What's a little water?

When I first saw this I though alex was going to be in a lot of trouble; especially since he and his dad have had some.....bonding moments in the back yard last summer (sometimes I wish Alex stayed home with the kids all the time so he would have a better understanding of cause and effect). After a little sleuthing I found out Chio was just being helpful. She would fill up her wattering can in the bathroom and then walk out holding the little handle (which is on the back and not the top - next time I'll know) and by the time she got to the flower bed in the front yard she would have about 2 tablespoons left for the flowers. Poor thing, she is so diligent I'm glad I caught on after one trip because she probably would have done it all afternoon until the flower bed was full.

Daddy's Birthday 2009

Alex had his birthday so now 29 is the new old, and his smile is still as amazing as always.

For his Birthday Alex went on line and found the most complicated cake he could and asked for that to be his birthday cake. I actually like making cakes that are more involved, but when he told me that was the only reason he picked this cake (not because he thought it looked good) I think next year he can have rice crispy treats what do you think?

The Beautiful Chio

I Know. I'm sorry. This morning Chio dressed herself and came in to talk to me and I had one of those "I need to remember this forever" moments. Then I remembered what century we're in and I went to grab the camera. The memory card was completely full and I couldn't find any more to erase so after some tape and holding the cord in three different places and not moving I got the pictures to upload - so here comes the end of 2009.

Chio is 2

I know, I'm way behind. I'm going to get even more, too, because I can't load the pictures from my camera - which causes a whole new set of problems. But the most important events I've skipped over are birthdays I think. Chio turned 2. And Alex 29 (his Birthday pictures are still on the camera). We invited a lot of people (most of the nursery) to Chio's "Mary Had a Little Lamb" birthday because we were planning on having it at a park... well, it wasn't raining very hard during the party but it rained the whole night before and all morning so the grass wasn't exactly conducive to racing and all the other games we had planned so we moved it to our house- we couldn't play the games there either but at least we weren't muddy. Let me tell you, our house is pretty small. I had a ton of fun, and Chio still asks every night if tomorrow is going to be her "birthday party with cake balls". Grandma Karen came just for Chio's Birthday so you'll have to thank her for the pictures. Thanks for everything mom. Enjoy.

Safe Camping...

This is a video of some of the cows that were herded through our camp- seen across the stream. It's a lot more impressive (meaning pee-your-pants-think-you're-going-to-die-scary) when you see them on the same side of the river running at you.

And I realized I didn't get the stream and snake pictures on the last post. So...

Katrina

This is the last stage of my New Mexico vacation. I went camping with Katrina, a great friend from high school, and some of her family and friends. I really haven't seen her very much (a couple of hours since my junior year of high school) so it was great to be able to catch up.

Some note worthy stuff that happened I didn't catch on film: we had a huge fire pit, Katrina's food was amazing, it was freezing cold at night, alex wants a monster truck, we almost were trampled by some cows, and alex said is first cuss word.

This is Katrina.

That's the cowboy who drove the cows through our camp.


That is the monster truck alex wants...it took me most of the conversation to realize that he actually has no idea what a real monster truck is he just wants a truck with monsters in it (good ones) like Katrina's.

I thought this was a great action shot, notice the splash.

This little stream was about 5 steps from our fire pit and the kids had a great dirty time throwing the rocks in.

This is Katrina and Adrian (the one who taught alex to cuss). Not intentionally. When those crazy cowboys were driving the cows through our camp I really thought I was going to die. Adrian jumped up with the rest of us and yelled "HOLY @*!#". In all the commotion I didn't really even notice but after it was over and the last of the cows and the cowboys were going through alex's says "holy @*!#, did you see those cows?" At the time I ignored it so hopefully it wouldn't bring attention to the word while at the same time thinking of the conversations we were going to have if he started saying it a lot. Later though, while the kids were asleep, we had a laugh. He never said it again, thank goodness, how do kids pick up those things?

This is Kelsey.

Pony Tails

Chio has now added hair ties to things she loves to look pretty in. She's always loved to pick out her clothes, wear skirts (NOT dresses), have pictures on her T shirts, wear jewelry and princesses shoes, and use purses; but now she has decided that she wants pony tails in her hair, too -all the time.

Chantel's speech

And here is my genius sister's graduation speech from my dad's blog.
(My sister Chantel, I have to make sure you know which one because they're all too smart for their own good).

More Pictures to see

Here are my mothers posts from our Trip. She is a much better photographer than I am so you should check them out.

Oh, What a beautiful morning

The Story of Chio and the Raccoon Eyes And here's some more pictures of it from my dad's blog.

