Chocolate Brownie Explosion!

Last night Zachary's Cub Scout Pack had a cake auction to raise money for Cub Scout Camp. We made a Chocolate Brownie Explosion Volcano "Cake"! It turned out really cool! It is 5 layers of homemade fudge brownie with chocolate frosting, hard candy lava exploding out the top, and red vine licorice racing down the sides! The cake was purchased for $61.00!!! That was the second highest bid of the night! The top cake of the night was made by my friend Angie and someone bought it for $85.00!! The boys had a great time and it was a very successful evening :)

FINALLY!!! Our Hawaiian Vacation Photos...

This was our beautiful view from the condo we stayed in, courtesy of Brian's lovely Aunty Penny and Uncle Harry! We really enjoyed visiting with them and loved seeing the beautiful islands of Maui and Kauai! :)

We witnessed some beautiful panoramic views from the top of Haleakala on Maui!

Brian and I love the "Road to Hana" on Maui! We find it very relaxing and we think it is beautiful! It was incredibly windy, and this picture is Brian leaning over a cliff completely held up by the wind!!! DUMB!!! I was not happy at all, but I did get a great picture of his moment of possible death!

Black Sand Beach on Maui....

SCARY!! I really don't like high places, and this was completely out of my comfort zone!!

Our secret falls, that wasn't so secret this time :) There were many people visiting the beautiful location....last time we had this place all to ourselves!

Brian and I went on a guided tour of the gorgeous National Tropical Botanical Gardens on Kauai. We saw some beautiful plants and trees, but my favorite by far, was this amazing tree, that was featured in the movie Jurassic Park. It looks so magical!

We enjoyed some beautiful hikes

in the amazing Waimea Canyon on Kauai :)

Our North Shore drive on Kauai!

Winter Warm-up!

I invited over a few friends for a Hot Cocoa Party (thanks Tiffany for the wonderful idea!!!) Angie took some cute pictures of our dainty cups with personal tags, the awesome hot cocoa maker and dispenser and the yummy candy we stirred into our chocolate numminess! :)

Here are the Hot Cocoa favors I made for each guest....

Zachary receiving an award at school :)

A beautiful snow scene during a hike that Brian took with friends :)

Amelia as our beloved Mary during her Joy School nativity play :)

Christmas 2008

Finally Christmas photos posted...not much, but it's a start!

POST Thanksgiving POST

I should have posted this before our Christmas Tree post, but I didn't have my camera with me on Thanksgiving day (always seems to happen to me!), so I didn't have any pictures to post. However, my siblings did post pictures, so I'm going give links to their blogs if you want to see some Thanksgiving pictures! Poor Anna was sick that day, so I stayed home with her during our traditional Thanksgiving Breakfast at G&G Kayner's home (which is not photographed), and she stayed home with dad during dinner at my parent's home.

• Turkey Day photos on my parent's blog
• Pictures on my sister Honor's blog
• Pictures taken with my sister Karen's camera

Maybe next year I will have my act together! Until then I get to enjoy other people's photos! :)

Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree hunt is on!! After an hour of searching through all the trees we couldn't find one that we liked better than the first one we saw in the pre-cut section. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time had we just taken the one we saw first! However, the children had fun looking and playing in the trees :) ...And surprisingly enough everyone remained happy and carefree through the whole experience!! :)



The children were so excited to ride the train! They all crammed into the back of the caboose and surprisingly there was enough room for me too, but very uncomfortable!