Aloha

This past week we took our first trip to Hawaii to celebrate graduation and spend time with family. Along for the trip with us were, my parents, Wende's parents, Grandma and Grandpa Meyer, their friend Anja, the Hales, the Bogdens and Ben and Marie. We spent 7 nights on the island of Oahu.








It all started with Macie's first plane ride. We were lucky, she ate and slept the entire time.


















Here is a view from our room.

Life is rough at the beach. Everyone got involved, even grandma and grandpa Scholzen. Evan thought the water was a bit nippy.




















































Macie did not enjoy her first dip in the ocean.





A dinner cruise along Waikiki gave us some great views of Diamond Head. And a great view of Uncle Evan doing....well....we're still not sure.

A little stare down contest with Grandpa Holt (my jowls are bigger than yours).

Great Grandma Meyer put Macie to sleep, right after dipping her in the gravy. How sweet.

















Macie with Uncle Ben and Aunt Marie and Uncle Jon and Aunt Liz.

Of course a trip to the Islands wouldn't be complete without meeting a Samoan tribal chief. He also happened to be an excellent fire dancer.

Enjoying the show with Grandma and Grandpa Holt.

Our shopping adventure to Waikiki with Grandma and Grandpa Scholzen took us to the International Market Place.

On thursday, we took a day trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We got to learn all about the different cultures, learn to dance, get some tattoos and taste some Poi. Good stuff!!!! The vacation was awesome. Our only complaint, not long enough. We can't wait to go back when Macie is older and do some of the things we didn't get to.

Back to work!

Finally after two intense years of school, I am finally done with grad school. Last saturday was graduation. The ceremony was held at the Phoenix Symphony hall. It was boring as any usual graduation ceremony. But my family stuck it out. Now I have to go out and get a job. Dang it! Maybe I will enroll in Med school....

Oh Baby!!!

This past weekend our family converged upon Queen Creek to see Macie and give her a blessing. Wende's grandparents flew in from Germany since they were going to Hawaii the next day. Mom and dad Holt flew down from Salt Lake.

My grandparents, mom and dad and brothers, uncle Jim, aunt Suzy and fam, came in from Utah. The Gilley's made the trek from Cali. and the Crandalls drove all the way from Higley, AZ (about 2 miles). Evan and Crystal were nice enough to let us have the blessing and party at their house.

After an awesome blessing from Grandpa "Great" Stanworth, we had dinner and visited. It was great to see everyone and chat.

And now, a word from our sponser....

Macie has this great little trick. She likes to talk and talk and laugh and babble. But once the camera comes out she's all shy and stuff. It has taken me two weeks to finally get a decent video. I thought I would post it. Click on the link and enjoy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5780398566450709786&hl=en

Baby Bling

So we took a little trip to the Piercing Pagoda today. Wende has been waiting patiently to have Macie's ears pierced. The shop wouldn't do the piercings until she had her 2 month immunizations. That experience was enough for me. I thought, "no problem I do this all the time at work." But when the nurse poked my baby with those shots, I had to choke back a couple of tears. As usual my wife was the tough one.

But fashion prevailed. So off to the mall we went to make daddy cry again. It was quick and much less painless for all of us than the shots. I do have to say that they look pretty dang cute. Although, I may have created a monster (in her and her mother) by buying diamonds this early. Thought I would share a few photos of the end result. Dang she's cute isn't she?

Happy 4th of July

So we took Macie on her first trip this past week. In an attempt to escape the heat, we left the valley and headed north to Prescott, AZ. We spent 2 nights there enjoying the cooler weather. It is sad when you are excited that it is only 102 degrees outside.

The first night we were there we went to the Prescott Rodeo. Supposedly it is the oldest rodeo in the world. Check out that sunset. It was a great time and Macie made it halfway through before she got fussy enough for us to leave.

For the fourth we spent most of the day looking through the small shops in the historic district of downtown and "Whisky Row". A rough place with a lot of bars, but some good resturants too.

That evening we headed to the local park along with 15,000 other folks to enjoy some food, cool temps and fireworks. It was nice to set on cool green grass for a change. The fireworks show wasn't too shabby either. I think Macie had three different outfits during that day. Not because of spitting up, but because it is Wende's favorite holiday and it was Macie's first 4th.

All in all we had a great time. We hope yours was good too.

The begining.

Hello all. Wende and I have started this blog to keep you updated on our lives. Well, mostly to brag about our beautiful daughter. We hope you will visit our blog often. We hope to hear from all of you soon.

Todd, Wende, and Macie

Scholzen44@msn.com