Annie at 8

Annie campaigned long and hard to get two things for her 8th birthday: bangs and pierced ears. 

The bangs in particular took a lot of persuasion because I knew I would have to trim them- but I do think they turned out adorable, and Annie loves them! She does her own hair now, and it consistently looks much better than when I was in charge of doing it. 

Here's Annie with her doppelganger, Brooklyn. I think a lot of people were relieved when Annie got bangs- it's a bit easier to tell them apart now, even on the many days that they find themselves wearing matching outfits. 

Annie was a champ when we got her ears pierced! We went to a place called Straight to the Point. Annie was nervous and had lots of questions but went right into the chair with no hesitation when the time came. She's been doing a great job keeping them clean and has been begging to shorten the recommended wait time for being able to swap out to other earrings for weeks now.  

Annie's greatest passion these days is gymnastics. She was born with muscles so tight that her pediatrician had me moving her head from side to side to stretch out and loosen her muscles when she was a baby. She worked HARD to learn how to to do the splits... and cartwheels... and handstands... and and back bends! I have a vast reservoir of videos on my phone of her doing her gymnastics tricks. She likes watching the recordings to see how she can do better. It's awesome watching her work so hard at something she loves. It's also a bit dangerous around the house because if you don't watch out, you could get kicked in the face by Annie flipping into a headstand and not noticing you were nearby. She spends a substantial amount of her waking hours upside down. 

She's getting pretty strong!

Annie remains the social butterfly of the family. She frequently gets off the bus and ends up going to a friend's house. She reports that she is in the "grape" reading group at school, which is the only one that is reading chapter books. She's an excellent reader, but sitting alone with a book is usually low down on list of things she likes to do. Her younger brothers adore her- Felix is always talking about "Nana" and although sometimes that means "banana," usually it means he's thinking about her. She's always looking out for Isaac and will help him say his prayers or do "Isaac School" with him. She's curious and likes talking about new ideas- she asks great questions, and it's delightful seeing the moment when things click into place for her. She signed herself up for a solo in the Primary Program and brought me to tears when she absolutely nailed the last line of "My Own Sacred Grove." She's up for anything and a great person to have around!

Annie's Birthday

Annie's birthday fell on the Saturday at the end of Fall Break this year. It was an action packed day! The morning started with the oh-so-important event of Annie's Baptism!

 

Annie is beautiful inside and out. She is kind, loving, and brave. 

We are all so proud of our gal and were glad to be there to support her!

Of course we needed a picture of the Kimberlies! Mimi showed up with a wagon of tablecloths and floral arrangements for the room. 

The program was lovely. Breezy and Grumpa gave the talks, and Casa Johnson folks and I put together a day-of musical number. It is overwhelmingly sweet to see Annie with her Daddy in the baptismal font and receiving the Holy Ghost. She had lots of friends from church there to support her- and also her best friend Ellie and her teacher, Mrs. Miller!

A few hours later, we transitioned to party mode! Annie had a KPop Demon Hunters birthday party. 

The plan was to watch the sing-along version of the whole movie while eating bottomless popcorn. They ended up being too antsy to watch the whole movie, so we moved downstairs for games, pizza, and ramen. 

Follow-the-leader dancing is a staple at any Annie birthday. Isaac was so eager to get his turn doing his famous Isaac style dance with all the kicks and punches. 

Aaron agreed to be a human pinata again this year. We branded it as him being a demon they had to slay while "Takedown" was blasting on the speakers. In retrospect, this needed to be done at the park because there were far too many kids. They cornered him with their sheer numbers and he didn't want to knock them over, so he didn't get to do any of his cool jumping on counters moves. 

Happiest of birthdays, Annie!

Fall Break at Rocky Point

I love the tradition of spending Fall Break in Rocky Point. October is the perfect time to go- it's not crowded at all, and the weather and water are still nice and warm. This time we hit some unexpected traffic getting into Mexico- it took almost 2 hours to cross the border! There has never been much of a line at all getting into Mexico, so this was highly unusual. It was a bummer, because we were starving by the time we picked up our Pollo Lucas dinner and Walmart groceries and made it home to eat around 8 pm. 

Mimi, Grumpa, Max, Morgan, Breezy, Blake, and our fam was the group this year. This was our first time staying at Playa Encanto, a stretch of rental houses in a gated community even farther from town than the Las Conchas community we usually stay at. Our house was beachfront, which was SO nice. The kids could walk themselves back if they needed some inside time with one of their resting relations. We are truly spoiled by the ratio of kids to adults that love them on trips like these. And you can't beat eating ice cream on the back porch while watching dolphins jump in the distance. 

The sunrise gang! It was nice that we could avoid waking everyone up by eating breakfast on the patio and hanging out at the beach. 

