Aloha All! We are all doing well. I decided I should update the blog since all three of my "kids" are asleep. The house is so quiet!
These are just some pictures from last Saturday. We had 2 birthday parties that day. One at a kids gymnastics center and of course as you can tell, the other one was at Chucky Cheese. The kids love going there but neither one of them is too quick to make friends with Chucky Cheese. But really, look at him! I'm still a little scared of him myself! :) I had to post the picture of him for the benefit of my brothers and sisters and my cousins. Remember going to "Billy Bob's" as it was called then? We used to hide under the table when the characters would come by. But it was worth going to be able to play all of those games!
Anyway, we have a pretty quiet week. Bob's VB league is over and I don't start my orientation until next week.
Have a great week everyone!!

Arrrrrgh!!

Arrrgh! ahoy mateys! Sorry I've been "out to sea" for so long. :) Not too much going on here so tonight I thought I would share with you one of my pet peeves!
It drives me crazy that McDonalds and every other retailer out there are going so overboard with the Pirates of the Caribbean stuff. I hate it when they take a PG-13 movie and market it for young children. When we were in the Disney store a few weeks ago, they had a ton of Pirates of the Carribean toys. Now tell me, do 13 year olds play with toy swords? (possibly, but that's another story) If you have seen the 1st Pirates movie you know that it is not appropriate for young children. I have enough trouble getting Kenzie to go upstairs by herself. Imagine if she thought there might be scary skeletons up there!
Check out this quote from a review on www.pluggedinonline.com (One of my favorite sites. It's by Focus on the Family and they review movies, dvd's and TV shows.) :
"The villains here aren't just crusty, peg-legged pirates who break out in a round of "Arrrgh!" competitions every once in a while. Instead, they're ghastly monsters who behead prisoners, thrive on torturing their own and swallow men whole—and that's just for lunch. Not exactly family theme park kind of stuff. (Does anyone even remember anymore that this franchise is based on a Disney ride?) "
My point exactly! If the movie isn't appropriate for kids, stop marketing it for kids!! We have too many McD Pirate toys (we go there too often, but again I'll leave that for another blog!) and the kids were so excited tonight that we finally got the treasure chest. It came with tatoos and after I put one on Mason, he said, "I'm a marked man" and then something about "Davey Jones". He has obviously seen too much promotional material for that movie.
I know, I could boycott McDonalds and the Disney Channel but frankly I'm not that motivated! :) Plus, I think Bob and I are going to see the movie this Saturday! Add $20 to the movies box-office total!
Anyway, I'm sure it will only continue and I know that Bob and I will have to be even more vigilant and put our foot down when we hear "but all the other kids are seeing it...." Luckily we haven't gotten there yet! :)

Not much going on here

Sorry it's been a few days. I haven't really taken many pictures this week. Not really too much that's been "picture worthy".
Our good news for the day is that both kids are officially accepted/enrolled at Christian Academy, where I will be teaching. I kept reminding myself that God would take care of it and of course He did! :)
I saw my classroom yesterday. I have one of the biggest classrooms, of course it's because I have one of the biggest classes. :) I'm really getting excited about teaching again.
Anyway, that's about it from the Stanley household. I'll try to take some more pictures this week.

Sunny, rainy, sunny, windy, rainy, sunny.....

That describes our day at Bob's Beach Blast today. The whole big command sponsors a picnic at Bellows every year and we all went today. (For those of you who have been to visit us, Bellows is the beach that has evergreen trees right near the beach. If you went Boogie boarding this is where you probably did that.) It's one of my top 2 beaches on the entire Island!
The day was a little overcast to begin with but we got in some "water-time" before lunch. They were giving away those goofy glasses to all the kids. After lunch it got windier and started raining. After sitting by a tree shivering for a while to see if it would let up, we decided to go home early. All in all it was a fun day, even though we got rained out. :)
By the way, I had to add a cloud picture (everyone else is!). Mine isn't as cool as Stacy or Sarah's but I thought the streaks through the clouds we kind of neat. :)

Sidewalk Chalk Fun!

