Crosswoods

We have discovered a new place in Gilbert called Crosswoods. If you like to play golf you will like this. It's indoors. You sit and eat and drink and play golf in the comforts of AC. (great for a summer in AZ) We took the kids and they loved it. FYI Monday nights kids play free on 18 holes. Everyone takes turns and while you wait you eat. My fav part. :) Plus when you really mess up you can hit the mulligan button on the screen and you get a "Do Over" as many times as you want. (No that's not totally cheating in my opinion)

This is Mason and I can't believe he beat me at golf. That's not saying much I stink!

Graduation

I had a tough time this time with kids finishing school. I guess because Sydney is now in 9th grade and my baby finished kindergarten. It's just so amazing how fast they grow up. People say that all the time and then you look back and really understand that concept. Heres a pic of Mason on the last day of school with his teacher. Also this was a week ago but Mason had a kindergarten program and Mason was so cute. This shy little boy that I know was not shy at all on stage. I think I have a performer on my hands. He is one of the chickens in the group in the front row. He did a great job.

Superbowl

So Yes I went to the Superbowl. Actually some friends of ours Chad & Stephanie (in the pic with us) were going over to Tampa before we even knew the Cardinals were going. Chad was doing a job over there. So we decided to make a trip out of it. It just so happens with our luck that the Cardinals made it to the Superbowl. Well then of course we had to get tickets! It was such a fun trip!!!! We had Cardinals clothing on all weekend and it was fun to get cheered and haggled. Except sometimes Stealer fans were pretty mean to us which kind of sucked, but for the most part all was in good fun. I have to say there were allot of crazy's, but that made it all the more entertaining. It was such a fun trip and once in a life time opportunity. So glad we got to go!!! Thanks Chad & Steph!

Feeling Blogger Blues

I feel terrible because I have not kept up with this blogging lately. Not sure why this seemed to be an unusually busy holiday season for me, but it was. It's been good, just busy leaving me no energy to blog. Well I guess let me say Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went before I even got in the mood for it. I'm committed to being more organized this next year so I can enjoy the love that surrounds us all instead of the business at holidays. We did take a few trips snowboarding before Christmas and during Christmas break, surprise surprise. So I'll put up a few pics on that. On our last trip to Brianhead, Utah we went with family and friends and the last day turned into a major blizzard and we couldn't even drive up the mountain. So we turned home and headed Vegas way. We ended up staying the night in Vegas which was fun, but man is that NOT a family place. We took the kids to the M & M factory and got to see all the lights and whatnot at various casinos. It was interesting to say the least, but fun all at the same time. Kids had a good time, but they will probably never go back to Vegas until there out of the house on their own. So now it's the new year and I am already feeling spring fever. I'm ready to purge my house and feel organized.

I will Post

OK I know it's been awhile and I can't tell you how crazy I have been lately. I'm leaving today for another snowboarding trip to Utah so when I get back I promise to update from Thanksgiving, to trips to Christmas and New Year. Hope everyone is doing well and Happy New Year!!

Fall finally Fall

Last weekend we went up to my parents cabin (again) in Oak Creek and got to experience REAL fall weather!!! Not this record heat we have been having! Blah! But real cool and beautiful colors of yellow and red weather. It was so great to be bundled up by the fire having hot chocolate. It was just Mitch and I and the kids. We had great time!! If you cant tell the picture below is Sydney & Cobe up high wedged between two mountains. Then of course playing in the fall leaves.

Cold Hearted Mother

I am going to spew a few bits of why I feel like a terrible mother. On October break (see below pictures) Sydney hurt her hand by smashing it real hard. Well yes it was swollen and Yes she could move it (barely, but non the less move it). She didn't even cry...So after two weeks of her still complaining I gave in "fine! I will take you to the doctor but this is a waist of time!" I announced. Well it just so happens her finger is broken and for two weeks I let it go. So bad mother move right there. Then on Friday I got a call from the school nurse of whom I already know which child got hurt. Can you guess? Mason of course. At lunch recess ran into another kid and hurt his noggin. Mason felt sick to his stomach (which is a sign of a concussion for those of you who have not gone through this...I can't tell you how many times I have been through this with my kids and Mitchel) So I said "OK I'll come get him". I figured how hard could he have hit his head on another kid and the other kid is fine. So once again I blew off the symptoms and said "your fine". I needed to run a few errands so I took Mason with me. He was falling asleep in the car of which "OK he is tired today". I'm at the library talking to the lady at the help desk when all of a sudden Mason starts throwing up. There was nothing around and I didn't know what to do so I opened my purse to let him throw up in. Embarrassed as I was cleaning up throw up off the floor in the library (on a very busy day I might add) I realized Mason truly got hurt today. So I got Mason and my purse full of throw up and went home. I guess after the years of kids getting hurt I have become a bit mundane. If there is not blood spewing out or there is clearly a bone sticking out somewhere I tend to say "oh your fine". I think I need to be a bit more sympathetic.....And the winner of "the Bad Mother" award goes to.... ME!

