Hip Hoppin' It Up

Here is one of Karina's great loves, Hip Hop dance. And the girl's got rhythm, too. She switched studios this year and absolutely loved her dance class. Lots of great moves, tougher choreography, and fun friends. Hum in your mind, "Teach Me How to Dougie" while you look at these pics, and you're almost there watching it.

And speaking of these pics, what do you think? I took a beginner photography class from a very talented friend at church (see www.kalileenstraphoto.com), so I learned how to use my DSLR in manual mode. I'm still learning, but can you see that I got almost-blur-free pics in the dark?!

You don't have to be impressed, but I'm happy!

Now back to the star of our show... she's currently at soccer practice and has cheer camp this week, but dancing is her true love.

February Fun at Great Wolf Lodge

Most of Washington school districts have this dumb tradition called "Mid-winter Break." We have school for 6 or 7 weeks after Christmas, er, I mean "Winter Break" and then it is time for another week off, starting with Presidents' Day. Then 6 weeks after that it's "Spring Break." This is all good when you have the money and/or time to skip off to Hawaii like we did 3 years ago, but otherwise, it's a week to sit and watch it rain (or snow, as the case was this year). So when my good friend Michelle mentioned she was going to take her kids to Great Wolf Lodge, I asked how she felt about us tagging along with them. It turned out to be a fabulous idea, and the kids had a blast together, as did the moms. For all of us, this was our first time splurging on a trip to GWL. With 84 degree temps inside, and snow flurries out, it felt like a pretty good getaway, yet was only about a 75 minute drive from home.

My Teenager

Is it possible Tristan is a teenager? Have I really been a parent that long?! Friends say I'm fortunate, because he doesn't really act like a teenager. He's got manners and all that uncool stuff. But he could sit on Facebook for hours, enjoys the company of girls, and wishes he had a cell phone so it must really be true.

Tristan celebrated his birthday with a smallish party at home with 5 boys and 2 girls (gasp!). They had shrimp cocktail and orange chicken and played Just Dance 2 for hours. (I should mention that a couple of the boys out-danced the girls according to the scores!)

We are also proud of Tristan for making the school basketball team, keeping his awesome grades up, and serving willingly at church.

He celebrated even more last week when he got his braces off! He could hardly wait to re-acquaint himself with popcorn and gum.

We love you, Tristan, and thank you for easing us into this whole parenting-a-teenager thing!