Happy Thanksgiving

We wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. We hope everyone has a great time this holiday season and gets to spend Thanksgiving with friends and family. :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Tae Kwon Dizzle

Mr. Shaw had his first annual testing at his school and it went really well. He started them out with a warm up that looked pretty hard. there were people that looked like they wanted to collapse. I know I would have wanted to. :) After that he called them out by the number they were going to be under and had them line up on the edge of the floor. Then he had people come up and he would tell them a form that he wanted to do in the Korean name and they had to know what form he was talking about. James did 3 forms and one of those was chun ji or the white belt form. That's the form I'm working on. :) After everyone did their forms he had everyone do one steps then he had different demonstrations. He had James come up and he had 5 people form a circle around him and he gave them a number. When he called out that number he wanted them to attack James. James did really well at blocking and then attacking back. Mr Shaw had them go through it twice. the second time he told the 5 people to go as fast as they could. It was neat to see James in action. :)
After that Mr. Shaw bowed them out and told them to come back at 9:30 the next day. (sat) So Saturday morning came and I went down with James and it started out the same they were bowed in and did a warm up. Then they started with board breaks. James did an awesome job here too but he did hurt his hand. He did 3 breaks a spin crescent kick, a punch and a flying side kick. The only board he didn't break was the punch and that's when he broke his hand. But he was still really stoked cause that was the first time he had done a flying side kick. He couldn't believe he broke through the board. :) I had to leave after that to attend a baby shower in Salt Lake but James said that after they had a 10 min break to get water and stuff then he had them line up and do sparring.
Usually with the tests that James had had in the past he has had to wait for 4 to 5 days before he found out his test results. but he said that right after class, Mr. Shaw and the judges went in the back and talked about everyone and their performances for awhile then came back and told them their results. James got a 4.6 out of 5 which is a fail. But he's very happy about it cause they told him the things he needs to work on and the area's he needs to improve on. So he's not bummed that he failed his review. I am very proud of him. :) If I can I'll try and post the some of the video of him. If I can't get that posted here Mr. Shaw has it posted on youtube under Mike Shaw's tae kwon do. I haven't seen it yet so I don't know how much he has there. Anyway Keep Smiling! :)

New Addition

This is our little Puppy Rosko.He's a Malte'zu or something like that. It's a new breed of dog, they took a pure bred Maltese and bred it with a pure bred

Shih Tzu. He was born Sept 11, 2007 and we bought him Nov 1. :) We have been looking for a small dog for some time now, and we thought that we'd get one as soon as we sold our Condo and found a new house. But then our friend (Jim) said that him and his wife breed little dogs and they had a dog that was pregnant. We thought that when they came we might get one. We werent quite sure. Well the puppies came and we went to go see them and they were so cute and tiny. There was a little runt that we fell in love with. It was a little girl. they actually had to hand feed her cause she was so tiny she couldnt fight her way through her brothers and sister to get to the food. So when Jim called and said they were ready to be sold, he told us that the little girl had died a few weeks earlier. So we went to go look at the rest of the puppies. We found this little guy that they had named Turk from the Disney movie Tarzan at first we wernt sure if we wanted one. Then we started to play with his little brother and actually were thinking about getting him. Then this little guy came in and started to play with us and after awhile he got tired and he climbed into my lap and fell asleep. well that did it we were hooked. So I thought that we could ask Jim if he would hold him for us, but James surprised me and said he wanted to take him that night. and thus the sleepless nights begin. :) The first night he did awesome, the second night he still did good but then after that I guess he decided he didnt like sleeping alone. We have not yet got a kennel for him so everynight before we go to bed we take Rosko for a walk and try and get him tired so that he'll sleep asll night. He does really well actually and he really like's going for walks most of the nights. Somenights he doesnt like it to much cause it's to cold. So we try and make it as short as possible. He's been doing really well. We recently discovered his favorite cuddly spot. In the hood of James's hoodie. Last Sunday we took him to a family dinner with James's family to show him off. and he sat in that hood for about an hour or so. H eloved it he just curled right up and fell asleep. James doesnt like it to much after awhile cause of the weight pulling on the hood tends to choke him. We love our new little guy, sometimes not so much when he wakes us up at three in the morning. :) but we do love him and are very excited to have him. Our cat is slowly adjusting to him. Yesterday Dodger let Rosko walk up to him and Dodger sat on a lower step with Rosko on the landing and they just laid there for awhile. He's a fun little guy.

Poverty in the Philippines

This is really a sad sight. As I was checking my e-mail today, this picture caught my attention. As sad as it is this was a common seine in my beloved city of Manila in the Philippines. As missionaries we would pass little kids and people like this all the time. As LDS missionaries we weren't allowed to give out money due to the little money we ourselves had and that we didn't want to "buy" people or give a false sense that if you listen to us we'll give you money or anything like that. We wanted people to feel the spirit and love of the Lord through his scriptures and teaching and know for themselves that it was true.Anyways since we couldn't give money we would always have some kinda of food with us. Some kind of package of crackers, cookies, ube candy, etc. And if we ever had a chance to eat out somewhere and had extras we would always take it no matter how big or little it was so we could give it to these people. I love the Philippines very much. I have many friends there that I consider very dear to me. The people are nice and generous and the culture is amazing. If you ever get the chance to visit I would strongly recommend it. But back to the subject. I said earlier that this picture caught me attention when I went to check my e-mail. So I read the article and this is what it said. "Two children beg on an pedestrian overpass in Manila October 16, 2007. The Philippines will mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty with an attempt on October 17 to set a Guinness World Record for the most number of people standing up against poverty." REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo (PHILIPPINES)
"A girl begging on an overpass looks up as a man drops a coin into her cup in Manila October 16, 2007. The Philippines will mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty with an attempt on October 17 to set a Guinness World Record for the most number of people standing up against poverty." REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo (PHILIPPINES)

I couldn't believe it. It made me think that maybe this will draw enough attention to try and put a stop to the poverty over there. Which I understand can take a long time but I am really hoping that this might bring up some awareness to the current situation to at least try and put a greater effort into helping. There's a great Campaign that I think Bono from the band U2 started called the ONE campaign. they have done some outstanding things and are helping people to be more aware of things going on in the world. Especially with the issue of Poverty. I commend those people who try and make this world a better place. Little by little something can be done. This is something that just really hit close to home with me. If you read all of this. Thank you for humoring me on my little soapbox. :)

Patience

Well another day here at LDS Business College and I have decided that with a great job like the one I have here you can also find some things that bother you. When faced with these things (usually on the days that seem the hardest and the days you just really don't want to deal with it) it is required to have a little more patience then usual which can be rather difficult. especially if this thing is a co-worker who (in my mind) seems to say and do things just to bug me. I cant quite figure it out. James and I have tried to figure out why some of these things occur at work and how to resolve them so when they come around again it'll be easier to deal with. But we have yet to succeed. Patience I guess is the only key. Also just remembering the teachings of the savior and continue to strive to be like him. Listening to hymns when you get in one of these moods always helps to. :) Anyway this isn't my main topic I just wanted to vent a little.