I caught the 26 random things about me meme bug..

1. I'm addicted to sunflower seeds.

2. The first boyfriend to break up with me did so because I told his best friend (who was also suppose to be my friend) that my boyfriend didn't know how to kiss and he went and told on me.
3. I eloped shortly after I turned 18.

4. I take an average of 3 showers or baths a day, but sometimes more because I love the feeling of warm water on my skin.

5. If I could live anywhere in the world right now, I would want to live in Palau.

6. A Mormon missionary packed me on the back of my moped once and I fell off as we were going down beach road. He didn't notice and dragged me several hundred feet. I still have a scar above my knee from that accident.

7. I was on the cover of the old Saipan Beach Press back in 1984 wearing a mono-kini. That was the first and last time I ever wore one of those.

(Note: Mom, this is a mono-kini in case you were wondering. However, that is obviously NOT my Saipan Beach Press cover..he he)

8. I know how to say bad words in 5 languages (Japanese, Tagalog, English, Chamorro & Palauan)

9. I HATE McDonald's hamburgers.

10. I wore blue contact lenses for two years straight and only took them off when I was alone in the bathroom to clean them and then I would put them back in. The guy I was dating at the time never knew that my eyes were really green. He still doesn't.

11. I have never broken a bone or had a serious illness, but I have had 5 major surgeries.

12. I went to Japan as an exchange student. I loved it so much that I seriously contemplated running away at the airport when it was time to come home. Lucky I only had about $10 left on me other wise I might have made a run for it.

13. I currently have 5 tattoo's and plans to get at least two more.

14. I was tipped $100 for serving coffee to a Yakuza once. When he returned to Japan he sent hundreds of dollars of shoes and clothes for me to the Hotel where I worked. He even sent flowers to my mother's place of employment in hopes she would grant him permission to date me. I was 15 years old at the time. Needless to say my mother refused and the hotel management had to give him a stern warning to leave me alone.

15. I had a major crush on Barry Gibb of the BeeGee's when I was in the 6th grade. I was positive I would marry him some day...LOL

16. I went skinny dipping with a group of friends once and someone stole all my clothes. I still wonder to this day who it was and what they did with my clothes.

17. My biggest fear in life is passing away before I have finished raising my kids.

18. My second biggest fear is Cockroaches. I am deathly afraid of them!!!

19. I'm tired and bored with this meme so I'm stopping at 19....

A Scrapper's Dream

I'm talking about the CRICUT of course..Most of you have probably seen the CRICUT infomercial. If you haven't, It's the personal cutting system that cuts everything from lettering for cards,banners, stickers, scrapbooking, designs, etc.. The commercial advertises a 30 day trial for $33.00..I've watched that infomercial a dozen times..drooling over the CRICUT and its amazing cutting skills (which I do not possess..ha ha) Unfortunately what they don't tell you in the informercial that should you wish to keep the machine after the 30 day trial you will be billed a zillion bazillion dollars..ok, maybe not that much, but much more than I could afford or would spend on myself. So I was super d duper happy when mom got me one for my Birthday!!!
I haven't really had much chance to try it out yet. My daughter Mirika actually got to "break it in" when I let her use it to do her Science project over the weekend..

Her project came out AWESOME! Very neat and professional looking. She said her classmates and teacher were very impressed and asked her how she did it..to which she bragged "My mom has a cricut". I'm pretty sure most of them had no idea what a CRICUT was and probably spent the next few minutes wondering how Miri's moms pet cricket cut out the lettering..he he

Here's a picture of Mirika posing with her project. Savali & Ulu have been checking out my machine too. They have both cut there name out in several different sizes and fonts about 100 times..ha ha...If I knew it would keep them that amused, I would have got them one for Christmas..: )~ Hopefully I will find some free time to play with my CRICUT this weekend and make some new cards to update my Card Shark page... I did try cutting a couple things out ..
Like this adorable little elephant

and these cute flowers..

Thanks MOM!

Youth Take Over Day..

It was Youth Take Over Day this past Sunday at church and the kids did an outstanding job!
Alana led the worship team which consisted of 4 brother/sister sets (Alana & Jude in the picture)

Issai spoke on tithes and offerings and did the collection.

Imelda's son (sorry don't remember his name), Levi Sinclair, and Alana did the Communion.

