Declan Hercules: Holidays Galore!

 It's almost Christmas!!!   We are so excited, but before Christmas is officially here, I need to catch up on other school & Holiday activities.  We're well into the second semester at school, and I'm really enjoying it this year.  Both Keevah and I have settled in at St. John's, and have good groups of friends.  Keevah even did the school musical, Anastasia, this year - and loved every minute of it.  I think I'm going to do the musical next year too!  Fencing keeps me busy after school, and Keevah continues tae kwon do and horseback riding. 

Since we've been so busy, we have a bit to catch up on! We last left off right before Halloween.  Halloween was so fun - trick or treating with friends, Halloween parties, etc.  We dressed up as Harry Potter characters this year - even Gee got involved as Bellatrix. The doggos were pretty hilarious as Sirius Black (Atlas), Hedwig (Chaos), and Fluffy the Three Headed Dog (Spirit).  Right before Halloween, Keevah's class had a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and our whole school had the Color Run.  This is a fundraiser like a jog-a-thon, where we raise money for the school.  It coincided with Crazy Hair Day too! When we jog around the track, grownups toss colored chalk at us, so it gets pretty messy!

The Hogwarts Crew!

                    80s day at School

Me & Elizabeth

BFFs Layne, Keevah, Elizabeth, Brooklyn & Rosie

Pumpkin Patch field trip with Keevah's second grade class - it was great, getting lost in Gee's car & all...

Declan & friends at the Color Run

Keevah & friends at the color run

  

Mama showed up to cheer us on!

Keevah's crazy hair

Elizabeth, Mika, Fairen, Layne, Keevah & Brooklyn at school lunch

Keevah still loves riding

Fun hike with the Heidt crew from San Diego!

Atlas nestling with Chocolate rabbit

Sunset in our backyard

My fencing group had a fun ballroom fencing night

Our awesome nanny, Miss Cami, had a baby right around Thanksgiving.  Gran & Gramps usually come for a visit around Thanksgiving, but they stayed an extra week to help out!  They took us to the very cool Beltane Ranch, where we got to have some yummy food and hang out with the animals.  We had some yummy meals, including our tradition of going to Morimoto for some sushi. Gran helped us pick out and decorate our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving as well.  The highlight was seeing the Lion King musical in San Francisco (20 years after she took Mama & Dada to see it in Los Angeles!)

  

Here are some Thanksgiving Day photos of the family

The Lion King in SF!

Keevah showing everyone her Fourth Form

Keevah was in our school production/musical of Anastasia.  She worked really hard for about 3 months with after school practices and did an awesome job! Gran, Gramps, Gee, Grandpa & of course Mama/Dada/me were able to watch her perform - there were 5 performances, and every single one sold out!  It looked really fun, and some of my friends were in it too - so I'm going to do the musical next year myself!

Layne, Keevah, Elizabeth & Rosie ready for "Springtime in Paris"

Out finding the perfect Christmas Tree

Getting in the holiday spirit!

We have a local ice skating rink in the Winter. Mama rented a large firepit and we each got to invite as many friends as we wanted. We ended up with about 30 people after school on a Friday - and we had the best time! 

 

                           Keevah & Brooklyn                                  Layne, Keevah, Brooklyn & Rosie

Charlie, Constantine, Declan (me), Declan, Killian, Rylan; foreground Sam & Haines

Gran gave Keevah an awesome African dress for her birthday

Grandpa was named "Citizen of the Year" in Elk Grove, so we all went to his celebration dinner...joining a whole lot of the Colton Clan and a few hundred people from Elk Grove to celebrate his lifetime of community service. 

  

So many Coltons...

We also had our Christmas program at school.  I was one of the lead readers, reading from the book of Luke.  Keevah sang with her second grade class a few songs. 

  

Some family photos after the service. 

The next weekend, we were in San Francisco for our annual Nutcracker experience.  We humored Mama and took a bunch of family photos near SF City Hall. 

  

  x

 

Brunch before the Nutcracker at Son & Garden - truly a really fun experience, themed as Alice in Wonderland. Check out our drinks!

    

For Keevah's 8th birthday, she got her ears pierced!  She was super brave and didn't flinch at all.  She even rated the pain as a 2/10 - I guess her Tae Kwon Do experience is paying off!

  

Speaking of Tae Kwon Do - Dada made sure that ear piercing wasn't her only gift.  She now has sparring gear for the house, and Book 3 of Harry Potter! I'm a bit worried because she is already super good at kicking me, and now she will have the padding to kick even harder without repercussion!

Our elves (Pit & Twinkle) delivered the most massive balloon for her birthday

Her birthday party was horse themed - to match her love of horseback riding. Mama & Dada rented a pony for everyone to groom & ride.  Mama made a pretty awesome horse themed cake; there was an "adopt a stuffed horse" station, pin the tail on the horse game, and inflatable horse rides. 

This was Daisy, a 12 year old pony that everyone loved grooming & riding

A pretty impressive horse themed cake. Mama swears she will never work with fondant again!

The second grade crew

Adopt a (stuffie) horse station, and the blow up stick-horses for racing

                            Pinata time!

Keevah's friends adopting their horses

So many beasts! Four humans and 3 dogs snuggling before bedtime

Harmony & Chocolate

Me & some buddies at our friend Sam's birthday party at the local Escape Room

Here are some fun clips of me & Keevah & Mama goofing off and dancing!

Stay tuned for the Christmas blog post! Mama will try to get it up and going on our long flight tomorrow - we leave on our 3 week trip to Tanzania & Zambia tomorrow!