Texas Festivals

This is the Grapevine Outdoor Adventure Festival.

Gray gets a little nervous with the rides and all. It's more fun with dad!

Sissy can't get enough of this stuff. She rode every ride she could find (the height requirement is still an issue, but she rolls with it) She is turning into a little dare devil. ( I will try to learn from my own suspended drivers license experiences and find a car for her without a turbo charged engine. my mom was a barrel racer, and dad was a motor-cross racer, it's in her blood!)
Seriously! This guy is in heaven at a festival. Live music, food, family does it get any better than this?
When on adventure with Kalia, FYI always carry hand sanitizer. She loves to pick up and cuddle all types of animals/insects.
He loves trains. They didn't want to wash the paint off for two days. "who wants to be the one to tell them to wash their faces, not me"

ROADTRIP Portland, OR - Grapevine, TX

After we left the island we spent a week in Bend. The cold weather was wonderful and sledding in the snow was a big hit with the entire family. Our friend Julie came to stay with us a few days and it was great to spend time with her again.
We left Bend, OR behind and headed southeast toward Salt Lake City, UT. The kids and I stayed with family for a few weeks, and Sean flew to Dallas, TX to start his new job. (insert an entire blog entry about our time in SLC here) One thought: we were done with the cold weather after only a few short days. :O) Kauai Sun, gotta love it! (cousins- Kylie, Kalia, Grady, Audrey, Allie, Isaac)Three weeks later, Sean flew back to SLC. We packed up the dog, the kids and a lot of snacks and left Salt Lake City for our new home in Dallas, TX.

We stopped at Dead Horse Point, UT for some hiking/climbing and more importantly some energy release. The kids loved all the rocks and learned to follow the trail by searching out the piles of stacked rocks. Ishmael also enjoyed this stop.

The highlight stop was definitely the one day train excursion from Durango, CO through Cascade Canyon.

We arrived in Dallas, or rather Grapevine, TX where we set up house. The kids are picnicking on the lanai overlooking the pool. They are currently both in swim lessons and love to practice their new skills at the house. Slippers and sunscreen are still a part of our lives, and with the 100 degree temps the pool means to be a lifesaver this summer.

Kalia's 5th Birthday

Polihale one last time

On a random weekend in February, the 12th, 2010 to be exact, we decided to crash a friends pre planned camping trip out at Polihale State Beach Park. It was awesome to meet new friends, spend time with old friends, see the kids dig giant holes in the sand, throw the frisbee, roast marshmallows, and sleep under the most beautiful star filled sky.

Little did we know things would be changing for our little family of 5. (2 kids 1 dog) in two short weeks. Sean was to attend Roberts surprise birthday party in Seattle Feb 27, and it happened that he was able to arranged two job interviews at the same time. One in Dallas, TX and the other in San Francisco, CA. I will leave out all the fun facts and cut to the end. By Friday Feb. 26 Sean had two job offers waiting in his email inbox. Both companies had asked him to respond ASAP! Sean scheduled to fly home on Monday Feb. 29, and the kids and I picked him up at 4pm. We spent all night jumping from TX to CA and back again and on Tuesday morning we contacted our new employer. (I am the jumper in the family and really I'm just extremely lucky I married a man that builds safety nets in record time!)

So while chatting with Sean's new boss we agree that Sean would start work on March 29th. This gave us one month to call the movers, arrange to send the Subaru to Salt Lake City, UT, hold a garage sale, have a princess fashion show 5th birthday party for Kalia with 17 of her closest friends, visit with Tutu and Papa Perkins, Have 2 going away parties, finish school and work and finally give the dog a bath before we got on that very long flight back to the mainland. Once in Portland, OR we drove to our place in Bend for a week of gutters and fire safety tree clearing, some sleeding/skiing, and a weekend of garage sales. We drove to SLC on March 25, we stayed the night in Boise, ID perfectly timing a visit with Holly Cook our lovely Kauai friend who's awesomeness touches everyone around her. We arrived in Kaysville just in time for Audreys' 4th birthday party! Sean left Sunday morning and the four remaining Perkins are camping out at mom and dads until April 17 when Sean will fly back, we will all pile into the car and set out on our week long trek through beautiful Southern Utah, over to Durango for the ultimate train ride to Silverton, then down through ABQ and across West Texas!!!!!

It's true we are headed for Dallas, Texas. It all seems crazy at this moment but we are a wanderlust family and we seem to take to the road with the slightest provocation. We are healthy and happy and ready for a new adventure. Most of all we are thankful for the opportunities we have in our lives and whatever happens we are all in. Go Team Perkins!

(I recently realized we may have taken the teamwork analogy a bit to far when while waiting to cross a busy street with other crosswalkers, I noticed Kalia was checking out the competition to get to the other side first. A lovely yet unknowing man carrying his baby in a carseat was crossing quickly and Kalia while keeping one eye on the man and the other eye on the curb sped up and jumped a fair distance to make it across first. She glanced up at me still holding my hand and with a smile and a very quiet voice said "we are the winners" :O))

Sleepy Head

Grady is growing like a weed. He turned two in December and is becoming a little boy right before our eyes. Here are a few stories about his bizarre sleeping habits. A few months ago we had an experience that started the evolution from baby crib to big boy bed. At approximately two am one evening we heard a sound, no cries followed so we rolled over until the sound of little feet were heard coming down the hall, I assumed it was Kalia out of bed, so I climbed out of bed with my eyes still tightly closed and as I took one then two steps I ran into Grady in our bedroom. My eyes opened and I asked myself, while still in my sleepy haze, how did he get out of his crib? He slept with us that night and the next night we reassembled his crib into a daybed configuration with safety rails. This was the beginning of the sleeping on the floor routine. Each night after we tucked Grady into bed Sean and I would go about our evening quiet routine and then it would start, (It may be helpful to note Grady sleeps in a make shift room with rice paper walls on two sides and no door in the door frame to his room) we would hear little feet in the dining room or under the dining table or behind the front room chair and there he was laying on the floor. We eventually realized he preferred the floor to his crib. And thus began the mattress on the floor situation. They definitely don't give good decorating ideas for a mattress on the floor scenario in the Pottery Barn Kids magazine.