Annika's 8th birthday

Annika's 8th birthday party started out at our house, opening presents and eating cake.

Then, Annika and her friends played games and made bears at at Build-a-Bear Workshop!

Annika's Primary Program

Here are a couple of pictures from the day of Annika's Primary Program. She sang a song with a few friends, and did a great job on her speaking part. Annika loves to sing, and the congregation always enjoys her enthusiasm!

Halloween

Annika dressed up for Halloween as Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place. She got more candy than she knew what to do with (but she figured it out!)

Julia's 18th birthday!

Julia was so excited to turn 18 - she has a voter registration card and everything!




Here's Julia (taking a nap) and her best friend, Myka:





My attempts to pull Annika out of the way so we could take Julia's birthday picture:

Fiddler on the Roof

Julia, Annika and I went to the Fiddler on the Roof - Topol Farewell Tour and had a great time!

Annika's first day of school

No, not a bit behind on the blog - why do you ask?

Here are Annika's first day of school pictures. She is loving 2nd grade, and she even has the same 2nd grade teacher that Steven had (Mrs. Kohler)!

Julia loves Jordan

Here are some photos from Julia's summer in Jordan. She loved it, and she can't wait to travel more someday!

This is at the Lost City of Petra:

At the Hamilton Homestead

Steven (age 13 1/2) always volunteers to drive whenever we're going somewhere. Maybe he should start with the tractor?

Annika loves summer soccer!

Annika is having a fun outdoor soccer season!


Here she is, walking away from scoring her first outdoor soccer goal!

From Julia's Facebook...

Day 10 in Jordan--The things I've done!
Sat, July 4th at 10:49am

This is a summary of what I've done in the last 10 days—

- Seen a camel on the side of the freeway
- Walked on the side of the highway with no sidewalk or line or anything
- Seen a person smoking while at work
- Played soccer with kids who live in a tent
- Been woken at 3:30 AM by the call to prayer
- Done laundry in a machine that has to be filled with water by hand
- Hung my laundry in a semi-public place
- Almost tripped on the uneven sidewalk a million times
- Stressed out about eating one handed/handing the money to the cashier with the right hand
- Taken the sacrament with pita bread
- Heard people bear their testimony in Arabic
- Had lemon with mint drink
- Dance party on the roof/soccer field past midnight
- "Fast Friday--it is alliteration so you have to do it!"
- Seen the Mosque so full on Friday that men lined both sides of the street praying in unison (it was really breathtaking).
- Seen a guy sitting in the middle of the freeway--IDK why but he hadn't been run over yet when we passed...
- Haggled with a taxi cab driver
- Walked half a mile in heels, partly up a very steep unpaved hill
- Hiked on the Dana Nature Reserve--saw the village also
- "Be back to class in 20 minutes, Inshah Allah"--so if it isn't God's will we don't have to come back...
- Seen a sign that said the speed limit was "100 Trucks/110 Cars"--evidently it was in kilometers per hour lol
- Seen Sesame Street performance live--in Arabic!
- Celebrated a holiday most people around me were not celebrating

That is about it--so yeah, pretty boring :P I hope all is going well! Happy 4th of July!

All 3 Kids

Within the past couple of weeks, I have gotten pictures of all three kids!

Julia the pool shark:

Steven the sax player, in the Hazel Dell Parade of the Bands (2nd from the right):

Steven's end-of-the-year band concert:

Annika, being cute:

Fun with Cousins

Rob's brother Duane and his family came to visit over Memorial Day weekend. Cara, Annika, Berin and Rachel had fun on the trampoline:

Cara is one year older than Annika:

Duane and Rob:

Before and After

Annika, before:

...and after!

Getting ready for school in the mornings is much easier now!

Easter 2009

We're down to only one child who will consent to be photographed while dying Easter eggs:

Annika, at the Easter egg hunt at her Hamilton grandparents' house:

Julia's Summer Plans!

Julia found out last night that she got a full-ride scholarship (worth $10,000) for a foreign language study abroad program in Amman, Jordan. She will attend orientation in Washington, DC and will spend the summer studying Arabic at the University of Jordan.

AFS (which is the company that I did the exchange program with) is a sponsor of this program, and they were actually in charge of the interviewing process. High stress and very competitive - thousands of students applied!

In addition to her regular school classes, Julia is also studying to take the ACT in mid-June, and she is also supposed to do a lot of Arabic studying before she leaves (a few days after finals!)

Here are some more details:
http://02c71fd.netsolhost.com/whynsli.html

Springtime!

Our old trampoline mat was ripping, so we had to get a new one. Annika helped Rob build a support wall to get ready for the new mat.

Annika made a fort by putting the old trampoline mat on top of the swing set.

Testing the new trampoline mat...

Getting the garden ready for planting!

Julia's Mock Trial

Julia is the lead attorney for the plaintiff on her school's Mock Trial team, and they have been preparing for court since September. They finally had their trials on Wednesday and Thursday. Here's Julia squinting in the sun in her court clothes:

For some reason, there is a post in the middle of this courtroom. I never even saw the judge from where I was sitting. So the students had to edge their way around the post every time they left their chairs...

Here's Julia in action, during her Closing Statement:

Julia's team did very well in the competition - I believe they came in 3rd place in their District (out of 15-20 teams).

Annika's first soccer goal

Annika made her first soccer goal in last week's game! The teams were evenly matched, and her goal ended up being her team's only goal for the game.

It's fairly dark in the gym where they have soccer games, and we are behind a safety net, so it's difficult to take photos. But we'll keep trying to get a good action shot!

Steven is a TEENAGER!

Yesterday was Steven's 13th birthday. He thought about asking for "skipping school today" as his birthday present, but decided that would be a waste of a present, so he went to school.

Here are a couple of the things that Steven got for his birthday...a clock radio/charger for his iPod and Mario Kart for the Wii!

Annika is our luckiest child

Annika's Hamilton grandparents gave her a fish for Christmas! She is so excited about her first pet.

First, Annika put rocks in the tank (Annika chose the prettiest rocks in the store):

Then she added the plant and plastic turtle:

Finally, time to put her betta fish, Buster, in his tank.

Buster looks lonely, so he may be getting a girlfriend soon...