Spring Break

This is Justin again. When I started this post about a week ago, Mom (Candace) was up in Canada with our new Nexus passes :-) taking the kids to a temple chior practice. First Order of busimess...Spring Break.

On Saturday night we died eggs.Darren kept wanting to stick his hand into the cup. We had to help him do it the right way.

That's better. Also, lately, whenever he sees the camera he runs up and says "Cheeese" with a huge smile on his face.

After Darrens turn was over, and pretty much whenever he saw an egg, he would grab it out of the box and throw it. We had quite a few eggs reserved for our special Easter dinner, Eggs al a golden rod.

On our Easter egg hunt he continued to find eggs and throw them, much to Amanda's dismay.
The hunt went well, and after wards, Amanda came up to Aaron and said "Dad, can I go get an egg from inside for you to hide so that I can find it." She was in the Easter spirit, and dad reminded her what Easter was about.



Easter pictures.

On Wednesday we went to Tulip Town at the Skagit county Tulip Festival.

Lots of pictures of tulips and people in front of tulips were taken. I got picture happy and took some really cool pictures, which we will show first.

It was soooo windy. Darren kept saying 'so winy" over and over, but we all adjusted and had a great time.


Alex's birthday was on Sunday, and he got lots of fun presents.
He also had vanilla, oreo, fudge, whipped cream ice cream cake. mmmmmm.


Last, and definitely not the least, Darren is the RED NINJA...

Day at the Olympics!

Saturday we took the three older kids and headed up to Canada to spend the day and watch our much anticipated Olympic event of Curling. We caught the skytrain, which was pretty slick, and no one threw up! Not being there before it took us a bit to figure it out but decided we would head over to the Ontario pavilion. Each territory of Canada had an area in which they showcased the culture of their territory. It was really neat. We decided that it was worth it to wait in line to watch a 4D film about Ontario. It was a 2 hour wait! But, I will say the movie (6 minutes) was pretty impressive.


While I held the place in line, Justin and Alex both participated in a hockey shoot out. If they made a goal they won a tuque. They both won! Alex also won a Canada Roots bag playing a Plinko type game.
Brittany supports from the sidelines
Everywhere we looked there was a mass of people. Being a Saturday, it was extra busy but so much fun. Oh, and the weather was gorgeous.

We grabbed lunch at a local pita place and then headed to our venue for our big event.



Alex and his tuque. That is Canadian for ski hat.

Walking to the event we saw some out of towners...well more out of town than we were.
Finally we made it! We were a bit early as we over estimated the amount of time it would take to get there. We had to hang out for a bit but finally were able to enter the stadium.

The kids, killing time.

Practicing their curling skills

I had to add this one. It isn't a picture of me, but Mr. Combover. It was (as my sister in law Heather would say,) Amazeballs.


Curling is actually pretty awesome in person. I am sure it helped that the crowd was crazy, and really helped that Canada was playing...right in front of us...in Canada. They are one of the top teams in the world. I came away with a belief that curling is a game of precision, strategy and tons of skill. And, as Aaron would say, a game where it didn't matter what country you were from, you still yelled the same things at the sweepers.

After the game we headed to the Official Olympic Superstore, picked up some more souvenirs and then to the Olympic cauldron. So glad we saw it and it was really neat at night, too.


Such an awesome adventure. Our friends even saw us on TV twice in the stands during the game. We decided it was time to leave when we couldn't walk without being offered drugs, smelling pot, hearing incredibly bad language and seeing tons of drunk people. After all, we did have our kids with us! And it was late. Back to the car and home by 1am. Thanks Mom for watching the other kids. We had a great time!

To finish it off, here is a quick video of our day highlights:

Christmas, by Justin

December flew by and since we are already into January, Justin is going to update for me. This was the end of our 2009.

Justin: Thanks Mom. Here's the scoop.



Christmas Eve we continued a fun tradition and let everybody open up a present that mom and dad chose. Once again, we got pajamas. Mom had some leftover fabric from dads blanket and shaped up some PJ pants.


After many arguments about who got to write the note to Santa Claus we made the decision to let everybody write their own.
Leaving Santa and the reindeer with a plethora of treats we all went to bed to let visions of sugarplums dance in our heads.
If you can't see I asked for a cell phone and a mini fridge for my room. Brit asked for a bed set. Alex asked for a surprise gift and Amanda asked for a real magic wand that really works.


Waiting for dad to turn on the music.


Amanda's art set and comic book.


Alex's Millennium Falcon Lego set and comic book.


Brittany's bed set and comic book.


My Dutch Oven and comic book



Dad also made Amanda and cousin Nicole a giraffe bank.



Amanda also had one other wish. Bendaroos, as seen on T.V. ( Way too many times in my book.)
Upon receiving them she burst out and in her excitement repeated the whole commercial. This was not even planned this is what she calls them.

The rest of our day...

Haircut...

While swimming after Thanksgiving I realized how long my boys hair really was. I figured if I could put his hair in a pony tail, it was time for a cut. As much as it pained me to get rid of his curls, here is my boy post haircut. Perhaps not the best picture to show but I cut off between 1 and 2 inches! My little boy is growing up!

Thanksgiving...a bit late

Thanksgiving saw us in Oregon to visit family. It was my brothers 40th birthday so we had to help celebrate! The kids had a great time playing with cousins, got hardly little sleep (are still trying to catch up) but hung in there.

Mark was showing me the cool stuff a Droid does.
A little after dinner add perusing was a challenge with little ones around but we got it done.
Funny thing about this picture is that it is suppose to be of the the pies but really like Brit's expression to her brother.


We went swimming and played at a indoor "pump it up" bouncy house facility. It was really fun and my kids schooled me in teh obstacle course.





My brother and I walked away with burns on our elbows and Aaron had a sore shoulder. Ahh, the joys of aging.


Christmas Wonderland,

With December comes concerts and performances and parties. This year Brit and Manda are in dance and had their performances this last weekend. They were so incredibly cute (if I do say so myself). Have a watch and enjoy a little Christmas cheer.