Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Ridge's First Haircut
Ridge got his first haircut on June 12th. Rusty cut Ridge's hair while he sat in the sink. And he really did sit. He didn't move a muscle the entire time. Even when Rusty was cutting around his ears with the scissors. He looks so handsome. Ridge does too.
Cousins
We got to watch the girls for two days last week while Holly was at Girls camp. We had a great time.
Critter Camp and Letter Camp
Kyleigh attended Critter camp at the humane society last week. She went every day Monday-Friday from 9-3. She had a great time. They did all kinds of things, including games, crafts, education, playing with the animals, and training a dog. After her first day she came home and gave me a lesson on the body language of dogs. It was really quite impressive. On Friday they had a little awards ceremony and a demonstration with the dogs they trained. On the first day of camp they got their T-shirts. Katelyn had the green eyed monster when she saw that T-shirt. I decided she needed something fun to do, also. So we came home and instituted letter camp. Each day while Kyleigh was gone and Ridge was asleep we did an hour or so of letter camp. We did letters in every medium I could think of. That included watercolors, play-doh, stickers, blendy markers, bendaroos, jello jigglers, our bodies, and Katelyn's favorite, puffy paint. We made a letter camp T-shirt with the puffy paint. It was so fun that we are going to have a number camp when Kyleigh goes to soccer camp for a week at the end of the July.
Piano recital
Kyleigh had a piano recital at the beginning of June. She played "soaring" and did such a great job. Last recital she had to start her piece three times. This time she started and played right through. Extra bonus, Holly played in the recital (she has been taking lessons also). Can I just say they are both so brave, and we were so proud of both of them.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Our First Cruise!
About six months ago we got a notice in Rusty's check stub that said we were eligible for the 5 year Layton safety cruise. We could either take it this year, roll it over to next year, or cash out. We checked take it this year, not really thinking it was an official statement of intent. Surprise. A few months later we got our confirmed booking on the ship, and our flight itinerary, also already booked. We figured at that point we better find a babysitter. Mom to the rescue. She agreed to fly over and watch the kids for us (Nancy, your turn is coming!)
We have heard our friends talking about cruises and had decided they really weren't for us. We like to push vacations to the max. Every minute planned way in advance with as much packing in of activities as possible. I started getting concerned when we read that the average age on the Statendam (the cruise ship we went on) was 65. I was really concerned when I looked at the shore excursions available and it appeared the most physical one was a 3 hour 8 mile bike ride...on a path. I was kind of panicky. I was picturing us going crazy locked on a boat with lots of sparkly clothes and bingo for 5 days. So I called my friend Genevieve, who should really be my travel agent. She told me that the boat is like a floating hotel that feeds you. O.K., I could handle that. She also sent me to a cruise review website that gave me some good ideas for the ports we were going to. I started making calls about rental cars and lined up rental cars at the three ports we went to. I also lined up a zipline tour, which I have always wanted to try. We had other plans, some that worked out and others that didn't. Regardless, we had a GREAT time.
We started a trip by nearly missing the plane. We arrived five minutes after the airline was supposed to have closed their check-in. We weren't aware that they closed at 8:00. Oops. Luckily, the attendent was the daughter of a friend and she stayed late for us. This flight was one of the things I was most excited about. I have never flown across the ocean without my kids. It was really fun. I got to watch a whole movie. We arrived in Vancouver the next morning and they sent us to the port in a taxi. We checked in and after awhile they herded us to the boat. We were happy to see that there were others that weren't of the retired age. We were also happy to greet the lunch buffet. Really happy.
Some of the activities we took advantage of on the boat during the five days were a massage (my first ever), country dancing, movies in their little theatre, a cooking class and a class on how to make towel animals, played basketball, tennis, and ping pong, watched a couple of shows, ate a lot of food, including a dinner with Stewart and Kristy, and watched for bear/scenery while moving through the chanels.
We got off the boat in Victoria, BC, Port Alberni, BC, and Astoria, OR. In Victoria we went ziplining and then hiking in East Sooke park. Ziplining was OK, but not quite the adventure I expected. I was thinking of going from tree tops to the ground and having to run at the bottom to avoid smashing my head into the ground. My sense of adventure is so warped, compliments of marrying Rusty. On our hike we had a seagull come visit us for lunch. No seagulls in Hawaii so that was kind of fun. We hiked to some petroglyphs. I wonder if todays graffiti is tomorrow's petroglyphs? We thought it was so cool to see the moss all over the trees on our hike. We even took a picture of Russ sticking his finger into it to show the kids how deep it was. It went to the end of Rusty's finger. The next week we went on a hike here and Kyleigh wanted to test the moss like we had. She stuck a two foot stick into it and didn't reach the end. I guess we were so impressed with it there because it was the same kind of landscape we grew up with, but it had moss all over it.
In Astoria we were hoping to find someone that would rent us a boat and some crab pots, or go clamming. We couldn't find anyone that rented things out and low tide wasn't very low. We ended up driving to Mt. St. Helens. A surprising highlight. For one thing, our "road trips" can only be about an hour in any direction on Kauai and we both enjoy a drive once in awhile. We took the wrong way on the way there and drove for three hours. They have a great visitor center that we stopped at. It has a cafe so we ate lunch on the deck overlooking Mt. St. Helens. We also read up on the history and read some first hand accounts. We planned our trip back based on the three hour trip up there, and got back to Astoria in half the time. A plus because we got to take pictures in front of the Goonies house (the house where they filmed Goonies). That was one of Rusty's all time favorite movies. I even talked Russ into lifting his shirt and doing the "truffle shuffle" in front of the Goonies house. Sorry, I promised him I wouldn't post that one. While we were there we could hear sea lions barking. We drove toward the sound and found a pier that was absolutely covered with sea lions. We got to watch them for awhile before we had to make our way back to our floating hotel with dinner waiting for us.
