Happy 17th Birthday Anna!

Today we celebrated Anna's 17th birthday!  It is exciting to see how much she has grown and all that changes each year, but there is the part that also stays the same - such as her request for brownies for desert!  

Happy birthday Anna!  We love you and are proud of you! 
 

A hard goodbye to Beans and something to lift our spirits - noisy dog sleep!

We have been keeping busy this week but it seems like less than normal which has been a nice breather!  On Friday night shortly before we went to bed I got this video of Taz making funny nose as he was sleeping.  Wonder what he was dreaming about!  

This morning we said goodbye to Olivier's dwarf hamster Beans who joined us in early August 2022.  He had a really good life and Olivier was thankful to have such a great hamster!  We will miss you Beans and hope you are running pain free now!

Last volleyball travel tournament for this part of the season!

Today Mason and I returned from his final travel volleyball tournament before the break for school volleyball in Los Angeles (thankfully not near the horrible fires).  The team had some curve balls thrown at them, with their head coach traveling to Arizona for a girls tournament happening the same weekend, and their assistant coach getting COVID.  So, they had someone who has helped coach before as their coach.  The first set of their first game on Saturday was more interesting because she was learning their rotation so things went a little wonky.  But overall they did very well, two wins and one loss on the day.  Here are some of my favorite photos.

On Sunday there were in a pool of four teams and had one win and two losses.  The final game was tough and they lost it in the third set.  

And on day three (elimination day) they started off with a great win!  The first two sets were super close and then they had a solid third set and got the win!  Their second game was also super close but they lost the game.  Very proud of them and coming out of the tournament with a rank of 19th out of 56 teams!  Well done!

Here is a video of Mason serving for the first set win in game one!  

And Mason had another key role in the second set of game one.  Here is that video - Mason had a nice hit over for the win!

 And now he gets ready for the school season!  

Happy Anniversary!

Today we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary, although not the way we had originally planned!  We were going to hike "our hill" but we didn't really get far before I got a horrible nose bleed and we ended up turning around so I could get more tissue and clean up!  In all of that though I did manage to get a photo of the kids and Taz.  We did play a game together so it wasn't a total loss.

Happy Anniversary!  
 

Rocket Launch!

Tonight while Anna and I were out on a walk she noticed there was something fiery spot in the sky and we realized we were able to watch a rocket launch.  It was cool to see on the very clear night.  We realized it made us anxious at first too because there are intense fires in the Los Angeles area that have us nervous about fires here too.  

 Hope for some good news soon regarding the fires...

Happy New Year - 10 p.m. style!

Today we celebrated the new year - at 10 p.m.!  We had a busy evening with Olivier and Mason having their sports activities so we were around the county (thankfully safely!) and after getting home and showered, we hung out for a bit and opted for the 10 p.m. celebration.  The kids were well setup to celebrate!

Happy New Year!

The boys finished off the celebration with these giant confetti cannons!  

It sure did leave signs of the celebration!

Last year we noticed it looked like legos and it did again this year!  

We gathered it all up and it was a lot of confetti!  

We wish you all the best for 2025!  We hope it is filled with all you need!

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with the Remillards.  It was fun to hang out and we appreciated how much these kids have grown over the years!

And this is from this year!  Growing up fast!  

This morning we had a surprise from Olivier who left us a little something for us!  Very sweet!  

Everything is ready for the kids to enjoy!  

Merry Christmas!  I didn't manage to take any more photos, including our time with the Arnolds!  I guess that is a good thing and a sign that we were all enjoying the day!