Disneyland

Teacups

The Pinocchio ride

It's a Small World

We had great seats for the afternoon character parade!

Cheyanna looking at the Tangled float

Cheyanna chose this Baby Marie stuffed animal as her souvenir.  She was just trying on the Chip hat.  :)

Modeling more hats.  Cade got a giant jawbreaker necklace and some rock candy sticks for his souvenir. 

Cade is 10 and Cheyanna is 7

Cheyanna chickened out at the last minute, so Cade rode this rocket ride solo. 

The Buzz Lightyear ride is so fun!

On the Nemo submarine

Cade needs some practice before he's ready to get his liscence!  This was a bumpy ride!

Cheyanna is a good little driver!

Posing on the teacup ride :)

This Toon Town roller coaster was the longest wait, but they thought it was well worth the wait!

It's a Small World

Charlie got invited to play on a club basketball team with some really good Freshmen from schools around the East Valley.  More on that later.  For now, I'm just explaining that this club team traveled for tournaments quite a bit.  Our first out-of-state tournament was in Palm Springs the weekend of spring break.  Chuck and both wanted to be there, so we decided to take the whole family and make a mini-vacation out of it.  We stayed with my Egyptian Uncle in Irvine, and I took Cade and Cheyanna to Disneyland while Chuck took Charlie and Carson to Knottsberry Farm (they wanted to go to Magic Mountain, but it was closed that weekend).  ANYWAY... here are the pics from our day at Disneyland.  The last time Cheyanna had been to Disneyland, she was about 6 months old, so it has been a while!  The kids had a lot of fun, and they held up pretty well.  We ended up staying there all day, and we got to ride all the stuff we wanted to (luckily neither of them wanted to do the more adventurous rides).  It was a cold, rainy day, which I think kept a lot of the crowds away.  So there weren't long lines for anything. 

Spring Break

Spring Break came and went in a blur of busyness.  Luckily, I was able to set my own hours at my internship (I scheduled my own appointments).  Spring break at ASU and at the school where I interned two days a week coincided with my kids' spring break, which worked out perfect.  So I only had to go in for a few hours here and there that week and was able to be at home with the kids most of the time.  I hardly remember any of it, but luckily I have a few pictures to remind me what we did!  :)

Cheyanna and Kaia playing Just Dance.  They are just so cute!!

Cheyanna and her best friend, Kimberly

Cheyanna and Kimberly are almost inseparable!  They play together most days, and talk on the phone when they're not together.  Here they are with Dozer, our hamster. 

Cade and Cheyanna made a few bucks at their lemonade stand one Spring Break morning.

We took Cade and a couple of his good friends (Hayden and Hunter) to Peter Piper Pizza for a little late birthday celebration. 

Catching Up!!

I haven't posted anything in so long!  Life got really busy, and I just knew that after graduation, I'd have more free time to post.  Plus I got a new camera and  new computer, so trying to match up all the new technology was going to take some time.  I thought I'd get caught up over the summer, but summer always seems to be way busier than I think it's going to be.  After being SO busy for SO long, I really wanted to just have some free time to spend with the kids.  I did whatever they wanted to do, and tried to devote my summer to re-connecting with them, and spending lots of one-on-one time with each of them.  It was so great (at first), but then the summer heat gets to be such a drag!  Our above-ground backyard pool filter died, and the last few weeks of summer we had a little too much togetherness!  Teenage boys need to be active and keep moving, or they get restless and feel they need to stir up trouble.  :)  By the end of summer, I was counting down the days til school started, and felt like my sanity was slipping a little!  So now the kiddos are in school and I'm not!!!  I got my master's degree...now what?  Everyone keeps asking me if I'm working, but I'm not even looking for a job yet.  I have so may cleaning/organizing projects I need to do around the house.  Our house was sadly neglected while I was in school--so much clutter managed to accumulate in every closet, on every flat surface, in the pantry...everywhere.  So I am de-cluttering, organizing, and cleaning.  And I am planning on getting caught up on the blog too.  I'm looking back at the pictures from this spring, and I barely remember any of it.  It all seems like such a blur because I was so stinkin busy!  I know we went to Disneyland, and I have lots of pictures to prove it, but I can't remember when it was, or anything about the day or that weekend.  Weird how memory gets fuzzy when you get super busy.  All I know is that I don't want to be that busy every again.  So I'm not in any rush to find a job and start working.  I'm pretty sure the Lord will guide me and open up a path for me to follow.  So I'm just trying to stay in tune with the Spirit, and trying to get organized and caught up!

Chuck's Favorite Birthday Present

Chuck's favorite 40th Birthday gift was a pair of Phoenix Suns tickets on the floor, right behind the Suns bench!  Dina and Scott gave him these awesome tickets, which included an all-you-can-eat pre-game meal, halftime dessert, and getting to cheer on the players as they run right past us heading onto the court!  Chuck got to give Steve Nash five not once, but twice!  Chuck talked to several players and touched almost all of the Suns! 

 It was seriously a dream come true for him to get to be so close to the players.  We were in the first row of fans behind the Suns bench and trainers, so we got a very up-close view of the action, and heard lots of their comments to each other and to the refs!  My favorite part was probably all the food--holy cow, so much good food!  Usually at a Suns game you have to pay $6 for a popcorn, but they had a huge buffet of gourmet food, plus all the soda, popcorn, and dessert you could eat, all included in the ticket price.  :)  After being spoiled so much, it's going to be hard to enjoy the upper level tickets the next time we go.