Felix is a natural beach baby

Splashing, knocking down our sandcastles, finding shells - he loved it all!

It only took him one day to learn not to eat the sand. 

Felix got plenty of quality time with his best bud. Grumpa had the immense pleasure of introducing him to many new popsicle flavors.

Beach Isaac is my favorite version of Isaac. He was one happy dude the whole time. There was ice cream to be snuck, stargazing with Breezy at night, and plenty of space outside to dink around. He also tried snorkeling for the first time and had a great time spotting fish!

The only thing cuter than his Pokémon hat was his glorious beach hair. I'm actually obsessed with this picture.

Annie quicky determined that soft sand is perfect for gymnastics. 

And more gymnastics. 

And more gymnastics. Annie was glued to Mimi most of the time. They were dedicated to hunting shells. We found the best ones ever! This beach is so empty - there aren't people there picking over everything daily. We found lots of sand dollars and beautiful snail and clam shells. Mimi brought a shell painting kit, and we took some home to mount in display boxes. 

Look at these beachy buddies!

The Oat is very talented at hanging out at beaches. He was a key contributor to the more ambitious construction plans orchestrated by Blake and Max. He was also my main snorkeling buddy on the day we went to the spot in town by the Reef. He gets to stay up a bit later than his siblings to play a round of board games. 

Shout out to Blake for being a good photographer! This was Aaron's favorite night- we walked out into the low tide at sunset. There was an exposed sand bar that let us walk super far, the water was nice and warm on our feet, and there was a gorgeous super moon to light our walk back. 

Other things to remember:

We stayed in a room with 4 queen bunk beds. The kids argued over who got top vs bottom, so we had a nightly rotation of beds. 

Entertainment included general conference weekend, old Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies, a rousing round of fishbowl, and a 1,000 piece puzzle.

Bye-bye now!

Kid Creations

 Breezy introduced Elliot to this beautiful language called Tendrilis or Vine Language. It's cool because you can shape your writing in all sorts of ways. 

This one says "I love you mom!!" on both edges of the heart. What a thing to find on my nightstand. 

Here's the key, preserved for posterity

And here's a few cool looking messages! 

Elliot's origami skills have been developing. This kid can memorize how to fold things so quickly. I like this great combo of dragon and tank, aptly named "Jerry"

Another tank, artistically photographed with a grub found in the backyard. 

Elliot made his own chess set after playing a few games and seeing a 3d printed on our summer vacation.

These origami triangle units are a delightful open ended toy

April 2025 general conference featured a "key word pop-it" game by Elliot.

The kids cared for a family of avocado pits for a while. Avo and Cado were the good guys, while Ova and Odac were their evil twins. 

Here's some Annie creations from parent night at school. She does love her hair!

Here is said hair on crazy hair day. Annie requested crazy curly pigtails with all the ribbons while Isaac went the mohawk of mini ponytails route. 

Annie with Annie taped to her head

"Build a fort" was selected for Sunday family game. We thought of using bungee cords for the first time ever, and it really unlocked a lot of structural integrity! The only problem with this design is that it totally blocked off access between the kitchen, stairs, and garage unless you are willing to crawl through child sized tunnels. I opted to walk around outside when I had to leave for a meeting. 

Here is Annie's crown jewel: her reverse video! The song is "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters, which is her current obsession in life. 

I find edited pictures like this whenever kids manage to get a hold of my phone

Isaac described this picture as "a crow ate a bomb that exploded. That's why there are feathers everywhere. Also a snake is trying to eat the feathers and it is breathing fire."

Inspired by the alpaca wool dying demonstration from Peru, I harvested some cochineal bugs!

The internet walked me though how to make an extract. I was hoping to make some watercolor paints or something, but apparently you need Alum and other random stuff I didn't feel like waiting to get. Instead, I substituted my cochineal extract for water in our homemade playdough recipe.

It turned out alright. Not as vibrant as the Alpaca wool for sure! It turns out that there's more than just boiling stuff to their craft. 

Meanwhile in Sahuarita

Aaron and I had a wonderful week, but our kids would tell you that theirs was way better. They had the time of their lives. When Grumpa picked us up from the airport, he said, "Well. We might have undone a few years worth of your good parenting, but know that we had a great time." I'm happy to report that the kids did not revert to savages and that Casa Johnson feels even more like home to them (if that is even possible- it already did feel like our second home). 

We were gone over Labor Day, so there were 4 school days. Mimi and Grumpa navigated school drop off and pick up and rides to primary activities and gymnastics/ballet with seeming ease. They played with homemade play dough, did a 1,000 piece puzzle (the start of a puzzle era), played games, and so much more. Even with all that time, they are still saying all the things they wanted to do but didn't have time for. We are told that we should leave town more often- and we will seriously consider it knowing that they are in such good hands!

