This is Mike

Savannah

1.What is something dad always says to you? hi savannah i love you

2. What makes dad happy? me giving him hugs

3. What makes dad sad? When I make bad choices

4. How does your dad make you laugh? tickle me

5. What was your dad like as a child? like cole probably

6. How old is your dad? 20

7. How tall is your dad? bigger than mom. he is the biggest

8. What is his favorite thing to do? getting a foot massage

9. What does your dad do when you're not around? plays in the backyard with Coley

10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for? loving ice cream

11. What is your dad really good at? building stuff and camping

12. What is your dad not very good at? building me a tree house

13. What does your dad do for his job? He catches bad guys to make money

14. What is your dad's favorite food? eggs and bacon

15. What makes you proud of your dad? giving me kisses

16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be? Caillou

17. What do you and your dad do together? go to the store and go on daddy daughter dates

18. How are you and your dad the same? We both have brown eyes and brown hair.

19. How are you and your dad different? i like macaroni and dad doesn't

20. How do you know your dad loves you? because I'm just so smart

21. What does your dad like most about your mom? because he married u and thought you were so pretty he wanted to keep you

22. Where is your dads favorite place to go? to the Janss Marketplace

Cole
1.What is something dad always says to you? share

That is how far I got with with Cole. He kept saying Aunt Jenna and poop for the rest of the answers. He is really into poop right now and apparently Aunt Jenna today?

We love you and are so happy to have you as our daddy!

Mexico Part 3 (the end)

Cole was a pretty apprehensive guy in the water. He really liked it but only if someone was holding him.

The Strong Clan minus Brandt, Soupie, and fam. We wish they could have come:(

Logan and Dresden. Check out their eyelashes. I know I am biased but I think my nieces and nephews are some of the best looking kids out there.


Gathered around the fire. Sydney was in the middle playing her guitar for everyone. She took her job as entertainer very seriously.Papa John, Nana Donna
Larry, Shannon, Dresden, Logan

Natalie, Jay, Colin, Sydney


Mike, Savannah, Cole, Creed, Nicole. Our kids wouldn't look into the sun so we got this. A halo around Mike's head, much like real life.
Papa John with his grandkids

I absolutely love this picture of Savvy. She spent most of her days collecting and catergorizing sea shells

Beautiful sunset we got to watch every night. Wish we were still there!

All the kids seemed to love boogie boarding. Especially Sydney. Even when it was getting cole and dark she still wanted to stay out! Nat and Jay had to force her to come it. Savannah liked it but on a much more conditional basis.


All pics courtesy of Larry thanks so much, we are lucky to have such an awesome photographer in our family. And that's the last of our Mexico trip. Why is it that you look forward to a vacation all year and then it goes by SO fast! I love vacationing (as anyone who reads our blog knows) and when I get done I love to think about our next trip. Maybe I am wierd but I love thinking about different places, planning activities, looking at hotel room, etc. I am already planning our Greece trip for our 10 year anniversary in 2 1/2 years. So now that we're home it's kinda bittersweet. And with Savannah going to kindergarten in the fall we are going to be so tied down- not a feeling we are used to. Does anyone else get post vacation depression? Our next major trip isn't until December, but it's a pretty big one. Hawaii for a whole week with the Grimmers. That is enough to pull me out of my slump, I will start planning our activities now...

mexico continued!!!!!!!!

Check out the family resemblance! Are my (Mike) ears that large?
Brown eyed girl.........
Now this is the life!! Cole was such a good boy the whole trip. He's our little buddy.
Savannah was so so happy to be able to spend time with her Nana, Papa, Aunts, Uncles and all her cousins. We missed Brandt, Soupie and girls but are trying to get Carlie to come stay with us this summer some time.

Nana Donna and her baby boy
The band's all here. Savannah's instrument was a toy with a whistle attached. Sydney really was a little musician. I've been told she's an excellent drummer too.

An example of Cole's hat obsession. Which I am honestly thrilled with, less sun. La Bufadora. It was this huge blow hole that the kids loved.

