Micah's Soccer Game last Saturday

Chief Hays

Taking Buddy Around

We received a package from Beth O. with a monkey named Buddy. Buddy is traveling around from person to person by mail. He was started by a girl in the 3rd grade as a project for her social study class. Buddy started in Florida, then went to Canada twice, then to Iowa and now here. So we took him around and took pictures of him doing things-enjoy the slide show below!

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Saturday

I know today is Monday and not Saturday but we have not done anything interesting to write about on the other days except the normal stuff.

Saturday morning we all got up early because Micah had an 8:00 am soccer game. Halfway through the game I had to bring Darrick to the ship because they were getting underway...again! I went back to the game and picked up Dad, Mom and the boys and we went to breakfast at the Koa Pancake House-it was super yummy. Mom and I had the awesome hawaiian sweet bread french toast.

From there we went to the Hale Koa to swim. It was such nice weather it felt good to all of us to get in the pool-well all of us except dad. He hid under a banyan tree in the shade on a lounge chair and enjoyed the breeze. Before we left we had an ice cream and then drove home.

At home we all took naps to prepare for our evening out. We went to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" put on by the Army Community Theater at Fort Shafter. It was awesome (once again-it was my 3rd time seeing it-twice in CA and now once in HI). Micah really loved it and followed the whole thing.

What we've been up too

Saturday my parents made it here! We have been having so much fun together and the boys cannot get enough of Nana and Papa!

Sunday after church we headed up to North Shore to do something that none of us have done before. We went to the Waimea Valley Audubon Center. It was such a beautiful day-perfect for a hike. It is 3/4 mile hike to a beautiful waterall. We saw so many beautiful and unusual plants and flowers. It was all breath-taking. The boys had a blast exploring and Micah took pictures with our digital camera-some of which you can see in the new slideshow. The boys couldn't wait to get to the waterfall because today it was open and you could swim to it. But when they got in the water, a frigid 60 degrees, they could not get in. Only Darrick made it! We picked up Stordo's on the way home and stopped for shave ice with ice cream!

Yesterday was a normal day, I worked and Micah went to school. We are having beautiful weather and mom and dad are having a great time!

Waimea Valley Audubon Center

Hats

I don't know if you know but I love when guys wear baseball hats. Darrick is not much of a hat person-it has to be the perfect hat to fit on his head-but when he finds it, it looks good. Micah and Jacob both look really cute in hats. Today we stopped at Old Navy because they were having a kids and baby sale. The boys are growing so fast and with this "cooler" weather we are having I pulled out their pants for them to wear and it looked liked they were waiting for a flood. So while we were shopping we found some cool hats.



Jacob got 2-one is red and says "Future Heartbreaker 2 cute 4 sure" and the other is green and says "Lucky O'Days Boys Club No Girls Allowed Moms are Okay". Micah got a green and white one that looks worn that says "11 Fog City Soccer".

Kung Hee Fat Choy

Last week Friday, in Micah's class they celebrated Chinese New Year-the year of the Boar. It is so interesting living where there is a huge Asian population-we never celebrated things like that when I was in school!

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Happy Birthday Micah!

Parents Day!

All I want for Valentine's Day is my 2 front teeth...

Last night it happpened-the dangling tooth fell out. While Micah was brushing his teeth it started to bleed so I held it with a tissue, gave it a quick twist and out it came!

This coming Thursday is Micah's 6th birthday. Amoung toys that he asked for, he asked me for his own Bible and Bible cover. So yesterday after school we headed to Honolulu to Logo's Christian bookstore. We found a really great Bible published by Zonderkidz. It is called the NIrV Kids' Quest Study Bible. NIrV stands for New International Reader's Version-a complete Bible created especially for beginning readers. It is for ages 6-10 and I would highly recommend it. He also picked out a blue Bible Cover.

Since I am writing this in the early morning, before the boys get up, today is Parent's Day at school. Micah is super excited and I am looking forward to it too!

Our Weekend

Darrick was still in San Diego this weekend so they boys and I hung out! Darrick actually got to see Charlie, Maud and Amelie, our friend Steph, my parents and Uncle Marv and Dave, Laura and Elijah! I know he appreciated the effort you guys made to come see him!

Friday after school us + Jennifer and Brayden drove up to North Shore to get sandwiches at Stordo's deli. We took our food to Turtle Beach and dined next to one big sea turtle. But it was freezing and windy.

