Leahi Swim School Fun

Anna and Eryn have thoroughly enjoyed their experience being enrolled in the Leahi Swim School. Both have made significant strides in the water and will dearly miss their super nice, local kine swim instructors, not to mention learning how to swim in an outdoor swimming pool. They are already talking about finding an indoor swimming pool somewhere in Utah to continue living up to the Kongaika name (Kongaika means "part fish" for those unaware). Above: The girls received Leahi Swimmer Medals on their last day.

Crafty Fun

My sister Amy created a new preschool blog. She majored in early childhood education in college, so she shares lots of great children's books, songs and craft ideas. Here's Eryn completing one of the crafts. We both had a great time. Thanks Amy! Here's a link to her blog if you are interested:

www.amy-fun4kids.blogspot.com

Sorry for the problems with the link earlier. The link works now.
Share it with whoever you want.

Big Change & A Big Blessing

Joel and I have decided that in the best interest of our family we are going to move to Utah. So when we go on the 24th of Nov. we will be going for good. It was a hard choice to make, for us, but we both feel really good about it. We feel more confident about the kind of family support and medical care we will receive there. We will miss our life here in Hawaii for sure, but it feels good to make a choice that makes sense for our situation. I look forward to living closer to some of you and especially my parents, my sister and Joel's brother and sister.

Because we are moving, we have been selling/giving away our stuff like crazy. We don't plan on taking anything but the irreplaceable. It is pretty sobering to look at all of the things you own that way. We really do keep a lot of things that we don't use or need. In that way it feels good to simplify.

Getting ready (with lots of help from good neighbors) for the big moving sale.

We decided to hold a moving sale last Saturday (Nov. 1st) just to get rid of our stuff. And as it turns out we were blessed by a very special experience. A very sweet neighbor of ours took it upon herself (after getting our permission) to create a fundraiser out of our moving sale. She passed out flyers to all of our neighbors inviting them to donate items to be sold, and for all of the proceeds to go to the Kongaika family (to help us with our move and medical bills for our baby with spina bifida). The neighbors were all very helpful and supportive as well as our ward members. Lots of people brought items to be sold for the sale, and more came to buy things in support of our family. The sale was very successful, raising a sizable amount of money for us to use toward medical bills. More than that, we felt overwhelmed and extremely blessed by the kindness and generosity of others.

Happy Halloween

Having fun at the trunk-or-treat with some friends.

Here is Anna at her school's Literary Parade. Every year her Kanoelani Elem. holds a parade on Halloween where the children dress up as a character from a book and then parade around school holding their book. I really love it. It is a great way to promote literacy and to put a more educational spin on Halloween.

Here are the kiddos. They had a nice Halloween this year. This picture was taken at a Halloween activity the week before Halloween. Eryn was a Dalmatian, Anna was Snow White and JoJo was Superman. Eryn's costume was a little too small, but she became attached to it so quickly and wore the costume so happily leading up to Halloween, pretending she was a puppy that I just didn't have the heart to return it.

Here is Lily Ruth at 28 weeks. We had a really nice ultrasound of her on Friday. The technician doing the pictures and measurements was so sweet and positive. Lily was putting on a little show just for us. She smacked her lips, yawned and grabbed her toes. We are in love with this precious little girl. Otherwise nothing to tell, except that the dr. is going to start keeping a weekly watch on her progress.

Having our baby in Utah

It is official. We are going to have our baby in Utah. It has been a long road to get to this decision. But we feel good about it. Thankfully, we will have a lot of great support there from both sides of the family. We will also have the blessing of working with more experienced doctors. We will be going as a family just before Thanksgiving. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We continue to feel blessed by your support in this way.

As an example of your prayers working for us, I would like to share a small experience I had recently. The day before we left for California was a Sunday. I was feeling very nervous and anxious about everything, trying my very best to simply trust in the Lord. But I was struggling. During the sacrament I offered up a desperate prayer, "Heavenly Father, I am going to do this but you can't leave us alone. In the moment we have to make a decision, please do not leave us alone." As I sat contemplating, immediately I realized a hymn was running through my mind. And it was a specific verse of that hymn. It went, "Fear not, I am with thee. Oh be not dismayed. For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand." As I read on, every verse of the hymn "How Firm A Foundation" seemed to apply directly to us. I went on to read the accompanying scriptures noted at the bottom of the hymn. One reads:

"And now my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation, that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fail." Helaman 5:12

Joel and I have had other quiet experiences recently where Heavenly Father's love and His awareness of our specific situation have been made know to us. These experiences continue to teach me that God loves each of us and knows each of us on such a personal level.

Love to you all!

Swimming Lessons!!

So. . . for a while now whenever we bring up the idea of baptism to Anna, her response has been something like "No way. I do not want to get baptized!" I came to realize that this is because she does not like the idea of having to hold her breath under the water. So, since she is turning seven soon, I decided it was time for some serious swimming lessons. =) So far both the girls are doing well and improving very quickly. Eryn is a little more nervous. You can see it in her face. But I am so happy that they can finally start to tackle these important water skills.

Pictures from San Francisco

I wish you could all see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance in this picture. In person we could see it clearly. Very beautiful.

This is one of the views from the hospital. It's really a beautiful place.

Our amazing "support team" while we were there. Thank you again girls!

This is the street where our bed and breakfast was located. The whole area reminded me of scenes from the opening of Full House. Yes. I used to watch that show all of the time.

A little bit of Heaven

Last Saturday we took the kids to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens. The whole day turned out to be heavenly. One of my favorite things about Hawaii is the beautiful, steep, green mountains. They are so beautiful! Ho'omaluhia is a perfect place to enjoy the mountains (without having to hike them =) ) in a quiet, tranquil setting. We had a picinic lunch and then fed the ducks at the lake. After that, we just took a walk around the lake in the shade of the huge trees. The best part of the day was my children's behavior. Anna was especially happy and helpful the entire day. It was one of those days where we got a glimpse of the kind of sweet, helpful child she has the potential to be. She was cleaning the house and making beds in the morning. Then she was sitting her little brother on her lap to help him feed the ducks. Holding his hand and carrying him around. The other two were just so pleasant and sweet. Joseph loved feeding the ducks and roaming free all over the place. No huge meltdowns from anyone. Yay! We love our little family and hope for more heavenly days like this in the future.

We're going home

We have been here in San Francisco for three days working with specialists on the possibility of participating in a study. As it turns out, we did not qualify for the study. While we were here we did an ultrasound, an echo of the baby's heart, a fetal MRI and met with many, many specialists. The ultrasound showed a curve in the spine right at the start of the opening of the spina bifida. The curvature is called a kyphosis (http://www.medicinenet.com/kyphosis/article.htm).

The doctors spent much time and energy in measuring the curve. To qualify for the study (which has very specific limitations or qualifications) the curve could not be more than 30 degrees. The baby's curve is like 40-50 degrees. It took them quite some time to come to an agreement on the measurments. So, luckily in the meantime we received a huge amount of teaching on spina bifida and on the many specifics of our own baby's problems from very experienced experts. We don't really feel disappointed. Ultimately we feel like we explored this as far as we could possibly go. We have made many great contacts here, and received free tests and consultation from experts. We now feel armed with great information and understanding and hope to put it to use in further decisions with Lily. Thanks for everyone's prayers and support. We love you all. We are going home tomorrow (and I get to see my children!!!).

One additional blessing to coming here to San Fransisco was that we got to receive help and support from two dear friends, Anne and Heather. They were both so sweet and helpful and really added such a familiar element to an unfamiliar and stressful situation. We feel blessed by their kindness and grateful for their support.