a wrinkle in time

we made our way to window rock, arizona on tuesday to visit with my family. by wednesday, i was extremely antsy. and thursday just couldn't come fast enough. we drove to albuquerque, nm airport on thursday evening, awaiting the arrival of my brother, darrell, who was serving his mission in spain for the last two years. after hours of waiting (his flight had been delayed by a massive thunderstorm), we saw him! the wait was worth it and we all cried our eyes out as we each took our turn to hug our beloved missionary. he's home! isaiah kept yelling out, "uncle darrell! uncle darrell!" we all went out to eat (there were 12 of us) afterwards telling stories and filling the quiet restaurant with our thunderous laughter. that's just what happens when you get a group of crazy indians together! darrell's homecoming dinner was on saturday evening and then bore his testimony today in church. its been so fun having him back. the crazy thing is, its like he never left. like it was all just a dream, no time passing. it makes me excited for christopher's homecoming. and i wonder, will it be the same when i see aaron again? no time passing....just stories to tell and laughter to share. everything so surreal and dream-like...someday i'll find out. but at the present moment, our little family is forced to find work and a place to live...immediately. sam decided not to take the job in ottawa in order to finish his LSAT prep course and to take (and pass) his LSAT exam in december, which i completely support. the good thing is that we'll be able to hang out with darrell and nathan longer. the only problem is...what to do? where to live? not an easy task when you have to move two kids. lucky for me, i have great parents who are helping us with the move and allowing us to store most of our junk in their basement. whew! so, once again, it'll be a roll of the dice. where to next? i'm actually thinking that i may want to teach in some foreign land come january. sam can take a "break" and play mister mom. china, australia, switzerland....here we come, i hope. i'm ready for a new adventure.

Earned my feather

That is right ladies and gentleman, I did it. It took me a little while longer than expected, but I did it. Now my sights are set on law school. As I contemplate this next goal a lyric from a song goes through my mind. "Lord you do not have to move my mountain, just give me the strength to climb."

no more good-byes

this weekend was packed full of exciting events for our little family...but the important stuff (like sam's graduation) i will leave for him to tell. the grandparents have gone and the house is empty. the only noise in the entire place is that of mugsy our pug, snorrrring. i must say, it feels rather lonely. everything was going so quick, running here, running there....doing this, doing that. and now, time has seemed to stop. what should i do now? anyway, earlier today we had the opportunity to visit sam's great aunt liz. she has been diagnosed with cancer in her brain. we wanted to go and see her today, so we packed up and headed to her home just 15 minutes away. all i can say is, she is one of the most sweetest, funniest people i have ever known. she really is a jewel. it was the first time she had seen makayah and she couldn't stop nibbling on her toes and on her chubby cheeks (i couldn't blame her...makayah is a rather juicy little thing). aunt liz held her close as makayah cooed and talked her baby talk...aunt liz said, "i can feel the joy and happiness coming back to me through her...she is giving me strength, i can feel it!" makayah beamed at aunt liz, smiling and giggling the entire time we were there. it was such a precious moment. we all talked and told stories. aunt liz and uncle herb relayed some of their adventures while serving on their mission in armenia, as well as the nightmare when they found they had to return immediately back home to utah to begin treatment for aunt liz. as we left, we all gave aunt liz a hug and a kiss (even makayah and isaiah- though rather slobbery). when i hugged and kissed her, she pulled me close and said, "i am so glad sam married you! we are so blessed to have you in our family, you are a rare jewel. sam did good to marry you. i want you to know, that you are a great mother and that your children are special, they are so full of life and they are gonna be somebody someday - i just know it! when i got back from armenia, i thought, 'i'm worthless now!' but then i saw my children and their families...and i thought, 'no, i'm not worthless! my children have brought meaning to my life and they have made my life worth living.' monika, always remember your worth. it is your great blessing to be a mother to these children. i love you so much!" i balled my eyes out the entire time. i can't put into words the great love and admiration i have for her...and how special she made me feel. and i just can't imagine that this could be good-bye. i didn't want to think about it. so i wiped my tears and mascara off my cheeks, blew my nose said 'i love you' and hugged her as long as i could. the rest of the day was quite uneventful until my good and very dear friend marshelda called and reminded me that it was 'ladies night' tonight. so, sam and i took the kids, went to costco, and then to hollywood video to get some movies for sam to watch while i was out. but as we spilled out of our monster car....we had discovered that makayah had an explosion in her pants. agh! times like these, i'm glad that sam is around...thank goodness for teamwork! so we somehow, breezed through the stinky mess, stripped our baby girl, rented our movies, and went on our merry way back home...except for me. i was dropped off at "the pizza factory" where me and my homegirls were gonna have dinner. the 'clucking' (as sam likes to call it) and disruptive laughter was just what i needed. then we all came back to my place after stuffing ourselves silly...only to begin playing with mary kay makeup and skin products. marshelda and marilee did such a wonderful job of decreasing my inventory (sam says i have to sell it all before we move...IF we move). and after they left, and the house was silent once again...i felt sad about the thought of moving. marshelda has been my friend for 8 long years, ever since my freshman year at byu. our close mutual friends, candi and revina, have moved away. one by one, our crazy group has grown smaller, and smaller. the picture attached to this blog, is one of my friends and i. now we're down to two...me and mars. i almost don't want to move now. in fact, i will almost be relieved if we don't have to move out of provo. i guess we'll see. i'm beginning to really hate 'goodbyes.' on the brighter side of things...i am looking forward to a long-awaited "hello!" to my incredible brother, darrell, who is returning from his LDS mission in spain. he has yet to meet his niece, makayah...and i just can't wait! i am counting down the days.

