She's GREAT!

I see my mom about once a year. And she's amazing. She stayed for about 10 days(with a quick little intermission to San Diego to see her aunt). It was a great visit! My mom came just to spend time with us. In the last 14 years she has made 6 visits to help me with a new baby, once for a baptism, a few holidays, and a family reunion, which leaves about 2 visits just for fun. So, this just for fun time we actually had time to just be together. And I was reminded of who I come from, who I'm becoming, and what's most important in life. Family is great!

4th of July

Did anyone notice the tide is coming in?

And our boys are still buried deeply in the sand?

We went to San Diego for the 4th and had a great little vacation. We played at Coronado and ate a lot of food at Nana and Papa's house. It was great! Savanah and Eli had hair color changes, courtesy of Papa.

Hey what's your favorite song?

I'm looking for some great songs, please send me a comment with what your most favorite song is right now. You'll know if I decided I liked it, too, by what ends up on my blog music, thanks!!!

Water

Water melon growing from a spit out seed,

gotta love nature.
My broken water fountain.

We irrigated our lot today. Basically in the desert some houses flood their yards instead of sprinkling them. But all that water (and maybe the 105' heat) got me to thinking about how desperately we need water. Our bodies are mostly water, 85% right? And then I was think about how I need water for growing my watermelon plant and my flowers. Then, I remembered the drinking fountain was broken. It just stopped working this morning. So, we didn't have drinking water outside. And, being so handy (not really so handy) I disassembled it, and found out it wasn't really broken, the outlet was broken. Can you even see the outlet? The second picture shows it almost completely hidden in the middle of everything else. So, now it's all fixed (thanks to me-no handy man needed) and Zachary has ice cold water outside again. All of that added up to me thinking about the scriptures about Christ being the living water. In the photos I can see the reflection of the house and the play set in the water. I think if I drink of the living water, read the scriptures, pray, try to be like Christ, then Christ will see his reflection in me someday, or I'll see mine in him. Do you think that is true? Anyway, we all need water, whatever kind it is, drink deeply.

Visitor's Center

Are Eli and Savanah almost as tall as Nana?

I think so.

Wednesday we tried shopping with all six kids, and it was CRAZY!!!! They were standing on top of the car cart, (Ryon, Andrew, and Zachary were doing it actually- not all the children. Savanah and Eli are getting a bit frustrated with me grouping them together as "the children" - I can't really imagine Savanah standing on a car cart and sliding down the front of it, so that's kind of funny), running into displays, and fun isn't the word I would use to describe this shopping experience. My mother nicely said we made enemies of many old people. I hope not.
BUT then we went to the Arizona Temple grounds and took the kids to see the Reflections of Christ photo exhibit (I don't know what we were thinking after our crazy shopping experience, ...but). They (all of them) quieted right down when we went inside and they were as close to perfectly reverent angels as we ever get. They whispered and walked slowly and gazed at the pictures of their Savior. There was a scripture verse with the pictures that I liked, "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." I was brought to tears by the exhibit, it was so moving! But there was no photography allowed in the exhibit. Here's a link to the sight http://www.reflectionsofchrist.org/. I'm so grateful to know his loving forgiveness myself.

Too Hot!!!

If someone (like me) asks YOU to go to the Phoenix Zoo in July, at say 10 o'clock in the morning, please just say "no".

I'm enjoying my mom's visit. But yesterday I got the bright idea to take her to the zoo, which by the way was practically empty of both people and animals, for a very good reason! It was excruciatingly hot and within minutes as you can see from the train picture we were literally melting, our visit was short, but still too long for all of us. Maybe we'll try an indoor well air conditioned museum next time. Or shopping, Nana always loves shopping, the Dollar Tree was nice and cold inside today (smile).

Water Polo

Savanah

We spent the morning as spectators at Savanah's last water polo game. Her team placed third in the tournament. She loves the sport and wants to play again next summer.




Savanah has on a dark cap and is towards the middle back of the screen, #9.

Summer Swimming

Today the kids swam in the morning.

Eli & Ryon are like two peas in a pod, Eli taught Ryon how to swim this summer. And they have some of the same mannerisms. These two are the only people I know who plug their noses this way.

What's your diving style?
The kids have done a lot of swimming this summer. Thus, my very Caucasian children are looking very dark almost changing from brown to black. Isn't vitamin D supposed to be good for us, unless we get burned?

The innocence of childhood

Andrew's cool shades, and chocolate face, he begged to have the picture taken, he said "this is me when we had a good time".
Newly Shaven Peach blossoms in spring
Holding Little Hands
Normally the writing is said to be on the wall, well this time it was ALL over the head (even in the hair!)

Brothers (I don't know the girl in the back, I'd like to get rid of her in this photo, but I don't know how!!!!)

Toad likes to live in our pool

Zach with Toad

Boys and Mud, they go together like peanut butter and jelly and can be just about as messy

Brothers don't always get along

We Are All Getting Healthy!

You can't see the numbers on their lower calves, but Savanah, Eli, Nathaniel, and Zachary each sported a number as they competed in their second triathlon. Savanah finished in 3rd place for the 12 year olds, Eli in 3rd for the 10 year olds (out of 20 kids), Nathaniel 1st for the 8-7 year olds (about 20 kids), and Zach lost his first place standing to Nathaniel, but it was a great race.

First they swam (Savanah did 6 laps, finishing this leg in first place a whole lap in front of all the other competitors, who happened to all be boys).

Then the transition. (Nathaniel and Zach compete in the same age bracket, they are so awesome that they each have a first place finish under their belt. And they are very synchronized as they compete.)

Then the bike ride. (Eli rode for 1 1/2 miles)


And Finally the run. (about a mile)


And even Ryon joined in the torture the fist time.
He'll do his first "real" triathlon in October.

I enjoy being the photographer during the triathlons. Mostly because I know I couldn't even finish the shortest distances for the youngest kids, so for now I'll stick with trying to do a whole 13 minutes on the tread mill without dieing or quitting (or falling off).

My Companion

photographs by Savanah

Ryon & I have been spending from 5am until 7am together every morning working out at the YMCA. I really enjoy having him to myself for two hours a day, it's new for us to have that much uninterrupted time together regularly. We'll be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary in August. Just 4 more years and I'll have been married for 1/2 my life, I can hardly believe it! (I guess I really was young on my wedding day!)

Growth

I love to watch things grow. Almost anything really, a seed into a plant, a child into an adolescent, and ideas into knowledge. I just really enjoy watching change. So, I am a gardener. In the loose sense of the word. I put seeds in the ground, in a very hap-hazard way, I've tried to try the row thing, but I just end up going in circles or clumps or clusters, so anyway, I'm working on it. But here are a few of my favorite pictures of things that I have watched grow this year. By the way I'm trying to try the row thing in this blog but I see the circle, clump, cluster, patch thing going on already. What's with it being so hard to make things be in order?? You all seem to be able to do it.