Anna's Birthday

Well, we have a teenager now!  Anna turned 13 a few weeks ago.  Why do they grow up so fast?  We just had a little family party for her.  She is a beautiful young woman and we are so happy to have her in our family.

A week later she and two friends went to see Divergent on opening day and we went to lunch.  Divergent was a great movie and I'm so glad she loves to read so much.

 

Gregg and the kids went to the farm a few weekends ago and he took some great pictures!  I was working so couldn't be there, but glad they had such a good time!

 

 

 

Katie and her friend Katie played in a Band competition and received very high scores and a gold medal.  Such great experience for them and I am glad she is not afraid to try new and difficult things.

 

 

Clayton, NM - After Chrismtas

We drove to Clayton, New Mexico the day after Christmas to visit my Dad and stepmom and my Grandparents.  We stayed 3 nights and had a wonderful time.  We ate great food and got to go see Frozen at the local theatre.  The movie theatre is really old and so cool!  We had a great time and I think all of the adults loved the movie too!  Linda, Anna and Katie probably played 100 games of dominoes.  We flew Emi's new kite at the park and these are the only pictures we took on the trip.  I have got to do a better job taking pictures!  Katie, Gregg and my Dad got to go golfing one afternoon.  Katie is a good little golfer!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was so fun this year!  Gregg had to use quite a bit of vacation or he would lose it.  So he was off for more than 2 weeks. 

Emi was really into Santa this year.  She was so excited to see him, and not at all afraid.  She couldn't quite decide what to ask for, so she had a whole list and Santa could choose.

Before Christmas we went up to Platteville to have a Kawakami gift exchange and see some local museums and exhibits that were there for the weekend.

 

Here is Emi with a Skunk hat on at Fort Vasquez.  Behind her was a quilt show they were having.

We got to see Santa at the Platteville Community Center.

 

The girls got to play with Makenna, their cousin, and of course some gifts!  We had a wonderful meal at Dave and Lois' house.  What a fun day!

 

Right before Christmas we made Mochi at our house.  For my non-Japanese friends, mocha is a rice that is steamed and pounded and formed into balls.  You can eat it fried or in a soup that is traditionally good luck for New Year's.  Kenji and Janice came over to help Shirley and us make it for New Years.  Our family loves it so much, we made a lot!

 

 

Our nephew, Daniel, has been studying in Japan since last August.  He returned right before Christmas and it has been so fun to see him!  We are excited he is home and looking forward to spending some time with him.

 

Christmas Eve was at Gregg's cousin Coco's house.  Emi loves playing with the cousins her age!

 

 

Christmas Day was spent at our house with my Mom, Pam, Mike and Shirley coming to have dinner.

 

 

What a fun Christmas!

 

Thanksgiving in the Mountains

We went to Keystone for Thanksgiving this year.  Us, my mom, Gregg's mom and my sister Pam.  Unfortunately Mike couldn't come with us as he had to work.  We left Tuesday after school and came back home on Saturday afternoon.  We brought everything to make a wonderful Thanksgiving meal.

 

Gregg took the girls skiing, Anna and Emi on Wednesday and Katie and Emi on Thursday.  Anna and Katie are sharing skis right now, so they had to take turns.  It was Emi's first time and they just stayed on the magic carpet, but she really liked it.  Gregg is so great with the girls.  I know it has to be so hard to lean over and hold her up!

 

 

The condo we stayed in was next to the river.  Gregg enjoyed the beautiful weather and went fishing in the afternoons.

 

We did a little shopping on Black Friday at the Outlet mall in Silverthorne.  Pam took the kids ice skating.  We also did a sleigh ride dinner which was really fun.

 

It was a very nice weekend.  We came home Saturday and got the Christmas decorations out.  I had to work at Izod on Sunday.  I was very lucky to get Friday and Saturday off.  Time to be thinking about the holidays!

 

Disney World, October 2013

For Fall Break we went to Disney World this year.  8 wonderful days!  It was warmer than I thought it would be, between 85 and 90 degrees and very humid.  We bought time share points and stayed in two different condos.  Saratoga Springs for 4 days and Animal Kingdom Lodge for 4 days.  We had a kitchen and had groceries delivered as well as bringing a suitcase of food.  The first night we were there we went to the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  There were a lot of characters, trick or treating and a great parade and fireworks show.

Katie was supposed to be a Mad Hatter and we were going to buy the hat there, but didn't get it purchased before the party.  The next morning we had a Princess Breakfast at Cinderella's castle.
Emi loved it!  We saw quite a few princesses during our visit, here are just a few of them.

 

We went to the two water parks this time, and they were a lot of fun!  The water slides were really great and the weather was perfect for swimming.

 

 

One of the highlights of the trip for Katie was getting a hug from Stitch at a parade.  She loves Stitch!  She was very adventurous and tried all of the big roller coasters.  She didn't like them all, but she tried them.

 

My mom and sister went with us, we all had a great time! 

Nice photo bomb, Anna!

 

Katie did get her Mad Hatter hat, and this was pretty common, falling asleep on the shuttle.

Even Princess Emi likes to nap with a crown on.

 

While Gregg, Pam and I rode some of the bigger rides, the kids and my mom didn't want to ride, they got to see some characters and go on some other rides.

 

Disney World is not a relaxing vacation.  But we didn't do as much this trip as we did last time.  We pretty rarely went back out in the evening, especially if we went early in the morning.  I am a big believer in going at opening and riding as much as you can before it gets crowded. 

Can't wait to go back!