Ashton turns 5

Taking after her mom, Ashton has had a most excellent birth week celebration. Her birthday was on a Thursday this year so she celebrated from Thursday through the weekend. This had Judy making more then 50 cupcakes and 3 different cakes for the series of events.

There was a cake on her birthday, cupcakes at her school on Friday, cupcakes at her kids party on Sat and a beautiful Barbie cake for her family party Sat afternoon.

Jacqueline, not to be left out, also requested a "blue Dora cake". Judy delivered on that request as well much to Jacqueline's joy.

The kids party was at Safari Run. Here is a group photo of the kids. It was a lot of fun for Ashton to have so many friends celebrate with her. Lots of running and playing was happening. Jacqueline was thrilled to be joining in, especially since she was supposed to wait until she was 3 years old to participate. In fact, she couldn't attend this group photo because she was too busy climbing the structures with her dad.

A big bonus for this years party was Grandma and Papa Terry were here to celebrate. Terry is back from Iraq (we hope for good of course) and they are out for a few weeks to visit and celebrate the birthday. Cute photo huh?

On my side, I'm already enjoying five years old. The independence is wonderful and I'm still amazed at everything that Ashton can do on her own. In addition, the gifts for five years are very Barbie-focused. Which means that you can store a lot of gifts in a much smaller space. A great help for our small house.

I really can tell we are about to enter a new phase and I think we are all planning to enjoy it. We are back in ballet on Saturdays and also starting a parks and rec dance class next week. Kindergarten sign-ups are week after next. The times they sure are 'a changing. Can't believe that I have only one toddler in the house!

Park City ski trip, Jan 2008

Yes, we did another successful ski trip.  This was especially successful in the fact that Jacqueline did not get sick.  As you can see the girls were happy to test out their snow gear in the condo itself.
Both cousins came along this year which was really nice for Bob and Meg.  It was not good snowman snow though, we went out to try and just kept falling into the snow up to our knees but could not get the snow to stick together at all.  It was too dry.  You can tell what California girls we all are since none of us realized this was even a possiblity.   

Jordyn took her first snowboard lessons and did real well.  Ashton also did ski school this year and was very pleased with her "report cards" which made her dad very exited.   She has managed to do "10 turns in a row" which sounds pretty good to me.  

Jacqueline was too young for ski school so she spent most days home with her Tasha (except the one day Mom stayed with her so Tash could snowboard).  She did, however, become very proficient in hot chocolate drinking, which I'm sure will come in handy at some point.  Also, I should mention again that she stayed healthy and happy the whole trip which was such a huge bonus.  She even managed to get a nap on the day that mom stayed home.  Turns out that mom is boring and she is happy to nap when I'm around.  Tasha, on the other hand, is way too much fun to sleep through!  Below is a photo of what a happy and healthy Jacqueline looks like.

Ashton enjoyed showing off her nice ski thermals.  Mom was happy she had good gear since this was a COLD trip.  Most days were in the high teens or low 20's but with either snow or windchill or both.

The highlight of the trip was getting to ski with our friends Vic, Lisa, Dan and Ruth and having Dan and Ruth meet our kids.  Of course I didn't manage to get any photos of the adults but we all know what we look like anyway (which is the same as we have for the past decade at least of course!).    

Ashton was very anxious to get a birthday cake for Dan who had a birthday while we were there.  Turns out the rest of us were ok with eating it as well.  In addition, Tasha and Jordyn watched the girls while we all had a wonderful adults-only dinner one night.  What a treat to eat dinner at a sane pace and even drink a few glasses of wine.  

All in all a wonderful trip, we came back tired of course but happy (well at least the three girls are happy, Bob is still not so happy he isn't going back this week).  Next trip is scheduled for March but I'm guessing Bob will be doing some skiing in between.  He even brought home his old outfit and some gloves to consider a mid-week trip to Tahoe once of twice.  Stay tuned.