Claire's Party

Claire had a super fun birthday party once we were home from our trips. We rented an inflatable water slide that was a huge hit! Claire took the first slide of the day and didn't get out for about 6 hours. She took two short breaks for food and presents but otherwise she looked like this:
We did cupcakes that looked like hibiscus flowers.

So happy together:

Present time!

Mommy even got in on the action once the little kids left:

Pajama Party

Our troop had a pajamma party for fun this summer. Daddy came over and did baking soda & vinegar "rockets" with the girls.
We did a scavenger hunt.

We ate dinner.

We worked on our scrapbooks.

At the end of the evening we wound down by learning some new songs.

Maui

July 16: Our first full day in Maui. We had to hit a beach first thing. Honokowai Beach Park was walking distance from our condo. The girls weren't that interested in the water at first but when they saw Mommy, Grandma and Aunt Kim having fun jumping into the waves or just sitting and letting the waves crash over them, they finally joined in. As we played we noticed a group of sea turtles about 90 feet out into the water bobbing up and down and riding the waves.

That night we rode Quicksilver for a sunset dinner cruise. We got Claire's birthday and our 5, 10, 15 and 20 year anniversaries announced.

July 17: Our first (and only) rainbow. We had rain almost every afternoon but never saw another rainbow.

We drove up to the far west end of the island to find the lava pools and blow hole we liked so much last year. The cousins had fun finding crabs hiding in the cracks of the rocks and spotting fish in the pools.

Paul decided to be brave and jump into the deepest hole.

Each afternoon the girls wanted to swim in the pool. Emily is a very good swimmer and loves to do cannon balls and dive after toys in the deep water. At the beginning of the week, a grown up had to swim right next to Claire at all times. Each day she got stronger and stronger to the point where the girls could be in the pool alone with the grown ups watching from the side. She can now swim the entire length of a small pool with no problem! We were totally amazed by her progress this week!

July 18: We started the day at Honolua Bay. It's an amazing snorkelling site. John and I saw tons of fish including a pair of clown fish, a zebra morey eel and a puffer fish. We heard people talking about some turtles but we missed them.

For our 10th anniversary, we went out to dinner at the Lahaina Fish Co. We got a water front table right at sunset. It was perfect!

July 19: We drove over to the north-central part of the island to see the I'ao Valley State Park. It had some nice walking trails with beautiful lush scenery. Claire got to try her "jelly leg" routine on a new sympathetic set of ears, Uncle Paul's. He carried her up the 130 or so steps to the viewing area. *snicker, snicker*

We also drove all the way to the top of Haleakala to see the view from 10,000 feet over the island but our luck ran out. It was totally cloudy, rainy and COLD (49 degrees!). So we never did get to see anything from there but the scenery out the windows as we drove.

Just another gorgeous Maui sunset:

July 20: We re-boarded Quicksilver, this time decked out as a snorkel boat, for a trip to turtle town and Molokini. Emily and I spotted this guy swimming not too far from us:

There she is peeking out of the water.

John tried to coax Claire into the ocean to take a peek but she was a little freaked out by the vastness of the ocean. She was very content to stay on the boat, watch us swim and see lots of fish that swam near the surface next to the boat.

Our whole group at sunset on our condo lawn.

July 21: Our last full day! *sniff* We went with another beach day. We borrowed some boogie boards and set off for Fleming Beach. We all caught some great waves. The best though was when we were all in the water, just past where the waves broke, bobbing in the surf. It was so relaxing in the warm, clear water with some moments of alarm when we thought a wave was going to be too big to get over.

After our last group dinner, we had to take one more group shot:

Then we drove to Whaler's Village in Kaanapali to watch a hula show.

What an amazing week! We can't wait to plan our next family reunion vacation!

Happy Birthday Claire!

Claire had a pretty uneventful day on her real birthday. Poor kid was cooped up all day... on a plane to Maui! Yeah she has a tough life. When we got there I was able to have the bakery girl at Safeway customize a cake so we could have a little celebration that night.

Fire Station Visit

Our troop leader's husband is a fire fighter/paramedic with the Huntington Beach Fire Department. He invited us to come visit him at work so he could show us around. The girls got to try on the very heavy jackets.
Claire came along on her first offical scout event. She is old enough to be a Daisy Scout now!

As a special treat, each of the girls got a turn shooting water through the hose. Emily liked making the water as big as she could then making it narrow again.

Claire just went for distance.

Wisconsin

Our first couple of days in Wisconsin it was too cold to play in the lake but Papa could still take his water samples. He amazed the girls by changing the color of the water by adding different chemicals. The girls helped him determine how much oxygen and algae were in the water by doing cool "scientist" stuff.
A leading contender for our Christmas card picture:

We took a canoe trip down the Namekagon River one breezy (read: fewer bugs) afternoon. We saw a snake, deer, lots of fish, eagles, turtles and about a million trees.

But alas the excitement of it all was too much for our youngest:

Emily loved fishing this year. Daddy's friend, Karl and his son Joe stayed with us at the cabin this year. Their favorite thing to do was fishing and they were more than willing to let Emily go with them. She may not have caught all the fish on this string but she will admit to having caught the biggest ones. She may just really be a fisherwoman!

We attended a Duluth Huskies game this year. Emily's one wish for the game was to catch a foul ball and get it signed by some players. On our way into the stadium the first part of her wish came true. A ball came sailing over the wall of the stadium and into Daddy's outstretched hand. After the game was over, she did indeed get it signed!

Always a favorite place to spend a day is Wilderness Walk. The girls really wanted to feed deer but this baby pygmy goat was very persuasive in getting strokes and food.

This deer wasn't particularly hungry but she was content to be pet.

Another favorite past time - playing with cousins at the beach. They also did a lot of tubing and the big kids even tried water skiing for the first time. It wasn't very successful but at least they tried.

Happy Fourth of July! The sparklers would have been much more fun for the girls if we had explained ahead of time that they would stop burning long before the sparks got close to their fingers. As it was, the girls had very concerned faces the whole time and were not interested in holding a second sparkler even with proper warning.

Claire got to start celebrating her birthday a little early at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in the Mall of America. She got a special birthday song and a yummy dessert.

Grandpa Roger (my dad) was able to join us at Bubba Gump and bought Claire a copy of one of her favorite books afterwards as a birthday present.