So cute..

So we've been going to the rec center to swim a few times a week...it's good exercise for Ova and it's fun family time for us and our boys. We went yesterday when I got off work and Mone is FINALLY not scared...I think he went under the water the first time we went swimming and he has been scared to death ever since then. Slowly he's been trying to be a little more daring, letting go of us and walking into the middle by himself...today he was extra brave...maybe TOO brave because he had me chasing him all over the kiddie pool. He was jumping off this sides and going down the slide. I'm happy he's not scared anymore... I sure do have little water babies. NEways, there was a group of handicap people who came swimming they were all over the pool and their caretaker was telling me they were supposed to be "exercising" not playing. I bought one of those water balls that you can throw around and was playing catch with Filimone. One of the ladies kept standing there stareing at Mone and laughing when he would try to catch the ball. And what happened next was so cute, it almost made me cry. Mone totally turned away from me and threw the ball to the lady. She was SOOOO happy, she had the biggest smile on her face as she picked up the ball to throw it back to him. I kinda slid away and sat on the edge just watching them. He saw that she was watching and started playing catch with her. After a while, it was time for us to go and I told Mone to tell her goodbye. He just waved and let her keep the ball. After we went and took a shower and got dressed, we were walking out through the lobby and we saw the lady standing there. I just walked by and smiled and Mone said "Bye friend" and waved at her as we walked out the door. I just thought it was so touching that a 2 year old would understand that she was special. I mean, he wouldn't share the ball with any of the other kids in the pool, but it was his idea to share it with her....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAMMA TEA!!!

Tea turned 51 on April 24th, 2009. I can't believe it's been a year already since all us Fangupo girls went to Vegas for her SURPRISE 50th. Another year has passed and it's going to be impossible for us to top the birthday bash we did for Tea last year, but we still made it her special day. We spent the whole day with our little family. Ova and I finished the paper route at about 6:30am and came straight home and woke everybody up. We all went to JB's for breakfast. We came home and just lounged for a few hours and then Tea and I went coupon shopping (that's what she wanted to do on her birthday....she's a die hard) then we came home and we all went to Chuck-A-Rama for dinner. It was so nice to be able to spend the entire day with our family, and Ma was so happy to get out of the house...

I'm so grateful for Tea and everything she does for me, my husband and especially my kids. I'm so spoiled to have her living with us and I don't know what we'd do without her. Thank you so much for everything Tea, We love you very much and hope you had a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

SkyWest Happenings...

Okay, our management has been telling us for a few weeks that there were going to be some changes coming to SLC, but they told us it wouldn't be that big of a deal, that we would be okay...well, when I was in Paris, the announcement was made. Delta is taking over the entire B concourse customer service and ramp, and SkyWest was going to lay off 300+ people. I remember going through customs after getting off the plane and the customs guy said "so do you still have your job?" I said, what do you mean? He said "oh, SkyWest is laying off half of their work force"... "good luck with that" and that was the first I heard of anything. Sure enough it was all over the news... indeed Delta was taking over and we were laying off. The past few weeks have been so crazy. They demoted all leadership positions and made us reapply. They were cutting the managers in half and only keeping 15 out of the 24 supervisors. That was a little crazy, having to reapply for a job you've been doing for years... and none of us understood why we had to do it. The airline industry runs on seniority, and it would have made more sense for them to do it that way, but they didn't. They ended up laying off like 200+ people from the ramp and about 25 from inside. And then they forced a lot of people to go part time. All this takes effect on May 15th. I was demoted from manager to supervisor, but I'm so glad to still have a job. The economy sucks right now with a lot of companies laying off... so I'm very grateful that I still have my job. The thing I can't picture is having 208 flights going out of the E concourse...that means we're gonna be boarding 3-4 flights at the same time from that little basement in the airport. It'll be very interesting to see how things turn out.

Happy Birthday Grampa Makai!!!

So it was my dad's birthday and we all got together to go down and have a bbq with him. That's like his favorite thing in the world to do (I won't say he's the best bbq'er because, HELLO I'm married to a Fangupo) but my dad loves to bbq. And to be able to bbq with all his grandkids, he was in heaven. He's got 11 grandkids...almost 12 and he loves all of them to death...he's so cute with all of them, always getting down to their level, playing with them and rolling around on the ground. All the kids just LOVE grampa Makai. His bbq birthday bash was just another time for them to get together to have fun with grandpa. Here are some photos of his special day...

