Hattie & Josie

Hattie loves to swing!

She wasn't sure about teeter-tottering with Uncle,

but liked swinging with him.

She stayed with us while Josie had her dance recital and wasn't happy when she ran over to see Grandma and Papa and they weren't home.

Josie stayed to play after the recital.  She's gotten very crafty, showing me how she can make a box out of a piece of paper, and making this cute triceratops.  We also made crowns for everyone.  She wanted to surprise Uncle with his, making some clues for him to follow to find it, while we hid from him.

Such a happy girl!

Macee sent this sweet picture of Wren napping this morning.

 

Firewood helpers

Harper, Papa and Ava in Alan's woods.  

They helped us finish getting the firewood in on

Sunday.  Papa cut down two dead trees for Alan and the girls helped haul it to the wood shed. 

 

Charb helped, too, he split a lot of the big chunks by hand that we couldn't move. 

 Papa and I used the splitter and Ava and Harper stacked it.

It didn't take long and it's so nice to have it all done!

 

Easter

It was another fun Easter get together at Cathy and Bob's house.

Lots of laughs, good food, a lot of dessert!

Bridget and Ava hunting eggs.

Hattie checking out her loot.

Charb was smitten with Brentley.

The "judges" listening to the story of the adult's egg hunt contest creation.

And the official judging.

The winner - Ty had a good story that sold it.

After the egg roll, which I didn't take a picture of, it was egg toss time.

Auna and Colby won!

Got a picture of Charb and the girls at home, we missed seeing Kelly, she had to work.

Macee sent a picture of Wren, hopefully she'll be here hunting eggs next year!

 

Logging, Josie's tee-ball

Monday we had the Chippen folks cut down one of the trees by the driveway.

They did a nice job, he limbed it first and put the limbs on the driveway so it wouldn't get damaged.  Then he cut the top out and cut the rest in chunks as he came down.  

James and Alan came over to visit a bit Wednesday, Steve put James to work helping with a chain

to move the log.

Josie's first tee ball game was so entertaining to watch!

She did great!

Coming in to score!

With her buddy Bear.

And a cute cousin picture afterwards.

Her cheering section, trying to stay warm.

 

Hawaii

Our impromptu Spring Break trip to Hawaii with the girls was a hit.

This was when we got in, early in the morning, we were all tired from no sleep so we looked around Kona and shopped a little until the condo was ready.

The view from our lanai.

After checking in we went out to look for shells, well, Ava and I did, Harper was content watching the waves.  We were ready for bed early.  After not finding any movies we wanted to watch, we started a 2010 season of Project Runway and watched it every night, good for lots of laughs.

Our first and only pretty sunset of the trip.  It was a beauty.

Monday we went to Old Airport beach to look for shells, no luck but they found a huge moray eel and

many sea slugs and crabs in the tide pools.

Then we found this beach which was wonderful, calm and clear, not many people.

They swam and dove looking for shells and at fish.  There was a crowd of people on the shore looking at a sea turtle,

Ava got a picture of it, then she noticed another one not far from Harper.

Harper was able to swim very close to it!

A funny picture after a pizza dinner in Kona.

Tuesday we went to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens.

So many fabulous huge leaves.

And flowers, this was the orchid area.

After the gardens we drove into Hilo for lunch and went to Big Island Candies where you can watch the candy being made.

Wednesday we headed south to the Place of Refuge

and Black Sand Beach.  Stopped at the Punalu'u Bake Shop where Ava and I tried

  malasadas, a Portuguese filled pastry, which we didn't care for.

More shell hunting in front of the condo.

Thursday- having breakfast in Kona before we head to the airport.

One last selfie, such a fun trip.

 

Liann's visit

We had a great visit with Liann and her Mom this morning.

Liann flew to Seattle last night to drive back to San Diego with Mariza,

who is in the process of moving to Oak Harbor.

We heard all about Liann's life.  She loves her marketing position at the Jack in the Box corporate headquarters in San Diego.  She also has a nice boyfriend of two years, and it sounds like he just might be "the one".  She also filled us in on Lindsey and how she's doing at UCSB (she's doing great).