Just a side note-it has been so cold here for Hawaii! Sunday morning it was 60 degrees and everyone was freezing. Out came jackets, long pants and socks!

Saturday morning Micah had his second soccer game and scored the first goal of the game! They also decided on a team name "Blue Lightening" and I volunteered to make the banner!

That evening we had a BBQ Baby shower for our neighbors Melanie and Jason. Their baby boy is due any day now!

Sunday the boys and I went to church and then out to lunch at Panda Express. Micah insisits on eating his chow mwin with chopsticks and is getting pretty good. Jacob loves the orange chicken and gobbles it up. We did not watch the Super Bowl but watched cartoons together instead.

I also forgot to put in a few weeks ago that we just got the CW!!!!! Enough people complained and so they put it on. I am behind on 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls but trying to catch up and Nicole I can watch America's Next Top Model!!

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We're Back!

As Darrick wrote because of my great ideas I have that are quite often spur of the moment things, when I moved the computer into our reading room/living room I didn't know they Cable link was not strong enough out there. So I was left without Internet and a home phone for 3 days.



So many big things have happened!



1. Micah had his first soccer game on Saturday and he scored 3 goals!



2. After going with Margaret and Loretta to the Hale Koa on Friday and putting 3 car seats in the Jeep I learned that it is too small for 3 kids. They were sitting on top of each other and their seats were up against the doors. So yesterday I traded the Jeep in for a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan!

I am super happy with it and all the extras it has!

3. We received a big packet in the mail from Buckner this week and the letter said, " We are thankful for your interest in Buckner's ministry! Your Buckner Preliminary Application has been received and it appears you meet Buckner's basic qualifications allowing you to move forward to begin the Home Study evaluation process"!!!!! We are so excited, thank you Lord.

4. We found out that in about 3 weeks my parents will be making their 3rd visit to Hawaii to see us!

In other news Darrick is still in San Diego. Micah's other top front tooth is pretty loose now too! Jacob is becoming quite a good artist and draws me many pictures.

Out of touch for a few days

Hello everyone
Jenn asked me to get online and let everyone know that she would not be able to get online until Wednesday. She moved the computer out of the back room and into the reading room but the cable connection in there is weak and the cable company can't send a tech until Wednesday. She will probably write then.
Darrick

Goodbye tooth #3!

Tonight while we were eating dinner Micah bit into his cheeseburger and said it hurt. He opened his mouth a little and I could see his tooth just dangling there. I told him not to chew anymore because I was afraid he would swallow it. I barely touched it and it fell into my hand. I think he looks so cute! At bedtime tonight he put his tooth under his pillow in our special tooth fairy box. He said that he wanted to get money from the tooth fairy but he also wanted to keep his tooth. He started crying because he didn't know what to do. I broke down and told him the truth about the tooth fairy,he didn't seem to mind too much-but he was super excited that he could get money and keep his tooth!

Last weekend of winter break

This is our last weekend of winter break-Tuesday we go back to school. We had about 4 weeks off since we are on a year round school calendar. Everything will pretty much be the same for Micah except that he will start Japanese. We are so use to the schools in California where Spanish is always taught but here where there is a huge Asian culture they teach Japanese. Miss Jackie who took care of Jacob is no longer doing daycare so we asked our friend Jennifer Homesley to watch Jacob for us. It will be super convient because she lives in the house right behind ours. I will still be working, helping out with Math, in the 3rd and 5th grade classes.

Friday night Darrick stood his first duty (24 hours on the ship) on the USS Lake Erie.

I got one of my big ideas that I wanted to redo our entire playroom. So I spent Friday taking everything out of the playroom and into the dining room. There was a lot of small dead cockroaches behind the furniture which was gross. Then Saturday and some of the afternoon on Sunday I went through the toys and cleaned and reorganized and put things back. We made half of the room with a rug, pillows and two bookshelves for all of my children's books and educational games and puzzles. Also the computer is there. Then on the other half is the toy box and the boys toys. I am really happy with how it turned out.

We Love the Dentist

I know that is not what most people say about the dentist but when three out of four people in your family go to he dentist and their are no issues it is easy to love the dentist. Today Jenn and the boys had dentist appointments and no cavities. Jenn said that the boys did a great job and were not scared at all. The boys were happy to get new tooth brushes and tooth paste.