Little Ms. Ashley Shoemake hung out and enjoyed.

Tia did the announcements.

Ryan manned the sound booth and the power point.

This little girl who is only 8 years old and new to the church so I didn't get her name yet, played the bass guitar in the band...WOW!

Herica, Jasmin and another new girl were back up singers for the worship team.

Issai played guitar...and sang.

Vali claimed he couldn't do anything because he had a "broken heart" (see bandage)..ha ha..I think he was just making excuses..

Trini helped with Children's church.

Serena gave the sermon.

She did a great job!

and Garret prayed for the Children.

The youth did an awesome job! It was a fun day and it was really inspiring to see how the kids took charge and did so well. I have a hard time speaking in front of crowds and they took the microphone and none of them looked the least bit nervous. I was proud of all of them!

When we got home from church, the boys decided to continue with the take over so they cleaned the house and cooked a REALLY delicious lunch. They made fried short ribs and pork chops, adobo short ribs, kimchi and rice. YUM! All I had to do was kick back and relax and enjoy....I think we should do this Youth Take Over thing more often!

I SURVIVED!

OMG! The tools of torture were laid out before me...I wanted to scream and run when I saw this table...

They said the anesthesia would be the worst part of it...ummmm...NOT! NOT! NOT!

The almost an hour of pulling, more anesthesia, pulling some more, more anesthesia, and what felt like the ripping apart of my tooth from every nerve in my gum..was the worst part of it!!!!

If you never had a tooth pulled as a child...your going to LOVE having your first tooth pulled as an adult. NOT!NOT!NOT!

In all actuality I'm a super big baby when it comes to needles and dentists...I shook like a leaf the entire time which probably made it twice as hard for the good doctor..He did a really great job!!! His constant reminders that I was "doing great" no matter how much he was lying ..were very comforting! I do recall half way through asking him, "am I still alive"...he must have thought I was the biggest baby ever! Little does he know I have three children and 5 tattoo's and I was still deathly afraid of his little needle..ha ha..But I survived and although I was starving to death the whole day yesterday and didn't get to sleep till 3am..I made it to work today and I feel sooooooooo much better!

see back at work and the swelling is going down! Thank you Dr. Pierson and everyone at SDA!!!

Q :What just turned 14, is 6 feet tall & 216 lbs???

A : My baby boy Savali Tavita.

According to online "height predictors" my son will be 6'4" by the age of 18..

Martin Luther "ouch" King Day

My wisdom tooth will finally come out next monday...Just in time to celebrate MLKD!

At least I won't look like I've got a wad of chewing tobacco stuck between my gum and cheek anymore..

A Christmas Story...

I'm not sure how to go about telling this story or how much I should tell ( I don't want to embarrass anyone), but It's a story I wanted to share because the person involved really touched my heart and the heart of 4 really cool kids!

I guess I will start by telling you a bit about the 4 cool kids. For about 4-5 months now, I've had what might be considered 5 new foster kids/young adults. I consider them my "kids". 4 of them I met through my church, NCLC and the other is my my oldest daughters best friend.They were youths in the church who were having family issues at home or for one reason or another were staying with other church members and somehow ended up migrating and staying with me.

I wont go into details on their family issues, but I will say they ranged from alcoholic parents, physical abuse and just general family issues such as dealing with step parents or in this case, not being able to deal with the step-parents.

When I first met these kids, I only knew them through church and I was hooked on them from day one. They were all so hard working, dedicated kids. They would show up at church every weekend to bush cut, clean..do just about anything that needed to be done. No complaints, no questions asked. Whatever the pastor needed them to do..they were there to help. Which to me was impressive since getting my oldest daughter (who is the same age) just to do the dishes was a task in itself! ha ha..

The more I got to know these kids, the more they grew on me..and eventually, they all came to live with me..Jude and Ryan pretty much 24/7, Garett and Iunis stay with me on weekends and holidays or weekdays when things are just unbearable at home, and Triny is with me most week days and weekends, but she does go home to help her mom out cleaning their house occasionally.
All the kids had been really helping out around the house (my house) cooking, cleaning, doing laundry..whatever they can do to pitch in and help ease my load..and I really appreciate it! I really wanted to do something special for them for Christmas. Just before Christmas I had a conversation with one of the boys and I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. His response to me took me by surprise and really touched my heart. He said, "Ms. you already have given us more than we could ask for, I don't need anything else."

