Confirmation

Cannon has been attending a weekly confirmation class since the fall with about 25 other Freshman from our church.  They finally completed the course this week and were welcomed into the church during a special service this Sunday.  We are so proud of Cannon for all he has accomplished!

In addition to his confirmation as a member of the church, Cannon and 7 others were also Baptized.  Congratulations, Cannon!  We're so, so proud of you!

Celebrating afterwards with some of his friends.

CB spring recital

So proud of how far Cannon has come playing the piano!  This was his spring recital piece.

Miscellaneous

Yep, that cat is testing his limits...walking on the railing of a second floor deck!  We have already figured out that he has used about 7 of his nine lives, and those are just the ones we know about.

Lots of rain + breaks of sun = beautiful rainbows!

Easter

After all our travels over the last few days we were glad to have a day of rest on Easter.  After church, we hung out at home enjoying the sunshine and company. 

Carlos and Diana

I didn't get a shot of me and Stevie or a family shot since Stevie changed the minute we got home from church!

Cannon had asked if he could run the egg hunt so I gave him the stuff and set him to it.  The little guys enjoy the hunt more than he does now.



Cannon giving the parameters of the egg hunt

Giving more directions...

 

And they're finally off!

She found the jackpot egg - stuffed with jelly beans and marshmallows!

A pretty good stash...

 

I made a ham for dinner and assigned Emmy and London to decorated the obligatory bunny cake.  I thought it looked like it had measles, Emmy thought it had freckles and London thought it had pimples!

 

 



Tulips!

One of the reasons Carlos and Diana came to visit now is because of the tulips.  I had told Diana that she must come to see the tulip fields in northern Washington and so they booked their trip around the timing of the tulips.  We planned to go up on Saturday when Stevie was home; however, Saturday was chucking rain, at least in Gig Harbor.  Knowing that the weather is different everywhere, we ventured out anyways.  It rained and rained the whole way (over 2 hours) but the minute we got to the fields, the rain stopped and even a little sun peeked out.  Boy those flowers are pretty, with or without rain!

Isn't that gorgeous?

Stevie, Louise, London, Emmy and ???  Oh, I think that's Cannon bundled up in there.

This was a field of daffodils that had just passed their peak.  Still, pretty impressive.

After the fields, we went into the little town of La Conner, a cute little place to shop and look at art galleries.  And that rain?  It started again the minute we got back in the car to head home. :)

Port Townsend

On Friday we took Mom and Carlos to Port Townsend, a cute little Victorian seaport north of us.  Our family went for the day back in January and Carlos had requested to go on this trip.  It's a cute little place full of artsy stores, restaurants and the like.  We lucked out and had a beautiful day up there.

Buying hand made donuts sold out of an old cable car?

Cannon in his element.  A great used book store!

Rhododendron garden

Carlos and Diana flew in last night for a week long visit.  Since I knew they would really enjoy the Japanese garden at Point Defiance Park, we headed over that way for a little outing.  Trouble is, it was raining.  But they are adventurous and I am English so we didn't really mind.

I also took them to the Rhododendron Garden that is in the park.  The rhodies around us are in bloom, but the ones at the park turned out to be a little further behind ours.  We saw a few in bloom, but I think it will be another two weeks before they're really fully out.  Still, it was pretty (and wet)!

I love the moss covered tree branches.

Geocaching

Last weekend, Cannon was invited with his friend, Dane, to go geocaching.  We have heard of this before because Cannon's friend in Virginia used to do it.  In case you are not familiar, this is a world wide activity that involves locating "caches" hidden in various locations all around the world.  You find the coordinates for the cache online and then use a handheld GPS unit to find the general location of the cache.  It then takes a bit of detective work and persistence to locate the actual cache.  A cache can be smaller than a film canister or as large as an oil drum.  Most caches are around the size of a Tupperware box.

Cannon really fell in love with this activity so we acquired a GPS unit and are now official geocachers.  He's obsessed with it, I'm a little less so but I do enjoy the fact that he is begging me to go for walks so that he can geocache.

Since the kids are off on spring break this week, it was a good opportunity to do some geocaching.  Emmy and London are on board because most caches contain "swag" - small junk toys that you swap out with something you've brought from home.  See, it fits all of us: Cannon likes the hunt, the kids like the swag, and I like the walk!

On Monday we went to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma.  It was a gorgeous day so we took a picnic along.  First we went to Stevie's office to pay him a surprise visit and since getting to his office entails going past Legendary Donuts...we just had to stop there for dessert.

 

Emmy's donut that's bigger than her head!

No, they didn't eat the whole thing at once!

After lunch we set off through the Japanese garden to find the first cache.  All the flowers are in full bloom so it was a chance for a few photos for me...

Love the red rhododendrons

We hiked on to find the next cache.  So this is what it could look like - it was hidden in the dead tree:

We walked for miles stopping occasionally to find a cache.  By the end, Emmy and London were beginning to loose interest since we couldn't find the last one.  They became much more interested in the three bald eagles that landed in the trees above our heads, and truth be told, so did I!

If you look in the middle of the picture you'll see one of the eagles.  I didn't have my telephoto lens with me for a closer picture.

Emmy and London are making their eagle calls trying to lure the bird out.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do if that worked...

Mick-a-doo, being very patient.

Here's my "happy accident" photo - I was trying to capture the eagle flying overhead, but I had my settings wrong on the camera.  Turned out to be a pretty cool picture though...