Happy 2nd Birthday, Halle!!

This past Saturday our little girl turned 2! It was a great day - we had a party to celebrate both Brendan's 4th and Halle's 2nd birthdays. We spent the day with Great Grandma and Grandpa Lee, Audrey, Grandma Carol, Cameron, and Aunt Erica eating lunch, opening presents, having some cake and ice cream, sharing a lot of laughs, and enjoying the outdoors!

Here's the birthday girl - I can't believe how big she's getting!

Time to open presents...

Among Brendan's gifts were these adorable "Cars" swim trunks from Grandma Carol and Cameron...

Halle, feeding her baby some juice...

Here, Halle opens her new tricycle - she calls it her "cycle"

Before Aunt Erica had a chance to finish it completely - she had two of the three wheels on - Halle hopped on and drove it around! It was pretty funny!
The finished product was even better!

Halle, playing a little T-ball!
Time for cupcakes and ice cream!Playing outside in "Lake Landstrom". Because the frost hasn't yet gone out of the ground, the runoff has formed our very own little lake...

A blast from the past...

With the kids' birthday's quickly approaching (Halle turns 2 tomorrow!! And Brendan turns 4 on April 8th!), I thought it might be fun to take a quick trip down memory lane to see how much they've changed...

Brendan was only 8 weeks old in this picture and he already had that goofy grin!
One of our favorite pictures of him - he was 4 months old and we were at Barb and Rollie's lake home...Another classic - Brendan's first Halloween...

And here's our baby girl - Halle was just 3 days old in this pic...
Easter 2005 - Brendan is sharing his Easter Eggs with his new sister...

Here Halle is 5 1/2 months old - looking pretty in pink!
The two goofballs on the 4 wheeler...
It's crazy how quickly they grow and change!

Aloha!

As many of you know, I was chosen by one of our investors to speak at the ICBA National Convention (ICBA is an organization of smaller community banks), which just so happened to be held in Honolulu, HI!!! So, myself and my coworker, Sharon, spent a week in Hawaii, (airfare, hotel and most of our meals were paid!) which was an amazing experience, to say the least!


Here we are on the plane to Honolulu...

With our account executive, Dee Anna Hatfield, standing at the Taylor, Bean and Whitaker booth at the convention...

A few pictures of the hotel where the convention was held (the Hilton Hawaiian Village)...

(Yep, those are penguins)

On Saturday, March 3rd, Dee Anna took us to Pearl Harbor. It was a moving experience. This picture was taken while we were on the ferry that took us out to the memorial...

Inside the U.S.S. Arizona memorial...

All the people that died in the bombing...

The U.S.S. Arizona, in it's final resting place...

Among our many adventures while in Hawaii, was the Honolulu Screamer. It's tagline is, "Whale watching with a twist" It's a custom-built jet-boat, holds 49 people, and offers a ride like no other! Here is a picture of what was behind us - we sat in the very front, where we were strapped to our seats...

Here we are while the boat was cruising along in the Pacific - jumping waves and dipping the nose in the water, so we could all get wet!

They stopped for a moment and the captain and his wife took pictures of all of us. Behind Sharon and I is the Diamond Head Crater.

Here is the Pacific - look at all the gorgeous colors of blue and green!
Here we are swimming in the ocean...

In addition to all the daytime activities, Honolulu boasts tons of nighttime adventures, as well!

There was tons of great shopping, awesome resturaunts, and performers, of sorts, lining the streets! A mime came up and made us these balloon flowers...

We went to Hard Rock Cafe on our last night in Hawaii....

Then took the trolley downtown for some dancing and fun...

...where I sang backup (for one song) with the band that was playing that night...

Time to go home. Here are a couple of pictures taken at the airport - isn't it gorgeous?

What an awesome experience!