Hans's Birthday Celebration

Since I have to head out to San Diego tomorrow for my annual trek to the AERA (American Educational Research Association) conference, we celebrated Hans's birthday right after we finished up with our Easter Brunch! He was quite happy to dig into his presents and even happier when he opened his big gift - a set of golf clubs!

Of course, after that gift was opened we had to head over to Oak Hill (the boys school) and do some practice swings. I gave all three boys some pointers on how to properly hit the ball. It was a gorgeous afternoon to break in the clubs. After we all got some swings in, we came back here to the house to enjoy some cake. A great day to celebrate Easter and Hans! :)

Easter Morning

As is tradition, the boys hunted for Easter candy. The Easter Bunny had already put some books in each boys basket and some candy, but there was still much to find! The cats helped out a bit by sitting patiently near a candy...probably hoping that the candy would NOT be found and thus could be a toy for them! As it was, we think the boys found all the candy. Within milliseconds, Hans had quite a bit of candy consumed....Gunnar, on the opposite end of the spectrum, just might finish his by next Spring. How different can two boys be?

We had a wonderful brunch here at the house - the standard homemade cinnamon rolls, cheesy egg back, and sausage. A nummy feast...followed of course by more candy (in Hans's case anyway). :)

Has the EASTER BUNNY been here?

"MOM, CAN WE COME DOWN STAIRS YET??"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL YOU'VE HAD SOME COFFEE!!"

Preparing for Easter Fun!!

Tonight we prepared for the Easter Bunny by decorating eggs to go in both of the boys baskets. What fun that was! Both boys enjoyed the bright colored dyes for the eggs AND the stickers they could use to create the faces. Hans thought up the bright idea of using a Sharpe marker to really personalize the eggs...the craziness really got under way then! They had a ball and really created some fun eggs...I can hardly wait to EAT them!! :)

Hans turns 7 - Time to CELEBRATE with Friends!

Hans's actual birthday is April 14th, but seeing as the boys didn't have school today, we celebrated his birthday today over at the Skatin Place with some of his friends. What a great party it was (totally sold me on the idea that paying someone else to do everything is worth it's weight in gold!). There were 7 boys in total - they had a blast roller blading, playing in the game room, playing a round of laser tag, and eating, eating, and more eating. It was very cute as one of Hans's closest friends (Richard) came up to me at one point as he skated around the rink and announced in a very sweet voice, "this is the BEST birthday party ever!" Of course, I had to whole-heartedly agree with him as I sat stretched out on a bench and noshed on popcorn during the entire party. It was a blast...and most importantly, Hans had a fantastic time!!

Andrew, Matthew, and Kyle all ended up back at our house after the party, so it continued here until well in the evening. Tons of fun to celebrate a very special young man!!

Gunnar's 1st Communion at Bethlehem Lutheran

Gunnar celebrated his 1st Communion at this year's Maundy Thursday church service. It was a wonderful service followed by lots of picture taking of the proud 3rd graders. Gunnar went through the 1st Communion education with his good friend Andrew...and as it turned out, Andrew was wearing a very similar outfit (see 4 kids to the left of Gunnar, also in the front row). After the service Gunnar showed us his banner that he made for the celebration. Hans thought it was pretty cool. Speaking of whom, what was fun for me was singing throughout the service with Hans!! Now that he is a voracious reader, he was following along in the hymnal and belting out the songs like and old pro! :)

Gunnar's 3rd Grade Concert

Tonight Gunnar had his 3rd Grade concert over at Oak Hill. What a fun batch of songs the kids sang - all were songs with a friend theme of some sort. It was very sweet, especially when we saw some of the young men that Gunnar is friends with perform in solo's!! Gunnar commented that he might like to do a solo next year...of course, Orn and I were laughing inwardly at that comment, coming from the young man who doesn't open his mouth much at all during the entire concert!!

