Beach Trip Part 1

All the pictures from the beach trip are on Nate's computer, so I haven't been able to post, but my sister-in-law, Kat (or Kate, she's trying to change her nick-name, but she's the only one sticking with it) did a great post about it, so here's the link to hers. http://www.familyharrison.blogspot.com/

Back to Reality

We just got home from "the best week of the year" as Nate calls it. We went to Sandbridge, Virginia (near Virginia Beach) with my entire family - 15 total. My parents rented us a great beach house and we had a blast, as always. My family has always been a beach loving family and has been doing beach vacations for as long as I can remember, but this particular annual beach trip is a 4 year old tradition that we love. It is just so fun to get everyone together -- away from distractions like jobs, callings, and housework - to a relaxing environment where the sole purpose of the entire week is to have fun and enjoy each other's company (and eat good food - 3 pounds worth to be exact - arg! - and that's even with running 5 of the 7 days).

Anyway, tomorrow I will post pictures, but for now I will leave you with a line by Harrison that sums up how we're all feeling. I have to preface this by saying that on the way to the airport this afternoon Nate was complaining about how sad he was to go back to reality. So when our plane landed (many hours later) Harrison said, "We're back to Colorado, reality and earth."

Cute Colman Cousins

Nate's sister right above him, Rachael aka "Ray-Ray" (or Uncle Ray-Ray, as Harrison kept referring to her) and her family visited us last night. They were missing their oldest, Nathaniel, but Maya, Grant and Faith all came, along with Christian, their Dad. It was WAY to quick of a visit, but the cousins had lots of fun. As you can imagine, my kids look much more like their cousins on their Dad's side than on my side. In fact, we think Elizabeth and Faith (named after Nate's mom) look a lot alike!

There is a string of 4 girl cousins in Nate's immediate family, and Faith is the first of those (actually I can think of 9 others very close in age if you count 2nd cousins, but there might be a boy in there somewhere breaking the streak). Grant is the first in string of 10 boy cousins (including 2nd cousins) and Harrison is the last of that group. They are almost exactly one year apart, but the same size, as you can see in the first picture.

Here is a picture of those ten boy cousins (in birth order) and their moms in February of '05 at Nate's Grandpa Watabe's funeral. Excuse my white nylons with a black skirt, I forgot to pack black.

Another interesting tid-bit. Nate and I both have a set of three rhyming nick-names in our family. They have Ray-Ray, Nay-Nay, and Jay-Jay. (Rachael, Nathan, and Jayson -- which also all get shortened to Ray, Nay and Jay). In my family it's Mu, Lou and Rew (for Michelle, Laura and Andrew -- our's don't make as much sense and aren't spelled the same, but still).

And, as you can see, all the stress yesterday wasn't totally necessary, as I've still got 2 1/2 hours until we need to leave and I'm finding more time to blog!

SYTYCD Emergency

So after my long, stressful day I finally sat down to watch the long anticipated 2nd to last show and something was jacked up with my recording. I only got to see the last two dances. Based on the re-cap, it looks like I missed some really cool stuff (the Russian dance looked insane and the Wade Robson dance with Katee and Joshua looked really good too.) I am DEVASTATED. If anyone that I live near or will see in Virginia will please save it for me on your DVR I will be thankful forever. Jenni - tell me you didn't delete it right after you watched it. Some one, please help!

STRESSED? Why not just blog?

The post about the children destroying my things will have to wait. I'm super stressed, but of course, I'm procrastinating all of it to blog, because that's more fun. Also, my last blog had so many typos, how embarrassing. Nate pointed them all out because I forced him to read it (he has been boycotting my blog ever since I started posting about SYTYCD). I looked it over this morning and realized he not only edited for typos, but also content. So I put back in the part he took out, that little punk.

We are leaving for Virginia tomorrow for our 4th Annual Harrison Family Beach Trip. I am SO EXCITED! We are going to have a BLAST! But the getting ready part is not as fun. So I need to do laundry, pack, and get everything squared away for my calling while I'm gone. I've got Nate's sister, Rachael, and her family who are driving through and will be stopping by for a few hours and dinner (they live in Hawaii and we hardly ever get to see them, so this is exciting, I just wish I had more time to focus on the fun of it instead of being stressed) so I need to clean and cook for that, then I've got mutual, a Youth Conference planning meeting, and the SYTYCD finale! Oh, and Nate will be at school all night too. At least several of the things are enjoyable.

I did get up at 5:40 this morning and ran with Jenni after not being able to run with her for over two weeks because of both of our trips. And we won't be running again together for another two weeks. Sad. It's SO MUCH MORE FUN with her! And she pushes me. Today, I reached my first short term goal. Which was to run one mile straight and another mile broken up. Plus we walked a mile (mixed in with the running.) I have actually run a mile straight several times now, but this was the first day I ran 2 total. My next goal is two run 2 straight and the long term goal is to run the 5K at Thanksgiving. (Long, long term might be a triathalon, we'll see.) My other short term goal is to run a mile everyday at the beach. I figure I have everything working in my favor (people to watch my kids, not having to do my hair everyday, low-altitude, beautiful scenery, an endless supply of running partners) plus we'll be eating like banshees because that's what we do at the beach. I will report back to you on how that goes.

