Merry Christmas Burninghams!!!

and a sweet little Feliz Navidad to our sweet little Christmas present...........

I got a puppy for Christmas. I got a Puppy for Christmas! I GOT A PUPPY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!! This year for Christmas it was my wonderful privileged to have my name drawn by, Kale. Kale is among the elite when it comes to giving gifts. It is a business which he takes most seriously and gives creative thought to. The result is, you are never expecting what he gives you and are always pleasantly surprised and wondering why you had never thought of this incredible gift yourself. (It's a small circle that Gift Giving Elitist group) He threw out the idea of getting me a dog to my super hero husband who jumped on the sneaky boat and hoisted the sails without me suspecting a thing. They picked out a little guy from Moses Lake. He is a chihuahua mix with the coloring of a German Shepard and the temperament of an old sleepy grandma who likes to take long naps cuddled up to you just as snug as he can get:). Although, he is more hairy than an old woman he is significantly less wrinkled and much more adorable. We have given him the name Pato Pato means Duck in Spanish. In naming him Pato we are honoring his Hispanic background while highlighting one of his cute and weird traits. Our dog prefers quacking to barking. He only speaks a few times a day, but when he does he quacks, like a duck. We love you Pato. Now, Reasons why you should stop shaking your head at that fact that we have a Chihuahua 1. Weighing in at 4 lbs and standing at a height of 9 inches my dog will forever look like a puppy. He unobtrusively can cuddle in my lap and when he walks by the Christmas tree he doesn't knock all the ornaments off. 2. Chihuahuas hardly shed 3. Chihuahuas do not drool 4. Chihuahuas, this one is my favorite, DON'T HAVE ANY DOGGIE ODOR!!!! Matty and are are super excited:) What an Awesome First Christmas we had:) (slash are still having- super excited to go to Idaho tomorrow for round 2!) Thank you Kale:) and Thank you Matty :) I hope everyone has this Merry of a Christmas!

and... in the Christmas Eve padgeant we did of the nativity, Matty was a Sheaprd and Pato, his little sheep.

The Vow

My current situation: half way through watching The Vow. Nika and mother get a craving for brownies. the movie goes on pause. the craving is enlarged to encompass brownies with frosting. Two layers of frosting. a green mint and milk chocolate. I very VERY strangely am not craving brownies. Unstrangely is my lack of interest in the whole baking, frosting making affair. Also unstrangely are the loving thoughts of Matty dancing and skipping about in my head. So while the movie is paused, and while the frosting is stirred and spread, I will share a step or two of thought. One time we were all eating Sunday dinner and I put a bowl in the micowave that isn't actually suppose to go there. "Lets get rid of her!" papa exclaims in what I am most sure was a joking manner. the sweet boy named Matthew that I can't wait to marry says quietly and sincere, "I'll take her" :) On a different day, Matty and I were at a BBQ at a friends house. A darling little boy was running around. He was cute, but it wasn't until I saw his also darling little double running about and realized he was a twin that I wanted him to come plop in my lap. I did manage to catch him and sit him in my lap only to have him scoot right off. Plop. I'd stick him back, and scoot. He'd leave. Plop. I'd stick him back again, and scoot. He would only leave. After my 7th plop and the little tot's 7th leave he ran and there would be no more plopping. That would have been true, except for the fact that I have an adorably odd fiance who saw my lonely lap and plopped himself down into it. :) theres infinty to the infinate power tender little moments, but... I kinda like them being a secret :) and the frosting is finished.

frequent Flier

One year for father's day my loving mother gave my hardworking daddy an airsoft gun. Papa was delighted by the gift and began spending his summer evenings camped out on the porch shooting all the thieving and unwanted birds out of the cherry tree. For days the birds came to peck away at our delisious fruits, and for days papa welcomed their arrival as a chance to play with his toy. Perhaps the birds got sick of eating cherries, or perhaps the birds had found a new cherry tree that didn't have a crazy Hawaiian man standing guard. For whatever the reason there soon came a disappointing and birdless day for papa. Poor Papa, sitting lonely on the porch surrounded by cherries and void of targets. But Papa Stew is a resourceful man. A clever, resourceful man who has 6 children. These six children love to sit in the living room and watch T.V, a lot. He was bored. and we were easy targets. I'm sure you can guess what happened. Now fast forward to this year. While out at the hardware store Papa stew found a trinket. (My dad loves trinkets) This little gadget was a sort of fly swatter. Admittedly, It was pretty cool. Upon, contact with bug, the gadget zaps the insects taking their life in a swift and deadly electric shock. Imagine our dining room table. Dad is sitting in his usual spot at the head and I am off in a side chair. Now imagine my defensive worry, my slight cringe, and my slow head turn in papa's direction. I can hear the frown in his voice as I hear him sadly mumble..... ....... ......... ........... :( I can't find any flies :( Also on my mind.... i am engaged:) how can a blog post possibly capture a fraction of the supreme joy of planning an eternity with Matty. July 24th Can't come soon enough for me!

Sharing is Caring

One golden morning I woke up to Matty in my kitchen cooking biscuits and gravy.

