Another first.

Kyleigh fed Ridge. The pictures say it all.

Hanalei sandcastle competition 2010

We spent last Saturday at Hanalei bay amidst a group of sand castle builders. Our friend Jeff was the cofounder of the first annual Hanalei sandcastle competition. He and another guy put together a family friendly competition with lots of prizes without a lot of pressure. Jeff camped at Hanalei the night before and built the ALOHA sandcastle below. The detail of each letter was truly impressive. The competition was free to sign up and the beach was covered with participants. Kyleigh competed in the keiki (childrens) division and won a free ice cream at cold stone creamery (as did all of the kids). She really worked hard on her sandcastle and was pretty proud of it. We signed up for the family division but did not work very hard. Our "castle" was mostly a pile of sand by the end of the day. The guy who won the competiton built a sand sculpture of a guy surfing on a shark with the wave coming up behind him. Other awards went to a sculpture of the mountains behind Hanalei bay and the kids favorite, the fire breathing dragon below. However, they were distraught that the fire was coming out of it's nose and not it's mouth. Mike tried to use body boards strapped together to form his base. It was looking good until he unstrapped the body boards and it fell to the ground. He then built a huge spearfisherman laying on his stomach. That was pretty cool but people had a hard time deciding what it was. For those of us who weren't serious builders we had a great day playing in the water. Rusty has a new waterproof camera that he played with all day. He can even take videos underwater. We can finally have beach pictures.

We will be looking forward to the second annual Hanalei sandcastle building competition.

New Suits...

Thanks to GG and GPa for the new swimsuits! The girls love them.

Parent Prom

A few weeks ago Rusty and I went to the prom. I bet you never thought I would go to the prom with my baby. Or maybe you did. A girl at church planned the "parent prom," and we had a great time with it. Bishop even reminded all of the men to make sure and ask the girl of their choice or someone else might ask them. Oooh, scary. A bunch of us planned a "group date" for the day of the prom (kids included. Who can afford a babysitter all day?) We had a beach afternoon complete with supposed Johnny Depp sightings. They have been filming the next pirates movie on Kauai and everyone is pretty Johnny Depp crazy. Yours truly not included. I haven't even seen the last two pirates movies. After the group date, a few of the girls met up at Dawn's house to get ready for the prom together. I even let them paint my toenails. Genevieve brought supplies to make boutineers for our "dates." Rusty dropped the kids off at the babysitters (we had to bundle babysitting due to the limited number of babysitters) and came to pick me up at Dawn's house. He honked the horn when he pulled up in the driveway. Jeff (Dawn's husband) informed Rusty that no one would be picking up a date at his house with a horn honk. Not that he ever has to worry, they have three boys. Rusty thought his honk plan was hilarious. I got a picture of all the girls with their dates except Genevieve who went home to get her honey. John won the tenderness award when he showed up with a corsage for Wendi. The music was supplied by everyone who brought their ipods, so we got plenty of country music to dance to. We were asked to bring pictures of ourselves from our high school proms. Neither Rusty or I wanted to bring pictures of ourselves with our high school prom dates. Rusty took both of our pictures and color copied them. He cut us out of our pictures and taped us together. He did a really good job and had a few people going until they saw the red yarn remnants from a craft project that were stuck to the tape. Last but not least, Ridge went to his first prom with an older woman. Macy has him by a good 4 months.

Me, Russ, and Ridge.

How does my first boutineer look, Mom?

Mike and Holly.

Jeff and Dawn.

John and Wendi. Look at that corsage. Way to go John!

Ridge and Macy. Does it get any cuter than that tie?

New niece (that is already getting old)

BRYNLY BETH OLSEN.................................
My sweetest little honey of a niece arrived March 17th, 2010. Her parents Rissie and Tyler, and brothers Tucker and Payton couldn't love her more. She weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. My sister already has a bigger hair accessory collection than I do and my girls are 6 and 3. Rissie has been sending me pictures of this cutie since she was born, but all of them to my phone. Me, being the phone illiterate individual that I am, was not able to get the pictures off my phone. Finally Rissie sent a picture to my computer so I can now post her arrival with a picture. Just last week Rissie texted me a story. In her words, "Brynly got shots today. Tucker punched the nurse in the leg and yelled, you no hurt my sister! I laughed. Nurse didn't."

I can't wait to hold sweet little Brynly for myself.

Exersaucer

Ridge's favorite toy and the best $10.00 I've ever spent at a garage sale.

Puppet fun

This is the kind of random fun that makes we want to have the imagination my kids have... A puppet with a cracker taped to it's mouth. "He was hungry Mom."

A large pot and a blanket for the puppet show stage.