Warrior Dash

After signing up for the Warrior Dash in Phoenix, my running partner bailed on me.

I thought about not going myself but since I already had the weekend planned I decided just to tag along with the ladies from the gym!

It was a very hot March day in Phoenix.

What an awesome cheering team we had with Hunter and Kiersten!

I joined Local Edge Gym in January and boy have I really enjoyed this gym.  Their CrossFit program is wonderful in it's own bad painful way!  The atmosphere is so friendly, encouraging and none judgmental.  It's the perfect place for me to workout!  I love all the coaches and the wonderful people that go there. 

These ladies are AMAZING!!!

Dayna & Lyle Broadhead, Jason & Maria Kouts (the Gym owners), Danny & Star McQuen, and ME!  I tired to not be in this picture seeing how it was all these couples and loner me.  But they all were insistent that I be in it.  They even left me out for a moment!  These amazing woman even bought me matching shirt and socks so I would feel included in their group.  

I would have been fine ether way, but it just made me realize what great people they are.  And just how thoughtful!

Hunter thought that the men's My Little Pony shirts were the bomb!

The Warrior Dash is a 5K run with many obstacles!

It was a great time!  The men were hilarious!!!  

We are about it enter the biggest mud pit.  You had to crawl under the bobbed wire so you really got covered in mud.

I am glad this was the last obstacle because all that mud really weighed you down.

Wonderful day, Wonderful people and a little bit of exercise!  Sounds like a great combination to me!

Thanks everyone for making me feel so included when it was a last minute thing for me to join your team!  I love you all!

My kids are the best!  They cheered us on, took pictures of it all for us and stayed together so they were safe!

That evening I took the kids to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast at Gammage.  We all loved it!

It was a fast fun weekend and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Fun Little Trip

We needed to meet our builder down in Phoenix on Saturday to pick out a few things for the basement.  Since Justin had a doctors appointment over in Tucson Friday evening we decided to just make a big loop around and make a weekend out of it.

My dad ended up Thursday night going to the ER, they thought he had a heart attack.  They were going to fly him out but the weather was too bad so they took him by ambulance.  It was around 11:30 p.m. by the time he left.  I went home to quickly back myself a bag and also back the rest of the family for the weekend.  Talk about a mad rush!  My mom was coming to pick me up as soon as she packed her bag.  I managed to get everything backed by the time she got there.  I back myself a little bag, the boys all a bag for our weekend trip and Kiersten a separate bag as she was having a girls weekend with Grammy Cluff and the girl cousins.

I drove my mom over to TMC and got there around 3:00 a.m.

My dad wasn't in a room yet still waiting in the ER.

They did say that he didn't have a full heart attack.  He was having some internal bleeding, either in his intestines or stomach and it caused his heart to be strained.  Good news!

He did have to have an NG tube placed down his nose which is extremely painful.  Crazy enough it was only three months ago that my mom had a blockage in her intestines and had to have the same thing, an NG tube.  Except hers happened while she was going through chemotherapy.  So it was extra rough!

I must say that in the past year my parents sure have kept me busy with healthy problems.  It's no fun watching helplessly while your parent suffers.  I am always so grateful to be able to help out and stay with them in the hospital during these difficult times.  My amazing mother-in-law and wonderful husband are the reasons I have been able to be there with my parents.  And I will forever be grateful for their help!

My dad had to spend a few days in the hospital but made a full recovery.

Justin ended up coming and picking me up at TMC before his doctors appointment that Friday evening.  I had only slept about an hour so I was pretty much delirious!  That and the fact that I am on some crazy hormone pills made for quite a time!

(Jan 4th)

The boys and I were starving so Justin dropped us off at Mr. An's for some teppanyaki.

This was the boys first time at a teppanyaki restaurant. 

 Boy were they impressed!

Mr. Grant was wickly good with his kids chop sticks.  It was so funny because he could eat with his way better than the older boys.

He loved eating with the chop sticks.

Of course he found other things to do with the chop sticks as well. He is three remember!

I really love teppanyaki!

Entertainment and dinner right in front of you......how can you beat that?

Love the volcano!

The boys were all thrilled with the whole experience.

This would be Hunter catching a shrimp.  See the shrimp flying in the air?  He actually caught it on the first try and was so excited!!!

It was a wonderful dinner even though I looked like death.

