Fiona, Kaisa & Nathan Judd

It’s my 25th birthday today.  Wow, a quarter of a century!  My life has really been amazing so far.  I consider myself very blessed.  I have a wonderful husband who loves me and treats me so well, and a beautiful little girl with a TON of personality.  She makes me laugh every day.  All I have to do is ask her to say “pumpkin” (she responds with a resounding “MUNKA!) and I am rolling on the floor!  My extended families are so wonderful and supportive all the time, and I have one of the dearest group of friends I could ever ask for.  I am just very thankful, it being November and all.  So here’s how I am spending my birthday:

I woke up to this for breakfast!

Then, we went here

to take some of these.

Then I got one of these!

Tonight, I’ll be doing this.

After that, we’ll all get together here to celebrate!

Come join the fun if you can!

The other day, Nathan was trying to get Kaisa ready for church.  I overheard this in the other room.

Nathan: Kaisa, please put on your shoes.

Kaisa: No!

Nathan: Do you want me to go get mommy?

Kaisa: Nooooooooooo!

Oh great.  I’m THAT parent.  You know, the one that’s mean…the one that the other parent is always using as a threat when the kids won’t do something…I swore I’d never be that parent!  How did this happen?

…for a baby name, what did you think we were talking about?  Fiona and I knew we would have a hard time choosing a boy name.  We’re now 3 months away and barely closer to choosing a name than we were 6 months ago.  So we’re opening it up to you, dear readers, to give us some feedback on a “short list” of names.  We’re still open to other names with the following exceptions: Steven, Paul, Heath, Matthew, Linus (I know…I like it too, Fiona shot it down), Timothy, and Gabriel — which have all been shot down hard for various reasons.  Leave other ideas in the comments.

There’s a poll on the right.  You can choose up to two names.  ‘Danger’ is under consideration for a middle name only and as such is not on the poll list.  If you have strong feelings in this vote then it is in your best interest to encourage other like-minded people to vote as well.  This poll is by no means final but it will hold a certain amount of sway in our thinking.  Ok, maybe just my thinking.  There may be another poll as we start to narrow down the choices.

This poll is scheduled to close at midnight November 30th.  Thanks for your participation in Decision ‘08!  Vote Early, Vote Often!  Oh, and remember to vote in that other election too.

I have a lot more stuff waiting to be blogged, so I’d better finish this trip!  Here is the rest of Kaua’i in a nutshell.

On Tuesday we did a zipline, hiking, & kayaking trip on Princeville Ranch.  It was so fun!  As you can see, I was a bit bummed that they didn’t allow preggies on the zipline.  But I definitely had a good time otherwise, and the kayaking was really fun!  I’d never done that before.  Kaua’i is a great place to kayak, with all the rivers winding through dense, green jungle.

After the kayaking trip, we stopped at this lookout at the Kilauea Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge.  It was so gorgeous!

Then, we visited this really gorgeous waterfall.  Can’t remember the name.

Wednesday morning, our last full day on the island, we woke up early and did the 4 mile round-trip hike up the Napal’i Coast to Hanakapiai beach.  It was a hard, muddy, slippery hike, but it was absolutely gorgeous and well worth the effort.  When we got to the beach, there was a monk seal lying on the sand, sleeping.  It was so neat to see that, since they are extremely endagered.  There are only an estimated 1,500 left in the world.  We didn’t swim here, because the surf is extremely dangerous.  In fact, while we were in Kaua’i, 2 people drowned here.

And to end our trip, we took a drive down to Pui’po Beach on the south end of the island.  This is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the world.  I wasn’t super-impressed, mostly because it was busier and the surf was high, so I didn’t last long on the snorkel.  But it was great snorkeling!  Not so good for boogie boarding, though.  Too rocky.  My dad and Nathan rented boogie boards, so when we were finished snorkeling we took them back to the beach right by our resort, where Nathan did an awesome job at catching waves!  Oh, and on Pui’po beach we saw our second endangered species of the day.  A huge sea turtle came up right onto the beach in the middle of all the people.  It was really neat!

All in all, a great vay-cay.  I feel like I got to see the best parts of the two islands we visited in a short time, and I can’t wait to go again and see more!

On Monday we flew to Kaua’i, known as the Garden Island.  And for obvious reason!  It was so lush and green, much more beautiful that Oahu in my opinion.  Lots of movies were filmed there, like “Fantasy Island,” “South Pacific,” and “Jurassic Park.”  The first afternoon there we went to Lydgate Beach Park, literally feet from our resort.  The surf was much larger than Oahu, and a huge swell had come in while we were there making swimming conditions somewhat dangerous.  However, Lydgate had an area blocked off by rocks that provided the perfect swimming and snorkeling spot, so we jumped in!  The guys (Nathan and my dad) made a giant mermaid-version of me in the sand.  She was even pregnant!  Here are a few pics of the afternoon.

Playing frisbee with dad.

Pregnant Mermaid Fiona, and her sculptors.

We spent our Sabbath on Oahu attending church at a ward in Honolulu, visiting Pearl Harbor, and hiking Manoa Falls.  I enjoyed everything, but the hike was hot and wet and quite uncomfortable at times…and the waterfall was all blocked off so we weren’t able to cool off in the water.  It was so beautiful though!!

Posing on the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial.

Starting out the Manoa Falls hike…I had this weird urge to swing from a vine!

I almost didn’t post this pic because it’s so horrible, but this gives you an idea of how uncomfortable I was.  Isn’t the waterfall nice?  :)