January Photo Dump

This is my favorite outfit of hers.  Kimber picked it out this day...but she wears it often. 

 Playing spoons with Grandma and Grandpa Crabtree:

 In preschool one day we made cookies:

 Allison taught Cam the basics of swimming. She convinced her she could put her face in and not touch the ground as she kicked around.  Cam still swims like Allison...prefers to swim under the water rather than on the water with real strokes :)

 We also made clown masks in preschool:

 And gum drop houses:

 This is just huge.  Cam was so afraid of putting her face in the water.  Allison changed all of that.  From this day on she has been learning so quickly!

 Allison wanted her shirt ironed.  I told her that I don't iron, but that she was welcome to.  She gladly accepted the challenge :)

Ashlee turns 38!

I had a great birthday once again this year.  Loved by my husband, girls, family, and friends.  I love birthdays :)

The night before my birthday I had a volleyball game.  When I got home I found this:

 Lots of love from some of the YW and Tami H.   Some of the stuff they wrote made me laugh out loud.  Funny funny girls!

 My own girls had filled the house with awesome notes as well.  Seriously, I'm surrounded by funny people!

 (this one is still on the fridge and it is actually May 1st today...I'm a little behind on blogging :))

 Presents and homemade chocolate chip cookies!

 They got donuts for themselves (our normal birthday breakfast) but knew that b/c of my Healthy Lifestyle Challenge I was doing that I wouldn't want to eat a treat that morning, so they got me some yogurt and I was able to add extra fruit that the YW had left me. 

 I got to go to lunch with this awesome ladies:

 And then these people met up for dinner at the Iron Grill and then played volleyball to celebrate with me as well. 

There are a handful or two of my favorites missing from these two photos, but otherwise I was blessed to hang out with so many special people that week. 

Thanks to all those that spoiled me rotten that week.  Turning 38 wasn't that bad :)

Konrad's Cuba Trip

With the US and Cuba relations thawing, Alaska Airlines started flying to Havana so Aaron and I decided to take advantage and make it our annual trip this year. Aaron's brother, Dave, and sister-in-law Crystal, as well as Darin Baumgartner, joined us for the long weekend.

Arriving in Cuba is like stepping back into the 1950's. Here's our taxi when we arrived:

Konrad. Aaron, Darin

The first day we checked in to our Casa Particular that we found on AirBnB. These vacation rentals are run by locals and provide much needed income for some of the locals in a largely poor, communist country. 

Outside our Casa Particular

 Front room

 View from the balcony

We finished the day with a tour of the Morro Castle, which guarded the Havana Bay inlet.

The next day we headed to the beach in the morning. It was a nice beach, but we would have had to travel further to get to the best beaches in Cuba. Since we weren't really there for a beach vacation we were content to hang out here for a couple hours. 

 Playa Santa Maria Habana Cuba

Guy with a bass. On the beach. 

 The afternoon was spent touring Old Havana on our own.

 Grand Theatre

Grand Theatre at night

The next day we hired a local tour guide to show us the important sites and monuments while teaching us the history. She was younger, so a couple generations removed from the revolution and try as the government might to keep it fresh in their minds it seems that what the younger generation is really looking for is opportunity that is severely lacking now. 

Lots of these old classics around town

Typical of Cuba - anything related to the government is pristine while buildings behind crumble away

 Cuba has a large Afro-Cuban population. This area of the city showcases their artwork:

The capitol - built to be taller than the US capitol

Lots of beautiful architecture

Currently a US Embassy, prior to Obama re-opening relations it was the US Interest Section. The US installed a reader board to display pro-American messages in an attempt to offset the anti-imperialism propaganda from the Cuban government (our tour guide said it seemed to mostly just be world news headlines). The Cuban government wasn't too pleased, so it installed dozens of flagpoles and flew black flags to obscure the reader board from view. Now that relations are starting to re-open the reader board has been removed and a single Cuban flag flies on the poles.

Russian Embassy - with the fall of USSR in 1991, the Cuban economy dropped by 1/3 and is when the government turned to tourism to try to make up for the shortfall.

On Day 4 we drove out to Vinales Valley where there are several traditional tobacco plantations and haystack mountains called Magotes. 

The government commissioned these rocks to be painted to look like prehistoric art in the early 1960's and apparently that version looked okay. Later they hired cheap painters to come touch it up with brighter colors and it's turned into a monument to bad taste.

The people in Cuba have been amazingly welcoming. With small houses and three TV stations, they seem to be outside socializing all the time. Education is free through university and their government provided jobs give an income of under $50 per month (though housing, healthcare, and basic food staples are free) so many hustle on the side. They accept their living situation with humility and humor while especially the younger generation who are further removed from Fidel's revolution yearn for more opportunity which unfortunately means leaving the country.

You see lots of this - people leaning out on balconies watching the street below to pass the time