Kailua beach time

Just a few pictures of the family enjoying some beach time in Kailua.  I'm feeling a little guilty that we missed the biggest storm to hit SB in 5 years..... but not that guilty. :)

House sitting in Hawaii

We are in Hawaii for 10 days house sitting for the Hollands while they are in Utah and Colorado. We are having a blast already. Walking to the beach everyday and enjoying some warm salty water and sunshine. I am hoping that this stay in Kailua will clear up all my kids crud they have in their lungs and body. Only been here a couple days, but here are some cute pictures of my extra curly haired girl! The humidity is really making her hair wild!

Birthday Boy

We celebrated Billy's birthday last Tuesday with a beautiful outdoor day and some funfetti cake at night. After we got school done, went back into the orthodontist for William (who lost a bracket brushing his teeth the first night he had them on) we headed out to Carp to meet up with some playgroup friends and pick avocados at our friends new house and small orchard. We picked a lot of avocados! They were asking people to come pick the trees because last years crop was still on them and they want a good crop next season. Win- win for everyone right!
After picking avocados, we went to lunch in Summerland at a local hamburger place Billy had eaten at once after training out there for work. Then it was off to piano lessons for the boys. I ran a couple errands during lessons and then we headed home.
Billy had requested BBQ tritip for his birthday dinner. So once we got home I prepped the meat, readied a scalloped potato dish, chopped up brocolii and cut up a cantaloupe. It was a delicious meal! We were all stuffed after eating, but we were able to stuff down some funfetti cake drizzled with coconut cream syrup and vanilla ice cream. Happy 34 years of life Billy dear, I sure love you a lot!

Braces!!!

I don't know how William is old enough for braces... but today he went to the orthodontist and had braces put on his sweet smile. He was a trooper. He has my small mouth, so it has to be stretched out really good in order for the Dr.'s to work in there. This braces work is not even for teeth straightening, it's for mouth expanding! Just like me, his mouth is not big enough for all his incoming teeth, so they are creating room. He is such a good sport and has been very mature about the whole thing. Both of the orthodontist's at the office he is going to are awesome. Dr. White & Dr. Grube.
He is getting an early start on his mouth, so hopefully it turns out to be a good thing for him. I started teeth work in 5th grade, William is starting in 3rd! Crazy.
I see lots of blenders in our future!

Zachary's smile

Zachary lost another front tooth last night while eating dinner. Bit into his turkey burger and out it came! He has 3 missing teeth up front and a really toothless grin at the moment! :) He is a good sport though... not one complaining word. And I can already see both of his big front teeth starting to poke through. My little Zachary is growing up.

Leila's first pedicure

Leila let me paint her cute little toe nails for the first time a week or so ago. Ever since, she likes to wiggle her cute little feet and point to her toes and say "Leila's toes,  Mommy's toes"! She smiles her big cute smile and it melts my heart.

She also now fits into a beautiful homemade sweater that Erin Robb knitted? for her. She looks so beautiful in it and it completes her Sunday dresses perfectly!

Christmas camp out on Santa Cruz Island

A little over 8 years ago, Billy purchased a trip for he and I to boat out to the channel islands and camp on Santa Rosa. Well, he gave it to me on my birthday... the day William was born. Needless to say, we didn't use it right away and it was buried and sort of forgotten about.
We started talking about going out to the islands as a family recently and the gift card was unearthed. I called the boat company, Island Packers, and it was still in their records! I made the call, reserved a camp site at Scorpion Bay on Santa Cruz island, and then booked our boat ride over for the Tuesday after Christmas. It would be our family Christmas trip this year.
We could not have asked for better weather. We had some rain right around Christmas and more rain the weekend after, but hit it just right with a really warm clear day on Tuesday & Wednesday! The boat ride over went pretty well, it was a little windy and so the ocean was not completely calm. I of coarse was the one and only who got sick and lost my breakfast of the side of the boat. But Billy and all the kids did really good.
We unloaded all our gear, food, and water off the boat and had about a half mile walk to the camp ground. I thought that being winter time, we would be the only ones camping out there, but boy was I wrong about that. The camp ground was quite full actually and we were one of the only ones not staying for more than one night. It was great to see.

Once we got our tent set up and all our things stored away so that the island foxes couldn't get our things, we set out on a hike. It was a nice afternoon and the views were all clear. We didn't make it too far, but we found a pretty spot to take our family picture.

We checked out the visitors center and learned a little bit more about the island and what used to go on out there. Pretty interesting stuff.
Being winter time, the day ended all to soon. There are no camp fires allowed on the island, so once it got dark, we tucked ourselves into the tent. Billy read a book to the boys, Leila fell asleep next to me, and we were down for bed at like 6:30!

The next morning, I forced myself to change into some running clothes and headed out to watch the sunrise from the front ridge of the island. It was really beautiful. I ran a 5 mile trail along the ridge, over to Potato harbor lookout, and back into camp. All the kids had eaten oatmeal and hot chocolate by the time I got back and were running around and playing. I fixed myself the same, then we broke down camp. We took all our gear back to the loading pier so that we didn't have to do it later and rush at 3pm.  Then we set out for another hike. This time we took the other ridge toward Santa Rosa island. It was the trail I had run in the morning, so I was familiar with everything the second time. The kids all did great, except for Jameson, who wasn't to into walking that morning. What can you do, he is 4 after all. At one point when we reached the trail to loop back to the camp, I stayed there with Jameson while everyone else pushed on to Potato harbor. It was a really warm and clear day, I didn't mind laying in the sunshine with Jameson one bit. Once the rest of the crew returned we made our way back to Scorpion's cove. We hung out on the waters edge, looked for cool rocks and sea glass, and enjoyed the afternoon until the boat would come to pick us up.

The boat ride back to Ventura was full. But we had a nice spot on the back of the boat (mostly for me, just in case my stomach wasn't going to cooperate again) The ocean was really smooth and calm on Wednesday! It was warm, sea creatures were abundant, and I almost felt like I was in a movie. We saw migrating gray whales, tons and tons of dolphins, even a sea turtle was spotted! Not only that, but we were watching the sun slowly set the last leg of the ride. By the time we reached the harbor, the sun had just touched down behind the islands we had just come from. It was really beautiful AND I didn't get sick! Even with all the times we slowed down and stopped to see ocean creatures! I made it. It was a really great trip and we were all so glad we did it. The boys are already asking when we can go camping again.

Hooray for a Christmas camp out!