TOO MUCH NOISE!

Annalise's first grade music performance was appropriately called "Too Much Noise!"

It's a story based on a folktale about a boy and his family.  Their house is too noisy and each family member seeks the advice of the village's wise "leaders" (not wise men).  The family follows the advice of the wise leaders, gather a whole barnyard full of animals and in the end decide that the animals make more noise than they had before!  

They find that the old noises are now music to their ears.

Annalise was thrilled to be chosen as a wise leader.

She had a script and studied then memorized her lines as Wise Leader #6.

 

She was ready by the night of the show!

(Just a little nervous!)

 

Her favorite song of the night was the chicken rap!

It was time for the baby in the family to seek advice from the wise leader.

Wise Leader #6 was near the end, but was ready to go!!

Another amazing performance!

Nice work Annalise!

Annalise and Ella

It's not always easy being the "littles".

Annalise and Ella are the youngest in the camping crew.

A lot of the time they don't get to do what the "bigs" are doing.

They go along with it and do whatever.

They are like peas in a pod and they love being together. 

After Pete's birthday party, Ella got to come over for a sleepover!

It was loud.

There was a lot of talking, singing and dancing.

Yes, there was a show...

And there was a "make-up challenge" video....

But mostly it was just the two littles doing their own thing and having a blast together!

Happy Camper Birthday

Another Happy Camper celebrated a monumental birthday.

(Seems like there are a lot of these nowadays!!)

Pete turned 50!!!!!!

We went to their house to celebrate. (Minus Avery...she had plans with a friend.)

(The bigger celebration will happen when we go to Sun River in July!)

The kids were reminiscing about "old times".

You know....camping when they were "little kids".

When this group gets together, there is always a "show".

This time was no different!

Happy Birthday Pete!

Rapunzel

The first week back to school after Spring Break was a busy one for us!

The Missoula Children's Theatre was in residence at Skyline.

Students try out for a part in the play after school on Monday and rehearse for the entire week.  

At the end of the week they do 2 performances....

one for the school on Friday and another on Saturday.

Both girls decided they wanted to try out for the play.

And....both girls got parts in the play!

Avery was going to be Mother Gothel (the main character in this version of Rapunzel) 

and Annalise was a mushroom.

Because Avery had such a major part, she had to give up volleyball and taekwondo for the week in order to attend all of the after school/evening rehearsals.  

She was literally at school from about 8:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night most of the week.

Annalise only had a couple of rehearsals, but it still made for some very long days!

It was quite amazing to see what these two professional actors/directors could accomplish in just one week!  The kids were focused and had LOTS of lines to memorize!  

It was exhausting for the girls, but such a great experience!

Here's the synopsis of this version of Rapunzel....

"Would it surprise you to know that the story of Rapunzel happened in France?  Well it didn't really, but our story takes you on a frivolous frolic through the French countryside.  The Ogres garden in the Mushroom patch while the Corn and Potato spies report back to Madame Gothel.  Frenchy and his intense friends, the Wood Elves, do their best to help Rapunzel escape the grasp of Madame Gothel.  The lost Prince, Rapunzel's Parents, and her friends the Unicorns try to help.  

Just when you think it's safe to cross the bridge, a Troll and Three Billy Goats Gruff get in the way.  It doesn't help that the Three Bears (or is it four?) confuse Rapunzel with Goldilocks and chase her through the forest.  Add to that the Gremlins trying to play tricks on everyone and you have chaos!

Well, it's not that bad because the Pixies foil the Gremlin's plans most of the time.

In short, Rapunzel and all the rest of the characters tell a silly tale of personal triumph and friendship."

 

I am so proud of these girls!
Avery was unsure about the whole thing and worried that she may never memorize all of the lines!  She didn't particularly love the idea of playing the villain either....
yet...she stuck with it and had a great time doing it.
They worked so hard and did such an amazing job!

What a great experience for them!  I'm so glad they were able to do it together!!!!!

Palm Springs-Spring Break 2015

Another Spring Break....another amazing trip planned with Geoff and Robin.

We were headed for Palm Springs.

It was hot and beautiful.

The house we stayed at was AMAZING.

Seriously.....AH....MAZING!!!!!

We left Bellingham on Friday afternoon....

Geoff and Robin were already there when we got there....we just needed to wait for Annalise's booster seat.  Really? Booster seat....again???  We were beginning to have flashbacks to Hawaii.

The airline assured us that it would be on the first flight in the morning.  

We could just come back and pick it up then.

We had a great dinner, went to bed, and the girls woke up ready to hop in the pool!!!

We made a trip to the grocery store....

And then back to the airport for Annie's car seat.  Hmmmm...well...apparently you can't find anyone from the airline working unless it's an hour before a flight or 30 minutes after a flight has arrived.  They forgot to tell us that part.

We weren't happy....and still didn't have a car seat.  So...we went back to the house to swim.

(Our two fishies...Geoff and Annalise!)

 And Mark...he's funny.

Lucky for us....Gramps planned his California trip to coincide with ours.

He made it to my aunt and uncle's place just down the road about the same time we rolled into town.

