New Years, Birthday.

It's been a while since I've updated this page. Since it seemed that this blog had very little to do with our sailing and boat exploits I decided to only post about boat relevant things but being the time of year and lack of finds at the moment and Marks work schedule nothing has been done on Sweets.

We have been busy though. We rung in the New Years here on Whidbey Island with just the family, my parents and my grandparents.

We started off with a fire outside, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and some R/C helicopter flight practice.

The family.

The kids then adjourned to the hot tub for a glow stick soak.

Played some poker.

The boys fell asleep around 9pm but Ash made it right to midnight, we made noise and popped the confetti balloon. Welcome 2014.

Spending a green winter here in the PNW I am craving some snow. We went up to Mount Baker and tried the kids on some downhill skis. No one really took to it but Finn. So the next week we drove up the Cascades to Stevens Pass, we spent an awesome day there and got the kids some snowboards and Finn some skis again. Mac is a natural talent, we call him a grom now, point him down the hill and he goes, great stance, a few wipeouts, a couple of tears but he was so awesome, I was impressed. Aislinn  did great too, she took a bit longer to recover from spills and needed more coddling to get back up. But we were there into the wee hours of the night, I wish I could snowboard as well, but the older you get the more fear you feel, that ground seems pretty far away and broken bones a more likely possibility (probability.) 

Look at Finn go. Whoosh.

Me and my grommets.

One of our many hot chocolate breaks.

Rosey cheeks.

We've been trying to get back into the swing of school. As you can see we are having a rough go of it.

And now we are brought right up to Macs 6th birthday. It was a ninja theme and totally awesome!

My candy sushi.

Chocolate pretzel skeletons.

The angry bird go cake that Mac requested, it was the best cake I've made so far I think, gluten free to boot.

Goody bags for all the kids loot

Giant fortune cookie full of prizes.

Sign at the end of the road.

Ninja training room.

The grown ups zone.

All our ninjas in training painting their scrolls.

Battling the bad dragon piñata.

Food time.

We topped off the party with the 80 foot zipline Mark installed in the back yard.

Flying ninjas.

We've had a busy season, birthdays, holidays and it is nice to have a break now, we have a month until we all head down to Florida for two months. Can't wait to get out of the soggy Washington and get some sun and finally while the kids and I are gone Mark will be able to spend his free time on the boat and hopefully make some progress.