Some of the Makai grandkids


Me and my sisters


Dad standin at the bbq while all the kids play on his bikes





Grampa Makai and Mone Pone


After playing outside for a couple hours while grampa finished up the bbq, we finally got to go inside to eat!

All the kids grubbin on g-pa's bbq...





Grampa Carr gettin his grub on


My dad is a very special man, always making time for his calling, his family, and anyone else who needs him. He's got the biggest heart of any man I know and I'm so grateful for him. I'm glad we all took time to go down and spend his special day with him. Happy Birthday dad! We love you!

Disney on Ice - Mickey's Magical Journey

So it's become like a little family tradition of ours to go to Disney on Ice every single time they come in town... it's just something fun that our boys enjoy! Well, they were here again, this time it was Mickey's Magical Journey.... and this time it was just me and the boys: Makai, Mone and Samiu....we usually drive down and park right across the street, but this time I thought it would be better to take the trax to the ESA and not have to pay for parking....I must say, that will be the way we do it from now on. The boys all thought they were so cool riding on the train, and I didn't have to drive. A plus for all of us. We got there and of course had to buy some treats and stuff, so by the time we got settled in, we were a little late...but it was all good! They did Lilo and Stitch, Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Lion King and of course Mickey and his crew....here are a few photos!

The trax ride to Downtown SLC...




The boys enjoying the show w/ all their treats...

Paris continued....

Here is some of the famous artwork from inside the Louvre...

And the main attraction, the original Mona Lisa painting. I was really excited to see her, but was a little disappointed because they had her TOO well protected. She wasn't that big and she was inside a glass case that was inside another glass case and you couldn't get too close to her. But here is the best shot I got of her...

Bonjour!!!

My eyes are totally opened! I have been working for the airlines for going on 5 years now and I'm sad to say that I've never gone anywhere exciting....I mean we've taken family trips to Cali, and Vegas, and Cancun, and Hawaii....but HELLO I get to fly for FREE anywhere in the entire world and I haven't taken the opportunity....I never realized how exciting it was until I finally got up the nerve to go. I guess my reasoning was because I ALWAYS fly with my kids...and I'm a little scared of the unknown of a new country. Well, a few of my work friends were planning a trip and they kept asking me to go along with them...I totally turned them down because I couldn't take my kids, or my husband because he was sick. I came home and talked to Ova about it and he kept telling me that I should go... I told him I didn't want to go without him, but he kept insisting that I would regret it if I passed up this opportunity. I thought about it, and he was right....a once in a lifetime opportunity for very little out of pocket. I told my co-workers that I was in and it was all history from there. Sad to say I didn't know anything about Paris...except for the Eiffel Tower, but going there and experiencing Paris first-hand was undescribable. We left on Monday night and arrived there Tuesday morning. Since we were only going to be there for 3 days, we had a lot to fit in. We found a room on hotels.com for a steal...it was only $200 for the whole time for all 4 of us. We all paid about $55 each for the whole time. We were smart and took our own suitcase of water and snacks and that was such a good idea and a HUGE money saver! We really only spent money on the crepes with Nutella from the street vendors or the bread from the bakery. We fit in everything we could while we were there and had the time of our lives. I took about 400 pictures while I was there....and I tried to pick my favorites to post on here....
The first day we went to Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomph, and the Eiffel Tower at night. We totally got lost that night because we were so excited to get out of the hotel that we didn't really plan on how to get back to the hotel at night. Well, we didn't realize that the metro didn't run 24-7 and we were taking our sweet time. The Eiffel Tower lights came on at 11pm and we just sat there enjoying it and taking it all in. We finally decided to go back home because it was past midnight and so we jumped on a metro....after going a long way, we realized we were on the train going the WRONG WAY!! We got off and realized that that was the last metro train of the night...we were LOST in a FOREIGN COUNTRY and none of us spoke the language....we didn't really know what we were doing. One of the girls we were with pushed the emergency button and all these police came out....we were trying to explain to them (with a HUGE language barrier) that we were lost. They pointed us in the direction of this night bus that ran. We got on the bus and it was FULL of drunk men, not 1 woman on the bus....just DRUNK MEN. They were acting like kids, one would make a comment and the whole bus would laugh, and of course, we didn't understand a word they were saying. Well, they dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we just started walking. By this time it was like 2am. We walked to this hotel that was closed, but the lobby part was opened. I swear someone was looking out for us that night because it was a nice, warm place with a clean bathroom and we could lock ourselves inside. We all laid on the floor and were going to sleep....that is until the security guard came pounding on the door. He didn't understand us that we were lost, I think he thought we were homeless or something...and he was trying to kick us out. We finally turned on one of our phones and called our hotel room and LUCKILY we got a hold of someone that spoke English. We explained our situation and where we were at and he told us he could send a private taxi, but it would cost us like 40 Euro which was more like $60. We said YES!!! The taxi came and picked us up and took us to our hotel which was like 45 minutes away and we finally got home at about 6am. That was quite an adventure! We wanted to sleep for just a few hours so we could head out and come back early, but we didn't wake up until 3pm. We went to Haiti Town, and Mulan Rouge, then home. The last day there we did so much stuff...we went to the Catacones which is basically an underground graveyard. A long time ago, Paris was hit with the plague and something like 7million people died. All the graveyards in Paris were full and there was no room for anyone else, so the government decided to dig up all those that died from the plague and move them to this underground tomb. It's like 10 miles long and full of bones from ceiling to floor. It was SOOOO interesting, and I thought I would be scared, but I wasn't.... we also went to the Louvre, and saw the original Mona Lisa painting. We saw Neopolitan's tomb, went to the highest point in Paris - Sacrecur, and back to the Eiffel tower in the day light. It was a busy busy trip with a LOT of walking, but SO WORTH IT! I'm so glad I went and now it put the travel bug in me....my next stop.... ROME ITALY!!