Today was my first day on the USS Lake Erie with the entire crew there. It was a pretty long but good day. We are going through a lot of inspections now to make sure we are ready for deployment soon. Yep, another deployment not even a year later. I guess all I can say is "that's what we do." But I was thinking about people who have a hard time after a week of being away from home. Like when you watch Survivor and they are crying after a week that they miss their family. Good thing they are not in the military! I don't know where that came from but I do think that they need to suck it up sometimes.

Tonight Jenn is filling out paper work for the adoption so please continue to pray for us and the little girl God has planned for us.

Darrick

More Photos

Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 Everyone from the Hays family! We had fun celebrating on New Year's Eve with the neighborhood gang. We had so many fireworks between the neighbors we were ready for a spectacular show. We got to set off quite a few and so did the rest of the people in housing before the security guy came around and said we couldn't do fireworks.

We are excited to see what this year will hold for each one of us and our family. In August Darrick and I will celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversay. We also hope to adopt a daughter this year. As for personal goals Jacob said he would like to ride a bike without training wheels, Micah would like to buy a pirate ship (that is honestly what he said)! Darrick would like to read through the New Testament and memorize one new Bible Verse a month. And we both would like to eat healthier and get back in shape.

New Year's Day we relaxed and then in the evening went to celebrate our friend Nadine's birthday and to meet their 1 month old son-Noahkai. He is so cute and I got lots of time to cuddle him. Micah even asked to feed him his bottle and then rocked him to sleep.

Goodbye Gold Bullet, Hello Green Lightning

Yesterday afternoon Darrick and I went on a date. The plan was go out for a late lunch and then see an early movie. We had a super yummy dinner. We tried a new place called "Diego's Taco Shop". Darrick had carne asada fries-which he heard he had to try-and I had hard tacos with rice and beans. We will definitly go there again.

We had some time before the movie so we stopped at Cutter car dealership to look at the new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. It was sweet but a red Compass caught my eye. Let me just say that our gold minivan aka: Gold Bullet has been a great car for us but every couple of months it seems to have something going wrong. The newest is a clicking sound and a leak in the radiator. So we test drove the Compass but knowing we still owe $5700 on the van we didn't think they could work a deal for us but the salesman was willing to try. They came out with: If you put $8000 down your payments will be 844 a month. When we told him there was no way we could do that he wanted to know how close we could to that. We said we couldn't and we told them what we could pay and the guy couldn't believe how low we wanted our payments.

So we were planning on leaving when another guy came in and said he understands our situation since we was former military. He said that they have a nice 2006 Liberty, with 3000 miles, that they could probably work it out with year end deals so it would be closer to the payment we wanted. So we test drove it and loved it but when we got back found out that other people were looking at it before us and they wanted it. So the dealership said they had something else for us and brought out a dark green 2006 Liberty with only 79 miles. They offered to pay off our van and give us a nicer car then the Compass for a much smaller payment-it didn't make sense-but that is how God works.

Scary Night

Hello everyone, Jenn and I are sorry we have not been good about posting. I have been on vacation and we have been busy. As you can see Micah got a new bike. It was not for Christmas it was because he rode his bike to school on Friday morning December 15th and when I picked him up I loaded him in the car and forgot his bike. Well when we remembered it on Tuesday the next week it was gone. Jenn and I felt like we should get him a new one because I forgot it and he needed a larger one anyway and they were 20% off and the exchange. So now he has a full size bike and he loves it and does very well on it.

So what was the scary night about?

Last night, Tuesday night, Jacob was playing at a friends house with Micah and they suddenly came home with Jacob crying and him throwing up on our porch. We took his temperature and it was 102.4 so we gave him Tylenol and a warm bath and that seemed to bring it down some but we kept him on the couch by us so we could watch him. So we were watching TV when Jenn looked at Jacob and said "Darrick Jacob is shaking" so I looked at him and jump up shouting "He's having a seizure!" So we tried to talk to him when he stopped (about 30 seconds, an eternity) and he was really unresponsive so I said we should call 911. Then we got our neighbor Wil to see what he thought and he agreed so we called 911 and they sent an ambulance. They gave him an IV and took him to Tripler Army Medical Center. Then Margaret came over to stay with Micah, who was sleeping and unaware of this, and I drove to Tripler. About two hours after his seizure Jacob finally snapped out of it and became himself again. They did some blood test, urine test and took some x-rays and said that everything was fine and that he had a Fever Seizure. So we were home by midnight and today he had a little fever still but was in pretty good spirits. He doesn't remember much about last night which is probably good so he is not scared. He was such a trooper though and we are so thankful to God that He was taking care of Jacob. So that was our scary night.

