Masina's Birthday

These are just a few pictures from Masina's birthday on Saturday.

Masina's Artwork

Showcasing more of Masina's artwork. She likes to draw and puts her work on my laptop. When she does that it means she wants me to scan them and blog them. If I blogged every artwork she gives me it'll be majority of my posts. 

Nevertheless, I personally think it's good as it helps you guys out there in New Zealand, Samoa, Australia, San Diego, Arizona, Utah and South Carolina get acquianted with the kids; Whether it be their school work, artwork or just special projects. 

Well, enjoy. Oh and as of today, there are exactly 2 weeks left of school. Nice!

New Moon

Keilani and Jennifer are happy that a "New Moon" is arriving. Their new moon arrives later this year while the quarter's new moon is May 24th.

Masina School Pic

The only thing Masina said was "I took my picture before I lost my teeth". LOL!

New Pictures

Since you're all on facebook and I didn't want to upload twice, here are just two pictures to let you know that I uploaded all our zoo pictures and the rest of Keil's presentation pictures on facebook.

And Action...

Earlier this morning, Keil presented on his REACH project.  He presented on Steven Spielberg. Jennifer and I were both there and we think he did a fine job. He had great posture, good voice, eye contact and was confident.

Included here are some of the pictures from his presentation and we'll post several more another time including the prep work that went into doing everything. 

He had fun with his project and it inspired the girls to do a similar project on someone they'd like to know more about.

The teacher thought it was cool how he came and presented as Steven Spielberg and not just "tell" about his person. The best part was when he ended with "I'd like to thank the Academy..." as he held up his Oscar Award. Credit to Jennifer for working on his speech with him and for the ingenious way she came up with the Oscar. You can see the picture here of him spray painting his gold Oscar :)

LDS Techies = Online Missionary Work

During the first session of conference today the lds twitter community came alive. For almost 2 hours, the keyword "ldsconf" was the buzz on twitter. That is amazing from my standpoint. As an interactive marketer, this drove a lot of "visits" and interactions and "buzz" about the church. But from an lds member perspective, what a tool for missionary work. 

During the same time, lds.org (see screenshot) was the #1 trend on google.com/trends. But looking even closer, one will see that numbers 4 and 8 are also attributed to the lds church. We might look and say, we are only 13 million. But I choose to say, we are 13 million STRONG with influence. One of my fellow twitterers said "lds are techy people" and I totally agree. Why?

If one breaks down the 13 million, one will see that that's not a big number to begin with but to carry the trends and sway worldwide (6 billion) analytics and tools (e.g. twitter and google) is a feat. We tried to accomplish that in the Oct 08 Conference but didn't. Amazingly, in just 6 months, more LDS folks have embraced twitter.

Last Summer, I created twitter accounts for Keilani and Keil for their summer journal project and they've been enjoying it. Now they are part of the twitter and ldstwitterers.

Masina's Artwork

Masina loves to draw so I wanted to showcase some of her artwork. She wanted to ensure everyone sees it.

TAKS Results

On Wednesday, we were notified that Keilani was commended on her Reading TAKS test. For those of you who don't know, the TAKS test is the State-wide exam for Texas. 

To be commended is a big deal, it means a student only misses 3 questions or less in the test. Now that was awesome! And yes, Keilani only missed 3 questions in the exam...which mind you, is an all day exam. So the reading score there to your left is for her entire school and that 94% has Keilani in the mix. Go Nani!

Keil Cooks

Part of Scouting and Faith in God, Keil needs to prepare 3 meals. So a few Sundays ago, he cooked breakfast for the family. He was quite pleased with him accomplishments. Here's him cooking...or does making tortillas count? I'll have to consult the book :)

Emergency Room Visit

Masina and I made a dash to the Emergency Room last weekend when her ear ache wouldn't go away after 3 hours of monitoring. But we weren't there long as opposed to when I went. So it was good. By the time we left, she was feeling a lot better and the antibiotics prescribed cleared things up already.

Straight A Student

Progress reports came out yesterday for Keilani and she's doing quite well. Don't hesitate to holler at her for her accomplishments. Her major exams are coming up for Reading and Math next month and April respectively. And her Science project is due tomorrow. She's rolling and having fun.

Different Storm Types

So two weeks ago, we had an Ice Storm that closed down schools on Jan 28th. My vehicle temperature was reading 19 degrees. And you can see from the pictures that thick ice collected on the trampoline. We had icicles on the vehicles and ice all over the roads.

Then tonight as I drove home I watched a Lightning Storm preceed a major Thunder Storm that eventually brought heavy rain, hail and tornadic activity. Three people died from the storm and I sit in amazement. Before the storm, it was 74 degrees.

I just enjoy watching the weather that Jennifer thinks I'm a weatherman stalker! I think I should change careers and become a weatherman. I even follow the weatherman on twitter, how cool is that? :)

The last picture is from tonight's storm.

Saturday Projects

On Friday, a co-worker told me about a class at HD on Saturday. We looked it up and it looked interesting. When I told the kids about it that evening, they were excited. So, and because I had to coach two games, Jennifer took them. They were so excited they got to go. Furthermore, it fulfilled a Scoute requirement for Keil as well as a Faith in God Award. 

After they got the trinket boxes done, we went to Michaels and got paint, then they spent the rest of the afternoon painting. And here they are....