Theat-ah Camp!

Now that she's 4, almost 5, Drew is eligible for all sorts of summer camps. We signed up for gymnastics camp, vacation bible school and theater camp. It was a lot of work for our little girl and she did her absolute best with the 5 days of rehearsals they had before putting on the Friday night performance. According to Drew the best part was wearing blush and mascara for the performance.

It was a loosey-goosey performance, she had many photo-ops.

 A little slower than the others on the choreography. Although at home, she performs quite well!

In her "Strawberry Shortbread" short, she delivers her lines just before she gets shot by aliens. The video below shows her (beginning at 0:43) Oscar-worthy death scene.

Proud mom and dad!

She might even consider doing theater camp again if she gets flowers and is allowed to wear makeup!

Boom Boom Pow! Drew clearly had a couple key moves down.

Hawaii 2012

Working on our sandcastle skills.

Favorite part of the trip is always the water slide. It was especially wonderful for Mommy to be able to just sit and watch her slide, swim against the current to the side, climb up the steps and slide again, all with no help. 

 Boogie boarding/surfing/ocean swim lessons with Boppa. Occasionally I would look up and see Drew fighting some small currents to get to the boogie board Boppa had pushed away from her. She did great!

 Kimo's! Someone's missing from this picture :(

 After 2 failed monkey bar attempts, she swung all the away across, accumulating 2 blisters in the process. She was pretty proud of her wounds.

 What a fish!

 At our annual trip to the Maui Ocean Center. She just loves looking at all the fish every year.

 My favorite story of the trip happened here. We had walked up to a small crowd who had just finished listening to a marine biologist talk about sharks, unfortunately we had missed the whole thing, but she was now asking all the kids a question to win a prize: "how long can a tiger shark grow to?" Drew, of course, wasn't paying attention but instead looking in the window at all the animals. One older boy raised his hand and answered 25 feet. Wrong. Another older boy raised his hand and answered 15 feet. Wrong. Drew stood up, turned to the lady, raised her hand and said "20 feet." She was correct, the whole place applauded and she won a prize for a complete wild guess. I was super proud.

 Happy 4th of July from the Valley Isle!

 Self-timer masterpiece!

 Excited and ready for the snorkel boat, the Teralani.

 Giggling with Grammy and Boppa.

 Like her aunt Kels, Drew enjoys the self-photo.

 Where's the brunette?

 We decided we like sand-cakes as opposed to sand-castles.

 Posing for the camera.

 The true mark of growing from toddler to kid is the appearance of an athletic run. I think we're there!

 Daily lunch picnic on our lawn...trying not to get hit by the occasional football, soccer ball or bocce ball.

 A very sweet girl with her Mommy.

 Somebody spots her last Hula Pie of the trip!

Drew-isms

This morning, while laying in bed: "Dad, I want peanut butter and honey on my toast. I'm not getting out of bed until it is ready."


Last night, after seeing a man pull a bow and arrow out of his trunk, she told me she wants a bow and arrow (like Merida from 'Brave') so she can shoot a deer and have its head as a trophy. Apparently there's a lot more Falsken blood running through her veins than I thought! (my apologies to the Zacks family)

After explaining what she will be doing at drama camp in a couple weeks: "I bet I will be the prettiest one. Or the funniest one."

At dinner, Drew had told us she climbed to the top of the rope at gymnastics camp, then clarified that she had climbed all the way to heaven. We figured it was either a short rope or she was exaggerating, no big deal.
A couple hours later, in the bathtub, she looked at me solemnly and said:
"Mom, I'm sorry I lied. I didn't climb all the way to the top of the rope. I only climbed almost to the top." Short pause.
"Mom, I'm sorry I lied. I didn't climb almost all the way to the top, I only climbed up a little ways." 
I responded with: "That's ok, I'm just glad you tried, I'm sure you will do better next time." Pause.
"Mom, I'm sorry I lied. I didn't climb the rope at all. They didn't let me because I wasn't wearing a leotard."

Who believes that the camp counselors at gymnastics camp told a 4-year-old she couldn't climb a rope because she wasn't wearing a leotard? The good news is she's starting to admit to lying, or at least recognize she is exaggerating. The bad news is, well, either the camp has a really strict leotard policy or we still have some work to do.

Happy Birthday Maya!

Drew is always excited to go see Maya and Teagen, but she was even more pumped to see a slip 'n' slide. Minute 1 she was in her bathing suit and sliding.

 Cooper, Teagen and Drew

 The 9-year-old birthday girl, Maya, and Taylor.

 Maya and Teagen's Uncle Jason decided 1 slip 'n' slide wasn't enough so he went to Home Depot and picked up a large tarp so at least 5 kids could slide at once.

 The 2nd most exciting part of the party was the dozens of water balloons Drew had Jeremy blow up...not fill up with water...blow up. We are still picking up pieces of balloon in our apartment.

 By far, Teagen was the hardest runner of the group, sometimes running onto the tarp too far and sometimes sliding on her knees before she actually hit the tarp.

 I love seeing how these 3, who are only about 3 months apart, are growing up to be good friends.

Last Open House at MLS (for a few years)

We entered the colorfully decorated classroom and went straight to the scrapbook the teachers had put together for each of the students. Drew loved looking at her work and pictures throughout the year.

 The room was decorated with colorful snakes and toucans and monkeys and other art projects Drew was proud to show us. Of course, she was more preoccupied with running off with her friends and going missing for 10 minutes but now that she's almost a graduate of Pre-K she knows they lay of the land.

If everybody had an ocean...

The 50th anniversary reunion tour concert at the Hollywood Bowl started out with Do It Again. I don't know what it says about me but I am absolutely sure that I know more songs in the Beach Boys catalog than any other artist's.

We saw a few people rocking the Hawthorne Cougars Class of -- t-shirts, Mom and Dad must have forgotten theirs.

 While she was awake, Drew loved people-watching with Boppa's binos.

 Not long after this picture, Jeremy and I were trading off holding her against our chests while she slept. I don't think that has happened since she was under 2. There's not much room on Mommy's lap these days!