Hi All! As you can see we played outside with sidewalk chalk yesterday. We share a carport with our neighbors and the kids "chalked" the entire area. Mason asked me to take a picture of him next to the man that he drew. Of course Kenzie had to do the exact same thing!
Three year olds are something else! Sometimes she wants to do everything Mason does and to be just like him. And then there are times like today when she purposefully stepped on his finger wearing my high heels for no reason whatsoever! Ouch! He puts up with her most of the time but sometimes enough is enough and I hate to put it this way but she gets what she deserves!
Anyway, I have to get fingerprinted tomorrow for the background check for my new teaching job. At least their office is at the mall, so maybe we'll go shopping too. :)

Bob's Birthday!

Yesterday was Bob's birthday. The kids and I decorated a little bit while he was at work and then they hid and yelled surprise when he came home. As you can see they got quite carried away with the stickers for the signs!
Bob requested Spagetti for dinner which is perfect because the kids love it and it's so easy to make! :) Then we watched "Doogal". An ok movie but not one I would want to watch over again.
Tonight I think we are going to go bowling. They have that cosmic, glow in the dark, bowling and the kids really enjoy that.
By the way, thanks to all the Kaups who are being so supportive of my sunburn misery! I'm ok, but did start itching today which means I'll probably peel. :( I also want to be a part of Stacy and Reb's freckle/psudo-tan club! :)

Some people never learn...

When we first moved to Hawaii I wore a minimum SPF 30 sunscreen and limited my sun exposure, like a good fair skinned girl from Nebraska. Over time I built up a little color and gradually decreased my SPF factor until I was down to 6. I could spend a couple of hours in the sun with SPF 6 and get a pretty decent tan. Well, I haven't had much time at the beach in the last 6 months or so and have lost my tan. So I should have known better than to spend 3 hours at the pool with SPF 6 and not even re-apply! I am now it pain. I can't carry my purse on my shoulder because it hurts too much. I guess I just have to accept my Kaup genes and face the fact that the sun and I do not have a great relationship! :)
By the way, I did take care of my kids. They wore SPF 30 and we re-applied it at swim breaks. :)

Shopping, Swimming, Fireworks and Traffic...

...that about sums up our 4th of July holiday yesterday. :)
We parked the car on the top level of the mall parking garage around 11:30am, had lunch and shopped for a while. Then we walked across the street to the beach and let the kids play in the water for a while. Boy was it hot! Bob had to go and buy sunscreen because I forgot to bring any and our pale kids would have burned in less than 10 minutes without it!
After playing at the beach for about an hour we went back to the car, changed the kids and went to Macaroni Grill for dinner. Yummy!! Then, we went back to the car and waited for fireworks. The show was great! It was about 20 minutes long and really one of the best shows I've seen since Rosenblatt! The real fun part was that it took over an hour just to get out of the parking garage! I think I read that there were about 30,000 people down there. Thank goodness that Kenzie fell asleep! We ended up getting home around 10:30pm. All in all it was a great day. :) Hope everyone else enjoyed the holiday!

More vacation pictures...

Ok, ok that was probably too many pictures!! :)
Anyway, Happy 4th to everyone! We plan to head down to Waikiki in the afternoon, swim for a while, eat at Bob's favorite pizza place and then watch the fireworks. Getting back home in traffic will be crazy but we've never gone downtown for the 4th so we thought we'd try something different.
Have a safe and fun holiday! God Bless the USA!

Changes for the Stanley family...

Aloha everyone,
Well, we've been back from vacation just 5 days now and have had a lot going on!
The biggest news is that I got a job! I had interviewed for a 3rd grade teaching position at Christian Academy (Our churches school) just a couple of days before we went to Nebraska. Well, Friday I went in for my second interview and was offered the position! So, in August I will begin teaching again after a 5 year break to stay at home. I am really excited about it and even more excited that Mason and Mackenzie should be able to attend the same school with me. They have an all day preschool program for Kenzie and before and after school care for both kids. It couldn't have worked out more perfect! The kids aren't technically enrolled yet and preschool is looking pretty full so please pray that God will work that out. We have been trusting His will for this decision all along and I am confident that He will work out all of the details! :) He is in control!
Anyway, wanted to get that news out. Of course I will post some more vacation pictures very soon too. :)