No Doubt!

School is out and Mom and Dad gave us the best end of school surprise ever!!!!!!!! We went to see the No Doubt concert. Erin and Tony were so sweet to give us such awesome tickets (2nd row) and invite us on the tour bus. We were so close to the band I think some sweat flung onto us!! We hope someday we can do something really cool for them! Whatever it is, it will definitely include cheez-its and freeze-dried fruit!!

Ava's First Jump

5th lesson back after a two year break...first jump ever...feels good!

Rollerskating and Pizza

We celebrated our birthdays together this year (Ava turned 9 and Marlena turned 6). There is not much on this earth that is better than cool friends, fast skates and good pizza!

Our bird friends

Ava loves the birds that come visit our house on a regular basis. Grandmom got her a special bird identification book to help her figure out who is coming to dinner.

Marlena turns 6

Christmas cookies!

Grandmom helped us with the Christmas cookies this year. On the menu...gingerbread and candy canes.

Life in the 1800's

We have had the good fortune to have some very fun field trips in our Delaware school this year. I went to Greenbank Mills which is a 19th century gristmill, textile factory and farm. Marlena got the go to the Hagley Museum which is a gunpowder works founded by E. I. du Pont in 1802.

Rockin' in the rain with Barack

Today we went to a rally for Barack Obama. It was cold and rainy but we got to miss school for this momentous occasion. Hope he goes on to win the election! Go Barack!!!!

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King

Ava wrote a poem for the 2009 Martin Luther King Day Celebration. It won first place in the state of Delaware for her age group (3rd-4th grade). We went to the Chase Center in Wilmington to receive her award and meet the keynote speaker Chris Gardner, author of The Pursuit of Happiness. It was a very proud day in the Awitan household!

'twas the night before Christmas...

...and all thru the house, a creature was stirring and it was BIGGER than a mouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After some long weeks of Christmas prep, Brian and I sat down for some Christmas Eve wrapping when all of a sudden there was a scurrying in the fireplace. Now I don't know about you, but I have never seen a flying squirrel before and I had no idea what I was looking at until I googled "rodent with big eyes and flat fuzzy tail"! Let's just say after three hours of trying to outsmart the thing, he ended up on top of the armoire. The info I found on flying squirrels said that they can sail up to 160ft. I don't know about that but Brian can attest to the fact that they can jump from the top of the armoire to the opposite side of the living room in a single bound. He and Rosey managed to get it back into the fireplace and seal it off but I will tell you that we opened gifts with that ninja the next morning and it wasn't until 24 hours after he made his grand entrance through our chimney that we managed to trap him in a jar and reacquaint him with the great outdoors. A truly funny story after the fact but it made for a very long and tiring Christmas Eve.

The official footage...

Thank you Grandmom and Pop!!!!

All we want to do is write songs and make music. Now, thanks to Grandmom and Pop, we can. We have the best grandparents in the WHOLE world. We miss you! Merry Christmas and thank you both so much for the awesome gift!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halloween Cruz style

Our family away from family - the Cruz's - invited us to Mum Mum and Pop Pop's hood to Trick or Treat. We live on the one lane, two-way, back country death road and thought it would be much safer to hang with them. The result? Lots of candy, lots of cute girls and lots of FUN!!!

Happy 90th Birthday GGMom!

Our amazing Great Grandmother just celebrated her 90th birthday. Holy moly! She traded jokes and thoroughly enjoyed some wine, eclairs and birthday cake. She is truly cool. We hope we are that cool if we are lucky enough to celebrate our 90th birthdays with our family. We had a great time. What a lovely lady!

Fall has officially arrived!

One of the loveliest things about being back on the East Coast is being able to experience a full changing of the leaves - not the abbreviated versions that we got in Texas or California. We have spent many hours raking and playing in the crackly goodness that is Fall in Delaware

Sister love

Need we say more??

NO BOYS ALLOWED...

...except for Daddy, Riston and Matthew of course. Spending a warm Autumn afternoon in a fort, playing horses and eating ice cream sandwiches is pretty close to Heaven don't cha think?!?!