Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Happy Birthday to Grandma Stanley! I pulled up another "vintage" photo to post. This was from our trip to the Big Island in Dec. 2004. I can't believe that was almost 2 years ago. We had such a good time. (No earthquakes, praise the Lord!)
Anyway, we want to wish Grandma a very happy birthday. Wish we could be there to celebrate with you.
Here are a few more recent pictures too. We don't dress our son in his sister's clothes, we just put bows in his hair! :)

We are A-OK!

Hey everyone! I am finally getting a post out since our big event yesterday! Wow, what a day!
Bob had just come back upstairs with the coffee carafe and 2 cups (isn't he great!) and I was sitting in bed while the kids were playing in Mackenzie's room. All of a sudden I felt the bed shaking and just as I said "Is the bed shaking?" "Do you feel that?" It got a little stronger and we could feel the floor shaking. I called for the kids to come in our room and we all got on the bed.We now know we should have gotten in the doorway but by the time we were all on the bed it stopped. So, I went to get online and the kids went back to playing. Within just a few minutes we felt another shaking and the lights started to dim very slowly. Then we lost all power completely. We had no way of knowing what had happened until we found a walkman and started listening to the radio.
To make a long story short, as you know the earthquake was about 10 miles off the coast of Kona on the Big Island. (I posted a map so you can see where we are in relation to it-we live in Honolulu) I heard that there we as many as 15-20 aftershocks but we didn't feel them. We spent the day listening to the radio and talking to neighbors. They asked everyone to stay home because the whole island chain had lost power. We found out later that the power outage was triggered by a sensor that automatically shuts down the power when any land shaking starts. The process to get everyones power back up is a long, slow process. They have to turn it back on slowly section by section so as to avoid causing any permanent damage to the lines. We got our power back about 8pm that night.
The whole ordeal was more of an inconvience than anything. It rained most the day so the kids were pretty bored!
All was back to normal today! We are just so thankful that it wasn't any worse and that nobody was seriously injured anywhere. There were so many little miracles considering the size and magnitude of this thing that I know God had his hand on these islands!
We are also using this as a "drill" of sorts and now have a list of supplies we will get this week to keep stocked up, just in case it ever happens again. :)
P.S. I just found that picture online and thought it was funny. I didn't take the picture. You can go to www.thehawaiichannel.com and see some pictures of actual damage on the Big Island.

Kenzie's Birthday!

We had a fun weekend celebrating Kenzie's birthday. We had her party Sat. at Kidsports (same place we had it last year!) I think the dads even had more fun than the kids. They had a koosh-ball "war" using their kids as runners to gather ammunition. If I ever figure out how to do video on this I'll have to post it.
After the party we went to Old Spagetti Factory with our good friends Jim, Lora and Chloe.
Then Sunday we took a family day and went to the beach. It was so relaxing even though I spent the whole time grading papers. :) Given the choice I'd rather grade papers at the beach than at home!
Anyway, it was a fun weekend and Kenzie is so proud that she is now 4. She can do all kinds of things "by herself" now and she's already talking about turning 5!