The Grand Canyon of the Pacific and Spouting Horn Blowhole

Natalie and the kids with Waimea Canyon in the background.

 The 2nd blowhole in which the kids have experienced. The first being at Ensenada with the Strong Family.

Sydney's Birthday

Sydney turned 9 on February 25.  She had been planning and talking non-stop about what she wanted to do for her birthday for the last 11 1/2 months.  It is hard to believe we actually made it to the big day.  

All Sydney really wanted to do was have a slumber party with some friends.  My thought was, "Cool.  No problem."  We invited a few friends to the party in the evening knowing that only half would be able to spend the night.  The girls all had a great time.  Sydney really enjoyed it.  However, it ended up being WAY more work that I had envisioned.

Sydney wanted to have a treasure hunt.  Unfortunately, the weather in February usually isn't conducive to treasure hunts outdoors.  So I decided to have the kids break up into four teams and hid clues all throughout the house and on every level for them to figure out.  It took me an hour and 1/2 to set everything up and the activity turned out to be total chaos. 

Sydney with Zaria (from swimming)

Mollie and Savannah

Chloe and Autumn

Dresden, Collin and Logan enjoyed being on their own all-boy "team" for all the activities.

Shannon is always helpful with the party management.  (Stider, too.)

I don't know exactly why but "Don't eat Pete" is always one of Syd's favorite games.

Ice cream sundaes were what Syd wanted instead of a fancy cake.  Yummm!

Great shot of my silly girl :-)

Grandma Jo's visit

Joan came to visit us for a week in February and was able to see the kids in some of their activities: a couple of basketball games and a swim meet.

This would have been a great shot of Syd's basket if it weren't so blury.

Jay's Birthday

Jay turned 45 on January 1st.  As usual, he didn't want to make a big deal out of it but we had to at least make some cupcakes for him.