Awana Awards Night

The Awana year has come to an end!  And I think the kids are already excited about it starting up again in the fall!  This was the one activity that all year long they were excited to attend each week.  They do such a great job at their club making it very fun, yet a time of learning about the Bible!

Both kids started out sharing some songs that they over the course of the year.  While Shane did not sing at all, Faith sang very energetically, loudly, with with great enthusiasm!  So there are only pictures of her singing and not Shane!

This was the second song - a slower song!

One last singing picture!

Here is Shane receiving his participation award. 

 

And Faith receiving her participation award.

Shane also was given an award for completing Cubbie Book 1

Faith also received an award for completing the Sparks Book One.  And both kids received a medal for their outstanding attendence!

 

And finally, I was given a parent award for helping as I brought snack for the Cubbies a few times!

We ended the evening with a hot fudge sundae for our two little outstanding Awana kids!  We are so proud of all that they learned this past year!

The Beach and Haircut

Summer seems to be right around the corner as we are having some great weather here in Southern California!  There has been very little "May Grey" this year, which means that the sun is shinning and we are taking advantage of that!  The kids enjoy riding their balance bikes down by the beach and then playing at the park at the beach.

Of course their favorite part always seems to be climbing on the rocks!

Last week Thursday night, after hanging out at the beach, we went to a hotel by the beach for a BBQ and music.  It was a great evening to eat some burgers and hot dogs outside.  It is a very family friendly event as there were lots of other kids!  Our kids loved to dance after they had their dinner!  Since this is a weekly event, we look forward to many more Thursday nights there!

Kids dancing together!!

On Saturday night, Shane received another hair cut at home!  At first he was a bit hesitant, but soon was pretty excited about the whole thing!

He liked using the brush to get all the little hairs off of his body!  And he is once again looking very handsome!

Cruise!

Last week Steve and I had the chance to go on a Cruise!  It was our first real vacation (longer than just a weekend) since our honeymoon, so we were so excited to go!  And since we were leaving the kids behind, I was extra excited to go!!  We left Long Beach on Monday and cruised to Catalina Island on Tuesday, Ensanada, Mexico on Wednesday, and were back on Long Beach on Monday.   While I didn't take too many pictures, here are a few!

Here is a view of the cruise ship, the Carnival Inspiration, from Catalina.  While it was a bit of an overcast morning, it turned out to be a beautifully sunny, warm day!

A view of Catalina!

This is the home of one of the Wriggly grandsons who lives on the island about three weeks a year.  The Wriggly family purchased the island in the 1920's (or about 1918!  I think!!), and still own a portion of it today.  Since the family also owned the Chicago Cubs, the Cubs used to do their spring training on Catalina!  Pretty cool!

Here is the Casino on the island. There is no gambling that occurs here, it is a place to dance or see a movie!  After taking a waking tour of the island in the morning, we did a tour of the casino in the afternoon!

Inside the theater portion, there are beautiful hand painted pictures on the sides.  It is really beautiful inside, and it was interesting to learn all about the history of the casion, and how people used to come over just for the night to go dancing in the 1930's!

Overall, Ensanada was not very picturesque!  We didn't go to Papas and Beer, but I thought I should take a picture since it is so well known!  We didn't spend too much time off the ship in Mexico!

Instead, we went to Hussongs, which was not such a "party" spot, but had a fun Mariachi band providing some entertainment!

Finally, one picture from the ship!  This was the lead waiter at our dinners, Albe.  He was from Costa Rica, and he was very fun and friendly!  Dinners were always a highlight as we had a great table with which to eat, and of course it is such a treat to have all the meals made and served!  We had such a nice vacation as it was a treat to just relax, spend so much time just the two of us, and eat!  And we were pretty excited to see the kids again on Friday!

Disneyland!!

It has almost been two weeks now, but I am finally posting pictures from our trip to the happiest place on earth!  While Faith had been there when she was two, it was essentially their first time going as she doesn't exactly remember that first trip!  Both kids were beyond excited to go, and had lots and lots of fun!!

Here is Faith and Grandma on the Dumbo ride!  Shane and I were riding together!  They kids loved Dumbo!

Shane was impressed with the princess pictures he saw while riding on the Carousel! 

Thankfully Grandma likes the tea cups as I cannot go on them!  I get way to dizzy!  But the kids also loved this ride.  We all went on the Pinocchio ride, which was inside and dark.  Both kids were a little scared (especially Shane!), and after that, they refused to go on any ride that was in the dark!  Even the Winne the Pooh ride, which was inside was a no go!  We did get them to go on Small World as you board the boats in the outside!

I think that one of the highlights for the kids was getting to meet the characters!  Anytime we saw one, they wanted to wait in line to get their pictures taken with it! 

After seeing Minnie, we were able to take a tour of her house!

And Tigger!  Overall it was a great day, and of course they are already asking when they can go back!