We decided to get year long passes to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. It is such a fun place, and Maddie and Olivia both really like it. Here are some pictures from our day.
I love going there because it only takes me ten minutes to get there and it is the perfect half way spot to meet all of our friends who live in San Rafael, plus the weather is usually warmer than the city!
So Matt and I have been thinking alot about putting Maddie in some kind of organized activity once or twice a week. We thought about preschools, gymnastics, swim lessons, and dance. We went to a free trial class at this great little dance school near our house and fell in love with it! This is Maddie on our way to the trial class. She is not auditioning for flashdance, she just wanted to wear her leggings and not a leotard but a "comfy" shirt and "soft" jacket. And those are her darling black ballet shoes I bought her that gave her blisters by the time we drove to the school- I returned them just like I do everything else! Maddie had alot of fun and we signed her up for classed through December!
The girls Ashley, Emily, and me! Obviously this was a while ago because Ashley is still pregnant! I will get caught up on my blogging someday! Thank you Mike and Em, for making time to come see us, we love you guys!!
Since we are sharing about Liz I thought I would add this post for an enhanced vision of just who Liz really is. The answer to your question is Yes! This is my wife Liz circa 1987, she was teaching a family home evening on how we're all different... you can say that again! Liz wore glasses until third or fourth grade when her eyes corrected. And in case you were wondering, yes those are smurf glasses and yes the stem is coming out the bottom of the frame and they are blue on top and red on bottom! Enjoy!
I love Family Fun magazine, they have such fun ideas and thanks to their website I found this cake! We love the Olivia the pig books and sometimes refer to Olivia as our little piggy, so this cake was perfection!
Present time! Maddie was a great little helper!
She loved her cake!!!! When Maddie turned one we were expecting her to just dive in but she didn't, we weren't sure what Olivia would do either. She started a little slow but then she really got into it!
Fourth of July! We played all day at the pool next door with some family and friends and then had a bbq at the Carpenter's! We also went to a fireworks show that was too short to be accounted for. We had lots of fun and tons of food! This is a neighbor's enormous dog that Maddie just loves. She would curl up with her, pet her and give her kisses. Maddie is such an animal lover. And that is a HUGE dog who has scared me on more than one occasion, she is great dog and extremely well behaved.
More swimming, we started out on the beach but the wind was out of control and when the second umbrella flew up and nearly took my face with it, we moved inland to the pool!
Last day of swimming...we were so sad to go.
The last supper....
Off to the airport! When we got to the gate they were boarding a plane, we looked at our tickets and realized we were supposed to be on that plane! We barely made it! We still don't know how we got that time mixed up! 
This is Matt jumping off. He, John and Jared all jumped off twice!! I wish I would have, but maybe next time.
They survived the jump! Sorry Jared for the silly picture it was the only one I had!
Matt, Jared and Ray all went on an adventure across the island to go snorkeling and all kinds of exploring. Well, they explored a blowhole too and sad to say the blowhole explored our camera too!!! Poor Matt was standing by to take a picture and got soaked, if you look closely you can see him running off. Luckily we still have all of our pictures!
That night we all went to a Luau, this was the sunset! There had been a fire on the other side of the island so the sky was really cool looking.
Waiting in line to get inside. On our walk down to the Luau we had a little bit of a tought time. I found out about the camera, Olivia's stroller went rolling down a sidewalk hill, we forgot our tickets to get in...and the girls (myself included!) were a little bit grouchy! We tried to cheer up and things just didn't work out, so long story short I took the kids back to our hotel and we ALL went to bed!
Time for bed. The next morning we were cheerful, refreshed and ready to party!
This picture was taken on the balcony of our room, pretty nice view I think!!! Thanks to Matt's parents we were able to leave the girls for the evening and go to the best magic show in Maui!! We went with Amy, Jared and John, it was really fun and Matt and I were invited to sit at the front table and participate in the show! It is so funny because I had been saying all day how fun I thought it would be to participate and then they randomely (sp?) chose us! It was a blast, and the host was hilarious!
This was before the show, we loved our yummy drinks....don't mind my face, it looks like a big cherry!
All of us with Warren the magician!
We decided since some of us were sunburned to spend the next day out of the sun. We drove the road to Hana. This is an all day drive, around to the other side of the island. It is super windy, and every once in a while you can stop and get out to do one of the hikes or let Maddie take a leak in the various bushes!! (which we did several times!) This first stop we decided to do a little hike, but when we got out we realized there were mosquitos everywhere! We all went into high stress and poor Jared already had like ten bites all over his legs. Lucky for us Ray had a bottle of bug spray. It was so funny we were all trying to use the spray at the same time and it was this little 3 oz. thing. We laughed about it after but it was really funny listening to all of us try to hurry and get that spray on. There were a few bites but we all survived.
The hike was through a bamboo forest, it was really cool at first. When we were about ten minutes in we decided to head back. The trail was difficult to find and the ground was muddy and slippery. We had to walk on slippery rocks across this little creek, I had Olivia strapped to me in the bjorn, but thank goodness John was behind me because I almost lost it and he was there to catch us!
The next trail we stopped at was much better for us. We thought we were going to do the ten minute trail but missed the sign and went on to the thirty minute trail instead. It was amazing, when we got to the top we were facing another mountainside that was covered in bamboo. The trees were swaying back and forth, it looked like liquid or something. The trees looked so dense at first like pine trees, so when they would move so much from side to side, it was really amazing! I have a better picture I will post later.
Heading up the trail. The sound of the trees and waterfalls in the backround were so beautiful.
Cute little Maddie she walked almost the whole time.
Beach Day! Our second day in Maui we stayed on the beach pretty much all day. Some of us rented snorkle gear, walked down the beach to explore etc. It was so nice to not have anything scheduled, just hanging out together. 
The sand was SO hot that the girlies needed to be on a towel or blanket most of the time. Unless they were down by the water. Olivia was so good she would fall asleep in her stroller and then we shaded her with a towel and another stroller. Such a little trooper! It took us about half the morning to get this system figured out but once we did we were all alot happier!
Our hotel, we stayed in condo's at the Whaler Resort. It was perfect we had just enough space for everyone.
The view down the beach from our hotel. The big cliff at the end is called "Black Rock", at the end of the week Matt, John and Jared all jumped off. I wanted to but was too chicken, maybe next time.
That night we all went to Lahaina, this little town about ten minutes down the road. It was really fun to walk around, we went to this Banyan Tree that was so neat. The tree takes up about one square block and as it grows the branches drop down and grow into the ground, so it is one tree with about a million trunks! It was really neat to see and the birds were so loud it felt like we were in the jungle or something! So here we are sitting on one of the branches. We asked a local where to eat and he gave us some good advice, there was this little place that had all different kinds of food. We were all happy!
First things first, survive flight, check in, change clothes and EAT!!!! We were all so starving and dying for some real food, so we went to this yummy restaurant right next to our hotel called the Hula grill. It was delicious! It was an outdoor restaurant and the floor was sand, which the kids loved! The best part was the live band, Olivia could not stop dancing and clapping in her high chair! The band fell in love with her, they pointed her out to the crowd and everyone was smiling at her and laughing etc., then the group dedicated a song to Olivia and they sang a lullabye to her! It was very sweet and we all enjoyed it. Especially the plastered lady dancing next to our table like a crazy!!!
Next stop was a quick dip in the pool. The water was like bath water it was soooo warm, especially in the evening for some reason...Maddie had a blast swimming with her aunts and uncles.
Our first sunset in Maui...