Our Challenge for the Summer!

Since the kids are older now and we have so many great places to go in such close proximity, we've set some vacation goals for ourselves!

So far, we're planning to go to San Diego for a weekend and make several smaller day trips. Danny and I are also planning to take a weekend trip just the two of us for my birthday. The last time we went anywhere alone was January of '05 (and I would argue that Evan was technically with us then, too!).

The San Diego trip will be for Evan's birthday (a trip to Lego Land and the Aquarium) and for our weekend trip we will either be heading to Sedona or taking a kayak trip on Canyon Lake.

Even though the places are close, the cost is high! Lego Land tickets are more than DisneyLand, and for our weekend alone we have the added expense of having someone take care of the kiddos!

So - our challenge? To pay for the trips (or at least most of them) wtih funds from a garage sale we are planning in July. We've been clearing out the clutter like crazy and it feels so good to get rid of all the stuff we aren't using any more. We have many boxes we've never even opened after our move.

We'll let you know how it goes!

Happy Anniversary...to you!

That's 19 years!



Happy Anniversary!

Love from all of us:)

The Neverending Story

Since all of our family is out of state, (sorry – all but ONE of our family is out of state :) and we live in a black hole when it comes to mail service…Caitlin’s gifts will be trickling in all week.

Tonight she opened gifts from two Great-Grandmas…

   

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Gifts from Aunt Connie, Great Grandma Choo Choo and Great Grandma Casteel – THANK YOU!

Caitlin's Birthday (Part 2)!

The Birthday Princess in her tiara!

On Sunday, Caitlin's actual birthday, we had a small party for her and invited Julie (my saving grace and the kids new best friend!) and her husband Denny.

Caitlin (and Evan) had a blast playing with balloons, eating cake and opening gifts!

Here are some photos of the afternoon. We'll put a whole bunch more up on the slide show as well!

What a nice Daddy :)
He's actually done this THREE years in a row...he has strong hands!

So, the final cake!

Tinkerbell spent some time in the sun! We really should talk to her about sunblock…

Caitie's first dollhouse! She LOVES IT!

Balloons, priceless!

Julie and her husband, Denny

We had our first family tea party, too…

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We’ve had so many today I think we may be a little bit British by now.

…and all the rest of the photos!

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We had a great weekend!

Caitlin's Birthday (Part I)

Last night was the first part of Caitlin's birthday celebration...

We got a suite at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak and spent all day today at the water park there! We all had a blast...got a little sunburned despite the buckets of sunblock I tortured the kids with (actually Caitie is the ONLY one who didn't get burned)!

It's 745 and everyone is in bed. Here are some pictures of last night and this afternoon

A view of the "casitas" we stayed in. They are great little two story "houses" with kitchens and two bathrooms! Very cool :)

Main pool(above)

Playing a little miniature golf before the "dive in movie" started - you can see the lazy river to the right - it was HUGE, we spent a lot of the afternoon there! After golf, we went back over to the main pool where they had a projection screen set up for Madagascar II. It was such a perfect night! We stayed out there until 9pm...late for the kids, especially when they had such a busy day Friday!



Dinner Friday night. We ordered pizza from Spinato's, a local place that has gluten free crust on the menu! Yay for Evan

Kitchen of the casita...

Tomorrow we are having a little birthday party with just us, Tracy and maybe her friend Tom and Julie (our babysitter) and her husband Denny.

Round II comin' up!

Busy, busy day!

Friday was a busy day! The kids both woke up at 5AM!! We had gymnastics in the morning where they ran themselves ragged. We got back home just in time to meet Julie and she took them to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, where they played again for quite a while.

When they got home it was just about time to leave for the water park!

Poor kids...it may be a long weekend.

Rental Woes No More...

For those of you who didn't know, we've been dealing with rental craziness at our house in KC. In February we found out our roof was leaking and we had hail damage (which isn't really a bad thing - we got a new roof!). But then, in March we found out there was mold in the basement and of course a leak to go along with it. So, it took a little over two months but we finally got all of that under control (a new rook, the leak repaired, mold removed and basement refinished) and listed the house for rent again.

Last weekend we found renters!! Yay! It's so nice to not have to make that mortgage payment this month.

Now we can start thinking about what we want to do here in Phoenix...rent again next year or buy a house??