Happy 16th Birthday Eli!

He's 16!!!  It's craziness.  Our schedule was also craziness the weekend of his birthday, so we had to extend the celebration over several days.  After we finished school on Friday, Eli opened a few little presents and then we went to Dave N' Busters.

We got a pretzel and new sweatpants in the mall afterwards.

Saturday, Ben took Eli and Alison to Chili's for lunch, while I took Colin to his basketball game.

Then we opened presents before Alison had to go to work.

I got fake tattoos for little party favors :)

Then we went to see the Mario movie.

And to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner.

We had the best view and got to watch the sunset while we feasted.

Somehow Eli found room in his tummy for cheesecake at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday Eli!  We are SO thankful for you!

 

Easter

Colin's friend, James, came home with us from church and took this picture for us :). The funny part was, Maya refused to leave James' side to get in the picture with us.

After lunch, the kids found baskets.  Ben brought home a basket from work that they were handing out, so we hid that for James.  We had no idea what was actually in it, so it made a fun surprise.

James' family and one of Alison's friends joined us for dinner.  We had quite the feast!  Ham, smoked ribs, sweet potato casserole, "funeral potatoes", salad, zwiebach, sourdough and strawberry shortcake.

After dinner, we all played games.

 

Sea World

We went to Sea World on our spring break!  We all unintentionally wore black 😆.

Colin was not feeling the best that day (found out later it was a sinus infection) but powered through with us.

Unfortunately some of our favorite spots were under construction and we weren't able to see a traditional dolphin show, but we got to see an up close training session.  The jellyfish were new this year and really cool to see.

Ben and Eli rode a roller coaster, while the rest of us saw the penguins and Orca show.

Then we met up for lunch.

 

My first trip to a winery!

Going to a winery/wine tasting has been on my bucket list for a long time and it's completely crazy that I haven't checked it off yet, considering we have lived near wineries for several years.  Fortunately for me, Tiffany was excited to join me on the adventure.  We drove up to Temecula for the day.  First we walked around Old Town and did an olive oil tasting.  Then we took the advice from a local at the bookstore and headed to Ponte Winery.

We had a picturesque lunch with lots of good people watching.

And then enjoyed a little tasting.

Rockets basketball season

A new basketball season is here!  Colin has the same coach as last year, but their team is the Rockets.  I know I'm biased, but I would say Colin is the star of the team!

{He's number 12, in the long sleeves}

Eli and the violin

Eli said he wanted to learn how to play the electric violin.  So at the beginning of the school year, Ben bought him an electric violin and we let him learn on his own.  He did a great job and was diligent in practicing.  He realized that he could only go so far on his own and asked for lessons.  Ben found a great teacher just a few minutes from our house and he's started back with the basics on a "regular" violin.  I've been very impressed with him and love how he choses hard things to learn.