February Fun

Some of the fun going on around our house over these last few weeks...

Kendall, John, Caroline and Merritt came to visit one weekend.  We love spending time with them!  The three "big girls" have a blast playing together, and I could just hold sweet little Merritt all day.  Look at those cheeks!  We went to the Aquarium on Saturday afternoon which was lots of fun.  The dolphin show was a big hit.  We're so thankful for this time with family!

 We were all so pumped for the Super Bowl this year!  The Smiths came over which is always fun.  We couldn't believe our Falcons were going to the big game.  Everything looked good until that 4th quarter, and we saw the Patriots win in overtime.  It was heartbreaking.  Honestly, we're still a little hurt.  Hey, we ended up with the 2nd best team in the NFL, and there's always next season, right?

 We decided to have a little fun with our Valentine's dinner this year.  I made some heart-shaped pastries with raspberries which were delicious.  The (attempted) heart-shaped bacon was fun as was the red-dyed scrambled eggs.  Pineapple, well, that's just always tasty.

 We had one of our favorite desserts afterwards!

 Each morning from February 1 through 14, the girls woke up to find a different heart on their mirrors.  This is such a fun way to pour a little encouragement and love into them.  Such a fun tradition.

 I love this girl.  She was sitting next to me doing her 39 Story Treehouse game book one evening, and I snapped a picture.  No reason other than I love her.

 Mia and Eliana had a fun time playing together at the school's babysitting fundraiser evening.  $10 for 4 hours of babysitting while the parents hit the Square.  We went to Two Birds Taphouse with the Mauszs and then met up with the Paynes for ice cream afterwards.  Fun evening all around! 

 I love this girl too.  We went to visit Meme one afternoon, and she put on a 30 minute concert for Meme and her roommate.  They both seemed to enjoy it a lot.  Lily is such a talented musician, and I love that she uses her talent to bring joy to others.

 Ryan made homemade maniesh one afternoon, and it was delicious!  This is one of his favorite Middle Eastern foods from his travels.  One of our overseas' friends sent him the recipe, he order zatar spices online, and he found the right cheese at the Jerusalem Bakery.  We're all asking him to make this again soon!

 I love that Lily still loves playing with Legos.  I snapped these two pictures because I love when she sets up whole imaginary cities.  This one is of the amusement park with all its rides, food stands and fun.

 This creation uses lots of the Elves sets, but she had different people playing games everywhere.  Some were playing Red Rover, some Hide and Seek, some Statues in the Park, etc.  I love when her creativity comes out!

 Last weekend we took the girls to see Ringling Brothers and Barnun and Bailey Circus.  They are on their farewell tour.  It's hard to believe this institution is closing after over a hundred years of performing.  We all had a fantastic time.  The tigers, poodles and camels were of course big hits, as were the incredible acrobats.  The snowcones were fun too!  At one point, before being told that the circus was closing, Mia looked up at me with big eyes and said "I'm never going to forget the circus!  I'm going to dream about this every night!"  She later decided she no longer wants to be an iFly instructor; now she wants to be a tiger tamer!

Lily was super excited to make the Cambridge House team for the Geography Bee (Grades 2-4).  She was even more excited when they won!  This was her 3rd year in a row to compete, though the last two years have been as an individual; this was the first team competition.  In 2nd grade, she placed 3rd.  In 3rd grade, she placed 2nd.  Now, in 4th grade, her team placed 1st!  They did a great job!

 Last night Ryan and I had a great date night going to dinner at Bistro Niko and then going to the Tony Bennett concert.  The man's a legend!  He's the last of his kind, so we were glad to have this opportunity.  It's hard to believe he's 90 years old!  It was a very fun show at Symphony Hall.