One lady who sat at our table said, "Oh sweetie you look like you've just pulled a night shift and a day shift right in a row."

I told her, "Yep that's pretty much what I did!'

I was relieved to explain why I looked so bad :)

From there it was on the Phoenix to stay the night.  Ends up that there was a huge accident on I10 so we were rerouted.  What should have been a 1 1/2 hour drive to our hotel ended up being a 4 hour experience.  Of course we were grateful we weren't the ones in the accident but man was I ready to lay down in an actual bed.

Next day I was feeling much better and we headed out to meet our builder.  After picking out several things we headed to some furniture stores.

Logan finds this chair and is in "love"!

He is so funny!

He told me all the reasons he "needed" this exact chair in his room.

Yay, bud not gonna to happen!

We decided to stay the whole weekend. Of course that involved jumping on the hotel beds in your underwear!  My boys think it's really something special to get to do that and the fact that I let them do it in just their underwear some how added to the excitement. 

Only rule....DON'T LAND ON DAD! 

The next morning Justin would not wake up so I decided to let him sleep and that I would take the boys to breakfast some where.  Cheesecake factory it was.

Really good morning......kisses from Mr. Grant and these two handsome guys sitting across from me!

Hunter gave his fancy french toast a thumbs up!

We let Justin sleep in til check out, 12:00........he was pretty happy about that!

Since the boys had been really good sports the day before with all our shopping we treated them to Xtreme Air!  One of our new favorite spots in the valley.

The boys were happy they had earned this treat.  Hunter has been talking about this place since his birthday trip with his dad.

It was an immediate hit with Logan and Grant!

So needless to say it was an eventful long weekend!

So grateful my dad is doing good and got released from the hospital in just a few days.

Spelling Bee

Hunter made it to the spelling bee at his school.

He picked out his outfit all on his own.

He insisted on wearing his purple earphones with his purple iPod.

Said, "He wanted to look cool while he spelled his words!"

I have to start off saying that I hate the spelling bee.  Actually let me rephrase that I hate when my kids are in the spelling bee.  It makes me so nervous for them.  And I know my kids ( at least Kiersten and Hunter) are such perfectionists that I know they are going to be disappointed with themselves regardless of how they do.

This year Hunter made it to the spelling bee!

Hunter was gone the day they handed out the list of words to study over Christmas break.  He was upset about that but we kept forgetting to ask his teacher, our neighbor to get us a copy so he could study it during his break.  So he never studied them.

Hunter can be such an emotional little guy.  He wears his emotions on his sleeves like his mom!  That and the fact that he expects perfection from himself are a bad combination for the spelling bee.

Hunter did a fabulous job!

He got forth place.

The whole situation is intimidating.  At DPA the room that the spelling bee in held in is tiny.  With the whole crowd right in your face, not to mention the panel of judges starring at you what kid wouldn't feel uncomfortable.  Hunter seemed to handle the pressure with easy.

The last four kids went five rounds before Hunter got out.

You know how spelling bees go.....it's just the luck of the draw if you get a hard word.

The round Hunter got out the other kids words were, "family......wonderful........react."

Hunter got the word, "dyer".......Example "I am in dyer need of help right now."

He doesn't even know what the word means and has probably never written that word in his life.  He was bummed that he got that word.  He could have spelled every other word that round but his.

He spelled it just how it sounds...."dier."

I was proud of Hunter for making it so many rounds especially considering he never looked at the list of words to study.

Since Hunter contained his composure, even though I could tell he was upset and really wanted to cry I decided to treat him, Logan and Grant to a movie.  Kiersten was still at dance.

We watched The Hobbit and loved it!

Great way to end a stressful day!

Way to go Hunter! 

Carlsbad Caverns, NM

On our drive home from Dallas we decided to stop at Carlsbad Caverns.

It was nice to break up the drive home for sure, even thought Carlsbad was a little out of the way.  We even stayed at a Ghetto hotel which added to the experience.

We didn't know quite what to expect….boy were we impressed with the massiveness to this cave.

The natural entrance is really cool.  It's quite the hike down and boy were we glad there was an elevator to take us back up.  Grant wasn't going to make the hike back out without being carried and that wouldn't have been much fun for Justin or myself.

The formations hanging from the ceiling of the cave are just amazing!

