Sophie turns seven at Jump on In! Halmoni should take special note of Sophie's shirt. Mommy wouldn't let Sophie wear the skirt considering that it was a jumping party and we wouldn't want any seven year old boys seeing any seven year old girl's undies, now would we? 

Hannah slam dunks a b-ball (if your suspicious ask Gene about this photo.) 

This is not a good photo but it shows my husband acting ever so grown-up. As if! 

Hannah beams as she runs around the place. I just love this picture of her. 

Sophie awaits her cake. She's done jumping. If you look closely you'll notice the "reserved" sign in front of her. She wanted to make sure that she got the place of honor. If you look to the right you'll see a bit of Nathan's green shirt. Shortly after this she brutally kicked him out of this seat so that Shannon could sit in this place of "honor". Oy! Seven year old politics! 

Sophie's "theme" this year was gardening, so her cake had seven flowers and one bud :) (The seven candle is hiding one of the candles) 

Sophie is quite pleased with her cake afire 

Sophie opens her presents 

White Mountain Adventure

On Friday Gene and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to the White Mountains with the girls. We had all had so much fun there last summer that we thought it would be a fun little adventure. We were only there from Friday until Monday but we packed in the activities. Of course, the kids also loved the hotel pool, which is ironic since we were trying to take a break from the pool club. But I remember as a kid how much fun hotel pools can be. Since we moved right from all our spring activities to swim team and tennis without a break it offered us a nice segway into summer.
Hannah has developed an interesting habit of doing what we call "clock math" where she looks at the digital clock in the car and turns every time into every math problem she can think of. Yes, this is good for her academic skills but it gets a little old when at 4:32 you hear "8!" and then at 4:36 you hear "9!" and, of course, between 4:32 and 4:36 you have 4:34 which is the always exciting "Palindrome time!" and of course Gene complicates matters by looking at the numbers in a different way and shouting out his own answers "172" which makes Hannah curious and Sophie mad because she "Can't do math very good or very fast." So, at 5:02 when I ask Sophie to add the numbers up Hannah yells "7!" before I can finish my sentence, Sophie bursts into tears, and Gene pipes up "25". Good Grief!!!
But despite the math outbursts for the 3 hour trip there and back we really had a wonderful time with some canoeing (although we missed Komo and Mike), a trip to Santa's village, and some hiking.

On our first day in the mountains we decided to rent a canoe. The girls had loved it so much when we went last year with Komo and Mike that they really wanted to go again and Gene and I weren't going to argue with them. It's an activity that the whole family can enjoy. 

Sophie asked me to take this picture while she posed like a "movie star". 

The girls play on the beach with the beautiful backdrop of the mountains behind them. 

Our canoe takes a rest while we play on the beach. 

This trip to the mountains we decided to visit Santa's Village. We had heard from friends that it was just as good as, if not better than Story land. It was very cool. It reminded the whole family of Bakken, an amusement park in Copenhagen. It was woodsey, clean and not so crowded. It was weird to hear Christmas carols all day, but no one complained. 

Gene and Sophie dared to go down the log flume ride. In this picture they have just come down the hill. You can't see Sophie but she is in there, just look at the next picture. 

Daddy and Sophie after the big hill 

The Lee family poses as Gingerbread people. Daddy takes a bite! 

Sophie's dream come true! If only it was a real lollipop!! 

Hannah and Sophie got to race on these little boats. Sophie won. 

My daredevils go on the rollar coaster. Gene says this was the biggest rollar coaster he's ever taken Sophie on. She loved it and complained happily of a sore throat from all the screaming. 

Hannah and Sophie take a moment to reflect 

One of the things they have at Santa's village is a reindeer barn, with real live reindeer. They were kind of freaky looking and none of us knew that reindeer have fur on their antlers. Did you know that? 

In this picture you can vaguely see the reindeer's names over their stalls. They are all their except for rudolph. 

The girls pose with the reindeer 

Sophie and Daddy go on the yule log ride again. I love Sophie's face in this picture. 

Outside the gates of Santa's village is a giant nutcracker/playground. The kids can climb up a ladder up into the nutcrackers head and then slide down his arms. The kids got a real kick out of it.