Fishing and other stuff. I had forgotten about how much Chio enjoyed playing with the worms; that was by far her favorite part, she loves all bugs but I think she loved these worms the most because they couldn't escape her attentions.

Chio Mommy

We were going back and looking at all the videos of alex when he was growing up and I realized we didn't have very many videos of Chio. So here is one of her with some of her babies.

Rub a dub dub - Chio in a tub

In an attempt to feel like I'm actually on top of blogging again, here is what is going on at this exact moment. I think she got up there to get my chocolate and then got distracted by my sink and new bottle of dish soap (notice it lying next to her nearly empty). And what was I doing? Looking at stuff on the computer with my dad on the phone - good daughter, questionable mom.

Camping in NM

I was hoping someone else would write this story and I could just refer you the their blog but no such luck. Alex was (is currently) working crazy hours. He works his 24 hour shift and then two days working about 14 hours each and then his 24 hour shift again (please pray for him). So when I found out my sister, Teandra, was going to be in NM visiting my parents I told Alex I was going, too. Unfortunately, the crazy job changed the start date so he did end up having a few days at home by himself.

Teandra was going to go on a camping/hiking trip with my parents and other sisters but I messed that plan up because no one wanted to take the kids on a huge hike (duh) and they felt bad leaving us at the base camp with my mom (or at least my dad did) so instead we ended up having an impromptu family camping reunion on my dads side. The only one missing was his brother from Washington State. The first night went really well.

This is the view from the middle of our camp sites across this valley with a little stream running through it; we had two sites right next to each other. My sister, Iwalani, and her husband came in around 11 pm or so we set them up and every body went to bed. It's really, REALLY cold there at night - especially if you're used to living in Texas - but for the most part everyone slept well. The next morning the forest guy comes over and says that we're okay where we are but my aunt has to move because her site is reserved for the second night by someone else. She gets kind of mad because when she called to reserve sites for all of us they said "we don't do reservations" but what they meant was "our campsites are full because other people have already reserved them." So we break her camp and get them set up about a mile from us on a smaller site but we figure we'll just all hang out at our site because it's nicer anyways. So we go to the fish hatchery (see below for pictures), have lunch, take some naps, play games, and then get set up for dinner. We were planning a massive stake dinner for my cousins birthday so we started cooking around 4 or so (somethings earlier like the fresh bread). At 7:30 a different guy comes and says that we've already been told to get out by two and we better get out now. I was actually taking alex to the bathroom and then we stopped to play on a slide so I missed the fight, but apparently the guy was calling us all liars and telling us we wern't going to get any refund for the night since we weren't out by two, get out of the park because it was full and he was going to write us a ticket. The guy that told us we were fine was already gone. Around 12 they had switched the sign from available to reserved (which we of course thought was for us because they said we could stay) and that was why we were in fault. No one had said anything at 2 (which was when we were supposed to be gone and when there were still other camp sites that were open). Anyway, I get back to the camp site and Chio looks like this.

So I'm still in a good mood and taking pictures of Chio and her raccoon face, then I get out the video camera to ask her how it happened, before I notice everyone is packing up. That's when I hear the story and the guy comes back to yell at us more. We finally get everything stuffed into our cars (extremely haphazardly) and remember that we had a flat we had to change on the van (and that was before we loaded all our stuff in it). We're still being watched by the forest guy and the people who are really camping there so we just drive it to my aunts site and my dad changes it while the rest of us try to save dinner (having no fire to start with). Around 8:40 the forest guy comes back and looks at all our license plates again and says says "ohh, you're all staying then" so we explain that no, we're still leaving but it took us awhile to get dinner done because we didn't have any coals (we haven't started eating at this point still). So the guy leaves and we eat then my parents take my kids home while we stay for birthday cake and a game. At 10 pm we go to leave and the gate has been locked -it closes at 9pm. We have no service in here so we can't call my parents to let them know we're not dead, the forest guy won't let us use his phone and he doesn't want to let us out. We asked him why he didn't say anything when he stopped at our camp at 8:40 and he yells at us about how he shouldn't have to tell us everything (actually he was yelling at Jeremy and Iwalani in the other car which is good because I hate to get yelled at, but we could hear him from our car). We said we didn't think they locked the gates because the night before they weren't locked and he called us liars again before writing own license again and shining his stupid light in all our our faces and then finally letting us out. A couple hours later we made it to my parents house and my dad said he was going to write a letter.

Our food set up.


This is Chio's tackle box she uses as a purse, I think Iwalani and Grandma are rubbing off on her.

Fish Hatchery:

Chio's trying to catch that duck.



Trish, Chio and Brendon.

Reeling the fish in.

You can see the fish on the ground.


Chio caught the biggest fish and alex caught the most. Brendon caught the most that got away.