Sick

Stomach bug for the last week. It's been a long week.

AWANA awards

Eva was so excited to sing the Cubbies song with her class on stage. She even asked me to braid her hair, so you know it was a big deal!

Elijah had his Sparks awards last night. He finished his book and his review section.

We are so glad the kids got to be a part of this great program.

CC End of Year Celebration

The students dressed up in costumes related to what we studied this year. Many dressed as a person in history, though Elijah had a vision from the start that he was going to be an "active volcano." He told me he wanted a brown sheet wrapped around him, and red streamers like lava flowing down. Boom. Done.

Here he is with some of his class performing a song about the Mexican Revolution. They also sang the Helping Verb song.

Elijah, little extravert, had a blast. We had such a great year this year.

What a parent loves to see

I came down from putting the babies to bed and this is what I saw out the window. 

Chillax-in

We got a hiking hammock and the kids are testing it out for us. 

Do they look like brothers?

Life Together

Peter picked a book off the shelf to read to Joseph... life together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A nice easy read. 

Dad and Mom's Visit and Half Marathon

We were blessed to have Dad and Mom for a few days here in ABQ for Dad's half marathon he was running. As always when they're here we pack it in with a lot of fun! 

Jamie and mom took the Chic Fil A challenge where they put their phones in a box on the table and didn't use them the whole time so the kids got free ice cream. 

All the kids enjoyed having Grandpa and Grandma around! Here's Eva watching some George while dad was "preparing" for his marathon. 

Saturday morning we dropped dad off at the race. It ended up being a pretty cool morning with a few sprinkles. 

After cheering dad off the finish line we went out for breakfast with mom at one of our favorite restaurants. It was a good time hanging out and tracking dad's progress through the race. 

About half way through the race we caught up with dad and I joined him for the rest of the race. It was a lot of fun walking through the valley of ABQ. Dad did a great job of pushing himself while balancing the length of the run. 

Dad finished strong! He placed third in his age group and beat his goal pace by over 20 minutes!  

Backpacking Catalina

For Hank's 40th Birthday we went on a backpacking trip to Catalina Island off the coast of CA. It was an awesome time of being with two of my brothers (and several of Hank's good friends) for a couple of days. We had originally planned to go to Sequoia National Park, but decided hiking in the snow and sleeping in freezing temperatures might be a bit to much for us as we hadn't done any real backpacking in a while. Not having a ton of time to drive from LA we stumbled upon Catalina as a hiking alternative. We were pleasantly surprised how wonderful it was while being so close to LA. 

We started our journey out by travelling by ferry first to Avalon (45min from Long Beach), and then another 45 minutes along Catalina to the more remote Two Harbor campground. 

Two Harbor turned out to be a beautiful beach "town" with a single restaurant and a general store. We grabbed some lunch prior to heading out into the wilds of Catalina. 

Here's the brave crew getting ready to head out up the mountain to our campsite.  

The Trans Catalina Trail goes straight up the mountain rides the ridges for about 5 miles. 

The views from the trail were amazing! 

The panorama shot below shows the trail we came up (on the right) and the trail we were heading towards (on the left). 

Here's a shot of our campsite right on the beach. 

Although we enjoyed the backpacking to Little Harbor, we sure didn't mind the fact the rangers dropped off the firewood at your campsite for you. I guess you would consider this plush camping. They did this for the islands good of course... not wanting people wrecking the delicate ecosystem with having people foraging for the little wood there was island. :) 

It was wonderful to go to sleep with the sound of the ocean in the background. 

On the second day we left our packs at the campsite and went for a 9 mile hike along the coast of the island. 

It's hard to see, but I had hiked out onto the plateau above the ocean for an amazing view of the coastline. 

On our way back out we came across some bison. Supposedly they brought the non-native animals to the island for a movie shoot a long time ago and they did so well they now have to regulate the herd. None the less it was fun to see them roaming the island. 

The Beach

We love the beach! The only thing that made it better was sharing it with family! 

We could see the water from the beach house, and every time they saw it, Peter and Joseph would shout "Wawa!" (Water!) David nd Hamk went for a run in preparation for their backpacking trip. We loved kayaking, watching the fishermen (Elijah spent hours hanging out with these very patient men), digging trenches, fishing with a net, and discovering big crabs, sea slugs, fish, pelicans... Inspired by the Navy Seabees museum we visited, Elijah and Isaiah played "Seabees" all week long. The Seabees digging a trench, the Seabees versus the Giant Shark (with shovel harpoons), the Seabees and the Great Wall... Eva was up for any adventure, Joseph wandered until I ran after him, and Peter kept pretty close. I soaked up as much sand and sea as I could.