Last week was filed with fun gatherings and celebrations!
Sunday we were able to have a quick visit over breakfast with my cousin Curtis and his lovely wife Candace. They were in town for a wonderful yacht adventure Curtis was awarded at work. They took a few hours away from the "high life" to visit with us. It was great to hear how they are doing with their 9 month old baby and life back in Arizona. I was so glad we were able to spend time with them.
Next on the calendar was a going away party for one of my Beehives, Haylie Call. All the girls wanted to give her a fun send off so we played games, took pictures and ate chocolate chip cookie ice cream sundaes.
The Beehives
My favorite game I had them play was what I called the "Bundle Up Relay". Many of these girls have lived in California all their lives so dressing for the snow (like Haylie will be doing in Colorado) is a very different concept for them. For our relay they had to break into teams and put on winter clothing before racing a lap around the park. When they got back to the house they had to switch clothes with their teammates. First team back would win.
It was great as I listed off how they needed a jacket, mittens, a hat, scarf and boots. Watching them figure it all out and race around was a hoot. They had a blast!
Inspecting the gear
I love Haylie's face in this shot as she ran out to run with her teammate to the finish!
We were so sad to say good bye to Haylie and her family. They are great friends and fun carpool buddies! I had to take a final picture (minus the kindergartners) of our carpool gang at our last drop off.
The gang
The final party of the week was Audrey's 10th birthday party. She decided she wanted to have a Geocache themed party (think high tech treasure hunt) this year. For those of you that are not familiar with geocaching you can check out a sight here that will tell you all about it. A year ago the kids went on their first geocache adventure and they have been hooked ever since.
Audrey created her own invitations for her friends and I began thinking of where to hide our geocaches. It turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone.
We all know Audrey loves crafts so the party started with each girl decorating a nap sack they filled with snacks and water to bring along on the adventure.
Sacks decorated and ready to go
Opening the first clue. Since all the caches were in different types of containers I marked them each with Audrey's picture.
1st challenge putting a ball in the hole. It sure is nice to have a neighbor with a putting green on the side of their house:)
Audrey said this was her favorite hiding spot - up in a tree
Challenge #2 identifying a stuffed animal using clues located in the cache and "dressing" them up for the party
Challenge #3 a game of pictionary
Very excited to find a cache
Challenge #4 a game of memory matching pictures of Audrey from the past 10 years
Audrey loves to read Nancy Drew Mystery books. I've lost count with how many she has read. So for challenge #5 I had the girls search through the books to find symbols that corresponded with letters in a mystery alphabet. Once all the symbols were located they had to tape them onto the mystery alphabet poster and decode a mystery message.
The message said to sing Happy Birthday to Audrey and we were able to enjoy cake!
Audrey had strongly requested a compass cake. I tried to convince her otherwise but she had her heart set. So I made the cake and Dave came to the rescue by decorating the compass on top. I think he did a great job!
The birthday girl after the party. She is in double digits now - can you believe it? She has blessed our lives in so many wonderful ways over the past 10 years. We love you so very much Audrey!!
This is a picture of Audrey with all the cousins that will be entering double digits this year. I can't believe how fast these past 10 years have gone!
In other news Carter had some fun of his own this week. He has been waiting for his turn at school with the "Oh my I can tie" shoe. It's a shoe donated by the LA Clippers to each kindergarten class so they can practice learning how to tie their shoes. Carter brought it home and practiced on that size 18 shoe and lo and behold he can tie his shoes!! We couldn't believe how big that shoe was.
Great way to end a very eventful week!