B-day Celebrations

This weekend we got together with Mitchel's family to celebrate October Birthdays. About once a month we gather and who's ever B-day is in that month we celebrate instead of gathering each time for each B-day. Too many people to do that. Since it's so close to Halloween most of the kids wore their costumes. Here are all the cousins together. Anyways it was really fun. My very creative sister in law JoLynn put together some fun games for all the cousin's to play. This one was "Bobbing for Donuts"















Here is a pic of Sydney with donut all over her face, but who doesn't mind when it's Crispy Cream Donuts. It was really funny watching them try to eat the fastest with hands behind their backs. Here was another game. A relay race of dress up and dress down. Here is Mason & Cassidy racing. Also a pic of Sydney cheating because she didn't put the costume on fully.







What B-day party wouldn't be complete with out cake!! We always have a good time with Mitchel's family. All the kids have a great time playing as well as the adults. I feel very blessed to be a part of this family.

OCTOBER BREAK

Well for October break we took another trip to Mexico. We stayed with our friends Chad & Stephanie and their two kids Cody & McKenna. We had a great time. Our kids really seem to get along and have a good time with each other. What was also nice is we knew many people that were going down there too and so all our kids had a ton of friends to play with. I hardly saw Sydney that whole weekend. This pic of my foot is my view I had all day on Friday sitting by the pool, watching the ocean and best of all relaxing while the kids played on the water slide or lazy river or the ocean.

Cobe taking a break from the water.

This is Mason about to get knocked over by the Oceans waves. And a Mexico trip wouldn't be complete without taking time to go to the dirt mall. This is Syd & some friends after the dirt mall with their cool new shades. Oh it was a fun trip. So glad we got the opportunity to go again thanks to Chad & Steph. Thanks guys you are the best!

Boys Being Boys

I caught the boys playing around the other night being goofy. Cobe acting Oh so innocent. Big brother picking on little brother. I guess though it was all in fun and they weren't really fighting. They were being so goofy on the exercise stuff. They were suppose to be calming down for bed time. This wasn't my idea of getting ready for bed.

Is that how the ball works?? No wonder my ab's don't show at all!

Hawaii the Big Island Kona

Hawaii, Kona 2008

We did eat some really good food and right by the ocean with good friends made it so cool!!

Finally I am making some time to post about my trip to Hawaii. We had an amazing time!!!

This is who we went with. Mitchel's brother Randy & his wife Jenny and our friends Chad & Stephanie. Where do I being. I'll start out with our scuba dives.

I am amazed at the world God created in the ocean. Truly is so fascinating it's hard to put into words. Two huge Eagle Rays swam by. This I have to say scared me a bit because how it works in the water is there is a huge reef that goes along the island and then in drops off into a deep, dark, blue nothing. Well the Eagle Rays were in the deep, dark nothing and we followed them going about 80 feet deep. Really watching my surrounding's making sure a shark would not appear it was hard for me to enjoy these beautiful creatures. Once we got back into the reef part I felt better. Considering I am not a pro diver and this was only my 5 th dive I have done. We did two different dives that day. My dive master in Arizona told us to go to this place in Kona and they took us out on their boat & took us to two different places to dive. It really was so much fun. We were going to do a night dive & I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We have a movie of us diving I will try to post that later, but not sure if it will work. It's kind of long. So another cool thing we did was take a small air plane ride around the island. It was SO COOL!!!

We got to see the live and active since Feb. Kilauea. These pics are where the lava is meeting the ocean. If you look closely you can see inside one of the lava tubes and the bright red lava flowing. It was really cool. These pics don't do justice.

It took 2 1/2 hours to fly around this big island. One side where most of the resorts are and the airport Waimea (North side) is not that pretty. Hardly any beaches & mostly black sand beaches. Black old lava everywhere. Then on Hilo side (East side) of island is SO BEAUTIFUL! Water falls everywhere and just green!!! OK onto the next thing. We went snorkeling a couple of times and on one of the trips we rented kayaks and about half to Cook's Island we all of a sudden were surrounded by a TON of dolphins. This was one of those moments that I felt that God was saying "Hi, see what I created". You know instead of a beautiful sun set this day we got amazing animals right beside us. We got out of the little boats and I just layed on top of the water face down with snorkel and watched as they swam right underneath me. The boys were a little bit more daring in the fact that they got so close to the wild animals. Chad actually touched one of them they got so close. You can see his arm and how close we were to them. This was not in some controlled Sea World environment. This was in the somewhat middle of the wild ocean.

Once we got to Cook's Island we snorkeled there for a long time. I was doing good and fine minding my own business when an eel swam right underneath me. I freaked out a bit. I hate eel's.

The sea turtles are so use to people I think because they swam right by us. If you get caught touching a turtle you will be fined 25,000. No worries on my end. Pretty to look at no need to get bit. So in a small nut shell this was our trip. We had a ton of fun and many really cool experiences. So glad we got this opportunity to go. I have over 300 pictures. It was so hard to choose which ones to post. We got amazing pictures in our scuba dives. Anyways it was really cool!!!!