Helpless to the moment

My son, my son, my son. Could he have any more personality? His latest thing is learning parts of the body, ALL parts of the body and lately he has noticed that he and his sister are not built the same. This revelation came when my wife was changing my daughter and he peeked over her shoulder and asked. "Where is her...(you know)?" Although a bit shocked at this question my wife replied, "she does not have one, she is a girl. She has lady parts." Without missing a beat my son then asked, "Did hers fall off?" My wife kindly explained a little bit more and that was that, no harm no foul just a warning that he is picking up on EVERYTHING that is going on around him. So the other day my son and I are on our way out for a boys night out. I was getting him ready to leave and asked, "Are you ready?" He replied, "Yup. Got my shoes and I got my..." Catching me off guard, I said, "Oh good, I'm glad." He then asked, "Daddy do you got yours?" Reflexively I replied, "Yes I do son." He just looked up at me and smiled his cheesy grin (see picture) and we got in the car and left. It took sometime to adjust to that experience. I could not believe it. It was one of those rare moments as a father where you know that eventually sometime subjects like these are going to come up and you try to prepare for them the best you can, however no matter how hard you try, when they arise you find yourself helpless to the moment. This was one of those times. I was helpless to the moment.

frogs and snails...sugar and spice

i have to write this down before i forget. a couple days ago, i was downstairs with the kids, just hanging out, the three of us. isaiah happened upon a box of paper towel rags and decided to wrap himself up in the stuff. he turned to me and said, 'mom, i'm going to the temple. i'm going to find umpa.' "you're going to find umpa?" "yep! umpa and nana are at the temple. i have to go find them." a little while later he came to me and said, "mom, i want to be like umpa and go to the temple." "well, maybe when you're older, umpa can take you to the temple with him." "okay, mom." i should've taken a picture. but by the time i actually got my camera ready, he had shed himself of the ragg-ed robe. -------------------------- this past sunday, i talked with isaiah's nursery teacher and he told me that isaiah is one of the liveliest in the class. "when he's good, he's really good. but there are times when he gets mischievous and likes to stir the crowd up." i laughed, and nodded my head. that's my boy. he is such a sweetheart. he can be rascally and rambunctious, but he is a really good son, and the sweetest big brother. i just can't imagine my life without him. we also saw our aunt deanna this past sunday, whom we haven't seen for the longest time. sam and i actually share this same aunt...but that is another story entirely! so, like i was saying...aunt deanna came to our ward this past sunday and in the middle of sacrament asked to hold makayah. after the meeting, she and sam chitchatted a bit and she said, "makayah is gorgeous. she looks just like monika when she was a baby, so much hair!" it made my heart feel all warm and fuzzy. :) especially since, i really don't have a close relationship with her. she moved away when i was about 5 or 6. so it was nice to hear. it's always fun to hear about when you were a baby, right? well, i better stop procrastinating and start packing up this house. goodnite!