I was worried about leaving 1 year old Felix, but he did great! He gave Grumpa lots of exercise chasing him around the house and endlessly facilitating his up and downs. He loved the crib Mimi set up for him in her closet with the skylights blacked out, and the little pink cat he had to sleep in. He seems to have a strong preference for the two books she read to him for goodnight books now, and is quite happy taking naps over there these days. 

Felix was napping when I got to the house to pick him up after we got back. I was so excited to squeeze him that I went in to get him when he made the first noise over the monitor. He definitely wasn't actually awake until I walked in, which might have contributed to the best snuggles ever. He wouldn't take his head off my chest for a solid half hour. It was so sweet. 

An Elliot slider chart for Breezy to show how she's feeling, based on something from the video game "Stardew Valley" that they are currently obsessed with. It's theoretically helpful in knowing when to avoid physically touching Breezy, although in practice Isaac has a very hard time ever not snuggling with her. After playing Stardew Valley a lot with Breezy, they banned together to buy a copy for our house with their own money. 

Eternal thanks for the sleepover week!

Peru! Rainbow Mountain

The tour group had a bit of a mutiny after Humantay lake. Pretty much everyone in the other tour van decided that they didn't want to do the planned day trip to Rainbow Mountain the following day. Some people had been hit hard by altitude/car sickness, and another day starting at 5am with a 3 hour van ride up a really high mountain was less appealing. Most people in that van had done a tour of the jungle before meeting up for the Cuzco tour and some were scheduled to go to Lake Titicaca afterwards, and they hadn't had a day to catch up and rest yet. They stayed behind to go to church, and one of the tour guides stayed with them to show them some closer places afterwards. 

Those of us that stuck with the original itinerary were dubbed by the tour guide to be the "Chosen Inca Warriors" and felt entitled to making gentle jabs about how the other group was too tired after being carried on horses to the top of Humantay while we had hiked it. 

Rainbow Mountain, aka 7-Color Mountain, aka Vinicunca, was significantly higher elevation that anywhere I have ever been before. It's as high in elevation as Mt Everest Base Camp! 

 

There wasn't much vegetation this high up- just lots of grass being happily munched on by herd after herd of alpacas. Keep in mind that it is the end of winter for them- I'm guessing it gets greener at other times of the year. The roads were a lot better than the ones to Humantay. We were told that is because the roads to Humantay are government owned, while Vinicunca is private property. 

The base camp was small, but had shockingly good Wi-Fi thanks to Starlink! 

Our guides were worried that if we did the hike on foot, it would take too long because some of us had flights to catch later that night. The solution: Mountain Motorcycles! One of our friends, Amber, had gotten pretty carsick on the drive up. Probably because she was turned around backwards talking to me in the car. Sorry! Apparently she has a history of fainting when she's feeling nauseous, which is quite a concern while riding on a motorcycle. We took some time to settle her with coca tea and solid ground, then had a chat with her driver about driving slowly and stopping right away if she tapped him. Luckily the ride up was fainting free. I thought it was fun tearing it up on these mountain trails. 

It was COLD up there. Around 30 degrees. 

The Chosen Inca Warriors!

The rainbow mountain definitely stole the show, but I thought the sweeping views of the whole mountain range were simply stunning. We were up so high at a summit, but there were even taller summits all around us. 

Aaron is wearing a hat, his hood, then another hat on top, and I had my hat tassels tied under my chin. Fashion is quickly compromised when desert dwellers are whisked to the top of a frigid mountain.

We decided it was worth it to pay for a photoshoot with the adorable alpacas. They are SO FLUFFY. 

After the motorcycle back to basecamp followed by a van ride back to a lunch buffet followed by more driving back to Cuzco, we had enough time to savor a light dinner (with more ice cream, we were warm enough for it then) before heading to the Cuzco airport. Our flight to Lima was uneventful... but then our Lima to Houston flight was cancelled due to a maintenance issue. By then it was past midnight and we had been up since before 5am. We scrambled desperately to try and switch to a flight on another airline that some of our group was taking later that night, but were unsuccessful. We slept in this place called "Sleepover" in the Lima Airport that is essentially tiny bed lockers for about 6 hours. Our friend Kelsy was on the same cancelled flight. The next morning, we managed to cobble together an itinerary home using multiple airlines. It was stressful because the first leg left really soon, and we weren't sure if the second leg was going to be full or not. Long story short, we managed to get home only 12 hours later than our original plan. 

This trip was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. It really felt like the trip of a lifetime. I loved the history, the food, and the wide scope of things we were able to see and do. It was also fun being with a big group of people and getting to know some of the people better. I'm really grateful that Aaron and I managed to dodge all the altitude and carsickness. This trip was an absolute blast!