Dance Recital 2011

Elania had her dance recital at the end of May. Her Aunt Chanelle was her teacher this year and she was fabulous! I'm finally getting around to posting about it. I haven't even had time to do a scrapbook page. Brayden got to be a guest performer during the recital as a rat.

Brayden thoroughly enjoyed his experience being on stage performing the rat dance with his cousins and has expressed his desire to perform again next year.

Elania took ballet and tap this year. She loved both and learned a lot. She saw some jazz performances at the recital and now wants to take ballet, tap, AND jazz next year. She also wants to take piano lessons because her cousin Daniel did. She is definitely ambitious! We'll see in the Fall what we decide on.

Brayden (middle) during the rat dance.

Elania (2nd from the right) in her ballet performance.

Elania (left) during her tap performance.

Elania and Brayden after the recital.

Elania with her teacher, Miss Chanelle.

Year in Review

Here are the kids' Year in Review pictures. I had some iphoto issues and so I had to 'borrow' a picture from the beginning of April for Teren's March picture. Only Mardi probably would have even noticed though! I love to see how much they have changed in just one year.

Elania's Pirate Party

Elania celebrated her 6th birthday with a pirate party. She could hardly wait for the day and we were glad so many of her friends were able to come.

Here she is walking the plank while holding the jolly roger flag. Her pirate friends look on.

The pirates are all digging for buried treasure. They found pirate coins, diamonds, necklaces, rings, shells, and even crocodiles.

Elania is hitting her pirate ship pinata.

The pirates are showing me their pirate faces while saying "Aargh". I love how individual each pirate face is and how they are holding their swords!

Birthday girl with her girl pirate cake made to look like her. She wanted a girl pirate with long blonde hair, pink bandana, two earrings and a brown eye. We were both pleased how it turned out.
A snapshot of the pink pirate tableware while the pirates ate the cake and ice cream made to look like pirate ships (pirate flags in ice cream in pirate baking cups).
At the end, Elania loved handing out the treasure chest treat boxes filled with loot and a blank treasure map with stickers so each pirate could create their own treasure map.

Elania told me that it was the best birthday ever. I'm so glad that she had a great time being a pirate with her friends for her birthday.

Hawaii

Mike surprised me this year for my birthday with plane tickets to Hawaii! He even arranged for Mike and Hillary Anderson to watch ALL of our kids for us. (thanks guys!) This is the first time that we have left all the kids and enjoyed a vacation together. It was fabulous!

On Sunday we went to one of the wards there and I loved how they all started their talks by saying, "Brothers and Sisters Aloha". Then the congregation answers back with "Aloha". It took me off guard at first.

Mike and I like to see and do lots of things while on vacation. Here are some pictures of our fun time together (except for some beach pictures which we will spare you). We did go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. I learned quickly that snorkeling isn't for me because I hate to have my face in the water. Mike went snorkeling for awhile and enjoyed that.

Mike at the Battleship USS Missouri.


Us at one of the beaches on the north side of Oahu.

We took a helicopter ride to see Oahu from the sky! It was such an amazing experience.

We went to the Laie Hawaii Temple one morning and did sealings inside. It reminds us a lot of the Cardston Alberta Temple. The temple and the temple grounds were absolutely stunning.


Of course we went to the Polynesian Cultural Centre. We enjoyed spending the whole day there. We took in the Luau.

During the day, Mike was selected to go up on stage and do a Tahitian dance in front of everyone. He did really well! Glad it wasn't me that had to go up!

I did really well the whole trip and didn't cry or focus too much on missing our kids. But while we were watching the night show 'Ha - Breath of Life', I did get teary-eyed watching a baby grow up. I quickly pulled myself together though.

We went up to the north shore to see the turtles. Mike was able to get close enough for a sweet picture before this turtle finished eating and swam away. We headed over further down the beach and saw several turtles sleeping on the beach.


Our hotel was offering lei making lessons. These are the leis we made ourselves! They smelled so good and are much much better than the fake ones.
I felt up to hiking Diamond Head and so we did. I have leg issues and my legs like to randomly give out on me. Thankfully my legs cooperated for the hike and we were able to see Oahu from another point of view. This is Mike at the top of Diamond Head.
We also went to the Dole Plantation and enjoyed some super yummy pineapple ice cream. Delicious!

That pretty much sums up our trip. We had a really great time together and look forward to another trip like this in the future.