Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka! Since Kasey was told not to come to work when it flooded and we were planning on meeting my Mission President in town for dinner, we took off in the afternoon and went Christmas shopping. Ady has been having problems fighting on the playground cause she always wants to ride everyones tricycles and junk with wheels. So we bought her a trike for Christmas. She was so excited in the store. Then when I carried it in she hung onto the box the whole way from the car. I set the box down once on the sidewalk and she was hugging the box and trying to open it. So I decided to just open it and put it together right then. I put the back wheels on and then she decided to climb on. I kept on having to move her out of my way in order to finish assembling the thing.

Then when I got the whole thing together this what Ady wants to do. She just wanted to play in the box. I just spent 40 dollars and a half hour in assembly and she wants to play in a box. I kept saying come on try out the trike and all she would do is climb in the box and wave through the hole! Oh well, she got tired of the box after a while and then I threw it away. Now she loves her trike.

Well what's Christmas without carolers? Kasey thought this was pretty cool, she said that she had never seen carolers without coats, playing ukeleles and wearing leis. Ady really liked the singing and she started dancing to the tune of Joy to the World. We are getting really excited for Christmas and Kasey especially is way excited. We're looking forward to going to Utah and seeing famliy. I finished finals and am ready for a break. I barely survived this semester. I had a pretty big argument last week with a professor. I was ill one day and emailed the professor before class started and she emailed me back telling me that there have been several students sick with the flu. She told me not to worry about it, stay home, don't bring it to class. Gratefully I stayed home. Then last week I found out that she docked me heavily for the absence. Took enough points away that it lowered my grade. So I was in her office and it kinda went like this.
Me: "What did you mean by 'don't worry about it, don't bring it to class and get everyone else sick?'"
Her: "Well Adam I meant what I said, it would be wrong of you to get others sick and it would be wrong of me to require you to come when you are ill."
Me:"Well then why am I losing points for not being there?"
Her: "You aren't losing points for not being there, you're losing points for not having done the assignment that we did in class."
Me: "Well I came to your office later that same day when I was feeling better and asked if there was anything I needed to do, you said no."
Her: "Yeah, that's right, that was an in class assignment and you weren't in class. You know the school policy states that I don't have to allow you to make up missed work unless you went to the doctor. Did you go to the doctor?"
Me: "No, I don't need a doctor to tell that due to the puking, fever, and other symptoms they have determined that I am ill, need to stay in bed, drink plenty of fluids and get some rest. Then they'd charge me for telling me what I already know."
Her: "Well that was a choice that you made and there is nothing now that can be done about it. But don't worry I think you made the right decision by not coming to class and risking a classmate or myself from catching whatever you had."
Me: "Well that isn't the message that you are sending. You're sending me the message that I should've come to class and puked all over."
Her: "Don't be ridiculous, we both know that wouldn't have been the best thing to do. You made the right decision, it's just too bad that it coincided with this assignment."
Me, having decided that I would show her what being ridiculous was all about: "You know what, that is stupid and next time I get sick, I'm coming to your class and puking. All over you."
Then I left. Kasey just shook her head and told me I was stupid when I told her.

the lake in front of our house

It's been about a year since Adam and I have heard thunder or seen lightning, not because it doesn't rain here, it just doesnt' lightning or thunder--usually. Last night however, we woke up to it and a bunch of rain. And now I am not at work(hallelujah!) because this is what the front of our apartment looks like. My boss said the road into work was a river and not even to try going. In my case, I walk to work, but as you can see in the picture, its up past my ankles here. It has been raining non-stop since early this morning, at about the pace of 4 inches per hour for several hours. Several of the apartment buildings in our complex have already flooded. It is supposed to stop this afternoon and we hope so because if it raises 2-3 more inches it will reach our front door. We are lucky we are on higher ground than some, but we are still on the bottom floor. There is a couple of feet of water where the roads are, and people are kayaking instead of driving down them. Adam was out helping some people this morning and said that there are cars under water. This morning Adam was helping in some houses that were waist deep in water inside their house. Lots of things have been ruined. I should mention it's not just water, here once things get flooded it backs up the sewage too. I added another picture of the wall of our building. see all the black spots? Those are bugs trying to escape too!

Grandparents, Thanksgiving and Potty Training

Grandpa and Grandma Haddock and Blake came to visit Ady for Thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun playing with them. This is them at Laie point. For Thanksgiving we cooked our turkey in the ground in an imu and after the turkey bowl we went to pounders beach and went boogie boarding. By the way, I have found out that I might be graduating in June, so if you want to come see us might want to come before then.

Ady is pretty fun about sleeping. She still has to have a binky when she falls asleep. We don't let her have it except when she is in her bed so she makes up for the missed time by holding as many as she can. Look in her hands and you'll see that she is holding 3 binkies and sucking on another one. By the way we have started trying to potty train Adyson. She has been coming to us for a couple of weeks now and grabbing her diaper when she goes to the bathroom. So the other day Kasey stuck her on the toilet and Ady went pooped. Grandma haddock even went and bought her her own potty. This morning we decided to use it and as soon as I got Ady out of bed I stuck her on it. Sure enough about 30 seconds later Ady peed in the potty. We were very pleased and thinking to ourselves that this is gonna be way easier than everyone says. Ady stood up, we clapped, gave her five, I wiped her bum and walked into the other room to get a diaper. Ady followed me and then when I turned around with the diaper there she was squatting in the middle of the room with a big turd on the carpet. I yelled and Kasey came running into the room, saw what was happening and went to grab Ady. Ady got a bit excited over all the commotion and immediately jumped up, stepped in the poop and took off running. Basically our great victory wasn't so great as I found myself cleaning poop out of the carpet.