What do you get when you have frigid temperatures in the teens and a lot of moisture?

9 and a half inches of SNOW!!!! YIKES!

and this is a measurement from the back of our house on the deck! The front yard has at least a foot on the ground. Boy, it's been a LONG time since I've seen THIS much snow!

The snow storm started Sunday night. We went to an orchestra concert at the visitor's center by the temple. The weather was ok, with just a bit of snow. By the time we drove home around 8:30pm, the snow started coming down the closer we got to our house. By the time we entered Calvert county, the roads were covered with snow. We never felt unsafe as we took our time and followed tracks made by other cars. At one point we were actually laughing because a two lane road turned into a one lane, since you couldn't see the road at all and people were just driving in the middle of both lanes...we think. We finally got home safe and sound and started getting Lillie ready for bed. As Keola was rocking with Lillie in her room, the all too familiar (from the Hawaii blackout) flicker of lights, occured once, twice, then nothing but blackness. The only light for a moment came from the computer that I had been working on. Keola quickly got a couple of flashlights for us and we moved Lillie's mattress into our bedroom. Living in this new house proved to be a challenge for the first time, as we lost not only electricity, but water flow, t.v., internet access, and HEAT!!! We pretty much had no contact with the outside and what was going on. Luckily, the house was still pretty warm, we snuggled up and went to bed.

The next morning proved to be a little more difficult. The electricity had not come on yet, and the house was a chilly 58 degrees. We brought Lillie in our bed and snuggled up until about 10am. There was no way Keola was getting the car to go anywhere, so it was nice to have daddy home. We went downstairs, turned on our gas fireplace that gave a little heat, and found some fruit and sandwiches to eat. We didn't worry about the fridge being opened and closed since it was probably colder OUTSIDE of the fridge, then inside. Keola attempted to shovel some snow, but it was so thick, it was pretty pointless. We found games to play and kept ourselves busy. Finally, a little after 1pm or so, the power came back on and so did the HEAT!! In the end, Southern Maryland had the worst snow storm since 2006, with an average of 12 inches of snow.

Here's our deck, decked out in the white stuff. About a month ago, we got an inch or so of snow and I took Lillie out to make some footprints on the deck. It was so cold, but she was excited to get her feet in the snow. Can you imagine how she felt when she woke up Monday morning and saw this!?!?

Aside from the fun, we did have a moment that we're thankful didn't end in disaster. During the night, we had heard a noise that sounded like a crack. But since it was pitch black outside and in, we couldn't see anything. The next morning, as Keola went out to shovel some snow, this is what he found.

As you can see, this tree fell during the night and hit our deck. We found a piece of the tree branch on the top of the deck. Luckily, it just missed doing any kind of damage to the house.

Here's Lillie trying to see if she can get in on the snow ball fight the neighbor boys were having.

Here's Lillie, so happy to be in the snow with her Daddy

Lillie was so excited to get her hands in that snow

Yipee!!!! Snow!!

AAHHHHHH!!!! It doesn't get better than this!!!!!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Watch me make a snowball...or a snowman...or a snow boy!

Lillie Turns 2 Years Old

Lillie Turns 3 Years Old

Lillie Turns 4 Years Old
She's growing older every minute!

Lillie Turns 4 Years Old!

Our little Lillie turned 4 years old today. We can't believe it! Daddy took half day at work and then spent the rest of the day with Lillie, eating lunch at McDonald's and then dinner at Applebees--both favorite places for Lillie. After dinner we came home to have cake and ice cream and open presents and have a couple of other surprises that mommy and daddy had up their sleeves. We celebrated in quiet fashion again, just us, but sometimes those are the best. We know, though, that we will have lots of other birthdays that Lillie will share with all her friends, but for now we are enjoying the quiet ones with just us! Below is the loot that Lillie got from family.
Lillie LOVES Sleeping Beauty and was so excited when she saw her cake!
We got her the Sleeping Beauty DVD. When we were in Hawaii, Aunty Nani got her the book and we would read it to her at night. She's got all the important parts memorized and often will act out the scenes.
Lillie also has a fetish for Ariel. We got her this Ariel doll and she absolutely loves brushing her long hair. Lillie will often take out her hair if we have it in clips and rubber bands and shake her hair out and pretend she has long flowing hair like Ariel.
How could we not get her a long flowing Sleeping Beauty night gown. She loved it and wanted to wear it during the day as well.
Sometimes Lillie and mommy will go on picnics when the weather is nice. While we were in Hawaii we saw this Sleeping Beauty bento box! This will be perfect for Lillie's rice and spam, which she loves to eat.

