Happy 7 Year Anniversary to Us!

A few weekends ago Young and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I love the anniversaries, not because of the celebration, but it's a time to, at least for me, to reflect on the gift God has blessed me with. This year our anniversary was on a Sunday (8/21) and I got a little teary eyed sitting in church that morning remembering our wedding day...sweet memories.
Young and I were able to find a sitter and go out the night before our anniversary, but if you know my husband, he has to do everything in grand style. Dinner wasn't enough for him...so he booked us a last minute night at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay on our anniversary night using his hotel points. The only problem...what to do with the kids...hmmm. After tossing around many ideas/options, we decided to load them up and take them with us...and I'm so glad we did, we all had so much fun! It's always nice to have a change of secenary.The kids were super excited about being in a hotel and the Ritz is an extremely family friendly hotel. As we arrived, the receptionist gave the kids a treasure map of the hotel in which they had to collect signatures of different people that worked there...ie bellman, restaurant waiter, gift shop clerk. Here they are waiting patiently for the bell man to unload the luggage so they could get him to sign their maps. Then downstairs for lunch where they collected a signature from our waiter and got coloring books and crayons.


After lunch we got the kids scooters our and hit the trails around the hotel and down to the beach.



Young taught Timo how to skip rocks...

They tried and tried to climb this little mountain but kept sliding back down on their bums...ah, to be a kid again!

Young got a phone call on our walk back so he walked a little behind us while we walked ahead. The kids thought it would be funny to "hide" in the grass then jump out to scare Daddy. As you can see, they aren't very hidden but they thought they were being so cleaver and sneaky!
The children needed a bath once we got back, before dinner, and it's a good thing I brought their goggles...they literally could go swimming in the giant bath tub! Then we caught the shuttle to downtown Half Moon Bay for a great pizza supper.
Our room came with this fun outdoor fire pit for, I'm guessing, romance and ambiance, but it turned into a fun family night of toasting marshmallows and smores!

Timo doesn't really like marshmallows, just the act of roasting them. So he catches them on fire then blows them out. I think he was getting little tired of how long it took to actually catch fire. But not Cameron, she could hardly wait to eat hers, she just wanted it warmed a little and then gobbled them right up!

The kids were exhausted! We put them to bed and enjoyed some quite time to ourselves out by the fire, it was our anniversary after all. This is how we found Timo and Cameron once we came in...so sweet holding hands while sleeping.
The next morning we took the kids down, in their jammies, to the breakfast buffet and then out to see the giant fire pit in the courtyard.
We finally finished up their treasure maps and turned them in for a little treasure out of the treasure chest.
Then Daddy took the kids out riding scooters again while Mommy got a little down time in the spa. Young and I are so blessed to have each other and so unbelievably blessed to have our amazing children! What a lovely little anniversary trip we had.

Cameron's Shiner

Timo gave his sister a little shiner, completely by accident. They were playing baseball and Cameron came in contact with the baseball bat Timo was swinging. It's hard to say who's fault it was...did Timo swing knowing Cameron was too close or did Cameron get too close know Timo was swinging?? It dosent' really matter who's fault it was, the pain was just the same, poor Cameron. But now that the dust has settled and everyone is OK, Cameron is left with this pretty impressive little black eye. These two pics were taken three days apart...the night of the accident and three days later as it was healing. We just thank the Lord that it wasn't worse considering it's location!!

Random NC photos

I've been doing lots of organizing the past week...with all my free time...and came across some photos and videos from our NC trip that I didn't post. They must have been lost in the shuffle.

The first is a set of videos of Cameron doing flips. My niece Kaylee had been showing off her moves from tumbling class. Various things like head stands, flips, cartwheels, and roll overs were right up Cameron's alley. Cameron would get all the pillows and spread them out on the floor and start tumbling.

summersaults from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Poor Timo just couldn't get the hang of doing a flip but it's so sweet how Cameron was there to encourage him..."you just got to keep practicing..."

Untitled from Sara ko on Vimeo.

One of the best things about going back home to NC is seeing a lot of my old friends. I actually got to see my best friend from high school, Lisa Yemma. She was home from her two year teaching gig in Bolivia, headed to her next two years of teaching in the Dominican Republic. We spent a day together, gabbing like a bunch of school girls and both completely forgot to get a picture made. Can you believe that??!! But it was awesome to see her and catch up like no time had passed at all.

Another day I got to catch up with another old friend, Leigh Anne, and her two daughters Emilie and Rebekah. We met up for lunch at our fav place, Chick-Fil-A!

I got to hold baby Rebekah for a little while and Cameron didn't seem so sure about me holding another baby...

One of my other friends, Debbie Roberson, is the mom of 8 year old triplets. On top of being amazing parents, they have an annual fundraiser for their son Kirby, who has autism. They started this golf benefit called Hit It Farr for Kirby that raises money for autism research. My brother does the BBQ dinner each year so we stopped by to help out and I got to see Debbie and another friend Wendy. (Wendy, on the right, and I grew up next door to each other and I consider her like my sister). Working the event kept everyone busy so I didn't have time to take pics of all the other old friends I saw there too..but it was just so amazing at all the friends, 20+ years of friendships, that come together this one time a year to help out.

I think I forgot to mention that Young and I got to slip away for one night while we were all vacationing at the beach. My parents were so gracious to watch the kids over night and we went up the road to the Marriott Beach Resort. It was fantastic! Our room was ocean view, we had some relaxing time by the pool and a super fun and yummy dinner out! Such benefits of being close to the grandparents!

And last but not least, some of the beauties of North Carolina, the sunsets. I didn't realize how many sunset pictures I took, over 15...but don't worry, I'll only put a few up here. Makes me so homesick...

Our Buddy Caleb

We tried to finish off our summer in true kid fashion...lots and lots of fun. It seems the last month before school started just flew by! I think my friend Ana and I were trying to pack in as much fun as we could before all the kids went their separate ways in various preschools. Caleb even told his mommy that he didn't need to make new friends at his preschool, he had Timo and Cameron! So sweet!

Here is a run down of our recent outings...Habitot in Berkeley. This is a great children's museum.



We had some missionary friends in town from India with their 2 1/2 year old son, Sammie...so we all took a double decker bus tour around the city. The only problem was my two were too scared to ride up top, so we had in the bottom of the bus...not at all as much fun, but oh well, we did get to see some beautiful sights in SF.




Cameron worked all summer to try and master Caleb's balance bike...she wouldn't even give it up during a snack!


While the boys did more important things like digging and dumping and digging!
And we even took a field trip up to the Jelly Belly Factory! So. Much. Fun!

I have to say, as much trouble as it was loading and unloading car seats, I'm gonna miss piling all the kids into Ana's van and heading off on an adventure...and having quiet conversation with her on the way home as the kiddies all slept . I guess there's always school breaks and vacations!