Week 2: Rigby, Idaho

After Shaun's, we drove 5 hours to stay with Billie and Russ in Rigby. We were so pumped to spend time with Zach, Christian, and Bleak. Porter was especially excited to get some time in with the guys. After the first day, he was running around with Christian saying things like, "Duuude..did you see that?!" and "Duuude...check this out!" It was so fun to see him pick up on the big kid stuff so fast.

The had their trampoline right next to their deck. So, the kids spent almost the whole time doing crazy tricks on the tramp of sleeping on it.

One night we had to bring the tramp sleepers inside because there was a huge rain storm. Everyone was more than willing to tough it out, but the parents had to give a definite "no" on that one! They still had plenty of fun sleeping on the floor of the living room.

Summer 2010

The last couple of years I have abandoned Dave to the heat of Arizona and took the kids North to visit family and friends. We usually spend 4-6 weeks jumping from one house to another. The kids have so much fun that I feel like I don't see them the whole summer! Here are some pics and short stories of our travels this year.

And we're OFF!

The kids were super excited to be able to fly out this year. We even brought Snickers on the flight. In the middle of take off Snickers nosed the zipper on his carrier open and hopped up on Porter's lap. Porter knew we'd get in trouble so he quickly hid Snickers under Ivy's blanket. Snickers was thrilled and settled down and was great in his little hideout for the rest of the trip. Everyone loved the flight and were so well behaved. I was proud of my little family!

Week 1: Boise, Idaho

First stop was Boise to visit Shaun and Kelly. We spent about a week there playing with our fun cousins Addie and Rachel.

One of the kid's favorite parts about staying with Shaun and Kelly is that they all got to sleep on the floor. Every night was a sleep over party. We'd put them down and spend the next hour yelling at them to quit playing. Sadly it was Rachel and Ivy that were the most disruptive and kept tickling the older kids. Those two year olds are so funny and cute that it made it hard to get really mad.

Shaun just finished his commercial helicopter pilot's license, so we all got to go on a helicopter ride. It was so much fun! Eva and Ivy were a little too nervous to give it a go, but Porter has found a new hobby! Since we've been home, he casually refers to Shaun's flying abilities whenever he wants to impress someone. It's really funny and cute!

The kids got excited when it rained one day. Kelly broke out the umbrella so they could enjoy it even more. Silly Arizonans!

All of the cherries were nice and ripe on Kelly's cherry tree. So for a fun morning activity we sent Porter and Eva up the tree to pick the cherries. It looked so much fun that I soon hoped up there as well. We got a BIG bowl of cherries and made a delicious cherry pie for dinner. The kids were so proud of themselves and so happy to get to climb a tree. It's one of their favorite past times.

Happy Birthday Porter!!

Porter turned 8 years old this month!! We had so much fun! On Thursday we did a little family birthday party and went to the movie "How to Train Your Dragon." It was so good and fun! Definitely one of the good movies.

We went all out for Porter's party and saw the 3D version of the movie. The kids loved it! It was so funny to sit with them and watch them flinch and try to grab at the things on the screen. The glasses were wwaaayyyy too big though! Eva had to hold hers on like opera glasses.

On Saturday we had a party at the splash park for Porter and all his friends. We had a really good turn out and the weather was perfect! It was warm enough to play in the water, but cool enough to enjoy the park toys and not sweat all of us out!

This is just a cute picture of Ivy in her new swim suit. She got especially for Porter's party. I love how her little belly pokes out so cute!

Rockin' It At a Roger Clyne Concert

We went to a Roger Clyne concert a few weeks ago with our good friends, the Housels. It was the first concert we had been to in a lllooooonnnngggg time. It was a lot of fun.

Even though Dave claims not to be a fan of the "Twilight" novels, in every picture he seems to be trying his hardest to prove that he is for "Team Edward".

Helping with the Laundry

The kids love it when we do laundry. They always steal the baskets and play in them forever. It's actually pretty funny. Here they are swinging Ivy back and forth. She loved it. It definitely made me nervous. Porter couldn't understand why Eva thought the basket was so heavy. Her little arms are about to break carrying that basket. So, I told them to switch sides. Porter was quick to want to switch back!

Our Ivy Girl

Ivy's hair is finally long enough to fit into pony tails. She was pretty excited for the first two seconds, then spent the day pulling on them and saying, "Hair, ouch!"

Ivy loves her little piggies. She thinks all stuffed animals are piggies. It's pretty funny. She also loves her backpack that she can carry around and wheel around. Anytime the kids get their backpacks ready for school, she is busy getting her all packed up with her important things (i.e., piggies, balls, blankeys, etc.).

Ivy has also started to love dressing up. Here she is in her pretty dance clothes. She loves to twirl around the living room and sing. She will grab my hands and say, "Mommy, Dance with me." How can I say no?

Dave's Marathon Training

Here is Dave getting ready to go out for his late night run.

He runs around 9 or 10 at night (crazy I know) so we can hang out for a bit after the kids are down. He is training to run a marathon this June in California. It is so awesome! We don't get to run together during the week, but on weekends for his long runs, we have been running together. It's so nice running together. We get to talk about a ton of random stuff that we usually don't have the time/energy for. I love it!

Ragnar Race

This month I ran a race called the Ragnar Del Sol race. The race is a total of 202 miles, from Prescott AZ to Tempe AZ, run in 24 hours. We had 12 girls on our team split between two vans and two drivers. We each ran 3 legs of the race ranging in distances from 3 to 10 miles depending on how many hills were in your legs. It was AMAZING! Definitely super hard to do, but totally worth it!!

This is a picture of everyone in our van before we started running. If you look close you can see we're all smiling and don't have that crazy look in our eyes that came later in the race from sore muscles and exhaustion.

Here I am getting ready to hop out of the van on my first leg.

This was about 20 hours into the race and we were getting pretty loopy.

Renaissance Festival

Every year there is a Renaissance Festival that falls right on Dave and Eva's birthday. So rather than do a big birthday party for her, we convinced Eva to go to the Renaissance Festival with some friends. It was a fun day of being silly and looking at shops. It's such a fun place to go hang out!