Mckinley turned 2

I can't believe my little girl is 2!! She doesn't talk a lot so she still seems so young to me even though she is definitely acting 2! We celebrated it a couple times. Grandma was out here to watch the kids for our trip so we had our little family party the last night she was here.




Tried the ice cream cake but was't too impressed.

She opened up Grandma and Grandpa's gifts...so spoiled :)!!

One of her bday outfits from Grandma! She wore this on her bday and looked adorable!! A little ballerina!

Harrison always lending a hand

She opened our gifts and a couple more from Grandma and Grandpa.

pushing all her goodies around

The next weekend we had a couple families come that had kids just mckinley's age to eat a few cupcakes...

Mckinley was definitely a fan of the cupcakes!!

What is Mckinley like? She is very expressive. In public is very observant. She will sit there with wide eyes and watch all that is going on before she decided to take part. But when she is comfortable and at home she doesn't say much but gets her point across with her funny expressions, cutest cheesy smile (which I really need to get on camera!), actions, signing (man, what would we do without signing in our family...) and the occasional (ahem...) temper tantrum.

She LOVES animals and lucy/any dog/animal are her best friends. She loves loves LOVES her big brother and is constantly following him around and playing with him and his friends...she is very lucky to have such a loving and kind big brother. She loves to make funny expressions in the mirror at herself, loves to eat (chicken nuggets being the fav right now, and would eat them all day if I'd let her). She loves her Daddy but when he "threatens" her that he will put her to bed she runs to me yelling No No No and won't leave my side (we really don't know what the deal with that is...she usually does great when he puts her to sleep!). She loves to color, and I find little drawings of hers on all available (and non available paper) as well as a few choice spots on the wall. Luckily the wall has been done with pencil and washable markers!!! She also is a tease...so we'll see if she takes after Ryan in that way or not! We love our little girl and are so grateful she was sent to our family!

***addition: her heart echo this summer went wonderful! She doesn't have to go back for 8 months now! Her heart is growing normally and she is handling the mixing of blood just fine so we keep on and hope her next surgery isn't for many more years!!

Hair

One last thing from Christmas time...I cut my hair....What do you think?

Bora Bora,Tahiti

One quarter at work Ryan was awarded a trip because of some of the projects that he had completed for the company! Though it didn't make up for all the many hours of overtime that he does, it ended up being quite a nice little perk!! They would pay for plane and hotel up to so much so we decided to go someplace that we would typically never go to, that was expensive. I wanted a beach and Ryan had to scubadive...So Bora Bora, French Polynesia it was!! My mom flew out to watch the kids...and off we went!

I actually had a hard time leaving the kids as the BART took me to the airport...but I definitely needed a break...we actually haven't gone on a trip together alone since our honeymoon (and this year will be our 12 anniversary...so it was about time). Even just getting on the plane without having to worry about diapers/toys/games/extra clothes...not having to undress and redress the kids a security...it was all pretty weird to me. I actually got to sit down and read! (I almost finished a book by the time we got to Bora Bora!) We flew through the night and got their Wed.

This was the airport, one runway and only boats to pick us up.

The island in the middle of the lagoon.

We stayed on a little private island in the over water bungalows. This was the second night, a full moon and it was gorgeous on the water, the water even at night was so crystal clear it was amazing.

The hotel restaurant...so the bad part about the trip was the price of everything! The food wasn't so great and SO expensive!!!

One night we saw the dancers dance some of their native moves...

One day we decided to walk on the one road that goes around the island. We saw this beach and just relaxed...it was so weird to just be able to do that!

I thought taking pics of kids was tough but we were 0 for 3 here...my eyes were closed, ryan's were closed and then he wasn't looking at the camera! What do you do??

One of the beaches at our hotel. It was so nice because really it's rainy season there and it only sprinkled for 10 minutes twice I think (at least during the day), and NO ONE was there!!

This is the lookout from the island we stayed on. The gorgeous part was really the water. I can't tell you how many different colors of blue there was!

Our bungalow (forth from the end)

off our balcony, we would lay around and read here, also there was a little bit of coral so we got our snorkeling stuff and there were stairs that led us into the water off our little bungalow.

One day we went on a hike with a guide and had a great time. He was hilarious and told us all of the history which was really interesting. Showed us all the fruit that grows there, the hidden farms on the Mountain that no one goes to anymore because they are "forbidden", and a temple that is hundreds of years old.

a piece of the temple covered in vines.

the rock that he found that is where they would have sacred ceremonies and tatoo their history on themselves.

the rock "god" that was watching over the king while he was in purgatory, in lotus position.

the second (the oldest being the redwoods here in Ca) oldest tree in the world, the Banyon tree. This where the king is buried

Pineapple farm

The view

Another day we rented a little boat that we put putted around in the Lagoon. Bora Bora is set up with an Island in the middle and then a very shallow lagoon surounding most of it and then a reef where the ocean waves crash and then the deep ocean starts. There is only one place to enter by boat in the reef with is the one deep place in the lagoon, which is where submarines entered during WWII. So this means that you can walk out for a couple miles and the water only reaches your chest...crystal clear water the whole way, a few pieces of coral here and there.

You can kind of see the wave crashing in this picture in the distance.

Beautiful beaches, stunning water...

we took a canoe to the other side of the little island we stayed on to do some snorkeling

the walkway for the hotel we stayed at

some fish and a little shark if you look closely, is towards that top but has the same coloring of the fish. He was there everyday so Ryan always had to check to make sure the shark was doing well...

another little beach at our hotel...and this is really what we did most, lay around and read and relax!!