Dance Recital, Talent Show

Perfect Princess Tea Dance, you might think this is a biased statement but I have the most beautiful princess.I loved watching her, she is such a pretty, sweet dancer. 

Stupid heads. those heads in the picture are screwing up my focus and  blocking  Liza  Lou' This year Eliza was in ballet, and Jazz. Perfect Princess, was ballet. The pirate dance was jazz.  She was in 5 dances in all and she did a great job in all of them. She made me, one proud Mom, and she made me smile a lot.

At the end of her recital, like I said could be more proud  of the young lady she is growing into.Below is a picture of her the morning of the school talent show. They had over 30 talents tryout and they only pick 10, Eliza's group made the cut. Initially a few girls asked her to be in their comedy skit but that group had a falling out. She came home and told me about it ,so we came up with a jump rope routine. She called her two best friends and they were all on board. They had practices after school and jump roped every recess so they could nail their routine, and they did. They did a great job.

Tabby, Kiara, and Eliza

Dallin and Spencer fast asleep in the storage unit  in Dallin's hammock. Funny boys, also cutest boys, kind of LOVE them.

Mother's Day and some other fun things

This Mother;s Day I decided to celebrate the day different. I  decided to not focus on myself but to celebrate it with my children. I got in the pool instead of reading, which is what I really wanted to do, (I wanted to finish my book). We swam and played lots of fun games, I had a great time playing with the whole fam. I made it a point to have one on one time with all of them and talk about what ever they brought up. I did slip into the conversation that it really was a Happy Mother's Day because I have 3 of the greatest kids in the whole wide world. I told them that I was so thankful for them, for the privilege to be their Mother. I even let Eliza pick where we went to eat. It really was my absolute favorite Mother's Day. We ended it with a night swim and then going down to listen to a band. I got to sit back and watch my cute kids dance. Then the goof balls made me smile again when they all cuddled up in bed and couldn't stop laughing, because it was way past bed time and had the late night giggles. I should add that Steve and the kids did let me sleep in a little, brought me breakfast, gave me gifts, and got a great work out in, then the fun began.  

Spencer getting his toes bit by the carp and catfish.  We went to the Hyatt Resort and Spa at the Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale AZ. The kids had a four day weekend, so on Saturday after their softball and baseball games we headed down to the Valley for some fun in the heat. 

Liza Lou' with her favorite drink. She loves to get strawberry daiquiri's  when we go to resorts, OOH LA LA.  Her Aunt Rachel exposed her to this Diva behavior. It's cute to watch the two of them when they are together. They get their pool bags, big sunglasses, and big hats, and their strawberry daiquiri's. 

This resort is amazing one of my favorite places to stay, every night  on the outdoor patio they have a band playing, the have a gondola boat rides you can go on. It has 8 different pools, a water slide, a beach for the kids to play at, fish to feed, I could keep going on and on, but my memory is foggy I should go back to refresh it. 

Eliza and Spencer playing at the beach. Obviously it was a great weekend, all 3 kids were dead asleep, 10 minutes into the car ride home

Our friends had a party for their four year old Ian. Eliza and Spencer got their faces painted at the party. Eliza got a Mardi Gras mask, and Spencer's dreams came true, he became the real deal, Spiderman. I don't think I have ever seen him so happy. She even painted webs coming out of his wrist, he thought that was the MOST amazing thing EVER!

Eliza, Spencer and myself spent a Saturday afternoon building this teepee. My hands were so raw for days from sawing all the branches. We were also all covered in sap and that stuff doesn't come off very well. After all our hard work we were hungry so we had lunch in the teepee. It has held up so well, you know it's well built if it can with hold Flag wind.

The girls worked hard and decided to not quit until we had finished building the teepee and now get to enjoy it. The boys are doing it a little different, they to are building a fort. They work here and there and still have a lot of wood in the pile. Hopefully it gets finished soon so they can enjoy this summer. BUT, at least they are having a good time building it.

 Steve and Dallin are working on the structure. Dallin and his friends are going to paint and add all the amenities.

Dallin at Arizona's 100 year celebration. He did his project on Wyatt Earp. He dressed up like him while he presented it.

Dallin getting his braces, Eliza can't wait till she gets them to. He is so lucky! Just wait Eliza within a month you will have yours.

