Happy family excited as we await takeoff this morning to Honolulu!

When meaningful posts are hard to write,  we fall back to photos of our adorable children.

And in the long tradition of previous years (see here, here, and here), I got another cool custom t-shirt.  Bonus points to readers who pick up on (and leave a comment regarding) the not-so-subtle message hidden in plain sight:

We had dinner with some friends, and afterwards the children explored the office a bit.  One of our friends assisted in helping them to explore the inside of a storage cabinet!

Any suggestions for a good caption?

Lois and I stayed up late last night entertaining and in conversation.  The kids went to bed promptly at their bedtime, in spite of company being over.

This morning, we slept in; and though we heard the occasional chatter from the children all waking up, figured they were simply playing quietly by themselves.

But, no… there was a conspiracy going on.

At around 9:30 am, one of our girls stepped into our room and announced breakfast in bed (for both of us)!

She was followed shortly thereafter by her eldest brother, carrying a tray of hot tea, pancakes and even a lovely couple flowers from our front yard for presentation!!!

I snapped this photo from my phone which was by our bed.  We are so blessed.

I love working with my boys.  Even in the kitchen.  This evening they helped to prepare cucumbers for one of our family favorites: stuffed cucumber soup.

The boys received new kites as gifts for their recent birthdays. So naturally, they’ve been itching as the weather has improved to get out and try them.

So a couple days ago, with winds in the 15mph range, I took the boys to the nearby park which has a nice expansive grassy area and we went to work. We struggled to get one of the kites to take flight, but the other, whose design was a more traditional shape, practically jumped into the air.

Here’s a photo of the one that flew:

So I let one of my boys hold the line while I was attempting to get the other one in the air (to no avail). But twenty minutes later, I looked over and noticed that he had lost grip on the line-holder, and was chasing it!!!

The wind was so strong that a couple hundred feet later and less than a minute, the line holder flew up into the air, about 50ft and got stuck on a tree branch!

I climbed about 15 feet up the tree before deciding it was wasn’t worth risking my neck for < $20 of kite. =-) To my son’s credit, he offered to pay for the replacement kite since it was his brother’s. I’m grateful for his developing sense of responsibility.

Then yesterday, as a family, we replaced the lost kite (we found the string later that evening hanging off a tree, without the kite — someone evidently beat me to it), and exchanged the “non-flyer” for another model.  We had a blast… we look forward to more opportunities to enjoy the sun and winds this spring!  Here are a few more photos of the fun: