in it! We spread out the celebrating and Lydia brought his cake over the day after his birthday. Lydia has watched Kai since I went back to work from maternity leave, so since he was about 3 or 4 months old. She is the sweetest and we are so lucky to have her come for a few hours M/W/F. She homeschools and is able to walk down the street to our house. Didn't she do an amazing job on his cake?!

Singing happy birthday with Lydia and our other friends who came, the DeMartinis and Sister Palmer (my ministering sisters).

The cake was delicious! 

Packing for Tokyo was a bit complicated because we needed winter clothes! My parents had brought us coats in November (thanks to Tammy for going to Kid to Kid and buying coats for the kids!) and I had a coworker bring me my coat to the partner's conference in San Diego. I bought some essentials like hats, gloves, and socks online. I bought each kid one long sleeve shirt and one pair of sweat pants from Target. I didn't want to buy too many things to only be used for one week. 

Laying everything out and seeing what we still needed. I realized Audrey only had thin leggings for her pants, which wasn't going to be warm enough for 30 and 40 degree weather. Luckily my neighbor had gone to Utah for Christmas and lent Audrey their daughter's warm pants and thermal leggings at the last minute.

If I need Ava to watch Kai for me for a bit (cooking dinner, doing laundry, running to the store), she will put on a few of his favorite clips on the TV and he happily sits in her lap and watches them. His favorites are the songs from The Sound of Music and the opening from Rio (he loves the birds). This day he fell asleep watching with her. 

I took the kids to the beach the last evening of Christmas break. Kai just runs for the water every time, so I was able to get this picture by having Ava ready to catch him when he got to the ocean. Haha. Then I could put my phone back while she held him. 

I asked Ava to research the cultural norms of Japan and a little basic Japanese and present it to us in a family night lesson. She took her job seriously and made a powerpoint to teach us. We learned things like 1. Do not eat while walking 2. No talking on the subway 3. Be prepared with your own garbage bag to carry your garbage out of public places.

It was such a gorgeous evening dropping Brent off at temple, I had to take a video. 

I should also say that our safety standards of driving in the car are pretty laid-back while driving around Laie. Audrey sits in the front seat, Kai sits on someone's lap etc. Laie is so small that we're only driving a couple blocks away ever. If we go on the highway, everyone has to be buckled properly. This is all very typical of what everyone does around here and it has definitely rubbed off on us :)

Coen helping Kai steer his bike. I love Coen's giggle and how he always finds everything Kai does funny and cute.

I took a video to remember mine and Kai's lunch time. This day he was particularly giggly. 

Saturday beach day, this time with Dad! We went to Castles, which is Brent's favorite around here. He took a few pictures:

One day I asked Ava to sweep the kitchen. She looked at the messy floor and said, "This is basically all from Kai!" I told her, "I know, that's just what happens when you have a baby. The floor gets messy after every meal. But isn't he worth it?" Ava responded in a little teasing voice, "I don't know Kai.... are you worth it?" He gave her a huge teethy grin which made us laugh. Then it became her little joke to ask Kai, "Are you worth it? The answer is a resounding YES.

A video- "Are you worth it?"

All three kids fell asleep during their movie night in our room.

Kai went through a phase of scrunching up his nose and pretending to be annoyed, worried, or frustration. We could hear in his nasally voice when he was doing it! Sometimes it was done with a half smile still. 

A video of the scrunchy nose:

Kai loves birds so much. I taught him sign language for birds and he does the sign to ask to go outside and find birds. Here's a video of him chasing the birds.

I had to take a picture to remember carpool this year. We carpool with Aspen who lives on our street- she's a grade older than Ava, but they're funny together. Kai is never happy to get in his car seat so I often bribe him with a bottle while we go pick up the girls. Here's a sing a-long one day:

We went to Tokyo- see those blog posts separately!  

One of the presents we got Kai for his birthday is a tunnel. He likes crawling through it.

Audrey really wanted to go to the 6th grade fundraiser. After picking up Ava from school I asked if she would watch Kai for a few minutes while I took Audrey for some special time. We caught the fundraiser just barely at the end and she chose a rootbeer float.

This came up in my emails- 20 years since Emily and I met! We met at the beginning of January 2006 when she came out to BYU and moved onto my floor in Helaman Halls. I sent this to Emily and we were both shocked that it's been 20 years! She has been my best friend and one of the biggest blessings in my life. It has been so fun to get married and have our babies at the same time. We stay in contact weekly with Marco Polos or texts, supporting each other through the hard things in life, and laughing at the funny things. 

I felt like going on a walk down memory lane, so please enjoy a few pictures of Emily and me over the years.

What a blessing it is to have a friend like Emily. 

I happily took my new umbrella to watch Coen's basketball game to shield me from the sun. This year it was so rainy that so many of the basketball games were canceled though!

Audrey and our neighbors put on a funny play for me: 

We had Victoria (a past student of Brent's) & the sister missionaries over to dinner to tell them about our trip to Tokyo and show them our souvenirs.  That first week of being home from Tokyo was a little brutal with the jet lag. Because of the time change, it felt like we were going to school at 2:15am. I kept thinking, it will just take a couple days and it will be easier. Wrong. Every day we got more and more tired! Finally after about a week we all adjusted.