My crazy freaking kids

Un-balanced

I was sitting back the other day listening to the Cd by Tha Tribe (pow wow music) and the opening track on it was talking about balancing the old traditional ways with the new. I got to thinking that I am mostly new, nothing about me is traditional or old. I do not speak the language, I do not sing, dance, or hunt...I feel like a city Indian. I am a city Indian. My wife at least understands her language, and even speaks it to a degree, she makes frybread and knows how to weave. So she is okay in this department. I on the other hand know absolutely nothing. I want that to change. I want to be able to teach my kids "the ways." So keeping this in mind, I bought a rifle, I am going to teach myself how to hunt, track and skin an animal and then eventually going to take my son and daughter and teach them. That is the first step, the next step will be to learn how to sing. I will get a drum(s), learn some songs and teach my kids how to sing. I just got to thinking, I am two days away from graduating with my BA. but I have yet to start my other education. One that is just as important. So I am making plans on doing so, starting this week. I hope it goes well, and for those of you who are reading this (probably my mom and Romero) I will let you know how things work out. Till next time.

A highlight of my life

There are few things outside of family and church that have made my highlight reel of life. I mean being married, having kids, coming home from a mission are all top highlights for me in life, but there are other events that top the list in a different category, the "worldly" category. On July 22nd, I experienced one such event. While we were in Las Vegas for my brother's tournament, we happen to get tickets to see Team USA play basketball. This was just as good as an All-Star game, I was able to see Lebron, Kobe, Stoudemire, Billups, Durant, DWade, Marion, Kidd, Heinrich, Tayshaun and others play in a real live competitive game. The reason why this has been such a treat for me is because I grew up in rural, Indian reservation Alberta Canada. We only had 3 TV channels growing up and while I was able to see plenty of Hockey, we were not able to see any NBA games or any other pro sports via television. I have been to only a handful of pro games and for me to see the latest and greatest NBA stars all play on one court in my town (where I served my mission) was a dream come true. So I had to share a picture from that day with you. It is of Lebron and Kobe guarding against each other. As much as I hate to say it, Kobe is the best player in the game right now talent and skill wise. He won the game with his last minute shot and I was lucky enough to be only 13 rows or so from the game floor. It was definitely a highlight of my life in the "other" category. Oh yeah we also sat next to Lil Romeo and Master P ("Make em say unghh!!!!") Till next time

Is my Liahona Working?

What's up people, As most of you know graduation is upon us and we are headed to .... That is the thing, we really have no idea where we are headed. I have applied for jobs in Ottawa, Tucson, and other places, but the thing is that no place "feels good" like Ottawa, Canada. We both have a feeling that this is where we need to be, I dunno, it feels right but it really is not about what we want, instead it is about what HE wants (Jacob 4:10). That being said I wonder if my Liahona is working properly, maybe I should give it a good shake like the magic 8-ball or something but I am pretty sure that won't work. I am graduating from Brigham Young University with a degree in Political Science and while it has been a very hard and long journey, it (the degree) by itself will not prove as useful as would say a degree in Finance. The long term plan is to attend law school (this is where the degree counts) but for now having solely a Poli Sci degree means that available entry-level jobs are extremely limited. This being the case we are really hoping that I get a job with the Assembly of First Nations (www.afn.ca), (these people specifically asked for a poli-sci major) a Native American Rights group working in their languages and cultural preservation department. The current status for that job as of now is that they are checking my references...that sounds good right? They would not be checking my references unless they were considering hiring me huh? But as I am sure you all know, nothing is for sure until it is for sure...and even then. If it falls through, all is not lost, I have a few more jobs on the line but I cannot seem to get this one out of my mind. Maybe that means something... Regardless, we are moving and leaving Utah County for awhile. We hopefully will return for law school in the not too distant future. So that is what is new with us from Sam's point of view,