The hardest part of the trip was being without my husband and boys. That was the first time I'd ever traveled without them and there was no way for me to talk to them (it was like 30 Euro for a 5 minute Sim card) so we kept stopping at internet cafe's to email home. It was so hard not being able to talk to them for a whole week, and even though I had SO MUCH FUN.... by the end of the 3 days I was ready to come home!

Future Fangupo Photographers

Ok, so I always have my camera with me and it never fails that everytime I'm snapping some photos, Makai says "mom, can I take a picture?" I always tell him no because I don't want him to drop or break the camera...well, this time was no different. We were all at grandma and grandpa's house and he kept asking me if he could take some pictures... I said no, and he said "I promise I won't break it, please just let me try it" I gave in and handed him the camera explaining to him what he had to do (which he was very annoyed with because supposedly he already knew how to work a camera) He started snapping shots of all of us there, and of course that started the uproar of all the kids begging for a turn... I told Makai he had to share and they passed the camera around. Everyone took turns taking pictures of whatever they wanted, and they all felt so cool. I was actually surprised at how centered the majority of the pictures were... for kids, they did a really good job!I've put a few of them together as the Future Fangupo Photograpers slide show.... hope you enjoy!!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Gone Swimmin'

In one of my earlier posts, I explained the troubles we've been having with Ova's health. Well, after switching medications several times the doctor's finally prescribed something that has been helping. He's now taking an anti-inflamatory steroid and he's finally able to walk around the house with his crutches. He's been pretty much bed ridden since November, so I'm ecstatic that he's finally moving around again. The doctor mentioned that he needs to exercise his joints so he can strengthen them, but what kind of exercise can someone do that can't hardly move? SWIMMING! It's the perfect solution because he can get the exercise he needs while not putting unnecessary pressure on his joints. Since then, we've been going to the rec center everyday to swim. Sometimes we go with the kids, and sometimes we just go alone. Here are some pictures of the last time we went with the kids....

~Oranges~

Auntie Pisila brought a whole box of Arizona Oranges, they were so SWEET and DELICIOUS! The kids LOVED them and the whole box was gone in a week... Hey, at least it's a good source of vitamin C and it's good for them.... hahaha