The beach!

While in Corpus, of course we had to hit the beach! This was Cali's first time to walk on the beach and play in the sand. And she only ate a couple of mouthfulls of it:) The kids had a blast running around, building sandcastles, collecting shells, finding crabs, fish, and shrimp, and jumping over the waves. Daddy even let them take a turn on his surfboard. (See his blog for those video clips). Joey loved sharing his favorite hobby with them. It was fun spending time with both sides of our family at the beach that day. Thanks to everyone who came and played with us!

Luau Slide Show

Cali's Luau

Now that I've caught up with house stuff(laundry and all that), I can finally blog about our Corpus Christi vacation! Traditionally in my in-laws culture(they are from the Pacific island of Guam), they throw a luau for babies first birthday. Aubrey and Ella both had luaus too and they rocked! Since we live further away now, the soonest we could have Cali's luau was this month. So, she was lucky and got to celebrate her birthday twice this year! And when I say luau, I don't mean just some Hawaiian themed party. I mean actual hired dancers, Kahlua pork, lots of great island food, shaved ice, the "Biba" money throw for the kids, candy leis, music, the whole shabang! My in-laws(and many others-Angie I know you worked so hard too)worked tirelessly to put this together. Joey and I want to say outloud to the world wide web-THANK YOU! The luau turned out wonderful and we appreciate everything you did. It was so fun!

The Birthday Girl

Rockin' the hula skirtCali really hammed it up and enjoyed the attention as you can see. She kept wanting to walk out to where the dancers were. I think she wanted to show everyone she has some moves too:)The dancers "Wow" Our family enjoying the show. Cali eating her grass skirt.The bbq man, Joe. He was barbecuing from sun-up to sun-down. The food was great Joe!When Cali was eating, she decided to hide some of her food in her dress-yummay. Ella enjoying her bbq
There was even a snocone stand with fresh shaved ice. The kids loved that!I even got to meet a bloggin buddy, Amber! I was so happy she came. She is in my mom's ward and I had never officially met her. We just sorta hooked up through blogging. She is awesome! And we are even psychically connected(see our matching shirts?!) :) It was great meeting you and your family Amber!Cali wanting to dig into her cakePresent time-this girl made out with presents!

Cali and her Nana and Tata
Our Three Chamorritas
I am posting all of our pictures from the luau in a slideshow(which will be my next post). We took a TON of pictures. I just decided to pick a few to post and then stick the rest in the slideshow for anyone interested in seeing them all!

Swim lessons-check.

The kids finished their swim lessons last week and they both improved SO much! We are so proud of them. Ella went from not wanting her face to get wet to putting her face in the water. And Aubrey went from a level 1 swimmer to level 3. She can now do the front AND the backstroke and she does it so well! She also learned to tread water and lots of other important stuff I don't know the names of:) I don't know if you remember last years posts about Aubrey's swim lessons last year, but the beginning of last summer(at the age of 5) she was still afraid to put her face in the water. She had been afraid since birth basically. Bathtime was always a struggle-she would totally freak if water even got close to her eyes. Last years swim lessons helped her to put her face in and begin swimming and now this year, theres no stopping her! To see her out there swimming like a fish this year is just a sight! She is even talking about wanting to join swim team(its a miracle I tell ya!). She loves to swim now, LOVES, LOVES it. Its amazing to watch your children learn and grow. It brings a satisfaction like no other.

Ready to swim!

If you look closely, you can see Ella winking at me. It made me laugh:) She is so cute.

Kick, kick, kick. Look at Ella's perfectly pointed toes. She was a great listener and always followed the directions to a tee. See how those other kids feet are like totally flyin' everywhere! Ella rocked them! I'm mean:) But you know I'm kidding.(Do I really have to clarify when I'm kidding anymore? Or can I just joke meanly and leave it at that?)

Aubrey jumping in! (She would NOT have done this last month!)

Cali and my friends daughter, Naomi, just chillin out. It was fun to have my friend, Sarah, there to chat with while our kids were in lessons.

Swim pro, Aubrey

Ella, Aubrey and their little friend, Christopher(Naomi's big bro)

Here's video of Ella jumping into the deep end in her lifejacket. The child before her jumped in and then started to cry. After that, I saw quite the panicked look on Ella's face and thought, great, now shes not going to do it. But then the teacher said, "Your turn Ella!" and Ella just did it. You can't tell in the video how big she was smiling, but she was beaming! She was so proud of herself! If you can't see the video on the blog(which I can't, darnit, whats up photobucket?), click here to view it. Also I need to give this warning: I sound like a lunatic on this video.








In this clip, you can see Aubrey doing her frontstroke and then her backstroke(or frontcrawl/backcrawl, I'm not savy on the swim terminology:) I think it helped that her goal was the muscley lifeguard she had a leetle crush on:) He really inspired her(I'm not kidding actually). If the video isn't working, click here to view.



Great job girls!

I'm baaaaaack!(say it scary-like)

We're back from our trip to Corpus and I'm finally back to blogging. And it just feels sooo right:)

I'm going to backtrack a bit to catch up on things. Okay, so rewind to the beginning of last week or so. Joey had just gotten home from the High Adventure Camp with the scouts. He is in the YM presidency so scouting is one of his duties. He had been gone all week long. I have to admit I complained about this trip beforehand. I didn't want him gone that long and I didn't want him to use up 5 days vacation for a scout trip. I'm a baby sometimes! But then I finally chilled out when I realized how much he wanted to go on this trip and how much he probably needed some manly time doing manly stuff. The poor guy is always surrounded by us girls! He definitely had a great time and I'm glad. And I survived thanks to friends that called and friends that hung out with me. Thanks girls, you know who you are:)

When Joey got home, the girls wanted to camp too. So, instead of actually camping, we did an inside campout(in our house-which is where all campouts should be:) We sure know how to rough it!). Joey made the girls a tent, let them use his battery operated lantern, made foil dinners and oven s'mores. We even told scary ghost stories and told dirty jokes(just kidding about the "dirty" jokes. They were squeaky clean:) It was a fun time and the girls really got a kick out of it. Here are the pictures from our "inside campout."

Blogcation

Taking a blogcation....be back in a few days! While I'm gone, don't forget tonight is the Camp Rock premiere on Disney Channel! Are you excited or what? Probably not, but my girls are(and secretly I am too!) Hmmm....well I guess I just told you that secret, so its not a secret anymore.

Also, those Jonas Brothers are cutie patooties, aren't they? :)

A broken refrigerator, a studly fix it man, and a girl who has found a new stylish headband

So, Sunday night I opened the freezer to find everything inside mushy and everything soaking wet. Our freezer(and then we later found out our refrigerator compartment) was broken. Being the handyman Joey is, he decided to try and fix it himself. Monday night and Tuesday night were spent working on it. He has never worked on a refrigerator before, but with the help of his Dad on the cell phone and the internet, he fixed it last night! What a studly man he is. He found the problem, purchased the part, and then replaced it successfully. Good job Joey! You saved us mega bucks with your big muscles:) I am so happy to have our refrigerator/freezer back! Living without it for the past day and a half or so was the pits. It definitely made me more grateful for it-sometimes you take things for granted and you don't realize what a wonderful blessing it is until its gone. Thanks to the Petersons and the Orrs for letting our stuff occupy your extra freezers/refrigerators in your garages. You saved our booties! I am so glad we got this fixed before our upcoming trip and I am also so glad this didn't happen while we were out of town. That would've been a nice little welcome package to come home to....

While Joey was working on the fridge, a little girl found one of his tools and had a blast. Check her out. She is a riot, isn't she?