So I had a hard time choosing only a few pics. At first we couldn't decided whether to bring the good camera or not. I was super scared we would a) get pulled over b) get robbed c) get some freaky virus or d) some one would want to steal one of my blonde sons. It turned out that I had worried for nothing. The drive down turned out to be quite the event. On the way down from Utah, the Curtis's, Rudels, and Strongs drove together. Well it turns out Sydney, our niece had an ear infection so they spent about 5 hours in Urgent Care in Las Vegas. To make matters worse, Shannon's car broke down and they had to spend some time at the mechanics. By some time I mean 3 or 4 hours. What a relaxing way to start a vacation! So by the time we all met up at the border it was 7 pm and everyone was spent. I know it's wierd but where ever we go Mike always brings his gun so I felt so uneasy not having it since we couldn't take it across the border. But it worked out ok. John provided us all with walkie talkie for communication and we started our sorjourn into Mexico. Although it was only like 80 miles from the border it ended up taking over 2 hours. What is up with the speed limit in mexico anyway!! It is like 60 kilometers per hour and since we didn't want to bribe the federallis we decided to keep it. We got there save and sound though with Creed screaming the whole way. He finally fell asleep minutes before we got to the beach house. When we got there I took him out quietly and started thinking about where I was going to put him to sleep the rest of the night. Then I tripped over a curb and dropped him (still strapped into his car seat at least) on the concrete. BAM. So much for sleeping. The rest of the trip was very awesome and relaxing though. Seriously. The beaches there were super clean and empty. We were pretty much the only families there. The sand was FULL of seashells and sand dollars, much to Savannah's delight. She gathered 100's and we realized lated that they attracted ants. Bye bye shells.........Let me tell you a little about our bedroom. We got the master which was awesome since it had a king bed. It had an amazing view of the ocean since one of the walls was glass. The only problem was that the other side of the glass was the living room! Hello people, who builds a master with a glass wall into the living room?? Then, there was a glass wall looking into the bathtub/shower from the bedroom. But the funny part was on the shower side it was a mirror. So it was this one way mirror where you could watch yourself taking a shower whilst someone else also gets to sneak a peek. So hilarious.

Mexico

Mikey likes it! Digging holes that is.
Cole loves his hats and wears them so low he can't see without sticking his nose up in the air.
This is a good picture of the ocean and the area where we stayed with my version of the opening scene of Bay Watch! Except I'm running away from the water and not into it.
I don't know exactly why, but I love digging holes like a little kid. Cole enjoyed the holes I dug every day as they would eventually turn into small little swimming pools. I love his huge smile.


Big splash of water from La Bufadora (blow hole) just South of our beachhouse.
Nana, Papa and kids enjoying the fun at the blow hole.
Cole had such a good time and constantly had the biggest smile on his face. Totally worth getting kidnapped and contracting swine flu.
Savannah was so excited to go down to the beach with her snorkel mask on. The water was pretty difficult to see in with the sand getting churned up, but she would still just stick her face in the water and try to breath with her snorkel. Funny little girl.

First up- Sea World!

my 2nd favorite, the beluga whale. baby beluga, baby beluga. My favorite was the polar bears but they weren't too exciting this time. I was bummed.Cole in his new Quicksilver shorts, thanks grandma lorraine!
Shamu!
The hotel we stayed at had this super fun water park.

I was SO excited to take Cole to SeaWorld since he hadn't been since he was like 6 months and I knew he would love it. It was perfect weather not too hot, not too cold, the kids loved it. It was a very non-drama day as everyone enjoyed the fun shows and the new sesame street play area. I say non-drama because whenever we go somewhere big it feels like we are spending the whole time stressing out and worrying about them napping or eating or whatever. I know as kids get older it gets easier to take them places, but I am not the type of person who like to stay home a lot, so I go and do anyways!

Sneak peek at Mexico...........

Beach living

I taught myself how to french braid during the trip and I am rather proud of myself. I don't quite have the princess crown thing down but i am getting better.

They got suckers for being so good during pictures.

With my sun hat on.

Coley woley. Super happy smiley guy

I had to post this one of Creed smiling. Look at Savannah and Creed's face. They look exactly alike those little facial features, right down to the ears! Only Savannah has dark skin and Creed is fair. It is so neat to see.

We just spent an awesome week at a beachhouse in Ensenada with our extended family (mike's side). It was a blast and I have a TON of pics to go through and edit but I wanted to post a few that Mike took of the kids the last night..........sigh they are so gorgeous!! Stay tuned for more pics of our trip!

Preschool is Over!

carinn and I made this beautiful cupcake tree (can you tell i'm proud) :) they were equally yummy
bffs!
Neal likes cupcakes too!! Carinn brought the kids down so they could go to the graduation. Savannah was so happy to have Millie there!
Throwing a fit
Cole is getting the fake camera smile thing down!
Heres your diploma!
Savannah was very serious about the whole walking down the aisle ordeal. She was counting and taking her steps very carefully. It was so cute

Savannah, Miss Laurie and Miss Cotty. We will miss her wonderful teachers!!