15 Year Anniversary

It's hard to believe we've been married for 15 years!  To celebrate, we decided to take a long weekend trip to Arizona; neither of us had ever been before.  We landed in Phoenix about lunchtime on Thursday, and we found a great pub with delicious food.  From there we headed on to our hotel, JW Marriott at Camelback Mountain.  It was a beautiful day so we decided to take a little hike up Mummy Mountain which is just behind the hotel.  It provided some great overviews of the city, and we were amazed at the different fauna.  Who knew there are so many different times of cactus plants?!  After exploring the hotel some too, we decided to enjoy a drink down at the outside bar around one of the huge fire pits.  They had a great musician playing, and we simply enjoyed sitting outside under the stars.  We finished the evening enjoying a charcuterie plate on our huge side balcony the hotel had sent up to welcome us.

On Friday, we woke up early (not too bad given the time change) and started our drive to the Grand Canyon.  About halfway there, it started to snow some and we could see ice on the road.  The weather was clear the whole time though; really it was a beautiful day.  Thankfully, Ryan drove carefully and we made it a little bit later.  I'm so glad that we did!  We've always heard "pictures just can't to the canyon justice" and we couldn't agree more.  It was so beautiful.  We were amazed at all the different layers that you could see.  There were so few people there too; at times, it was unbelievably quiet which was wonderful.  There was a little snow on the ground, so that was fun to walk around in.  At one point, there was a small herd of elk grazing nearby, so we followed them for a bit which was neat to watch.  They are clearly used to people being around!  This was such a lovely day!

 We spent about 4 or so hours taking in all the views from the South Rim.  We finally decided it was time to start driving back.  Instead of going straight back to Phoenix though, we took a detour so we could visit Sedona that evening.  We'd heard from so many people how spectacular it is.  Again, we weren't disappointed.  We got there just before sunset so we were able to see several of the incredible rock formations.  After the sunset, we ate a wonderful dinner at The Hudson which sat on top of a hill, and we had a good view of the city.  We headed on back to Phoenix after that.  This was a wonderful day!

On Saturday, we slept in a little, and then headed over to the hotel's spa to enjoy hot stone massages.  We both enjoyed our massages, and some quiet time in our respective lounges.  We stayed by the pool for a few minutes after that, but then decided to have lunch at the hotel's Mexican restaurant instead of the spa restaurant.  We then spent the afternoon napping, reading and watching football.  We truly love these opportunities to simply relax!  We decided to head back down to the outdoor bar for dinner, drinks and more live entertainment.  We spent a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful evening and talking with one another.

On Sunday, we took our time getting ready in the morning and enjoyed a delicious room service breakfast before heading over to the airport.  We arrived home to hear all about the girls' weekend with Bama in the ice that was supposed to be snow!  

This was such a great weekend of beauty, relaxing and enjoying our time with one another.  What a great way to celebrate 15 wonderful years!  When our actual anniversary did come about a few days later, I posted this collage.  It's our wedding day and then one great day from each year there after.  Not surprisingly, most of the days are from trips, but 2006 and 2008 are days our family grew, and 2015 was Ryan's graduation day from CIU.  

So many great memories represented here, and it's only the tip of the iceberg!  Ryan and I consider ourselves so fortunate to have such a great marriage.  We love working together to make Team Hooks the best it can be.  We have lots of similar interests and truly enjoy spending time together.  We make each other laugh, and we respect and support one another.  I pray that someday my girls can find husbands who love them like their Daddy loves me.  These last 15 years have flown by.  I can't wait to see what the coming years hold for us!

Mia Learns to Fly

Our superhero finally had the chance to learn to fly!  Granna and Papa gave Mia (and Molly and Zac) tickets to iFly for Christmas.  This is an indoor skydiving place, and they couldn't wait!  Just after the new year, we all headed over together to watch the three of them fly.

First, they go to a safety class and then get suited up.

 Please don't forget your helmet!

 So excited and ready!

 When it was Mia's turn, she took a running leap through the doorway and into the instructor's arm.  She was like Super Woman!  These are just lots of pictures that we snapped during her three flights.

 After you get the hang of it, the instructor stands nearby and lets you fly on your own!

 Having fun by letting Mia balance on his head.

 The smile on her face lets us know she is loving this!

  Mia's favorite part is when the instructor holds on to you, they crank up the fan, and you get to fly high!