Group Pictures and some video from Mexico

This vacation that we had in Mexico was taken along with about 9 other families from St. Cloud. It was really a lot of fun to be able to spend time with good friends, and to make new friends on the trip. I think at last count there were almost 20 kids along in the trip! Here are some of the group shots that we took along the way AND hopefully a video of Hans as the star in the stage production of GREASE! Enjoy!

More fun from a GREAT VACATION!

Time for us to head back to cold and wintery Minnesota. I think if given the choice, all 4 of us would stay here for a few more WEEKS! Thas been truly a wonderful vacation. I have been able to take fabulous walks (5-6 miles) each morning with a group of gal friends who are down here too. Orn has been lounging around reading for pleasure (something I have maybe seen him do twice in our 11 years together!), and the boys have just enjoyed being boys at the beach where food and drink are plentiful. Both boys have become quite the fans of strawberry daiquiries (minus the rum of course). In fact, one of the more common statements from the trip has been Hans sidling up to me and saying, "mom, wanna go to the bar and get a daiquirie with me?" Yikes!

Orn and I walked into Playa del Carmen on our own one late morning. Very easy to do as all we had to do was say to the other parents along on this trip, "can you keep an eye on our two while we head into town?" How nice is that?! We had fun picking out soccer shirts for the boys and some fun t-shirts for ourselves as well.

More fun in Mexico!

This has been a great place to vacation! The boys have had loads of activities to participate in and of course there is always the pool, the ocean, and baseball! Both Orn and I have played catch with Hans quite a bit on this trip. Gunnar took some scuba diving lessons in the pool and loved it. Earlier in the week Hans participated in a kid's version of the musical GREASE. He was the star - Danny! If that wasn't cute, I don't know what is. Both boys have enjoyed taking part in the kid's show each evening...typically they do some sort of dance or game on stage while we adults enjoy a cocktail or two in the audience. A very fun time is always had by everyone!

Fun at the Beach!

What a great location for a very relaxing vacation! We got to the resort late on Saturday night, so our first experience at seeing where we were staying was Sunday morning. Right away we ran into some friends as we headed up to the main building for the buffet breakfast. The spread of food was amazing! The boys were in heaven with most every food they could dream of having. Orn and I were thrilled with the amazing fresh fruit and wonderful yoghurt at breakfast, in addition to all the great hot food. And the best thing of all, a STARBUCKS right across the street - as far as we (Orn and I) were concerned, the week was complete when we learned of that! Of course, the fact that our hotel is right on the beach and the pool is amazing is great too. The boys have been thrilled to be able to play catch right between the pool and the beach. Here are some shots taken the first day or two...

Off to Mexico for Spring Break!

This winter has been a LONG one already, so when spring break was about 6 weeks away, we started thinking that we had to head SOUTH! We were thinking of heading back down to Florida when a friend put me on to the idea of joining some other St. Cloud families in Playa del Carmen (about 40 miles south of Cancun). Well, one thing led to another and here we are on our way to Mexico for 5 days of fun in the sun! Yahoo! The pictures here are from the Houston Airport...needless to say, we had to take a rather 'circuitous' route there and back. Some things never change!

A Concert of Chinese Musicians at our HOUSE!

Well, the Winter Institute that Orn organized has finally concluded. We had a wonderful impromptu celebration of sorts here at our house tonight. We invited the ensemble of 8 Chinese Musicians, (who had traveled here from Nankai University, Benhai College as part of the Winter Institute), to come over to our house for dinner. We had PLENTY of leftover Chinese food from the reception we hosted on Friday, so this was a fabulous opportunity to open our home to this group of students and to eat up leftover food! :)

They brought their instruments, so after putting a slight dent in all the food we had, we sat back and listened to some amazing music. Orn was smart and pulled out our video camera, so we have a wonderful video recording of the women playing. It truly was mesmerizing music - Gunnar was enthralled. Hans didn't appear to be as taken with it, but I guess you can only expect so much from a 6 year old! After they finished playing and the boys were going to head up to bed they asked if Gunnar would play the piano for them. He did. A fitting end to a wonderful evening!