Sweet Maui memories...

Maui is one of Blake and my favorite places to visit. This past week, we were blessed to be able to experience some new Maui memories with some of the most amazing friends! Praise the Lord for the amazing views, tons of laughter, probably TOO much relaxation, DEFINITELY too much sun, wonderful memories, amazing friends, phenomenal grandparents to watch our kids, and a week full of sweet Maui memories!

First, we had to leave our little sunshine. My mom was teaching Aubrey Rose how to cry to show Blake and I how "sad" she was to see us go. It actually helped make me smile as we drove away. :)

After that we met up with our friends...actually they are family too...Rob and Katie! This is Katie (Blake's cousin) and her husband, Rob. They have become such dear friends! LOVE them!!And we met up with the Patricio's (in the picture below). Blake and Garrett are brothers and these are their wonderful wives. We are all still amazed at how God brought our worlds together. (Blind date 3 1/2 years ago...AMAZING!!) We don't know how we ever lived without these four!!!! Love you guys sooooooo much!!!
One of our FAVORITE nights was dinner at Sansei in Kapalua. Soooooo fun and SUCH yummy food!!


Fun memories in Lahaina

Tommy Bahamas in Wailea
And of course pool side, at our resort, where we spent majority of our days.
Yes, Garrett and Blake got matching board shorts. Yes, they wore them on the same day. Yes, they were asked if they were brothers. Yes, we laughed at (and with) them all day! HA!!!
Ahhhh, if only we could move ALL of our loved ones to Maui. Then again, if we did we wouldn't appreciate it as much as we do. Praise the Lord for sweet Maui memories! Such a fun week!!

Setting the camera timer

We put our camera on a tri pod the other day to take a family picture. Aubrey Rose thought it was so cool, so she wanted to try to make it work herself. She loved how you press a button, the camera lights up, then flashes and takes the picture. I think she took like 15 pictures. Here are a few of her fun...

The first picture...she pressed the button and ran to get in the picture. (HA! I think she has seen this happen once too many times.) :)

The next picture Daddy showed her how to have even more fun with the timer... And more fun...
And more crazy, adorable fun...
Aubrey Rose has definitely gotten the hang of this timer on the camera thing...
She started to get a little bored...
So she just took pictures of Daddy...
And aimed the camera in different directions...
Daddy became bored, without Aubrey Rose... but, hey, all worth it for the fun memories, right Daddy??? :)

Amazing concert!!

Saturday night we were blessed to be able to watch Taylor Swift in concert. What a concert!! I think she definitely deserves Entertainer of the Year. It truly was a fantastic performance! She is just a classy girl who interacted more with the fans than I have ever seen. One of my favorite parts was when she went back for an outfit change and ended up right in the middle of the crowds! She sang a song from there and then SLOWLY made her way down the aisle hugging EVERY fan along the way. Then, she went down all the stairs of that section...still hugging every fan...then across the entire floor, hugging more fans...until she got to the stage. It was pretty neat to see!

Even though we didn't get to sit with everyone at the concert, since we got our tickets all separately, it sure was fun to eat before hand at Dog House and walk over to the concert. So fun! (Our husbands were there, but I have no proof of all of them! HA! It kind of looks like a girls night out with Taylor!)
Kellie Pickler opened for Taylor The poor girl broke her ankle the night before so she was stuck on her barstool. Even though she didn't move, I still REALLY enjoyed her performance.
Then, Taylor opened! So fun!!
Singing in the crowd
The second to last song
And then the last song...so fun!! One of my other favorite parts of her concert was the last song when she sang under water pouring down on top of her. How fun would that be to pour your heart and soul out for your fans for two hours and then be refreshed like this...

SUPER fun night!!!

Blake's debut!

How does it go? Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame? Well, we are enjoying Blake's maybe 2 seconds of fame. :) Here is a new commerical that is coming out for the EECU bank. And guess who made the cut?!! You got it...my husband!! Watch closely. :)

Oh, and by the way, this 2 second clip of Blake, took 4 hours to film!! What do you think...worth it????

Don't believe it...

Just in case you think everything is always perfect and put together over here....

I wouldn't believe it, if I were you.

Big girl blessing

Big girl pig tails and big girl panties!

So maybe both of these are still a work in progress.

Someday Aubrey Rose will master both.

Until then she will continue to look oh so cute...success or not! :)

I had to document the first pig tails. It just happened to be the first week she was rockin' big girl panties, too! (She has been rockin' them for about 2 weeks now.) Couple of accidents here and there, but hey little by little, we will get there.There will be a day when these things will come naturally. Until then, when asked how old she is, she will answer "twoooo" and hold up five fingers. Yes, five fingers. Just like this...
It's okay that holding up two fingers seems tricky because we know everyone has their own strengths and skills. Among others, multi-tasking has been accomplished... as well as sweet, treasured friendships growing daily with so many.

Praise the Lord for the miracle of sweet, little ones who grow to be such BIG blessings!

Happy Easter!

Such sweet, sweet memories growing up with my friend Sara. Way back when, our families went to the same church. We spent just about every weekend together. It is truly a blessing to have life long friends. Starting in high school our moms, along with a couple of other friends moms, would get together on a regular basis and pray for all of their children. They still have kept it up today over all these years! Praise the Lord for friendship and for all their prayers!

It is so fun to see where God has brought Sara and I. Married and with kids. Such a blessing! Sara and her husband Dan, invited us over for an Easter Egg Hunt. Aubrey Rose had such a great time! We loved being apart of the fun. Thanks Dan and Sara for thinking of us and for all the work you put into the day, to make it such a special day for all. We love you guys!

Below is my mom, Aubrey Rose, myself, Sara, with her daughter Tessa, Sara's mom and Sara's neice.

Our sweet, little bunny
Sara had the cutest decorations!

Aubrey Rose didn't want to get too close to the Easter Bunny...

And she didn't find any eggs during the easter egg hunt...

But, she LOVED the bounce houses...

and the ADORABLE chicks!

There were a bunch to play with.

But, her favorite might have been the swings. :)

Or at least that was when we captured the cutest,

and sweetest smiles.

Happy Easter to you all!!

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?????

Blake and I need some advice. BIG time advice. What would you do if your neighbors did THIS to YOUR trees?

Yes, these huge, beautiful redwood trees are now bare COMPLETELY on one side of the tree. Our side is lush and normal. Our neighbors side is bare and NOTHING!

Below is a picture of the trees from the street view. The neighbors had ALL of the branches chopped off from bottom of the tree to the very tip, tip top.
In the picture above, our property is on the right. (The redwood trees are ours.) The palm trees are theirs.

Below is a picture from inside our property. The flip view of the previous picture.
I don't even think pictures can do this justice. I wish you could all see for yourselves in person.
Our neighbors cut ALL of the branches anywhere near the dividing fence. In the picture below, you can see our almond tree is chopped off and then look further down to our plum trees and the tall redwood trees.
The flip view of our almond tree.
The picture below is NOT our property. This is the tree behind the neighbors who cut our branches off. So they did this same thing to the neighbors behind them too!!
Anyone have some advice for us? I would LOVE your comments, thoughts and opinions. PLEASE!!!