dad's arrival

We were all very excited for dad to come to Phoenix. We had a great time swimming. When fairy tales are made, they come from evenings like this one.

115*

You won't believe it, but we went to the Phoenix zoo when it was 115 degrees outside. Yes we are crazy! But we had fun. Here are Chloë and I enjoying a camel ride. She was very observant as we rode, thinking about each step the camel took.

Sam, Kira and Olivia thought it was great. In case you were not aware, the camel's hump is made of fat, and it is very hard.

Mostly we went to play at the water park.

So we aren't that crazy.

We love the sun!

Goggles & Flippers

Barbie gave Olivia a goggle and flippers set. She loves them. During this visit to Phoenix, Olivia was able to swim down to the deep end of the pool.

Sam has a similar swim tube as you see Chloë wearing. Both of them perfected the art of "bicycling" around the pool. Sam was able to bicycle down to the deep end. A great feat for most young kids. I finally understood why they were afraid to swim to the deep end. It is because of the POOL CLEANER. Apparently, it is very scary!

Lauren Bell and Barbie celebrate

We can't be together on their real birthdays, so we decided to have a birthday party a month early. As you can see, it was nothing but fun! Actually, we did have a nice time until Lula decided she was tired.

Olivia loves to hold her newest cousin Madeline. Madeline's right eye looks a little funny here, but she is a cute baby.

Here are the birthday girls. Thanks, Mom, for sharing your birthday with her. Mom almost got to share her birthday with her grandfather, but she came a day early.

Birthday cake everywhere!!!! Turns out she was not so tired once she got her own cake to eat.

my childhood

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip because it reminds me of my childhood. For some reason or another my dad would be using the soldering iron. So he would let me practice soldering. It is really fun for a child to do.

So Olivia and my dad made her a bracelet. She was very proud of it all week!

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.