First Birthday Times Two

If there's one thing we love, it's a baby, so two babies are even better!  Harper and Riley have the best built-in birthday party theme ever, since they were born on Valentine's Day!  We couldn't wait to love on these two birthday cuties...

And our other cousins, too...

The girls thoroughly enjoyed their cakes...

The baby is even sweeter than the frosting!

Who wants more cake?  I do!

Seems like yesterday these big kids were the babies...

Watts is going to be a great daddy one day...

The three year old crew is gonna give us a run for our money...

Sweet, funny girls...

Happy Birthday, Harper and Riley!  We love you both big time!

Hawaii

Fun fact that most of my friends already know: I have always wanted to go to Hawaii!  Hawaii has become something of a punchline in our marriage, because I thought we should go there on our honeymoon, but we were young, dumb, and broke, so we went to Orlando instead.  We decided to make Hawaii a goal for a milestone anniversary, but at five years Damon was in law school, at ten years we had a nursing baby, at fifteen years we had 4 small kids...you get the point, it never happened...that is, until now!  Thanks to the magic of continuing education conferences, we had the chance to take a quick trip, just the two of us.  While we were checking items off of our bucket list, we went big.  Damon surprised me with first class plane tickets!  Did you know there is ice cream in first class?  There is, and it's magical...

We did a rainforest hike and saw these "walking" trees.  Their roots move to find water and eventually take the entire tree with them...

Damon got all fancy with the long exposure...

Everyone knows I can't resist a tunnel!  I think this one was for irrigation...

Bamboo...

Whale watching...

Thar she blows!

We checked another item off the bucket list by taking a trip under the sea in a submarine.  It was JUST LIKE 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!  Okay, not really....

The submarine was not built for guys Damon's size...

In Hawaii where it never rains, it rained on us.  Heavily.  And rained out our luau.  I was not thrilled...

Once the storm clouds cleared, we took a walk along the coastline and checked out the giant snails...

And beautiful scenery...

View from take-off...

So, my first trip to Hawaii was awesome and made me want to go back soon and stay there long enough to get used to the time zone.  Plus, I think the kids would love it, so I would like to take them, too.  What a great big world God made for us to explore!  

The Mighty Hunters

Pawpaw's main winter pastime is hunting, and Stella took her first hunting trip with him a few years back, but schedules have been a lot more hectic for the three younger siblings since then, so it wasn't until this year that Cille and Watts got to make their first hunt together.  Here they are, all camouflaged and ready to go...

Daddy took Cille to a stand and Pawpaw took Watts.  Rubber boots were a necessary piece of equipment, as you can probably tell by the state of Damon's pants in the post-hunt shot...

No animals were harmed on the hunting expedition, since Watts and Cille are really more conservationists than hunters, but a good time was had by all.

Field Trip Fun with Watts

What better place to find dinosaurs than the swamp, am I right?  Watts' class visited the Prehistoric Park in Henderson to wrap up their unit on dinosaurs.  He had a great time...

...and courteously followed the rules...

But his favorite spot may have been the playground instead of the dinosaurs, although I guess a jungle gym could be considered the "dinosaur" of playground equipment since parks don't really have them anymore...

We had tons of fun hanging out together!