And just because every good post needs a picture, here's a truck we were driving behind on our way to Utah.

Hilarious Harrison

So many funny things come out of his mouth everyday, but here are some of the more memorable ones from lately.


Today I broke my 9 day streak of not yelling, so I was very down and I sighed loudly.

H- Mommy, why are you letting your breath out?
M- Because I'm sad.
H- Sad?
M- Yes, sad.
H- Sad?
M - Yes (said in an increasingly annoyed tone).
H- Fat?
M- No, Sad. (But thanks for pouring salt into my wound.)


Harrison put this bandaid on the wall because there was an "askadent." (A picture frame was knocked off a ledge and went crashing down the stairs leaving a gouge in the wall.)

We were watching two brothers named Lane and Braden.
M- Harrison, you remember these guys, Lane and
H- I know, Lane and Lemuel.
M- No, Lane and Braden.
H- Ya, Laman and Braden.
And he proceeded to call the poor kid Laman the rest of the afternoon. Mommy, Laman pushed Elizabeth. (I'm sure Nephi uttered those very words to Sariah at some point!) Too funny.


I've taken to making lots of threats lately and Harrison has caught on that threats are most effective when you think of one of the most important things to the person and then threaten to take that away. Which for him is usually his Planet Heroes ship or his Power Ranger or something like that. So he has told me, "Mommy if you don't stop talking to me like that I'm going to take your make-up away." And even funnier, "Mommy, if you do that one more time I'm going to tell Daddy to delete all your shows." Scary how well he knows me, that one would really hurt!


He has gotten belated birthday presents from both Grandma and Obaachan (Japanese for Grandma) in the last few days. He got a Lightning McQueen "Cumbrella" (there was only 1 Spiderman one and it was broken, so he settled with his first love, Lightning) that he insists on taking everywhere we go so his shoulders won't get too hot from the sun. Just this morning, he got a Spiderman costume and wore it most of the day. He insisted on having Logan come over and bring his Spiderman costume. Logan had to be bribed to put his costume on for a few pictures (he's had his for a long time, so he must be over it). Anyway, they were too cute. I told Harrison that in the movie, Spiderman lifts up his mask so he can give kisses and he proceeded to do that several times throughout the day. Don't worry, he wasn't upside down and we didn't make out!

I could go on and on with more funny things about that boy, but I was a tired, grumpy mommy today, so I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I will post about how my children seem determined to slowly but surely ruin everything we own.

SYTYCD Week 7 & 8

I've lost my passion for blogging about SYTYCD, but I may as well finish out the season.

Last Week's Favorite
Katee & Twitch's Door Dance by Mia

Mary's Off the Wall Comment of the Week:
Knock knock - Who's there? - 2 - 2 who? - 2 of the best dancers we've had on this show.
My 4 years old tells better knock-knock jokes than that.

I was shocked to see Will go home, lots of people had him picked to win. Although I must say he way overdid it that night. He was totally exaggerating all of his head movements and trying too hard. I loved his James Brown solo and hated the solo he went out on. He was doing some sort of Asian thing and it didn't work.

This Week's Favorites
Katee & Joshua's Contemporary to All By Myself by Tyce
Courtney & Mark's Funky Contemporary by Sonya (mohawk girl)

Thank you Joshua for getting your braces off in time for us to see. Your teeth look amazing!

If I had a bum like Chelsie's I'd b every tempted to show it all the time. Thank goodness I was blessed with a bum I like to keep covered up!

I am sad to see Chelsie and Mark go home. At this point I would be sad to see any of them go. I thought Mark went out on a great solo (suspenders) and Chelsie's solos are what probably got her kicked off. It's hard to solo when you're specialty is ballroom, but some people have pulled it off way better than her (namely Benji and all of his relatives). She is a fabulous dancer though and oh so gorgeous. I also love that most of the girls this season have curves and aren't anorexic looking.

I loved the group number to The Rose last night. It's so great to see a happy, light, uplifting number that isn't seductive. Not that I mind those too much, but still, it's a nice change.

I think I'd like to see Katee or Twitch win it. I might be pulling for Katee a little more because she's a girl and she's half-Asian, both of which have special places in my heart. Okay, so I'm sexist and racist. She's also the most talented over-all dancer they have left and I don't think I've seen anything from her that I didn't love.

This is very depressing that the season is almost over. And American Idol doesn't start until January. What's a competition show junkie to do for the next 5 months? I don't think Project Runway alone will get me through it. Oprah, come back! Lost, The Office, I need you too! Thank goodness I'll also have Breaking Dawn to entertain me for a few days too. (But I have to finish this other 600 hundred page book for our Annual Family Beach Book Club - thanks a lot, Kat!)