The Family's Naughty Stuff:
*We missed our flight to Las Vegas where Thuan attended a World Financial Group Convention because we forgot Darion's birth certificate and the lady that was helping us check in was new at the job and didn't know what to do and had to call corporate on her cell phone which took a half an hour and that delayed us and made us miss our flight by just a few minutes!!!
* We had a flat tire on the way back from visiting Dan's grandparents in Idaho and had to stay overnight at a hotel because it was a Sunday and none of the tire places were opened
*Our washer decided to give up the ghost
The Family's Nice Stuff
*We got a Zillow discount at Legoland and spent 2 days there as a family and we went through the Redwood forest on the way back
*Our spring break we got to spend time with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Evans nourishing him back to health after his chemo treatment
* Our family got to fly to Florida and boarded the grand Celebration cruise ship and spent 5 days in the Bahamas.
* We had three trips to California and Arizona for vacation, one in February, June and one in December
*We got a nice tax return and put in a roller blading path in the yard for the kids which they've thoroughly enjoyed
Reena (10): Reena turned 10 this year and has the wittiness of a double digit kid. She has a love for the sound of the flute and has been taking lessons. She continues to amaze her flute teacher at how fast she could pick up on a new piece of music. She got to perform 4 pieces of Star Wars music in front of other musicians on the flute. She was chosen to be a Grandridge Great Kid at the beginning of the year and got to dine with the Principal and got a nice gift bag and Great Kid water bottle. Her braces are coming along nicely and her teeth are much straighter this year. She adores her siblings and has babysat for us on a few short occasions. She did gymnastics classes and had a gym show where she got a medal so she was pretty happy about that. She loves to write and has written many short novels, some of which she hopes to have published. She enjoys doodling on the surface and proves continually to be a great artist. Many of our arts on the walls are her work. She has a good group of girls that love her and they go out to see movies, get their nails done, and go to the mud house together. She finished reading all the Harry Potter books and her mom threw her a pretty awesome Harry Potter birthday party at a fancy lake house. If you ask her what she's good at at school, she would say Math, but will continue to let you know that her favorite thing at school is recess.
Debrie (7): Brie has moved up in piano lessons. She is doing so much better now that she's not taking lessons from her mom anymore. She had a piano recital and performed beautifully. She took gymnastics and also had a gym show with her sister and got her very first medal which she was beaming with excitement. She had a Boov birthday from the movie HOME because they sing a lot of the songs she likes. She got a microphone and karaoke system for her birthday so her and her 10 friends were covering all the hip songs karaoke style with a disco set up. Her favorite highlight this year was snorkeling at the Bahamas. She had a performance at school and was pretty nervous but did well. She loves her baby brothers and acts like she's the mom most of the time. She caught a big rainbow trout on her first attempt at fishing and that got the family really interested in fishing. She also got selected to be a Granridge Great Kid and got to dine with the principal and got gifts. She loves finding things to do for her mom so they could go on shopping trips for mother daughter dates.
Ronin (3): Ronin continues to be our most active kid. He loves his little brother, almost a little too much. He wrestles with him, hugs and squeezes his brother til his brother cries, and just could not wait to run around with his little brother. He has an amazing ability to memorize things and quotes movies and books we read to him. He knows his ABC's and his numbers and shapes. Because of his ability to memorize he sings all the time. He loves to sing songs from Land before time, "Feel the light" by Jennifer Lopez and all the Disney songs, but most especially "Tale as old as time" from Beauty and the beast. He likes to draw everyone in his family and they look a lot like rugrats characters with eyes, smiles, and strands of hair. He will call out your name and tells you that he loves you. He spends a lot of time playing with his dinosaurs, building train tracks, watching mighty machines and playing on his tablet. He loves the bouncy house and could live all day outdoor, at parks, or the beach if weather permits, which is to say rain doesn't bother him. He likes to read to you his two favorite books, "What mommies do best, what daddies do best", and "lights, camera, action chugger" whenever he gets a hold of it.
Darion (1): Darion, our 11 lbs baby at birth did not continue in that curve for weight. He's thinned out quite a bit hovering around the 75%-80% percentile for weight, but he is very very tall. He is in the 99% for height!!! If he keeps that up he'll catch up to his brother soon. Darion can say mamma and dadda, nah, and bye bye and he'll blabber on and on sometimes and it's real cute to see him try to communicate with us. He has been to Florida, Nevada, California, Idaho, Oregon, and the Bahamas. His favorite movie is the baby Noah movie and he loves anything soft. He's a good baby for his mamma while she teaches and he is much more careful than his brother was at this age.
Thuan: This year Thuan had several solo performance opportunities, She was asked to perform the Star Spangled banner for the Walla Walla Sweets baseball game. She also performed solos at church and the Bellevue Festival of the Nativities where she sang solo for half an hour accompanied by a pianist friend she met at Reena's flute music studio. She took on a few voice students over the summer and also teaches music at Kinder Mundo. She was featured in the newspaper several times and was nominated to be the community's volunteer of the month for running open Mic and Playgroup where she teaches half an hour of music to 40+ moms and kids. She ran three races this year. Besides running kids around to lessons and extra curriculur activities, she got licensed to be a Financial advisor for World Financial Group/Transamerica where she gets to be her own boss and work when she wants to. She throws awesome birthday parties for the kids and plan out our family's many vacations. She made all of our costumes for Halloween this year and we were the Angry birds family. Her church callings are: Ward chorister, CTR 6 teacher, and Relief Society Committee planner. If you ask her what her favorite thing in the world to do is, she would say stay home, do nothing and cuddle up with her kiddos and husband and shop online or watch a show.
Dan: Dan is in his second year at Zillow as a software engineer. When you go to Zillow.com, the front page is what he works on. He has enjoyed what Zillow offers in terms of food. He eats breakfast and lunch there almost every day because why not, it's free!!! He got into running and is enjoying the gym a lot more now that Zillow is also paying for it. He was doing on average 6+ miles on the treadmill and was prepared to run the Seattle Rock n Roll marathon with Thuan and her sister and brother in law. He came in first of the 4 and finished in 2 hrs and 1 min. He also did a 20 obstacle course mud run with Thuan. This year's projects around the house included working on building his own DRONE, installing a projector for our home entertainment, making an aquaponics system. He is a Cub Scout leader at church and has been the sole care taker of the kids on many occasions when Thuan directs music, teaches, or meeting with a client. He enjoys the many trails around home and got his kids and wife new bikes so they can join him on bike rides. If you ask him what he would like to do in the future, he would reply without a doubt that he wants to retire early so he could be home with his wife and kids more as they grow up.
And finally...here's a look back on the last few years in Seattle, the only time you should look back is on fond memories
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