Everyone probably wants to have my sister in their family, especially since she was the reason why we went on a cruise.  My sister is known for finding great deals…and that is exactly what she did for all of us (Larsen, Hansen, Farley) to go on a cruise together.  Thankfully we all have terrific friends in our church who watched all of our kids so the adults could be together for a week.

Getting ready to board the ship

Matt giving Freddy, the Carnival Tail some love

Antoine Dawson does kareoke on Halloween Night

Girls sing kareoke

Mini golf on the cruise ship

Playing some doubles volleyball on the ship

ice cream 24 hours a day

2nd formal night

Matt as the Carnival Legend Sir Elton John

Beautiful sunset

We spent time together eating, dancing, singing, sleeping, talking, playing and eating again!  View more of our photos on the ship here.

Elder Jon Limary

Tia and I wanted to do something fun and spontaneous on Memorial Day weekend, so at the last minute we decided to hop on a plane to surprise our brother Jon, serving an LDS Mission in Denver, Colorado.

Tia and I both served missions about ten years ago (El Salvador and France) so we know what it’s like to be so far from family and friends for an extended period of time.  Contact from family is usually restricted to letters and two phone calls a year (Mother’s Day and Christmas).

We arrived on Friday morning and spent the day at the 80 acre, world famous, Denver Zoo.  The exhibits did not disappoint, and my personal favorite was obviously the reptile collection (they even had some large Komodo Dragons).

Friday night we drove to Jon’s address and surprised him by knocking on his window at 9:30pm (the missionaries live in the basement of a host family’s house).  He was definitely shocked (and happy) to see us show up out of the blue and we made plans for Saturday night dinner.

Saturday we spent a good six hours at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.  Here we watched two iMAX productions: Hubble and Arabia.  It was my first time in an iMAX theater and both shows were well worth it.  The rest of the time was spent at the many exhibits.  Kalani’s favorite was Gems & Minerals.  Like his dad, Mason really seemed to enjoy the Wildlife Exhibits.  There’s a video below of him walking around chanting crazy Polynesian war cry.

That night we picked up Jon and his missionary companion and took them to Olive Garden for a relaxing dinner.  It was really fun to catch up and hear more about his mission (he doesn’t offer much detail in his emails).  He’s definitely matured a lot and looks great.

At the airport waiting for the car rental shuttle

Jon's first time meeting his nephew Mason

Moments before the surprise knock on the basement window

A herpetologist in the making

Below we see Mason’s Hawaiian side make an appearance as he bellows his ancient Polynesian war cry.

Earlier this year a co-worker recommended The Hightaway on the Guadalupe as a great place to take the family for the weekend.   After some online research I proposed the idea to the Larsens and Hansens as a long weekend vacation.  Everyone liked the idea, so near the end of April we rented both the Hightaway and the Hightout from the owner, Stephen Hight.

These two houses sit on the bank of the Guadalupe River, north of San Antonio in Center Point, Texas.  The furnished accommodations come fully equipped with canoes, inner tubes, life jackets, bbq grill, fire pit, swing set, rope swing, etc, etc.  The fact that everything needed was already at the house made for a very relaxing vacation.

We spent most of our time on the water, in the canoes, playing on the rope swing, etc.  From campfire s’mores to tubing down the river to throwing a big lizard on Makana, I can safely say that everyone had a great time!

We surprised Makana with this friendly visitor (lizard in the lower-left)

Matt and Jake practicing for their circus act

Families are Forever! (...or... "Our Family Tree")

The shirt says it all

The Incredible Hulk made an appearance

This pretty much sums up our weekend

The property had a great kid's playground on it

Kalani and Olivia posing for the camera

And finally, a video of McKay surprising me and Kalani:

I came across lovely Father’s Day Portrait below on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com and thought “If that dad deserves such an amazing gift of love, so does mine!”.