Amelia Grace turns ONE!

Amelia celebrated her FIRST Birthday!

It seems so unreal that one year has passed.  She has met all of her milestones and had a great year!  She's a tiny little thing with a whole lot of personality - a spitfire actually!  She only weighed in at 15 pounds 14 ounces at her one year check-up and has her doctor pinging, but after blood work, monthly weight checks, and much reassurance from mom, he has relaxed a bit and realizes she is just little!  :)  The good thing about being little is that she gets to wear her clothes for a really long time!  She is still fitting into her 6 month clothing!  Woo Hoo!  She started taking steps around 10 months, but true to her personality, she is just now walking at 12 months, on her own time schedule!  Once I stopped breastfeeding, she started sleeping through the night, so that has been another one of her blessings!  We look forward to another year of growth, increased language skills, and laughter!

Visit to Colorado Springs

Immediately after our company departed, our family boarded a plane destined for Colorado Springs!  Dan attended an Orthodontic Conference, and I couldn't let a Colorado trip pass me by!  We were hosted by the Clancy family, which was a great reunion from our Okinawa days!  It was super fun catching up with my friend Carrie and the kids had a great time shooting pool with "the boys" (Ryan, Kyle, and Connor).  We were able to do quite a bit of sightseeing, before the horrible fire broke out, which has pretty much decimated  an entire neighborhood in this beautiful city.  It was wonderful to be up in the high altitude country - beautiful state, beautiful city, and a wonderful host family!!  (Now, Amelia did NOT do very well on the plane flights this time around, but I'm not going to dwell on this point!)

Visitors from Wisconsin!!

Well, it was something we were looking forward to for months and months!!  Leslie, Todd, Hannah, and Jack finally arrived!!!  We had a wonderful 2 weeks with our company from the midwest!  Barbara was able to come down and join the party for part of the visit, which was great!  We did TONS of things while the company was here:  San Francisco, Six Flags, Raging Waters, Sonoma, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, and a little bit of Vacaville and local areas!  WHEW!  It was totally AWESOME!

Baby Amelia is growing up . . .

I'll post more on Amelia soon, but this picture was taken when she was approximately 10 months old.  She continues to bring joy to our lives in every way.  She is quite a character, as you can tell in this funny photo.  She is definitely not shy or reserved and is very vocal about her desires and demands!!!

Brenna had her first piano recital with her new teacher.  She has only been playing since February, and we are very impressed with her accomplishments!  Way to go Brenna! (I'm having trouble uploading the video, so check back soon)

May Events

My mom and dad took a trip down to Vacaville over Mother's Day!  It was very special celebrating Mother's Day together with my mom!!!  We were very busy the week they were here, but managed to do a lot of fun things!  Thanks for coming down to visit us!!!

Morgan's Gymnastic Competition and Birthday

Morgan had an all around great 11th Birthday!  She competed in her first XCEL gymnastics competition in Vallejo, CA and did extremely well!  She placed in all of her events and got 4th all-around for her age group!  Way to go!  As a result of her rekindled gymnastics enthusiasm, we had a gymnastics birthday party and it was XTremely Fantastic!  (Her gymnastics team is Dream Xtreme!!)  Fun times were had by all - line dancing, tumbling, and free gym!

Spring Break in Mendocino, CA

It's been forever since I have posted a blog entry - no excuses really, just lots of company, busy kids, busy baby, and tired momma!  Well, my goal this summer is to get caught up with our happenings!  I'm taking you all the way back to April with our Spring Break!  We had a great visit with Steve, Kristen, Jon, and Eddie!  They met us in Mendocino on the beautiful Pacific Coast and we shared a vacation rental home.  It was a great vacation together - some beach combing, some hiking, and lots of quality time together!