Aunty Momi and Uncle Terry and Ame and Nai sent a card with their present. It was one of those cards where it plays music. This one played the waltz from Sleeping Beauty. Lillie has opened that card almost non-stop since she got it and swings back and forth like she is dancing. Below she is almost in a trance as she listens to her favorite music.

The next two pictures are of Lillie opening her gift from Aunty Momi. She got a camera and will love taking pictures.

Nana and papa got Lillie a bike and helmet. Lillie has been asking about when she was getting a bike, and was so excited to find one in our basement. Lillie is still a little apprehensive about riding it, but after some practice, we are sure she will be a pro. She just needs practice. During the winter, Lillie will ride around in our basement where it is warm inside. Then when the weather gets warmer, she can ride around in front of our garage.

Then we had one more surprise after her bath. We can't take a picture of it because it was nothing really tangible that we gave her. Every night, Lillie tries to ask us if she can sleep in mommy and daddy's room, and we always say no, and she is such a good girl sleeping in her own room the entire night. Well, as a treat for her birthday, we thought we would let her sleep over in our room on the floor on a fold out mattress. We told her in unison that the last surprise was that she could sleep in mommy and daddy's room. She screamed so loud and jumped up and down. Then she promptly went and got all her stuffed animals, her ma tress, her green blanket and her favorite hat, and got ready for bed right next to our bed. Later when we asked her what was the best part of her birthday, she said "sleeping in mommy and daddy's room". Next time remind us not to spend any money on her!!

Great Grandma Keamo

Lillie is so lucky to have at least one of her great grandparents still living. Lillie and grandma really have a good time together. It is so cute to see them together.

Above is a picture of grandma and Lillie at a party for the building where grandma used to live.

Above is a picture of Lillie playing catch with grandma. Lillie and grandma can spend hours playing together. They play catch, play with stickers, and have fun together. Grandma is 87 years old and Lillie is 3. There won't be much time left together, but at least we have these fun memories that Lillie will hopefully remember for life!

Merry Christmas in Hawaii!

We all went to the restaurant at Neiman Marcus for a fancy breakfast with Santa. It sure was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. Lillie isn't quite sure what to make of Santa just yet. Sometimes she is fine with him and other times she just doesn't want to have anything to do with him. For the picture shoot with Santa, we were lucky enough to turn it into a "family picture" for all of us. That was the only way Lillie would take a picture with Jolly Old Saint Nicholas!!

More pictures of our new home!

So the move went really smoothly. We hired a moving company and they had us all moved out of our old home and into our new home in no time. The home we moved into is larger than our old home. There are several additional rooms that we never had. For instance, there is a small dining area in the kitchen and then a formal dining room. There is also a formal living room and then another family area, and there is an additional bedroom upstairs. Because of the additional space, we don't have any furniture yet. Also, in our old home we had built-in book cases, and we don't in our new home, so we need to buy book cases at some point to put all our stuff.

Below is a picture of the open kitchen and the small eating area.

This is a picture of the formal living area. As you can see we don't have anything in there except for our lamps!

Below is our formal dining area. We have the Koa hutch there for now, but no dining table since our dining table we used in the old house is in the kitchen area.

Below is our large family room area. We love all the windows and the open feel to the entire room. Right now we have our old living room furniture in there, but that is eventually going to move to the living area and we are looking for nice family room furniture.

We Are Online Again!!!