I was in this car accident. I definitely had guardian angles protecting me this day. I was on the freeway in white out conditions, started tapping my brakes and realized I was not going to stop. That yellow car in the picture was behind me, it slammed into the semi that I avoided hitting by taking my car off the road, I hit a ditch and it spun me around so I was facing on coming traffic. After sitting in my car and watching cars, (2 or 3 came so close to smashing into me), fly at me. They are all trying not to be a part of the 4 car, 2 semi's and UPS truck pileup. I couldn't take sitting in my car anymore, so I decided to bail and make a run for it. There was a hill on the side of the freeway that looked like safe ground. So I tried to time it right while cars are flying off the road and for the most part did. I jumped out and started running, of course a car came flying off so I ran faster. I made it to the top of the hill and tried to pull my phone out to call Steve, but couldn't hang onto my phone, I was shaking so bad I dropped my phone in the snow twice. Then thought I should probably call the cops first. I saw a lot of gruesome things I wish I could forget. My car was in the middle of the 10-12 car pile up and was the only car not damaged and the only car with no injuries. I should add I was alone, no kids. When does that ever happen?

Caribbean, Vacation

It took forever to up load these, so I am going to write all about it later. I will just say there is a reason it is called Paradise. Above is a picture we took on the shore of Half Moon Cay, of our ship, and of us when we first got on the ship waiting to go to sea. Below is a picture of me looking past my feet at the most beautiful beach, well all the beaches are beautiful over there. We just got back and I'm ready to go again. Our first stop was Half Moon Cay, we spent the day on the beach laying out and swimming in the ocean. We were always up early and some of the first of the boat. When we got there we hiked all the way over to the other side of the island, for the most part it was just us. We did go back in for food, there was a big bbq on the island. We also played some beach volleyball, and hiked over to the other side and checked out the lagoons.  

Hiking around the beach

This is a picture looking back at the beach on our way back to the ship. We didn't spend to much time there until later on in the day when people had cleared out. After lunch there was a reggae band playing, we rented floats and played around in the ocean while they played. 

Us in the morning, we booked a trip into ATLANTIS for the day. We had about and hour and a half to kill before the shuttle left so we went into town for a little. 

Me, pretending (or not) to be the karate kid. I love funny pictures. Right when we got to Atlantis we went to their beach first. We rented sea doos and went out in the ocean for a while. We took it down the coast and checked out all the famous peoples homes. We also went out to a few small islands off the shore.

After the beach we went into the Atlantis water park, and the Dig. First we walked through all of the outdoor aquarium. This suspension bridge goes over a bunch of different kinds of sharks. 

Steve is looking out at the aquariums. 

Steve is saving us. The shark tunnel is starting to collapse. 

Here we are going into the Dig. This was really cool for us because, James Williams, I grew up babysitting their kids 3 times a week, from the age of 17 on. I love their family like they are mine. I called him when I got home and thanked him for doing such a great job. My understanding of the Dig is that it is designed to look like the, "Lost City of Atlantis." It is also the largest aquarium in the Bahamas. I think I should have had a free trip here, seeing as how I was watching their kids, while Rachel and James were taking trips over, while he was designing it. Although, James went over a lot more than Rachel. He is the architect and engineer of, "The Dig," and it was worth the trip, it was beautiful.  

Remember I like funny pictures. Everyone else was sitting on the benches under all these different types of sea helmets. I told Steve to stand up and put his head in there. Then I did it.

Flying with the flying fish

Fun shot of Steve on Paradise Island , laying out by one of the pools in the water park.

I took this picture for James. That's the symbol  of, "The Dig,"  just right outside one of the entrances.

After Atlantis we headed back into Nassau, to tour around the town. We went to the  Festival Place, and the Straw Market. The Straw Market was fun, that's were all the locals and vender's are trying to sell you everything.

Our next stop was in Lucaya. We were of the ship early, went straight over to rent a scooter and off we went. We made about an hour trip through the whole island, which was a great way to see everything, downtown, how they live. We made one wrong turn and decided to pull over to look at our map. A taxi driver pulled up next to us and said, "don't stop here, never  on the streets of a neighborhood. Only on the main roads." We got our bearings straight and didn't have another problem driving. We made it to the National Park in Lucaya, hiked all around explored two caves and then hiked to the other side of the island to a totally deserted beach. We spent a couple of hours there, hanging out. Then we