7th Birthday fun

 My Emma turned 7.. can you believe it 7!  Hard to believe for me.  She has a Wizards of Waverly Place birthday.. (not my choice)  but it didn't help that all that birthday stuff was on the clearance rack so I didn't try to change her mind too much! ha...

Don't look at the cake too much.  Not my best but she LOVED it. 

Before the party started... having fun with the balloons. 

 Working on the craft project.  Fusing beads together to makes shapes.  Anybody my age remember these?

 Blowing out her candles.

Opening her prizes.  I just love that face she is making.

 After her Birthday party we headed down to Vancouver to celebrate with family.  Here they are at Grandma Mills' house.

 Blowing out the her candle.

 And then over to Grandma and Grandpa Erickson's house to see cousins we haven't seen in a long time Boman and Ivy. (although Ivy didn't make it in the picture.)

Opening her prize from Grandma Erickson.  Thanks for having us over. 

Christmas Eve 2010

We can not forget Christmas Eve...  I almost did.  We had Christmas Eve up at Jordan's parents house as well this year.  We were staying there.  The Christmas Eve dinner spread!

 My parents joined us up there so it was nice to be with both families.  My dad even jumped in on the preparation! 

 Here for your enjoyment a series of photos...  Everyone ready for dinner.

 Grandma Erickson livening things up a bit

 Emma joined in.

 Okay Dottie's turn.

 Jordan had the timer button in his hand...  he thought he was funny!

 After dinner we reenacted the nativity!

Opening up their Christmas pj's.

Christmas 2010

 Yes it's the 1st of March and I am just getting to Christmas.  Christmas morning we spent up and Jordan's parents house.   We had a great time and was very glad to be home and back in the states. 

 Emma waiting to come down the stairs.  Checking out her stocking.

Dottie checking out her stocking.. she was the last one to wake up.  Like always!

Who found the gold coins.  A tradition Jordan's mom does.  The kids love it.  This year was a special treat as they were Australian gold coins. 

We could have just gave Cooper little cars for Christmas and he would have been happy.  To bad we didn't even do that.  He found Leah's cars that were in her stocking.

Opening up some of my prizes.  We finally got a Wii this Christmas..  we are catching up.

Leah trying on her Kiwi hat that we got her in New Zealand.. I think she liked it.  Couple of weeks afterwords Renee said she even wanted to wear it to school.

Checking out what Grandpa Erickson got.

After opening prizes we went over to my parents house.  Here the girls are showing off their new skirts grandma gave them.

Attempting to get a family picture.   Probably won't be framing this one!

Again attempting to get one of the kids.

We found a great stand in though.. isn't he cute!  Totally looks like he could be their little brother.  Thanks for playing along Leif!

living social getaway

Here is a great deal I just purchased on Living Social.   If anyone is looking for a getaway at the beach.  Gearhart OR is right next to Seaside OR.  Click on the link to take a look.  Two nights for $99 can't beat that.
http://livingsocial.com/deals/26778?ref=personalized-link-box-6340153&rpi=6340153

***  And it's sold out!  Sorry to get your hopes up, HA***

Part 3 of New Zealand - Te Puia Rotorua New Zealand Temple

Have to get back to this blogging.  I am hoping to turn this blog into a book so bear with me if you have heard too much about our trip.

 We started out in Rotorua and wanted to visit the hot springs in the area.  So we went to Te Puia. They are known for being a place of gushing waters, steaming vents, boiling mud pools and spectacular geysers.

The boiling mud pots.

They geyser

 A water hole full of boiling water!

 Not sure what was going on here.. but I liked their dresses.  Te Puia is also the National Carving and Weaving Schools of New Zealand.  I think the actual school is called Te Whakarewarewa.

This is the entrance to Te Puia.  

 After that we decided to stop by the New Zealand Temple on our way back to the airport.  We had originally planned to go another way but after talking to the hotel owner he advised us that the drive we were going to make was not worth it especially with kids.  And it would have added on an extra couple hours in the car.  Anyways so we went to the Temple.. so worth it.  It was very beautiful.  I believe it was built in the late 1950's.  You drive through town and then at the end there is the Temple surrounded by farming land.  Also which we didn't realize was that they had a LDS college there as well. 

 Cooper walking around the grounds.

 Of course they had to park the tractor right in front of the Temple..   oh well.  We were only there for a short time.  We went into the visitors center and walked around.  Chatted with the sister missionaries for a bit.  Took some pictures and then drove back to the airport.  They had a nativity all set up and we wished we could have stayed till dark to see it all lit up.  A little odd to be standing there in very hot humid weather in the middle of December looking at a nativity.

 On the way home.  We got on the plane at 7:30pm on Tuesday night, had dinner (the big pink thing on Emma's plate is a Lamington which is her dessert), watched a movie and then went to bed.  The girls slept great. Cooper even slept 6 hours at a time which was awesome.  Just wish I could have fallen asleep.  To busy checking the kids every 15 min.  Cooper had his own bed but I had to be up just in case he woke up and crawled out of it.  Then we landed at 2:30pm Tuesday.  The girls thought it was awesome to fly back in time.  We had my bro in law Andrew pick us up from the airport because we were surprising everyone. They thought we were coming home after Christmas.  But we made it home just before.  Hopefully we surprised a few people. 
We are very grateful that we had the opportunity to travel like we did.  Never in a million years did we ever think that we would be visiting Australia or New Zealand.  We loved every minute of it.  It was tough to do with the family but it was worth it all.  I would even do it again!   We met some great friends and hope to go back some day to visit.

Come What May & Love It