A few days later my oldest daughter and I were talking and I asked her what she thought I should get them for Christmas. She said she had also been talking to the boys to get an idea of what they wanted and one of them told her he had never received a Christmas gift ever. I soon came to find out that story was true for most of them..

To make a long story short (ok, it's a bit too late for that..ha ha) I decided I would do my best to get them a gift I knew ALL of them would love! I'll be honest, times have been really tough for me lately. With a household that went from 4 to 10 in a matter of months and with only myself being employed it's definitely been a challenge. But I wanted so bad to get them a good Christmas gift. I eventually decided that I would try to get Ryan, Iunis and Triny and Tia cell phones, Garett a CD player and Jude an Ipod or MP4 player.

As luck would have it, I won a nice portable CD player at my company Christmas Party. My prayer had been answered for Garett.

I then set out to get the cell phones. I had seen in the paper an add for some pretty nice phones that ran about $90 each. Quite a bit of $$ when your looking for 4. But I recall one of the boys talking to my daughter about that particular phone and I knew they would LOVE to have one.

As soon as I received my Christmas bonus, I began calling the phone company to see if the phones were available and where and when I could get 4 . For some reason, two days of trying to get through was proving very unfruitful and I kept getting answering machine after answering machine. It was a couple days before Christmas so I figured that everyone must be busy and I worried that I might just be out of luck. Then I remembered a fellow blogger who works for the phone company...BRAD!

After a bit of phone tag, I got through to him and told him I was looking for some phones for Christmas. Four Katana's to be exact. He asked me who they were for and I explained to him about my church "kids". He immediately flew into action, made some phone calls and before I knew it he had 4 Katana phones ready for me at a SUPER great price and on top of that he threw in a bunch of phone cards to get the kids started off with their new phones. When I went down to pick up the phones and Brad told me about the discount and everything, I swear I wanted to cry!!!! He didn't know it, but the discount he gave me would allow me to buy the gift my youngest daughter Mirika had wanted for Christmas, and without that discount, I would not have been able to get for her.

I took the phones home and wrapped them up in all different sized boxes to throw the kids off of what could be inside. I could tell they were all so excited that they would be getting a gift this Christmas. I was hard for me to wait for Christmas Eve to come so I could let them open their gifts....I think I was twice as excited as they were!

Christmas Eve eventually came and that night before we went to church we all sat around the Christmas tree. Ulu gave a speech to the kids about how much they meant to us and have been a blessing in our lives and how much we cared about them..Then one by one I passed out their boxes. The looks on their faces as they opened up their gifts is something that I just can't put into words....

I did however, take some pictures and a picture is worth a thousand words..

Ryan with his cleverly disquised cell phone...he has no idea..
Trini and Tia began texting immediately..
Iunis was super happy! He really, really, really wanted his own cell phone.
Garett opens up his CD player...
These boys have never been so quiet before..ha ha..if I knew, I would have given the phones to them sooner..ha ha

Garett opens his COBY MP player. He said he loved it, but I think maybe he wanted a phone.. :)

Tia loves her new pink Katana!

The boys are all smiles as they play with their gadgets.

So with that, I just want to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU to Brad for helping to make 4 very cool kids super-d-duper Happy on Christmas! Oh, and of course for helping to make my daughter Mirika (who was not with me Christmas Eve) but who got to open the Nintendo DS Lite she really wanted Christmas Morning...You rock!

You will have to order the PORK..

Cause there ain't no CHICKEN here!

I'm taking Deece up on her challenge...

I have three licenses in my wallet..why? Because I find it so amusing that
whatever you tell the people at BMV regarding the information on your license, they
do not question you at all. As you can see in one license I stated I had Blue eyes and Brown hair, in another I have Green eyes and Auburn hair..and just to be funny, on my current license I stated that my hair color was "Mocha" and they actually typed that right on there...he he he!

My nose looks HUGE and they chopped of half of my head and my Mocha hair..he he
Back in the day when I had BLUE eyes..
Whoaaa! Funky hair day..he he..


My license is up for renewal this month and I'm thinking of going with Turquoise eyes and Chocolate mousse hair.

PS : Did you really think I would let ya'll see my weight???