He came over and hung out for a while with us.

It was hot....but lucky for us the house had "misters" outside to cool things down.

(Did I mention how crazy awesome this house was???)

Oh....and an outside tv and bar!

So pretty....

The next day was Easter, so the girls needed to prepare for the Easter bunny.

And low and behold....the next morning....the Easter bunny delivered!

He sent the girls on a scavenger hunt through the house beginning with a trail of jellybeans from each of their bedrooms.  The jellybeans led them to their first clue.

"It's on like Donkey Kong".

They thought they saw the game Donkey Kong in the cupboard by the tv....no clue there.

Then they remembered the colorful ceramic donkey in the entryway...

Yep!  Ok...next clue...something like "in a while crocodile".

They immediately headed outside....

"a journey across land is called a traverse".

They were stumped.  Really stumped.  They looked everywhere.

They finally made their way out to the garage.

Our rental car was a "TRAVERSE".

Success!!!

Geoff is a good morning person...as long as he has coffee!!

The girls opened all of their Easter goodies...

And Gramps even brought them an Easter basket.

Ok...pause for a moment. 

This COMPLETELY made me cry.  It was always my Mom who took care of those things.  Yet...here he was...hundreds of miles from home, had already been on the road for over a week, and he went and got his granddaughters Easter baskets.  Oh my.  I know Grams is smiling.  My heart is full.

Thank you Gramps.

 Couldn't skip coloring eggs....

We had planned on going over to Auntie Rea Rea and Uncle Rob's for their golf club's Easter brunch.

 

We visited with them at their place for a while, then walked over to the club to eat.

Well....some of us walked. (The girls got the special treatment!)

It was amazing.

 

We headed back to the house for the afternoon to do some swimming and hanging out.

 We did an Easter egg hunt....

...and then...Mark got hurt.

He was literally just stepping off the tanning shelf into the pool.

He says it felt like someone SHOT him in the calf.  He couldn't even walk.

It was terrible.  He limped around for the rest of the day, but was clearly in a lot of pain.

Cake didn't even help.

(Nice photo bomb Robin!)

Unfortunately, the next day was even worse.  We made an appointment to go to urgent care and get it looked at.  Mark and I went to the doctor....

The girls and the Nelsons went on an adventure to the park.

Then the girls went on a shopping and fruit picking adventure with my aunt.

We finally made it home....after an ultrasound, some pain meds and a CRAZY boot due to the torn muscle in his calf.  BOO!!!! :(  He was a great sport and was able to hobble himself into the hot tub and pool.  (There was NO way he was missing out!!!)

We invited everyone to our place for a "delayed" Easter dinner.  

(We were too full after the awesome brunch for dinner the day before!!)

It worked out well....my aunt, uncle and dad all came for dinner.

So lovely.

Mark continued to be a good sport.

We were planning on going to the Living Desert the next day.

He was determined to go.

We did the research and found out that you could rent an "adult stroller" 

(for adults and seniors only).

Geoff offered to push him around.

It was hot.

There was a lot of cool stuff to see!!!

The girls really liked the spiny cactus!

There was also a desert carousel!

It was hot.  Really hot.  We had walked (and pushed) a long way.  

The snack bar was like an oasis...beer and slushies. Both well deserved!

We continued around the loop and found this mud nest, some goats and an old train yard...

and for some crazy reason...Annalise was cold enough from her slushy to need a fleece jacket.  

Did I mention how hot it was???????

The rest of us just needed to get back to the house and jump in the pool!!!

And so we did....

The next morning we went to a place called Cheeky's for breakfast.

Gramps finally came and was staying at our house with us.

We love having him around!!

We had done our research about places to go for breakfast.

This place had 5 stars, good bloody marys and something called a "bacon flight".  

Geoff found his happy place after a 90-minute wait.

Back to the house for a day of squeezing oranges the girls had picked with Auntie Rea Rea and POOL POOL POOL time!!!

 Avery's room and courtyard....

Thursday night brought Villagefest in downtown Palm Springs.

They shut down the main street and there are hundreds of art and food vendors.

Also...GREAT people watching!!!

We started with dinner at a big pub....

We have learned to travel with pocket notebooks.

There is a lot of wait time at restaurants....we play a lot of "guess my picture" and hangman!

(Better than being plugged in to an electronic device the entire time!)

After dinner we headed into the street festival....Annalise was so excited to see Michelle Obama!!!

Then they each got a henna tattoo!

Our last full day and the girls kept bugging us to take them to Boomers.

Kid paradise...go karts, bumper boats, arcade, mini-golf.

We agreed...but only after lunch at In N' Out Burger!

Our first time!!!

The boys left us girls...but we still rocked the go karts. 

(Well...actually....Robin got bullied by some teenager and spun out.)

Then just Avery and Annalise did the bumper boats.

It was war.....

We had a great trip.

Mark was super bummed that he hurt himself and couldn't really do everything we had hoped to do.

(Guess we'll have to come back!)

At least he could still limp his way into the pool when he needed!

Love spending time with our best friends....

...and what an added bonus to have my dad there with us, too.

Spring Break 2015