April 2017

Grapes had an Odyssey State competition in Tucson.  The Doctor and Pencil accompanied her.

Their team got 4th place (out of 11 teams) and unfortunately that meant they were ineligible to move on to Worlds.  Thankfully this trip went much better than the last time these three went to Tucson. (Dad didn't get sick this time!)

They didn't  forget to stop by and see the nearly completed Tucson Temple!

Pencil puked on this trip though... right before this picture was taken.  

(Salt River Canyon is no laughing matter for this boy!)

Feta discovered the many remarkable qualities of Chapstick. 

It makes very nice window ornaments, in case you didn't know.

Grapes entered the Navajo County attorney's office art contest (the theme was preventing suicide)

She won second place overall, and first place in people's choice!

It was so fun for me to accompany her to the conference they held that day, and to watch her win!

Feta continued to be wacky and adorable. She discovered the rips in her old blanket (not to be confused with the pink blanket of nearly same size, shape, texture and color) made for a fab-lee-us "down" for her to wear at every possible occasion. Never mind that it didn't have a back. It was her favorite!

Unless she was wearing nothing. She liked that a lot too.

She helped Grapes pick out new glasses (Grapes didn't get pink though... much to this little girl's dismay) And we only spun one rack of frames (launching them EVERYWHERE) so it was, all-in-all, a very successful optometry visit.

Socks designed (and wowed) with a pickachu pine-wood derby car.

Pencil successfully compiled his first report. He was very excited to include the important facts and display it in a artful way.

EASTER!!
We are beginning to need more eggs for coloring than we can possibly eat, but it is still a very happy tradition that we cannot hope to complete each year without our dad helping us. (it's probably one of his favorite things for us to do as a family that isn't Christmas related!)

The warm weather brought lots of dandelions, and Feta fell in love.

She would blow the 'pon-pons' for as long as we would let her.

Grapes and S-- you don't often find one without the other.
We loved seeing "Singing in the Rain" at the high school.

What follows here is simply evidence of our silly family and how much fun we have together.

I fiercely love these faces!

Sea World (Disney World Trip part 6)

February 2017

I really loved our SeaWorld day. There were lots of school groups at the beginning of the day, but they all seemed to leave around 3:00 and then we had the park mostly to ourselves!
We saw a dolphin show...

And an Orca show...

We watched fish and rays and sharks swim.

We fed a few pistachios to a squirrel.

We almost came home with a NEMO toy.

We were also privileged to meet a few of the animals that Tia gets to work with. We are truly so thankful for Tia's willingness to share such a special experience with us!

This is Bumstead and Sturby-- Male Harbor Seals

Don't worry, Tia put us to work!

This is an enormous male walrus (I think his name was Garfield!?!) 

He made some great noises and even gave us kisses. 

We didn't get to meet the famale, Kaboodle. She was next door and we could hear her. 

Tia told us she was sick. Interestingly enough, just a few weeks later SeaWorld announced the birth of their first ever baby walrus born in captivity. 

We were so close!

This is a male Beluga whale named Naluark.

We rode the rides! The fun little carnival style ones, and the BIG roller coasters. 

We really felt like we had the park to ourselves-- even staying on a roller coaster for a few rides in a row because there weren't any people in line behind us.