Dance Time

Danielle had her winter formal tonight. She looked so beautiful!

Since she's on the student council she helped plan the dance and decorate for it. She's pretty impressive all around, can't believe she's mine sometimes.

Growing up so fast.

Flashback

So on our trip to Bali we took an old camera to let the kids take some pictures. I thought it was a good idea, right? Wrong! They ended up fighting over it most of the trip and I ended up taking it away several times throughout our stay, and forgot about it completely until we came across it the other day. The kids took some great pictures and some goofy ones too, here's some of their snapshots.

Avie is the photographer here and she has a very eager subject.

I love how in this picture Avie kept telling us to move back! She's an artist, very avant garde.

Our friend the frog.

Whoever took these got some great shots of the rice terraces!

The Bali Zoo

This was nice to find this camera and relive this fun trip, I might even let them do this again, maybe just make a camera schedule for the sake of peace!

Pinewood Derby

This past Saturday was the Pinewood Derby! Rayce did awesome, he had a design in mind for his car and did a great paint job. He ended up taking third place for the bears, and the surprise of the day, Avie Jo took first place in the sibling race!

Waiting for his turn.

Rayce with his pack.

Avie getting her trophy.
As the mom of a scout I'm trying to have a better attitude about scouts and not grumble about one more thing to do. It really has been a good experience for Rayce and hopefully it helps keep him on track spiritually. He's a great kid!

White Stuff

We didn't quite get a white Christmas but, the day after it started and didn't stop for a day and a half. My sweet boy Rayce had to grab his shovel and go out back to clear a path for our short-legged dog Boris to be able to ahem, do his business. What a kid.

Ha, a boy and his dog.

Osaka, Last Day

Our last day of vacation and with spending the day before solely at Universal Studios, we had one full last day to check out the rest of Osaka. We started the day at the famous Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. It's a beautiful and very large aquarium, and very expensive! It was really cool because from our hotel we took a ferry directly across the bay to the aquarium.

From inside our Hotel, Universal Port. It was cold this morning so we waited for the ferry inside!

We had to get a picture with the minion.

Just a bit windy.

It was a ten minute boat ride to the aquarium. It is a huge building.

We left the aquarium after a couple of hours and set off for Osaka Castle.

The grounds at Osaka Castle are massive, which we've come to expect. The Castle itself is beautiful and the blue sky made it stand out even more.

I think it was seven stories of antiquities and information and you can go all the way to the top.

From the top!

As the sun was setting I really wanted to go downtown Osaka with all the shops and nightlife and the kids were tired and just wanted to go back to the hotel. I won out eventually because I had Danielle on my side wanting to go find an H&M.

And guess what we found on our way.

We eventually, eventually after spending a good amount of time in H&M made it to the part of town called Dotonbori. We found the famous Glico man sign and then had to take turns posing like him.

This part of Osaka is really neat, very busy but fun. Although we didn't last too long before Avie Jo put her foot down and we had to relent and head back to the hotel.

The next morning we packed up and rode the bullet train back to our sleepy Misawa. We had a great trip. It's hard to imagine these adventures coming to an end in less than a year! Time to plan another vacation!