More San Francisco Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from San Francisco. Our hotel had an old fashioned elevator that was fun, and Jeni found a blue pearl in an oyster.

San Francisco

Dave and Jeni were able to get away and visit San Francisco. Jani came to watch the kids while Jeni tagged along on Dave's business trip.

We had so much fun exploring the city. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Warf, Alcatraz from a distance, and Ghiradelli Square. We also got to ride the cable car and go see the play "Wicked". We had so much fun in sunny California that Jeni cried when we had to leave. Jeni was amazed at how much she enjoyed city life.

Avy's 3rd Birthday

Avonlea turned 3 years old this week! She was so excited about her birthday. When I woke her up on her birthday, I said "Happy Birthday!" Avonlea replied, "It's my birthday?!" All the way down the stairs she kept repeating "Its my birthday, its my birthday. . . ." Then she asked, "Do I get a birthday cake and blow out the candles?" She picked pink cake with pink frosting. Avy was very patient and even waited a whole day to open her presents. We went to the present store and to McDonalds' for lunch where she threw up all over me. Still she had a good birthday. We are so happy to have her in our family.

Pine Wood Derby

This past week Marshal had his annual pinewood derby at Cub Scouts. As usual, Mya also made a car to race with the scouts. Marshal built a very fast car and was the grand champion "Turtle" this year. He was very excited and brought all of his old cars to play on the track before and after the actual races.

Valentine's Day

This week the family had fun with Valentine's Day. It started by making Valentine cards for Grandmas and Grandpas. Then we moved on to making Valentine's for Mya's school class. This year we did roses made out of Hershey Kisses in a flower pot full of conversation hearts. Mya and Avonlea especially had fun.

The other big event of the weekend was that Avonlea moved into her princess bed. She is almost three and has spent that whole time in her crib (we installed a crib tent to keep her in). Now that she is ready to potty train, we needed to move her to a big girl bed. So far she loves it, and loves being in the pink room.

Funny Girls

I was watching Maisy with Avonlea and Mya. Avy was singing to shake your tail, so I started shaking mine. Mya said "That's not a tail! It's a tooshie!" My girls are so funny!

Avonlea was eating a valentine sucker when she showed it to me and said "Look, it's a sloppy lolly." Kids say the CUTEST things!

Mid January Update

We haven't updated for a while, so we thought we would take the time to post some pictures and fill everyone in on what has been going on. After Christmas, we spend a few days in Little Chute at the Country Inn. They have a small water park and everyone had a good time. Avonlea loved the water slide and probably went down 100 times each day we were there. Marshal and Mya mostly enjoyed swimming in the big pool.

We have had several "snow days" for the kids the past few weeks. We had freezing rain one day that left about 1/3 of an inch of ice over everything. Our drive way was like a skating rink and Mya spend many happy hours skating on it. After two weeks it never melted, but got so cold and dry that the ice evaporated off. During that cold snap, where Fond du Lac was about -20 degrees without wind chill, the kids were out of school. Mya and Avonlea painted and Marshal had fun with his friend Austin playing Mariocart and making movies of their Lego people.

We recently said goodbye to the Klingonsmith family, who moved to India. Gavin's job moved him there to help supervise the jobs that they off-shored. We will miss them because they were great friends.