Hollywood and Haircuts

I got to spend a week in California at the beginning of July to see my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew.  I love my time with them - we always eat amazing food and their kids are SO sweet.  Wil and Holly live in the Hollywood hills and we watched some great fireworks on the 4th of July - they have amazing views from their house.  Here are their precious little ones and a house I swear looks like Tony Stark's house in Iron Man.  I made my brother take pictures of it while we were driving to/from Kiki's school.

Kepler

Kiki 

Tony Stark's house

Carson's new do!  He asked for this style and dad was able to do a great job cutting it.

From the front

I cut a couple inches off Aliana's hair too - the curls were getting super tangly :(

Making Juice - we got the idea from Curious George of course!  Kiki loves making juice with her mom.  Holly has an amazing juice maker...the blender was okay but I may be asking for a juicer for Christmas, I loved Holly's!

Sweet Aliana all dressed up.  She finished her summer soccer season and although she is pretty good at dribbling the ball, she wasn't too into the sport as a whole.  For her next activity she is asking to do "Ballerina Dancing" aka, ballet.

Alaska Trip

We took a 2 week trip to Alaska at the end of June to visit the grandparents and also see our friends where we used to live and teach in Healy.  It was a wonderful trip!

First we went to Juneau and saw Nana and Grandpa John: we enjoyed fishing, catching crab, visiting the glacier and the kids even got to sing with the children's choir that Nana leads on Father's day which was very sweet!

*The herring the kids caught was used for bait to catch a 60+ lb halibut!

Then we went to Palmer and visited Grandpa Michael and Grammy.  We fed reindeer at the reindeer farm, went for a hike in Hatcher's Pass, played at the playground and had a great time with my stepbrother Zach, his wife Margaret and their little guy Willem.  The kids loved exploring around the grandparents house, in the woods and looking after their (very patient) dog, Buck.

*Yes, Aliana is hiding in this picture.  She was a little nervous around the reindeer :)

On Solstice weekend I ran my first marathon - and finished!  That was my goal :)

We spent our last few days in Healy, staying with our friends the Menke's, visiting our church and just seeing as many people as we possibly could!

*The kids in Peggy's new ride, we had amazing weather the whole trip!