This is called the Whale Mouth

Very fitting I'd say.  It was really neat to read all the signs and see what the structures were named.  Once you read the name of them you really could see why.

It was such a fun experience to be inside the cave!  The temperature was nice a cool which was great since it was a good workout hiking down so far.

The kids loved it!

This is when I wish I had packed my good camera.

It was absolutely gorgeous and impressive!

It was definitely worth driving a little out of the way to come experience this.

I loved listening to my kids talk about what they were seeing and listen to their questions.

They really enjoyed reading what the different formations were called.

I think the kids favorite part of our trip was actually hiking through Carlsbad.

It was a fun Spring Break and I can't think of any other way I'd rather spend my time then with my sweet little family!

Thanks Justin for taking the time off and making it such a great week for us!

Spring Break @ The Great Wolf Lodge

It was a pure miracle that Justin took the week of Spring Break off to come on a family vacation.  I literally didn't know if he was going to take the time off until the day before we were leaving.  We were all so happy that he would be joining us!

We drove to Dallas Texas to go to The Great Wolf Lodge.  We had been there once before but that was before Grant was born so it had been awhile.  We actually took two days to get there so it made the 13 hour drive really nice.

The kids loved the fact that they had their own space in the room!

It was such a fun time!

So nice to just have to go down stairs to get to the water park.  Also nice to not have to worry about the heat or getting sunburned!

Grant had to have his nap every day.  All that playing in the water really worn him out!  I loved that he would crawl up on me and cuddle up to go to sleep!

One thing we love about this resort is the Magi Quest!  Yes even I get into it!!!  I had to borrow Grant's wand so I could go play with the older kids………good thing Grant took a nap so I could borrow it :)

For the Magi Quest each kid gets their own wand and you go through out the resort using your wand to open treasure boxes and find certain signs which light up when you wave you wand at them.  The when you have gotten certain ones in a row you get to come to this room and they give you a new quest to do.  It's a super fun thing and nice to have a break from the water right here at the resort.

We spent a little time at the arcade……Logan hit the jackpot with this game!

This was one of our favorite rides because four people could go on it at the same time.

Grant didn't like it because he was too short to ride on it.  It wasn't because he was scared!  He kept telling me, "but mom I not scared to ride it?"  It's hard to understand why you can't go on a ride when you aren't even scared!

It was so much fun to be together as a family!

Love it!

The kids did a craft one day at the Kids Club.  Pillow cases, shirts and a piggy bank.

Grant Loved the wave pool!

One evening we went to a typpanyaki restaurant for dinner.  The kids were super excited!

So fun to be entertained and have yummy food at the same time!  Of course the boys love the fire!

Kiersten of course had to get in some pamper time at the Scoops Spa!

You need gorgeous toes when at the water park!

Hunter got this ball at the arcade and him and Kiersten had a fun time throwing it to each other in the pools!

This is one of my favorite places simply for the fact that you don't have to get in the car at all and you are completely entertained for days!  Plus I love the water and so do our kids!

Grant fell in love with DOTS ice cream on this trip.  He had to have at least one helping of them a day……sometimes two.  Hey it's vacation so the rules are different!

We all enjoyed ice cream treats at the Bear Paw Ice Cream Shop!

Justin did come on the trip with us but that didn't keep him from working.  He was on the phone A LOT……working on all kinds of things.  Sometimes technology is a curse especially when you own your own business and feel like you can't fully get away.  I think the next family vacation I'll plan will be to someplace WITHOUT cell coverage and no Internet access!!!!

Justin also spend time back in the room remotely accessing his computer at the office from my MacBook.  Oh well that's just the price we pay for having such a hard working husband and Father.  We were just glad he actually came with us!  So we didn't complain!

Grant taking his daily water park exhaustion nap!

Since Kiersten got to go to the spa Hunter and Logan got to make these stuffed animals.

You can tell from Hunter's eyes that a few days at the water park will do a number on your eyes!  I love that Hunter still likes stuffed animals.  Not sure how much longer that will be the case but it's fun I think!

The  boys were pretty happy with their stuffed animals!

Logan thought this was WAY BETTER than having your toe nails painted.

Good choice Logie Bear!

It really was a fun and relaxing Spring Break!

So grateful to be able to get away with the kids and Justin!  We LOVE it when Justin comes with us!