Summer Fun

I LOVE summer!! It's full of swimming, cousins, ice cream and popsicles, vacations, beaches, MORE SWIMMING, and relaxing!

My nephew Anthony at the pool

Ashlyn (7)

What a messy girl!

Anthony (2)

Ella LOVED the splash pad at the mall

Relief Society Retreat

This last weekend I had the opportunity to go on a Relief Society Retreat in Payson. It was SO much fun and just what I needed. NO kids, silly giddy women, Facials, and spiritual lifting. It was a weekend full of emotions. We laughed so hard we almost peed our pants, we cried and hugged and comforted others, and we had a lot of fun! Thanks Katie for putting this together. It was just what I needed!

Me, being goofy!!

Our chocolate masks!!

We had women sleeping every where. This was my room for the night!

My girls

Oh how I LOVE my girls. They are getting so big and it is so fun to see them interact with each other. It is so interesting how DIFFERENT they are. Maya has BONE STRAIT hair, and Ella hs cute CURLY hair. Maya has blue eyes and Ella has the coolest blue green eyes. Maya looks like me, and Ella looks just like Kris. (actually she looks alot like Kris's mom). I just took a couple random pictures of them because I thought they looked cute today. Enjoy!

I LOVE this picture. Doesn't she look so grown up!

Girlfriends

We were able to take our friend Lindsey out for a little lunch and pedi for her birthday before she left to Florida for the summer. We are so glad she joined our little group of friends. We are going to miss her so much, but we are glad that she is coming back. Love ya Linds!!

Florida Trip

Kris and I went to Florida for a half ironman that he did. We were going to bring the girls and make it our family vacation, but decided it would be more fun, and more relaxing to leave the girls and just have a trip free of kids. It was so much fun!! We went to Epcot center on Friday, which was really neat. We rode a few rides and watched the firework show at night over the lake.

Epcot Center

Saturday we kind of layed low and stayed at the hotel. Our friends Lindsey and Jason moved to Florida for the summer so we were able to see them, and Lindsey and her girls came and hung out with me at the pool on Saturday. It was good to see them.

Me and Lindsey's girls. Riley, Taylor and Morgan

Lindsey and her girls

Sunday was race day for Kris. I got to the race just in time to see him coming in off of the bike course. He looked really good, and strong on the bike. The run was a 3 loop course. He looked really good on the first loop, but each loop after that he looked worse and worse. It was really hot and super HUMID, and his stomach was giving him problems which made him have to slow down alot on the last loop. Overall he did REALLY good and I am very proud of him. He really is too tough on himself, but to me he is amazing
Last stretch to the finish line. GO KRIS!!
Finished and happy

Several other teammates of his did this race. It was fun to be out there with people we knew. They all did great!!

The next day we went to Universal Studios. We had SO MUCH FUN this day. We made the mistake of going on this ride which totally soaked us. About 20 minutes after we went on this ride it started raining on us, and it never really stopped raining. We would have been fine if we hadn't gotten wet on the ride, but because we were all wet, we got REALLY cold and couldn't get warm. So what do we do.......... we buy new clothes!!

Somewhat dry, and warm

Because of the rain a lot of the rides would close until the lightning stopped. But it made for really short lines so we got to ride a lot of fun rides with minimal what time.

Hard Rock Cafe

The dumb "H" was burnt out on the hard rock cafe sign. Bummer

Washington Trip

(Maya in the airport on our way to Washington)

The girls and I went to Washington to visit our good friends Trisha and Josh, who moved away from us in Sept. Maya has missed her best friend Joee SO much, and we have been anticipating this trip for a long time. We had SO much fun. It was so good to them, and it was so cute to see how Maya and Joee reacted when they saw each other. They just picked up where they left off.

Washington was so beautiful. It was the first time I had been there, and I couldn't get over how green and beautiful it was. We had pretty good weather while we were there, and only had one day that it rained all day. It was really nice to get out of the Arizona heat too.

I was a little nervous about flighing with both girls by myself. Especially since it wasn't a straight through flight. Maya did GREAT!! She feel asleep for about 2 hours, and Ella slept for about that long too. The flight was full on the way there so I had to hold Ella on my lap the whole time. THAT, was the most difficult part cause she wanted to get down. But we made it there, and the flight home was ALOT better cause it wasn't a full flight

Maya and Joee were SO excited to see each other. It was so cute. They ran up and gave each other hugs. While we were walking to get our luggage Joee just kept looking at Maya and laughing and saying "I'm so excited your here." It was so cute!

The first day we got there Josh's parents took us out on there sail boat. It was really nice, and fun to do something different.

Trisha and I went out on the kayaks before we went out on the boat

Josh and baby Rushton

JoJo and Trisha

The girls were being so cute. They kept going under the top deck and peeking out at this little window and grabing our feet. Silly girls!

Even though it was raining outside the girls wanted to ride there bikes

Best Friends!

We took them to the mall one day. We used these little back pack leash things for the girls so they wouldn't run off. I swear every time I see a mom using one of those, I swore I would never use one, BUT..... they are the greatest thing. And the girls actually LOVEd having them on. They thought they were little stuffed animals!

ice cream at McDonalds

Movie night!!

Baby Rushton

Such cute little girls!

One night Josh watched the kids so Trisha and I could go out. We went and got some clam chowder and went to a movie. Thanks Josh!

We took the girls to the zoo where they had a free mary go round. I don't know why but these things make me sick!

Ella didn't really like the mary go round at first, but she got use to it after a little while

At the zoo they had peacocks just roaming around. This one fanned his feathers out right before i took the picture. So cool!

The zoo had so many different things you would never see at a zoo in Arizona. They had a baluga whale, which was really cool. They had polar bears, walrus's, penguins, and a bunch of other wierd animals

The girls at the park

There is a reason I have a picture of an outhouse. Trisha use to wear this shirt to play volleyball in that said Honey Bucket on it. Our friend Susie started calling her honey bucket and thought it was a bucket of chicken. Little did we know that it was actually a port-a-john company in Washington. HAHA, very funny!

We took the fairy over to weattle one day. This was a really cool experience.

Seattle from the fairy

This is a HUGE market that we went to in Seattle. It had SO many cool vendors. This is just ONE of the flower vendors. The flowers were SO pretty and so cheap too

We took the girls to this interactive kids museum in Seattle. They LOVED it. They had a curious George room, a miniture grocery store with shopping carts, a craft room, a story book room, and a theater room. It was really neat.

Flying home after a fun week with our friends

Xterra Vegas

Kris's new passion is Xterra racing. We went to Vegas with our friends Nick and Rachel, it was a really fun weekend. Kris did well, and is excited to do a few more Xterra races this year, and hopefully make it to Regionals in Sept.

Maya playing in the dirt getting ready for daddy to run by

Kris on the first loop of his run

Maya and her friend Sam

Daddy and Maya showing of his metal at the finish line