Boys Birthday Party

We decided to celebrate Alex and Andrew's birthdays together this year since they are getting older and share a lot of the same interests. This year we went to the indoor water playground at the Monon Center in Carmel since they love to swim so much.

Here are some of our friends having some watery fun:

















Here's Alex coming out of the waterslide...














A rare shot of both of them running through the fountains together...


















Andrew and Katie going down the mini-slide together...












Our big six year old and Nick having some fun together...














After everyone dried off and changed into some clothes, it was cake time!
















One of the birthday boys enjoying his Jedi cake...













...and the other birthday boy enjoying his cake!




















Then it was onto presents! By far, the best present opened was the Star Wars Light Sabers, given by Grandpa and Granma Schoenherr. They light up and make the light saber sounds and everything!
















"I shall call her 'Excaliber'..." Ha haha! Andrew was so excited about his green saber!

Of course an epic Jedi duel broke out almost immediately...
















Even the Youngling Sophie got in on the action!

Westfield Easter Egg Hunt!

The Westfield Easter Egg Hunt was held today and the boys had a BALL! Here's Alex before the hunt began--you can sort of see the eggs on the ground behind him...














AND THEY'RE OFF! Here are the kids making their inital dive for the eggs...














It somewhat resembled a swarm of locusts! They had that field bare in less than a minute!




























Andrew and Daddy were in the 3 - 4 year old area (they separate the kids by age) so I wasn't able to get pictures of Andrew hunting but here he is with his swag.


















He was so thrilled to get the candy!

Alex is SIX!

Our Alex turned 6 on the 23rd! He had a little classroom celebration, complete with hat, song and cookies with "6" on them. (Or "9" if you turned it upside down, as one little girl said!)















Back at home, we had a small family celebration with cake and a dinner designed by the birthday boy himself. Everyone got to enjoy hot dogs and mac and cheese--yum!

















He got to open some of his birthday presents. The favorite was the Phineas and Ferb DS game...













...although the Star Wars Lego set came pretty close, too! Notice he still has the hat on--he really liked wearing it! Happy birthday Alex!

Big 10 Tournament

Nick decided to take Alex to cheer on the Boilers during the Big 10 Tournament last weekend.

Here is our little Boilermaker all decked out in this black-and-gold finest:













He was very excited to be at Conseco Fieldhouse--so big!













A little glimpse of the action:













The game was over way past his bedtime so of course our little guy fell asleep on the way home. What a fun night out with dad, though!

Stingrays and Parasailing

OK, so it took me a bit longer to get unpacked and back on my feet after the cruise but here are the promised pictures from the water camera!

On our day in Nassau, Alex and I went on an adventure to swim with stingrays. We took a boat to a small island and got to go into an enclosure where there were about 8 stingrays. We stood in about 2 feet of water and the rays swam all around us. I was doing my best to not freak out for Alex's sake--something about dark things in the water brushing over my legs and feet tends to flip a girl out--and I was pretty successful. I only hollered once when one of the bigger ones snuck up behind me and brushed my leg--can you blame me?? The rays were very slippery and soft and we enjoyed our time feeding and petting them. They swim so fast that it's very difficult to get a good picture but here is Alex with a ray...or at least the top of Alex's head with a ray!














The guide caught one of the rays and held it so we could all get a better look. That's Alex's head petting the ray again. It was a really fun time!













Then on Castaway Cay, Nick took a parasailing trip. The boys and I weren't able to go but the guy who Nick is tandem with sent us these pictures. Nick said it was really awesome and the veiw was fantastic!



















They "torpedo" dunk you (not really sure what that means but he kept raving about it) and then lift you back out of the water. Here is a torpedo dunk:



















Later that day on Castaway Cay I spent about an hour snorkeling in their wonderful lagoon. The water camera didn't do the best job of capturing everything but it gives you at least an idea of what I saw. At first I was so excited to see even one fish but then the further out I went I was seeing whole schools of them. If you can find the fish in this picture, they were the prettiest color of yellow and blue.














And of course, there was a hidden Mickey at the end of the lagoon. Very cool!