just us

We had a great weekend. Olivia stayed up late and we watched the fourth of July firework shows from the eighth story of our building. We made sandcastles at the beach, went swimming at the pool, flew our kite, played dominos, rested, walked down to the pier and even learned how to play chess.

I don't want to hear anything about my hair. It looked worse 2 weeks ago. The man that cut my hair can be very emotional. I won't be going back to him!

Most of all I loved spending time with Daniel.

Back to the Beach

We were home long enough to see some friends and watch Dad play in a baseball game.

The we drove down to San Diego for our first family vacation. We celebrated the fourth of July with our own little family. Of course we went to the beach and had too much sun.

Happy Birthday Mandy

Another one of my great friends is having a birthday. We had a little get together at Mandy's mom's house in celebration of Mandy and Miles' birthday.

It was the perfect gathering for the children and the adults.

Chloë followed Fiona around playing with her.


We have a great group of friends in this area. I feel so blessed as I see each of them and learn from their great examples of parents, friends, and spiritual leaders.

Sam's love

Isn't this a great picture! Thanks, Kaylene.
Besides being silly when taking pictures, Sam LOVE cars.
It is a good thing I took this picture of his 4 favorite (the bug is not a favorite) cars because the next day we went to the park and we thought he lost the blue car. I am not sure where we got the blue car (front right) but hands down it is his favorite. It goes a lot of places with him. Luckily, we found it the next day!

Happy Birthday Kelli

We celebrated Kelli's birthday this evening. We had a great dinner at BJ's.

Here is Daniel and I! You can't really tell, but Daniel got a black eye at the beginning of the week playing basketball.


Good-bye Kaylene and Michael. I will miss seeing Kaylene. She was always willing to go play or talk about whatever! I met Kaylene when she first moved into our ward. She was my partner over the Activity day girls (girls between 8-11 years old, we planned activities for them twice a month). She has been a great friend. I hope she will move back to the area when her husband is finished with flight school.

HPTB summer picnic 2009

Daniel had to take the kids down the BIG slide and they LOVED it! I am grateful we have such a FUN dad.


The highlight of the day was body painting.



The food was great, as you can see, it is all over their faces.

Reuben H. Fleet Science Center

The Fleet science center has a lot of good memories for me. My parents would take my sisters and I there when we were kids. It still is a great place to take the kids. We went to watch an IMAX movie about California. This IMAX theater is different than most IMAX films because it is shown on the inside of a dome so you feel completely surrounded by the movie.

After the movie we played by this fountain and let the kids run around.

Happy Birthday Kira!

Kira's birthday was full of fun. We spent the morning at the beach.


It was fun for even those who did not go in the water.

And those who did get wet had fun, fun, fun.

After the beach everyone was so tired. Sam and Barbie played a game and Chloë for once took a nap on my lap!



That night Olivia, Kira, Barbie, Mike, Leslie and Jim went to Sea World to see the Shamu Rock show. I hope Mom will email me a picture.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Grandpa Mike. Our Dad had to stay in Mountain View, we miss him!!

Here is Kira seasoning the meat!

Sam helped make the mushrooms.

Here is our famous from with beautiful yellow sunflowers.

Below is Grandma Mimi with her great grand-daughter, Madeline.

love-love

It is tennis time in Phoenix. It was REALLY hot, but we had a great time. Kira, Olivia, and Sam thought it was just as fun to pick up the balls as it was to hit them.

Sam was pretty good. He had a LONG attention span. He would just stand there and hit ball after ball after ball.



Olivia also had a good time. She got much better as the hour went on.

the morning with Kate

One of my closest friends from high school, Kate, lives in Mesa. I called her to see if she and her kids wanted to come swim during the morning. It was fun to see her. She has 2 boys and a little girl. They are great kids. I hope we can have them over again. I would like to talk with her more.

Chloë had fun pushing Paige in the swing. I hear Paige can be a real terror. I bet she and Choë would get along just great!!!!

Here are Kate's boys and Sam and Chloë eating their popcicles.

Madeline was over also. She was very popular!

Phoenix Zoo

Here we are back in Phoenix and off to the Zoo. We did go on a train ride around the park to see the animals, but only after spending some time at the water park.

There was a small fountain that Chloë was getting close to, but a little afraid of!

This was a great water play area. It was a big mountain with water running all over and through it. Inside there were some "caves" and sides.

Sam found a peacoak he had to follow around.

Chloë liked sitting next to Poppy for the train ride.

Just before we left we went on a carousel ride. Chloë thought she liked it, until the ride really got going. She finally relaxed and enjoyed watching Leslie on the bench off the ride.

Historic Monument #1

My dad drove the kids and I to Phoenix so Daniel could keep working. I told my dad I thought it would be nice to stop by some monuments off the freeway. We always pass them, but never stop to appreciate whatever they may be. So of course he stopped at the first one we passed. It was for the San Luis Reservior off the 152 Highway.

We learned about this reservior that was constructed to collect all the water from the delta in the area.
We learned that it takes 698 1/2 gallons of water to make 1 hamburger. (At least that is what the vegetarians would have you believe. They are in league with the environmentalists to reduce infrastructure projects like building dams, reservoirs, and power plants, so that they can artificially create a water and energy crisis in order for government to step in to "control" consumption, thus forcing you to live their lifestyle.)