Spring Break!

It's Spring Break week and since Cannon is off to Nicaragua, and since I haven't left the state of Washington in 9 months, I felt the need to go somewhere!  After considering all our options, I booked a trip to see our great friends, the Jones, in Corpus Christi, Texas.  We haven't seen Liz, Don and Lydia since September and since Liz is pregnant and expecting a baby in June I thought this would be a great time to see them again.  This thought was confirmed when Liz told me it was 80 degrees there and she would take us to the pool and the beach.  Score!

So Saturday we flew down south to the Republic of Texas!  We flew into San Antonio (it was cheaper to fly there) and stayed overnight in a hotel.  The next morning we met another great Oki friend, Angie Kasuske and her daughter Becca for breakfast.  Angie's oldest son, Isaac, was Cannon's best friend our first year in Okinawa and it was really hard on him when Isaac moved to San Antonio after a year.  It was great to catch up with Angie (who is also pregnant and expecting a baby any day), even if it was a short visit.

I was feeling really skinny here!

After breakfast, we headed to the San Antonio zoo - a really nice zoo.

Riding a Komodo dragon

London compared to a condor's wingspan

Some of my favorite animals:

The flamingos.

The Okapi with his really obscene, blue tongue.

And my favorite - the hippos!  You could see them underwater and I thought it was really funny to see their big butts covered all over with colorful tropical fish.

After visiting the zoo for a few hours (and enjoying the sunshine and heat), we piled in the car and headed back to Corpus Christi.

Bon Voyage, Cannon!

Well, tonight is the night Cannon's been working toward for months now - his departure for Nicaragua! 

In case you haven't been following things too closely, Cannon's Spanish teacher announced back in the fall that she would be leading a trip to Jinotega, Nicaragua over Spring Break and the students were encouraged to join.  The trip is coordinated by a non-profit called Outreach 360 and they do service work with children in underpriviledged areas.  Cannon's group will be teaching students in a learning center in a remote mountain town.  I am sooo excited for him to go and be a part of this. 

To make the most of the experience, we had Cannon raise his own funds for the trip ($1,300) and with the help of some generous grandparents and a lot of cat sitting, house sitting and other odd jobs around the neighborhood, he came up with every cent.

Tonight Stevie dropped him at the airport and the group of 26 will fly down to Houston on the red eye and then make a connection to Managua followed by a 2 hour bus ride through the mountains to Jinotega.  We'll get one short phone call to let us know he arrived and then we're cut off until he arrives in Seattle next Saturday.  It might be a difficult week for his momma!

Emmy wanted to kiss him good-bye but you can see how he feels about that.

 

Hug from his brother.

 

Hug for mom (this was before I was in tears...)

Reaching new heights

London has been hounding us lately for a new pair of tennis shoes.  He's my little brand-conscious dresser so I thought he was just trying to get a pair of Nike's since his friend has Nike's, but when we took him to the shoe store and measured him, I quickly figured out he wasn't just putting us on.  He has grown two sizes since school started and now is firmly in the mens shoe section.  The kid wears a size 7 1/2 and he's only 9.  I think we have to expect big things in the future!  In fact, he is now only slightly shy of the size of my foot.

And Cannon is not to be outdone by his little brother.  He has grown more than 3 inches since school started and is now quickly approaching my height.  (And he's just 12.) (And yes, we wear the same shoe size.)

Sock Hop

London and Emmy's school had a fun night on Friday - a Sock Hop dance for the kids.  I really wanted to take them, but Cannon had his final meeting for Nicaragua at the same time so I "convinced" Stevie to take them.  He was all on board with the idea until our neighbor, who was volunteering at the event, told him that he really didn't want to go.  She described it as loud and with lots of kids running around going crazy.  These are two conditions Stevie does not deal with well.  So he opted to just drop them off and let our neighbor chaperone!  Stevie has had a really rough work schedule lately so I didn't fuss him too much - he needed a few quiet hours at home alone.

We had decided ahead of time that Emmy was going to wear this pink tutu thing since I didn't have a poodle skirt, but at the last minute another neighbor gave us one that her daughter had outgrown.  The funny thing was when I showed Emmy the skirt.  I told her it was called a "poodle skirt" and that it was what they wore in the '50s.  She looked at me strait in eye and inquired if it came in any other kind of dog?  Emmy loves dogs, but not poodles, so I guess she was hoping for a husky or German shepherd!

Here's my poodle girl:

And my cool cat boy:

What a pair!

Easter

Happy Easter everyone!  We had a beautiful Easter Sunday, in fact the whole weekend was just stunning.  The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and it was even warm enough for us to have dinner on the deck!

 

A rare family shot while we were still in our church finery.

 After going to church in the morning, we had a relaxing day enjoying the sun and letting Stevie decompress after a call shift on Saturday.  I actually sat down and read a book in the sunshine!  The only distraction of the day was an egg hunt for London and Emmy.  Cannon participated by hiding the eggs!

3...2...1...GO!

 

 

 

Doing just what her shirt says.

The egg hider

I left it to Emmy and London to decorated the bunny cake.

They did a pretty good job!

Emmy insisted on having a candle in the cake.

Proud Parents

Cannon came home with his standardized tests results for 8th grade this week.  Yep, you could say we're pretty proud parents.

One last trip to the snow

Before it gets too warm around here (I try to be eternally optimistic and believe that it will get warmer) and before the kids outgrow their snow gear I purchased this year, we decided to make one last run to Snoqualmie for a little sledding.

Hiking out for the first run of the day.

Sunday was a gorgeous day with the sun shining and the temperatures mild which made for a beautiful day in the snow.  At one point Stevie had shed down to his t-shirt (I had tried to bet Cannon that his dad would be taking his coat off, but I didn't think he'd strip down to his t-shirt!)

We all enjoyed the day, but after a few rough sledding runs for me and Emmy (the snow was getting packed and hard), we decided to call it a day.  It was cute when after a sled run that scratched her chin, Emmy turns to me and says, "Sledding is kind of dangerous."  I concurred when I made a run down a particularly steep hill and ended it by doing a back flip with a face plant in the snow resulting in a resounding "crack" from my neck.  Time to put away the snow pants for this year!

Snow angels

They didn't actually make this, just posed with it!