The bottom line is I have done a 180 on my opinion about cruises. It is so cool that while you sleep and gorge yourself on tons of really good food they are traveling for you. When you wake up you are there and can go about your business. We would totally go again.
We have heard our friends talking about cruises and had decided they really weren't for us. We like to push vacations to the max. Every minute planned way in advance with as much packing in of activities as possible. I started getting concerned when we read that the average age on the Statendam (the cruise ship we went on) was 65. I was really concerned when I looked at the shore excursions available and it appeared the most physical one was a 3 hour 8 mile bike ride...on a path. I was kind of panicky. I was picturing us going crazy locked on a boat with lots of sparkly clothes and bingo for 5 days. So I called my friend Genevieve, who should really be my travel agent. She told me that the boat is like a floating hotel that feeds you. O.K., I could handle that. She also sent me to a cruise review website that gave me some good ideas for the ports we were going to. I started making calls about rental cars and lined up rental cars at the three ports we went to. I also lined up a zipline tour, which I have always wanted to try. We had other plans, some that worked out and others that didn't. Regardless, we had a GREAT time.
We started a trip by nearly missing the plane. We arrived five minutes after the airline was supposed to have closed their check-in. We weren't aware that they closed at 8:00. Oops. Luckily, the attendent was the daughter of a friend and she stayed late for us. This flight was one of the things I was most excited about. I have never flown across the ocean without my kids. It was really fun. I got to watch a whole movie. We arrived in Vancouver the next morning and they sent us to the port in a taxi. We checked in and after awhile they herded us to the boat. We were happy to see that there were others that weren't of the retired age. We were also happy to greet the lunch buffet. Really happy.
Some of the activities we took advantage of on the boat during the five days were a massage (my first ever), country dancing, movies in their little theatre, a cooking class and a class on how to make towel animals, played basketball, tennis, and ping pong, watched a couple of shows, ate a lot of food, including a dinner with Stewart and Kristy, and watched for bear/scenery while moving through the chanels.
We got off the boat in Victoria, BC, Port Alberni, BC, and Astoria, OR. In Victoria we went ziplining and then hiking in East Sooke park. Ziplining was OK, but not quite the adventure I expected. I was thinking of going from tree tops to the ground and having to run at the bottom to avoid smashing my head into the ground. My sense of adventure is so warped, compliments of marrying Rusty. On our hike we had a seagull come visit us for lunch. No seagulls in Hawaii so that was kind of fun. We hiked to some petroglyphs. I wonder if todays graffiti is tomorrow's petroglyphs? We thought it was so cool to see the moss all over the trees on our hike. We even took a picture of Russ sticking his finger into it to show the kids how deep it was. It went to the end of Rusty's finger. The next week we went on a hike here and Kyleigh wanted to test the moss like we had. She stuck a two foot stick into it and didn't reach the end. I guess we were so impressed with it there because it was the same kind of landscape we grew up with, but it had moss all over it.
In Astoria we were hoping to find someone that would rent us a boat and some crab pots, or go clamming. We couldn't find anyone that rented things out and low tide wasn't very low. We ended up driving to Mt. St. Helens. A surprising highlight. For one thing, our "road trips" can only be about an hour in any direction on Kauai and we both enjoy a drive once in awhile. We took the wrong way on the way there and drove for three hours. They have a great visitor center that we stopped at. It has a cafe so we ate lunch on the deck overlooking Mt. St. Helens. We also read up on the history and read some first hand accounts. We planned our trip back based on the three hour trip up there, and got back to Astoria in half the time. A plus because we got to take pictures in front of the Goonies house (the house where they filmed Goonies). That was one of Rusty's all time favorite movies. I even talked Russ into lifting his shirt and doing the "truffle shuffle" in front of the Goonies house. Sorry, I promised him I wouldn't post that one. While we were there we could hear sea lions barking. We drove toward the sound and found a pier that was absolutely covered with sea lions. We got to watch them for awhile before we had to make our way back to our floating hotel with dinner waiting for us.
The bottom line is I have done a 180 on my opinion about cruises. It is so cool that while you sleep and gorge yourself on tons of really good food they are traveling for you. When you wake up you are there and can go about your business. We would totally go again.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Katelyn graduated preschool
I am still wondering how this happened. When did Katelyn grow up and start preschool, and how did we manage to get all the way to the END of preschool? Well it happened, and we had a fabulous graduation ceremoney. Complete, once again, with marching to pomp and circumstance, diplomas, hats, leis, and a luncheon. She filled out an end of the year "autograph hound" book. She reported that her favorite thing she learned was about bears. Her favorite class helper job was snack helper. Her favorite craft to make was scratch and sniff fruit, and her favorite snack was valentine's cookies. Karen S. made a slide show out of the pictures we had all taken during the year. It started and I felt like she was graduating high school and I had to hold back the tears. My mom and Aunt Karla just happened to time it right for this event also. How lucky were we!
I don't know if I'm ready for her to grow up, but it just keeps happening anyway. So, all I can do is say congratulations my little Kate-Kate!
I don't know if I'm ready for her to grow up, but it just keeps happening anyway. So, all I can do is say congratulations my little Kate-Kate!
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