We've been busy settling into our new home since we last posted. All is well and we are loving our new home. Luckily we moved into another ward in our same stake, so there was little adjustment to do with regard to the ward. We felt right at home at our new ward's Halloween party. Below are some of the youth dressed up for the occasion.

Below is a picture of some members dressed as the Duke's of Hazzard! They are our good friends Ginny and Tom.


Lillie dressed as Tinkerbell. Here she is with someone from her primary class, Abby dressed as Ragady Ann.

Here is our Tinkerbell with more members of her primary class. There are lots of children in the ward who are Lillie's age, so she will have lots of friends.

And last but not least, our little Tinkerbell. What a cute girl!!

After a LONG hiatus...
Let's see if I can shorten this long story...something kooky happened to our internet and we are now using dial up. Posts on our blogger will be few and FAR in between until November or so. Anyway, aside from feeling totally disconnected from the technology world, some pretty exciting things have been happening with the Sakai family in D.C.

For awhile now Keola and I have been tossing around the idea of moving to Southern Maryland to Calvert County. The area has better schools, safer communities, more home for your money, and a great ward. We knew that it would be all about timing, especially with the state of our economy. For about two months we went out every week looking for homes in Maryland. We found some great homes and finally put a bid on one that had been on the market for over a year and had no bids. Wouldn't you know it, two other families decided to bid on the house the same week. Unfortunately, we were rejected. Then we found another great home. It was beautiful, a foreclosure, on the market for over a year, and no bids. We thought this was for sure a shoe in. Meanwhile, we decided to talk to our agent about selling our home and trying to find a good time. The time we quickly chose was Labor day weekend. Shocking I think EVERYONE involved, our house was put on the market and a contract accepted in SIX days!! What was even more shocking was that the bid was more than what we asked for.

Well, as for the foreclosed home...rejection number 2. We couldn't understand it!! Now we had our home being sold and no home to move in to. Dealing with that thought on top of dealing with lenders, and thinking of the downward fall of banks and the economy, we were getting a bit stressed out. Then we found a home two doors down from the foreclosed home. We looked and it was beautiful!! We put in a bid and as of today, I think we have a HOME!!!! We had a walk through today with the inspector and things are looking great. Since the pictures were taken off the listing, I decided to take some pictures during the walk through. So hold your hats, here's our new home...well, sometime after the week of Halloween it will officially be our new home.

The subdivision is pretty small with only 10 homes.

Here's the home from the street. It's on a bit of a slope, as you can see.

Notice the gazebo on the back of the house off to the right.

Let me warn you now before we go any further...the current owners still have all their stuff in the home so you'll have to look past the "stuff". Everything will look much different once we get our things in.

Here's the living room that they obviously use as their office.

Here's the GREAT, BIG family room. I LOVE this room. It's nice and big and airy. Space wise, it reminds me a lot of my old home in Hawaii. Open and spacious.

There's a gas fireplace in the family room and an alcove for our t.v.

This is the formal dining room right inside of the front door.

One of my favorites, a nice open kitchen (Hey, no cooking jokes, Maka and Stew!!).

A beautiful bay window with a breakfast area. The kitchen and breakfast area both open to the family room which makes this "room" really open and large. I think from kitchen to the opposite wall is about 40 feet wide!!

Right outside the family room and kitchen is the large deck with gazebo!!

Now for upstairs. Again, let me remind you, current owners still have their "stuff" everywhere! The pictures of the rooms are not very good. I couldn't really get good angles.
This is the two story foyer.

Master bedroom with double doors. I didn't get a picture of the master bath, but it has a double sink, whirlpool tub (which we're calling Lillie's swimming pool), shower, and toilet.

Here's one of two closets in the master. The other is not quite as large.

Guest bath. Kind of BLAH, but we're hoping to spruce it up a bit.

One of two guest rooms

Guess who's room this will be??

The house also has a full basement that is unfinished. We're looking forward to adding another room and bath with a great added space, in the future.

We're REALLY excited!!! We'll keep everyone updated on the progress and upcoming closing dates on both homes.

Now, with more house, more space, and more guest rooms, we're REALLY expecting guests!!!! HInt Hint!!