Happy Birthday Grandma Maggie, It's been awhile, Out and about, and Easter

Happy Birthday Grandma Maggie!!
-From the Mannimals

Here is a new post (that I'm sure everyone will enjoy as well) for part of your birthday present from us:


Both of the kids have always liked books!


Gonna need a bath!


Athena getting the kids cleaned up together and giving them both some hawk action.


First pig tails. We love it.


It's nice having kids who love each other. The get along unbelievably well.


Yes that is Mat in there somewhere


Chillin in the box.


Gettin pretty hairy


The little cutie


She's finally taken her first steps a little while ago.


She gets more adorable every day


We have a visitor


Just hanging out on top of the entertainment center, until we put him back outside


It was warm enough this day that we decided to hit the beach.


It was a little windy but a pretty day


Avi has learned not to eat the sand so she gets some freedom to play and roam


The beach is great for frisbee. We play with our folf putters so we get practice at the same time.


This beach has fairly good sand for playing in


Avi is such a little sweetie!!


There's Mr Hard Core with an end zone celebration :)


The beautiful Mann women! Athena got adventurous and cut her hair shorter than it's been since she was young. Dad digs it! :)


Dad is a lucky man!!


Doin some diggin


Diggin solo


Trying on Mat's sunglasses


Mat returns the interception for a touchdown.


It's me but I've lost the beard. It's always funny to come out of the bathroom from a haircut and see the kids response. (lol, Athena sometimes takes hours to notice the changes)


Just about time to pack up and hit the road after our picnic


Avi helps grab my sandals.


Mat and his Root beer. Yes it's Root beer. ;)


Avi is about beached out.


Athena surprised us all with a day trip up north for some hiking and fun. We hit the Trees of Mystery first.


The fam at Paul Bunyan's feet.


A guy pretends to be Paul and uses a speaker system to talk to patrons as they come and go.


Just about to head up on an entertaining little hike.


The entrance to the trail


The first tree was damn cool. It was 1 massive tree with fern gardens and entire ecosystems to itself not to mention that it was growing 12 separate living trees on its branches!


The signs about the Family Tree



It's in the next picture


Here's what I could get of it. Cameras need to have a reverse focus...


Me and Mat went under this tree.


The fam at the base of an old fallen giant.


Looking up


A cool little water wheel setup


Another up shot


Here is Cathedral Trees


An upshot from the middle of them


The fam at the base


The biggest tree we saw in the park. Pretty impressive to walk around!


It's crazy to think of all the giants like this (and bigger) that were here at one time. Sad to be part of such a destructive species.


Now it's time for the tram ride to the top of the mountain. Dad was very glad it was an enclosed tram ride!! (I can barely ride the lift up at Solitude to play the folf course any more. My vertigo seems to worsen every year).


Mat was having a lot more fun that he looks here. :)


The top of the ride.


The ocean view from the top. The waves were all moving in unison and proportion today and it made it look like the ocean was rippling instead of the usual wave effect.


I'm checking out the diagram of the forest side of the hills (East).


To the East


Can you see the 3 trees growing out of the fallen tree?


The last part of the hike down was through a section dedicated to Paul Bunyon and the redwoods. There is lots of Chainsaw craft work depicting stuff from the story.












A downed redwood that has the dates of significant events depicted in their timline across the rings.


Next Athena took us to a cool marina thing kind of like a small Sea World. I'm going to steal his hook. ;) His head moved from side to side and Avi and Mat were kinda scared of him, so I posed with him


They had some well trained sea lions they had rescued that put on a pretty entertaining little show.


The guide showing us a starfish's stomach


Starfish and Anemonies a plenty!


We didn't get a picture (got it on video) of Mat getting to pet a shark.


It's got him!


I was busted getting friendly with the captain. I had to restrain Athena from trying to kill us both. ;)


Time to make the beautiful drive back South as the sun goes down.


Some shoreline along the way


It was a nice sunset!


Another good view from the car before getting back to the scenery we're more familiar with


The night before easter and time to dye some eggs!


Mom and Mat did all the dyeing this year. They dyed me a green Yoda egg (Athena got Mat a Star Wars Egg kit).


Now for the shrink wrapping


Dying the Star Wars eggs


Avi was sleeping and missed the fun. This was one of my favorite pics of the bunch. Athena spilled the blue :)


Some of the finished egg line-up


Yoda and Darth


Darth DownTown Brown


Darth Mrs. Butter-Worth's


Athena shrink-wrapped me a Leia in the gold bikini on one of my beers. (mmm...Leia in the gold bikini...) ;)


We took video of Eastern Morning so this is the only picture we got. Avi is in her new clothes from Grandma Maggie.