Fossil Springs

Josh is the Assistant Scout Master in our ward and is lucky enough to be one of Gavin's leaders. Last weekend he was able to take both the boys on a scout campout to Fossil Springs.

Matty's 7th Birthday!!

Matty had a "spa" night with 9 of her closest friends. Cousin Kaylee did hair, Grandma did nails, and Kayla and her friends did makeup. It was so fun. The girls also learned how to blow huge bubbles with Bubbalicious...mmm!

I asked Matty if she wanted strawberry shortcake for her family birthday and she said yes. I guess she had no idea what it actually was, cause as soon as we gave it to her she took the strawberries off and said she hates them. Luckily it was nothing that some whipped cream can't cure!

hmm...whipped cream or no whipped cream???

It's shortcake not seafood...silly Cody :)

Who needs a fork...not Gavin!

Isn't Kayla adorable with her braces (she got them in January)


Matty's family birthday party was so nice. Her daddy and mommy, brothers and sister, grandpa Hatch, Aunt Elisha, and her cousins were all there to celebrate with her. We did the family party on her actual birthday, wednesday, and her friend party on friday.

State Fair

Every year the 4th grade puts on a state fair project where each student chooses a state and finds out lots of interesting facts about it, write up reports, draw maps, and color a flag. Kayla chose Florida as her State Fair state. She worked on her reports for about a month. The final report was 12 pages long which included pictures and maps of Florida. Josh and I weren't the only ones who thought she did an amazing job, so did her teacher Mrs. Riggs. She received an "A" on the speech and the poster presentation. Nice job Kayla!!

Muffins with mom

I went to the kiddos school on Wednesday for "Muffins with Mom" day. I got to sit at Matty's desk, she brought me a muffin and water, made me a flower necklace, and sang a little song. She made me a book all about me. According to Matty I weigh 40 lbs, I'm 40 inches tall, and I don't like nachos. In the book it asked, "if your mom could have one wish, what would it be?" and she wrote, "an onest family"...super cute...I loved it!

Wednesday was also Matty's 7th birthday so I took her home after muffins and enjoyed the day together.

The big promotion came with perks!!

This is Josh and his new buddy...Larry Fitzgerald...they're tight! Since Josh is such an amazing golfer he has been invited to play in three charity golf tournaments the past month or so. The first was with the WWE wrestling. His partners were the midget (I forgot his name) and Kelly Kelly. The second was a Cardinals Football one where he met a ton of players and coaches. There was a contest where they had to drive the ball a ridiculous distance, like 400 yards, and get the ball as close to the line as possible. Josh came within about 2 inches from the line. The prize was an amazing trip...but someone beat him by a tinee tiny bit...he still has mad golf skills. The third was for a children's organization in Tuscon. There was another contest here to get a ball on the green ,which was such a difficult shot that nobody he was with made it, but Josh did. He won some dinero on that one...he rocks!

Fun

"Just have fun" is what I want to be our familiy's motto. We get bogged down with the activities of day to day life and forget to just have fun. I don't mean we aren't going to take our responsibilities seriously, but that we aren't going to be so serious we miss out in the joy all around us. So I am spending the next week and a half before the kids get out of school, organizing our home so we can enjoy life together!
Josh has traveled a lot the last while and there doesn't seem to be enough time to catch up on a weeks worth of growth for four children in a weekend filled with football and other activities. So I will be using our family blog as a daily journal to keep him and everyone who reads this up to date without info overload at the end of the week!!
I am so excited to get back into the blogging world and hear from family and friends we don't see all of the time!

Fun in the Sun!!

Josh and I just spent an entire week ALONE in Florida...it was as amazing as it sounds. My mom stayed at our home with our kids and we partied without them...whoo hooo!

We loved our trip to and from Florida. No cell phones...no work ...just us! We stayed the first night we were there in Ft. Lauderdale. Josh found an authentic Argentine restaurant and the food was great (whats not to love, everything is deep fried and full of garlic...mm mm)

Friday we made our way to Miami Beach. Since we were staying a whole week we rented a convertible so we could soak up as much sun as possible. We were cruisin' along with our top down enjoying the perfect weather and the clouds started moving in . We headed to the hotel to get settled in and wait out the storm. When we went to park the car the top would not go up. We were thinking holy cow those clouds look big and we have to go get a different car. So we go to the Alamo by our hotel and they don't have another convertible for us, but found one for us at the Miami Airport. No big deal right...! As we started for the airport the rain started coming down harder and harder. Before we knew it it was POURING, not Arizona sized raindrops, we're talking HUGE raindrops and hail. The twenty minute drive became an hour drive and the car was flooded. We were soaked and thought it was hilarious. The funniest part was people were honking and pointing telling us to put the top up...like we didn't think of that...heehee.

After we changed cars and made our way back to the hotel the visibilty was like 3 feet. We heard a huge bang about 100 yards away from us where lightening struck a power line and there were sparks everywhere. The wind was blowing so hard, with gusts at 80 mph, that a palm frond that was about 8 or 9 feet long fell on our car while we were driving.

So we finally got to the hotel unpacked and went to get dinner. We parked valet and waited over an hour for our car. The manager finally came and told us our car was stuck for the night and we would have to take a cab...welcome to Florida!!

We finally made it to the restaraunt(it cost a fortune to get to the restaraunt because the taxi had to go so slow through the flooded streets)...Joes Stone Crab, the best place we ate this trip, at South Beach. The food and service were great. (I don't think Josh remembered not to play with his food)

K...so we got back to the hotel and had to evacuate, the storm knocked out power in half the hotel. They made arrangements for us to stay in the resort next door which was still really nice so we were not too upset.
The next morning I woke up to my cell phone ringing. It was Josh. "I'm stuck in the elevator, with 7 girls, without a shirt." I'm not joking...he let me sleep in and was on his way to the pool when the elevator stopped. After 45 minutes of feeling akward the firemen finally rescued him.

Josh was able to get us a free upgrade to a suite and this was the view from our room. It was the most beautiful room we have stayed in.

The first few days were very exciting, but the next 3 were perfect. We sunned, swam, and ate. That's it for the rest of our time at Miami Beach.

The last 3 days of our trip we spent in Key Largo. This was the view from our balcony.

Seafood and key lime pie were staples on this trip. ohhhh was it good!

Beach and pool area of the resort in Key Largo.