There is a lot more we can share about our Holidays. We will be sure to write about them later. Check out the present Elijah gave to Jacob for Christmas. It is on his head in case you didn't figure that out.

Darrick

The Gang at the Pearl City Christmas Parade

Jennifer, Brayden, Deja, Jenn, Margaret, Loretta

Jalen, Jacob, Micah, Tayveon, Tonya

taking pictures: Darrick and Jeremy

Brothers

"It's my brothers fault" and "I didn't do it"

Getting out there with the other crazy people

Today we went out with all the other people in Hawaii and shopped 'til we dropped. Micah played at his friend Jalen's house and Jacob, Darrick and I went out. Our first stop was Costco! We found a few items and crossed some people off our list. Then we stopped at the Waikele Outlets to go to the Children's Place to look for Christmas pajamas. We had great success and found some super cute things for the little ones on our list. Then we stopped into the store next to Children's Place called "Crazy shirts" they were having a 50% of everything sale-it was awesome. Then we we got home we hung up some Christmas lights. Tonight we are babysitting Loretta so her parents could go to a holiday party!

Is that your final answer?

Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but we are not coming home for Christmas. We just found out and we are pretty bummed. The person on the ship who said the Navy was paying for our tickets for the way home was wrong. When Darrick went to the main office to book our flights, hey looked over his orders and said we are not eligable at the time. But if Darrick wanted to sign up for 2 more additional years of sea time then we could ge the tickets in September-no thanks!

So we are staying here and having our own Christmas in Hawaii again. But we are focusing on the positives like Darrick is home with us and we can have some down time as a family.

Decorating our Tree

She lives on...

This afternoon we spent some time decorating our Christmas Tree. We let the boys put on most of the ornaments so they often end up clumped together but they are so proud of the job they did.

But then when the boys are done, it is my turn. I very carefully lift my angel out of the box and lovingly place her at the top of the tree-where she belongs.

I made this Angel when I was in 2nd grade at Ontario Christian Elementary. I folded a paper like a fan, cut out a circle for her head and drew her face, then I cut out wings and glued her head and wings on. And on her left side are my initials (well the ones I had before I got married) J.G. For many years she reigned on top of the Gutierrez family tree since I was the oldest.

As we got older my brothers use to poke fun of her and say she was ulgy, but I didn't care, I still put her up year after year. One year my brother Dave tried to replace her with a homemade star he had made but it didn't matter I still put her at the top next to his star.

And when Darrick and I got married, I took her with me so she could sit at the top of our tree and she has for the last 9 years. And as I am writing this I can see her sitting at the top of our tree. She may be turning brown and yellow from fading and she has a tear and her head has been taped on but she is beautiful to me. And as Iput her up Jacob asked, "I thought we are suppossed to have a star on top of our tree." And Darrick answered, "Not in this house. We have an Angel that is very special to Mom."

Our Thanksgiving

We hope that everyone had a nice Thanksgiving-we sure did and it was a first for us. It was the first time we had Thanksgiving at the beach! Our friend Sonya invited us to celebrate with her family, who is visiting from West Virginia, and friends. It was nice for me to not have to cook a lot. I had to bring Strawberry Spinach Salad and a dessert-I make Chocolate Toffee Crunch Poke Cake.

It did rain on us but that was ok since we had a cabana. The boys swam in the ocean and played in the sand. It was a relaxing day.

On Friday we started out our morning with a family bike ride. We explored a different part of the peninsula which is by the Navy Seal Base. It was by the water and when we were looking around we saw a huge blowfish and Jacob spotted a ray that we all got to see! It was awesome. After we cleaned up we went to the movies and saw "Flushed Away". It was cute.

Then in the later afternoon we went to the Hale Koa with all our neighbors and Sonya and her family. We swam, had dinner, watched the fireworks and the fire dancers.

Today Darrick has duty so we are just hanging out at home. I am doing some laundry and putting up the Christmas tree, Micah is playing video games with Jalen and Jacob is watching cartoons!