Delicious:)


and Delicious;)



This boy is better than me at a lot of things. Sewing, running, the list truly goes on, but peaking the mountainous inventory... is cooking. Whereas my thought process for when my tummy rumbles includes thinking up foods that will take the least amount of time and effort to create, Matty's includes other factors. For him the time and effort thing is less of a concern and it's taste that becomes important. The taste of these biscuits and gravy was nothing short of divine. :)

We eat and we play.
A few hours go by and Matt gets hungry again. Into the kitchen he goes to warm up another plate of biscuits and gravy. Am I hungry? No I am not. Do I want some? No, I'm fine. BUT... when my senses of sight and smell begin to take in the delicious provisions in front of me I think maybe just one bite of that would be awesome to have in my mouth. I grab my fork and sneak it onto the property of Matty's plate to steal the food that I have already made very clear I did not want. yea that's super annoying. Like grounds for getting stabbed with a fork annoying, but Matty didn't stab me. In fact he used his fork to pile more gravy onto my bite of biscuit. :) He is sweet.
That one bite multiplied into another and another until I'd eaten an entire biscuit and there was only one bite left on the plate. (Did I mention these biscuits were amazing?) "I'm sorry" I say to Matty "Does it bother you that I say I don't want any food and then eat all of yours?" He just smiles at me and says "Here, the last bite is yours". :)Insert heart of love right here:)



AAAANNNNDD...Today we will be eating our TURKEY!!!!!!


and...
To Mother Peterson- nothing about my feelings towards your B&G have changed;) They are incredible and I would do anything for them!!!!

Turkeys are white??

Sometime last week I was blessed with this delightful text from Matty B. "I have the funniest date ever for you on saturday". My enchanting response, "what is it?"

Matty B: I can get us a free turkey, but there's a catch... we have to kill it
Matty B: you down?

um... HECK TO THE YES!

So Satudray I put on my work pants and we carivan it down to the Turkey farm.

say hello to the little gobblers... and the big gobbler in front;)



Matty entered the cage and came back with a suprisinlgy still bundle of feathers. (I like to think if i'd just been snatched from my home I'd put up at least a little fight) We each grabed a scaley foot and carried the FATTY bird up the hill. Bringing the creature to its death was sort of odd. Mostly I just tried to keep my thigh from being in the direct path of its beak and pretended my shoulder muscle wasn't absolutley killing me.

We made it to the slaughter tree and hung the poor little guy from his feet to a branch.

Matty's Job = Shoving the knife up the birds beak and scrambling its brain
My Job = Holding the wings

Things to note while watching the clip below:
Somehow Paul inherited this cute girlish scream and I got the man yell
also...
don't miss Matt getting Turkey slapped a billion times... sorry Matty



The rest of the Turkey adventure went well. Towards the end I even got to pull out the heart! Total Indiana Jones moment:)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!! I'm thankful for a kind cheerful boyfriend who takes me on such enjoyable adventures.




Special shout out to all SERE Specialists. God bless the Airforce.

V is very very extra Ordinary

Matt and I always have lots and lots of fun together, but at the end of the day he always has to go home:/. This happened again yesterday, and so there we are outside my house and in front of his truck sweetly hugging goodbye. He wasn't talking and so I asked him what he was thinking. His response surprised and intrigued me. "I don't think you want to know" he replies. What the heck does that mean?!? He says it again, "I really don't think you want to know" and then with a brave voice he adds "but if you ask me again i'll tell you". i'm quiet for another minute thinking and wondering. But I have to know. "What are you thinking about?" I ask again. He kinda sighs and sets me down at the foot of his truck. Having me sit down was a smart move on his part. He looks at me and I'm wondering what it is that could be so hard for him to say to me. "You're not gonna like this" says the boy now standing in front of me.
At this point I am feeling straight up alarm. This boy I adore is about to tell me how things arn't working between us and all I feel is sad worry:( This is starting to feel an awful lot like that terrible night he told me that sometimes he thinks we'd make better friends then dating people. Apparently he was thinking this too and he says "AW! this is turning into that bad night (hey thats what I was thinking! weird.) I think I love you" Just like that he said it all in one breath.

My brain felt like it had been driving at 120 miles per hour and then realized it missed the turn. So it slammed on the breaks and rolled a few times. "WHAT???" is all I could manage to get out "WHA... Wha... WHAT?!??" Matty: "take out the think". Then in he looks right at me and as were staring into eachothers eyes I can't help but notice how soft his look and how full of emotion they were. "Haliaka, I love you" he says. I kissed him and then as quiet as I could I whispered. "i love you too". A couple hours later I received this text from Matty B: "Haha, gotten over the shock yet, or are you still grinning too?" I was still grinning. and having a very hard time focusing. like extremely hard. as in my class played scripture mastery basketball in seminary this morning lol.

Looks like it happened.haha, I fell in love

elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder elder

These are the general schedules of my family...

Mom, Dad, Kale: work all day.
Maka, Kekela, Nika: go to school all day.
Paul: Stay home.
Haliaka: I am a substitute teacher. So for the ten days I got called in the last two months, I worked very hard. The rest I stayed home.

If you'll notice, Paul and I's schedules mostly lined up to us being home together all day. Did we take full advantage of this???

yes. yes we did.

We would go for runs and bike rides and get addicted to different T.V shows. I even cooked our meals. I don't usually like cooking, but I liked cooking for Paul. We would think about what really sounded good to us to eat. He would always say thankyou in such a genuine way and tell me that it tasted good. Then he'd put the dishes in the sink. We made a good team Paul and I and it was nice to have a good friend to mesh my schedule with. We'd plan our day so that we could both get done the things we needed too, but so that they were ususally done together:)Relationships were discuessed, songs were usually sung. It was really nice. BUT...big sigh... the time came for Pauli to move on. He got called to the Philedelphia, Pennsylvani mission and reported to the MTC.

This morning, I got home from Seminary and Paul was gone. He wasn't on the couch working on his scrap book. He wasn't in his room reading a book. He wasn't in the Kitchen cleaning up. He wasn't in the living room doing p90x. He was just gone.

I sat in the rocking chair and cried.


Things I'm very grateful for:
-i'm lucky enough to have a brother that I miss when he's not here
-all the ways this mission will help Paul to grow
-all the sweet memories I was able to make with my little brother
-that my family can be together forever