My Hawaiian Girls!

MAIA TURNS THREE!

SARAH AND SPENCER"S WEDDING

Sarah and Spencer with Bob and Loretta

Trouble Makers!

CHRISTMAS 2009

All six of us posing for our Christmas pic!

Emma and Maia in their smooth ride!

Justin and Katie

The 4 girls of the family

Morgan, Mom, Katie, & Sarah

MAIA TURNS TWO!

Yes - it has been 1 year since I have updated!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAIA

MAIA TURNS ONE!

Mommy and the Birthday Girl!Daddy and Maia getting ready to blow out candles.
Maia trying to taste her cake!This looks yummy - I think I'll give it a taste!Oh my goodness - this is delicious. GIVE ME MORE!This is way better than baby food!This is the best thing ever!Sugar High!

I have never had a child enjoy their first birthday like Ms. Maia. She was a hoot and gave us some of the best laughs. She loved opening presents and couldn't get enough of her cake!

See what too much studying will do to you!

Beautiful Maia - playing with Kaelyn and having a good laugh!

KAELYN TURNS NINE!

We celebrated by having a Spa-tacular Birthday Party

Emma waiting for our Krispy Kreme Doughnut Cake!

Playing Spin the Nail Polish Game

Pictures of the Hill Family

Mom & Buds' 8 Grandkids

Mom and her girls

Justin & Katie

Beautiful Maia and her Daddy

Siblings with cheesy grins

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

to all of our family and friends.

This has been a wonderful year.

We are grateful for all of our many blessings and for all of you, who endlessly serve our family.

We Love You!

Have a wonderful holiday.

Love,

Justin, Katie, Kaelyn, Kenton, Emma & Maia

Staying up way to late!

Okay - I apologize for not posting any pics. I admit that I have been too lazy to upload the pics. . . . But I have spent the last 2 hours blog hopping - (which can be so addicting). I have caught up with friends and family from all over the country - I have enjoyed all the videos, pics, and stories - from birthday parties to crazy vacations - to families gathered around the piano. It has been fun! I have a canning session in the morning that should last me well into the night - so I better go get some shut eye. Somehow I conned Justin into helping me can a batch late tonight. He was very good at it, I might add. (I bought 6 boxes of tomatoes from the farmer's market yesterday that need to be processed ASAP.)

For our friends, The Shibatas

Konban wa. O hisashiburi desu ne. Ima, kazoku to isshou ni Washington D.C. ni imasu. Gunta no byouin de kunren ga ari mainichi asahayai basu de ikimasu. Muzukashikute mo honto ni suki desu. Boku to mina genki de suzushii tenki de yoku asobimasu. Shibata kazoku wa do desu ka? Mina genki desu ka? Atarashii skype account ga aru node moshi hanashitakattara dozo tsukete kudasai. Boku no namae wa brainmagnet desu.

We Love You, Justin and Katie

Crazy Trip Part 3

During our trip up north, we decided to go up to New England to see what we could see. We ended up just getting to go up and down the coast of Connecticut. There was just to much to see! We figured we would have to go back a time or two to check out the other states in New England.

The tricky part of this trip was deciding when to leave. Traffic is a bear in the major cities and after counting up how many cities we would have to drive through - the number came to 4: DC, Baltimore, Philly, & New York. We decided to leave late around 6:30pm (hopefully this would help us miss most traffic) In the end there wasn't much traffic (except at the toll booths) It cost $30 in tolls one-way up there (and we thought we would have way more than enough with the cash we took - turns out we only had $2 left over. Needless to say, I took more cash with us on the way home - just in case there was an extra toll or two.)

First stop Milford and New Haven.

We got in very late and Maia's sleep schedule was way off. I was up with her until 4 am. We had a slow morning (Justin took the kids down to breakfast and let me sleep in - it was so nice!) Once we headed out, we went to the Yale Peabody science museum and then we toured around Old Campus of Yale - very beautiful architecture.

Kenton in front of the Peabody Science Museum




Old Campus YALE

After all of the touring - we stopped and ate lunch at Claire's Corner Copia - it was delicious food (vegetarian fare). A little plug for the desserts there - they were amazing!

On the way back to the hotel - all of the kids fell asleep. So we thought this would be a great opportunity to relax and check out the beach. Once we got there, you could see a storm rolling in. In a matter of 10 minutes, the winds were picking up fast. Then, Justin declared, "Look, it's a bird, it's a plane. . .it's a tornado!" Of course, I begin to freak out (Justin thinks the tornado is great - nothing new for him being from Oklahoma and all) Somehow I end up driving (or rather trying to drive away from the messy weather). That was a dumb idea. The hail (I swear they were the size of golf balls, but Justin promises me they were only the size of quarters) started shooting down. I was amazed that the windshield didn't break. In the midst of all of the flooded streets the water caused our serpentine belt to come off - no power steering, car starts to over heat, etc. I saw a service center out of the corner of my eye and pulled in there immediately. (At this point I knew that the service center being literally RIGHT THERE next to us meant Heavenly Father was truly looking out for us). I began to calm down quickly (Justin was relieved --- he said I was driving like a crazy woman). The service center let us pull into the garage to keep us safe and we waited out the storm in there. About an hour later we were leaving our car there over night to be fixed and getting a shuttle back to the store ( and then the shuttle took Justin up to New Haven where we ate - we seemed to have left the diaper bag up there with all of the diapers and Kenton's epipens. So here is a plug out to Napoli Nissan in Milford, CT - they were so helpful in our time of need. - especially driving Justin all the way up to New Haven and back to get the diaper bag. - Thank you Mr. Napoli).

Here is the beach where we saw the tornado

Only a day into our vacation - we were considering going home. However, after a good night's sleep we decided to stick it out. We went up to Mystic and toured the historic Mystic Seaport - a beautiful place.

We took a boat ride through the Mystic river

Kaelyn created a scene at the Art Spot for kids in the seaport

Kaelyn and Emma hanging out on a recreation of a sailboat.


After a long day at the Seaport - we were hungry. Mystic Pizza sound famailiar? Because it is - Julia Roberts filmed one of her first films here titled, Mystic Pizza. The pizza was actually really delicious - go for the Grecian if you have a chance to eat there.

We had a great time and decided it was time to go home. Connecticut was beautiful!