This was such a fun experience, and now Mia dreams of being an iFly instructor someday (if Stone Summit supervisor doesn't work out).  Mia wants to give new meaning to the word "frequent flier!"

A few miscellaneous pictures

A few things going on around our home:

We decided to have a little last minute family fun before school started back up so we spent the night at the Marriott Marquis downtown.  The main reason was so we could have a fun swimming pool to enjoy, but also because it is close the Centennial Olympic Park.  We walked down there for the evening to enjoy the Chinese Lantern Festival.  It was so cool!  They had so many great light displays to enjoy.  Also, since the girls had just received cameras for Christmas, they were having a blast taking all their own photos too.  This was such a fun evening!

 These girls love their dog.  They love lounging around with him, smothering him in hugs and kisses (which he doesn't always appreciate), throwing balls for him to fetch, and walking him.  They are good dog-parents!

 Mia wasn't feeling well one day.  I knew that was true when I came in and she was in the middle of an almost 2 hour nap.  Such a sweetheart. 

 So super proud of Mia!  On the first day that school started back in the new year, she passed her multiplication tables all the way to 12 times 12!  She had been working hard on these, and that hard work paid off!

 We thought it would be fun to pick up a big cookie cake and decorate it one morning.  

 Ryan channeled his inner Bob Ross to make mountains and happy trees.

 Lily made a sunset beach scene, complete with coconut trees, M&M's for the coconuts, birds flying off and ground graham crackers for sand.  Mia made a heart with lots of colors and candies to give it texture and variety.  The best part of course is eating them up!

 2017 is starting off fun!

New Years Eve, 2016

Our family has so much to be thankful and grateful for.  I often remind myself that being blessed isn't because of all the "stuff" I have or get to do.  I'm blessed because God sent his son, Jesus, to this earth to live and die as a man, but then rise to conquer death three days later.  He did this because He loves me and wants to save me from my sins.  He is a great, mighty and good Father who is trustworthy and perfect.  That is why I am blessed.  All the other amazing gifts in my life...my husband, my kids, my family, our friends, our church, our school, the ability to work, the joys of travel, a comfortable home, and a million other things I can't list out...are all extras.  They are good gifts from a Father who loves His child.

I am most often reminded of this when I observe nature.  God's natural creation is amazing.  In the most surprising way recently, God's beautiful creation overwhelmed me.  As I was driving to and from a continuing education seminar earlier in December (something I wouldn't normally say is a blessing!), this is what I saw.  This top picture was on the way in that morning and the next was on the way home.  It was a wonderful way to be reminded of God's greatness.

 In the light of knowing why I'm blessed, I was thinking earlier about some of the "extras" in my life that I'm so thankful for.  I made a collage of 9 great moments that make me smile with a grateful heart.  These pictures from left to right, top to bottom are: spending time with my girls at the Orlando Marriott Grand Lakes this summer, our family's trip to Biltmore after picking the girls up from camp, enjoying the beautiful Colorado mountains with Elizabeth and Jeff Smith, our family playing at Beach Club over Labor Day weekend with the Henderson family, my day climbing the Great Wall of China, our family at the last Braves' game at Turner Field, meeting up with family at the Falcons/Broncos game in Denver, enjoying the Mendocino Headlands with Ryan, and the girls at the Atlantic Station tree during our ice skating/Christmas fun evening with the Smiths.

These moments are great, and I love every single one of them.  They bring me joy when I think about them.  I'm also reminded how many more moments I've had this year that I don't have pictures of...laughing with Ryan, cuddling with my girls, praying with Asian believers as they learn to trust in God, talking with friends about things on our hearts; there are so many moments that I'm thankful for.  There were some hard moments this year too.  Watching Mia go back in to surgery last January, and losing my Granny in October are two I can put on here; others are too personal.  In those hard times, I can still see God at work, and I will choose to be grateful for them too.

2016 has been a wonderful year, and I look forward to seeing what 2017 will hold.  I pray that through it all, God will be glorified.