Around Our House

I've posted about all the big trips, but I've taken some day to day pics that I wanted to share and remember about our summer. These are in no particular order.

Our church always has few beach blasts in the summer. Water slides, snow cones, bouncy houses...the kids love it all!

And we don't love this....  These are tumbleweed seeds.  They are these sticky little flower things that bounce all around in the wind and this year, about a million of them made their home at our front door.  They are a nightmare to try to clean up.  We have to use a leaf blower on suck mode, and it takes forever to get them up. David has sucked them up 4 times already and they just keep coming back.  It's the most annoying thing ever.

Ben loves a good movie poster.  We go to the movies every week for the kids summer movie program. And sometimes the movies are so lame, that I go for walks around the lobby and checkout all the movie posters.  The kids seem to enjoy the movies though. 

This cat loves the piano.  This is what he does when Emily practices.  Sometimes, he climbs up there at like midnight. He turns it on, then gets some rhythm going with one of the buttons and then starts walking on the keys.  It's great to wake up to in the middle of the night.  And does he look like he cares?  Absolutely not.

Ben made Mario and Luigi out of Legos.  He created these all on his own without a template or something.  Pretty impressive.

And Noah made claws...what?  I said he was Freddy Kreuger. David thought he was Edward Scissorhands or maybe he's just Wolverine.  In any case, he watched some youtube video and it literally took him hours to get them right.

The cat was not a fan.

We went to the movies last weekend to see Despicable Me 3 and it wasn't until we left that I noticed what Noah was wearing.  You can't tell, but the shirt is olive green and the pants have turquoise and blue in them. It didn't match colors or patterns.  How did this take me hours to realize?  Oh well.  At least the theater was dark.

Emily played on 4th of July at the retirement home in Prescott.  David got to go and it's always nice to spread patriotic cheer!

The cat has taken over the dog bed.

The cat and Noah just reading.

I was getting popcorn at the movies and when I turned around, Ben was laying down like this.  That kid is too much. We're going to see Spidey this weekend.

So, that's some photos of what's going on day to day here.  We leave for our big summer trip in 5 sleeps!  We all need it.  Especially my husband who started a new supervisor position and to say he's stressed is an understatement.  I vote for selling everything, get a cargo van, travel the States and home school!  A little more time in this job and he just might be on board.

24 Hour Whirlwind

I didn't post this earlier because David wasn't here, and I don't like people to know that my husband is gone for the week.  That's not something the cyber world needs to know. So, last week, David had a training in Mesa for the entire week.  He left on Sunday and came home on Friday.

He was sad that he wasn't going to see us all week.  So, he said we should come visit him one night. So, we did just that.  We drove down Wednesday afternoon. The fire burning in our town causes us to take a longer detour, but we still made it to Mesa safe.  As soon as Emily heard David was in Mesa, she said, "That's where Ellie lives!" So, the plan was hatched that Ellie's house was our first stop.

I'm so grateful we got to go see her.  Ellie's family has done all the work keeping visits up with these two girls over the past 6 years. We just don't go to Phoenix often. So, it was nice to be able to finally go see them.


We picked her up and headed straight to a new trampoline park called Urban Jungle.  Oh my, it was fun. It's a huge indoor playground basically for kids.  These two girls are so cute together.

The boys like the rock wall and climbing stuff.  It was like American Ninja Warrior.

The raced up the wall.

Ben LOVED this spider web looking thing. He'd go down and up and down again. 

The girls tried the rock wall.

But, there favorite was the trampoline area.

The boys got in the trampoline area for a bit too.

But, they preferred the spider web thing.

These girls could've jumped all day.

When we were done, we headed for ice cream. I thought we'd get snow cones because it's the Water & Ice store, but they always have Thrifty ice cream which if you are from around here, you know is just about the best.  So, ice cream it was.

The other thing those Water & Ice stores always have is throwback to the 80's candy. I spotted bubble gum cigarettes!  Oh my gosh, we used to love those. And they'd have a little puff of powder come out when you blew on it.  We'd get them from the ice cream man all the time.  But, now they call them candy sticks or something.  But, they are still bubble gum cigarettes!  The kids thought they were super neat.  Not smoking of course, just the bubble gum cigarette.

David met us at the ice cream place since he just finished working for the day. Then, we dropped of Ellie and headed to his hotel for a dip in the pool.

These other people there had water balloons, so they gave us some.

For dinner, the kids were thrilled with salad and Papa John's pizza.  Our Papa John's closed almost 2 years ago, and we miss it.

The next morning, we said goodbye to David as he headed off for training. We packed up and headed to Legoland Discovery Center and Sea Life Aquarium for the day.  A perk of my job is I got annual passes for free, so we were able to have a fun filled free day.  That's my favorite kind of day!  

We were here a little over a year ago, but they've added some new stuff and it's just always fun.

Noah and Emily raced Lego cars.  Noah won.

They have this new space center.  Here's Ben as an astronaut.

And Emily...

We didn't know what would happen when the clock counted down.  The pic is blurry, but the space shuttle took off.  It was pretty cool and shocked us all.  

Then, we watched the Lego movie. The last time we were here was for a special event for bloggers.  We got in free and it was closed to the public. We had free snacks and soda. The kids were like why are all these people here? Where is the free popcorn?  Um, sorry kids, not getting any of that today. We still had fun though and I had snacks, so it was all good.

When we were done, we went for lunch. We got Subway, but Noah gets a salami sandwich, only eats the 4 pieces of salami and it's like $5.  It drives me nuts, so I let him get an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen instead.  Whatever.

Then, we headed to Sea Life Aquarium. Emily and Ben had been there on field trips, but it was mine and Noah's first time. It's very hands on.

They got to pet a lobster.  Emily and Noah petted everything. Ben pet nothing.

They had these bubbles that you could put your head in, so it was like you are in the aquarium. It was super cool.  This is a puffer fish.

There faces are the best!

Emily found her favorite...turtles!

And the jelly fish are cool!

This little Dory was adorable!

Then, I let them get a souvenir and the guy gave us pirate hats for free. 

It was an awesome day. And literally, we left Tempe the same time we got there, 24 hours later.  Whew....we packed so much into 24 hours. We grabbed a Starbucks and hit the road!

We were so glad to get to go see David for the day.  He's had this job for 5 years and has been traveling all that time. We always miss him and we're always so sad when he has to do overnights.  But, the best news....he got a supervisor position and he starts tomorrow!  No more traveling!  To say we are excited is an understatement.  I know he'll do great at the new job. He's already done it before, so it won't be too new. But, it's still a change, but one we are all ready for.

Summer is officially half over.  We have our big vacation in 10 days and then the kids will have just a few weeks left and school will start back up.  We are soaking up every ounce of fun this summer!