Other April Photos

Benny's cute little Kindergarten class with their bunny baskets ready for their egg hunt!

Love getting pictures of my hunters.

Daniel and Jackson spent 3 days in Alabama turkey hunting (they had no luck but a really good time) and I decided to drive the littles to school each of those mornings. It was nice having a little less hurry and stress before school. We were just sending pictures to dad while he's gone!

Me and toothless.

 

Surprise Trip To California for the big 70!

My dad turned 70 on April 23rd. I can hardly believe it!! 70 sounds so old yet my dad seems so young!! Jeff and I conspired together to surprise him to celebrate. It was so fun!! Jeff drove in Thursday night and picked me up from the airport the next day around noon. With the help of my dad's girlfriend, Wendy, we surprised him with an afternoon bike ride along the beach. She pulled it off perfectly. The day was beautiful and it was a gorgeous ride. We walked the Huntington Beach Pier a bit before biking back. We took a minute to freshened up and then all met up with Sam, Jamie and Nova for a sushi dinner. It was so fun to be together. After dinner we grabbed some classic Thrifty flavored ice cream from Rite-Aid and watched the Dodger game together. The only thing that could have made the day more perfect was if the Dodger's had won. Jeff and I stayed the night at Nate & Dara's (who were out of town for Baylee's soccer, sad to have missed them!) and Jeff and I roomed together in Hallee's room... it was so fun!! (Thanks Hallee!!) We met up the next morning for breakfast together and I got some really nice Nova time!! Then Jeff dropped me off at the airport as he headed home! (We raced home actually, and he ended up winning by a slim 45 second margin... just so you know it takes as long to fly home to Florida from LA than it does to drive home to Arizona!) It was a quick trip but well worth it. Can't wait to cook up something fun for his 80th birthday. 

Happy Birthday dad!! Love you so much!!

The weekend before I came out my Aunt Sandee had family dinner at her house and surprised my dad with this adorable Dodger cake. Thought it was fitting to include in his birthday post!

Gone Fishing

The evening Jeff and Hannah were at Disney we didn't have anything going on so we went out to do a little fishing. We didn't have great luck... Benny and Daniel caught fish. What's nice about these pictures is you don't see the onslaught of bugs that were bothering us or hear all the fighting and bickering going on between the children!! So we can just remember the good parts!!

AZ meets FL

We were sooooo lucky in April to get a visit from my baby brother and his family!! It was so fun!! They flew in Thursday night and came over to our house for dinner and visited for awhile. Some wild basketball action landed Brooklyn with a bloody nose but that was the worst of the mishaps for the weekend, luckily. The next day I met them over at my mom's and we spent the day at Wild Florida, of course!! The airboat ride was so beautiful (as always) and then we enjoyed walking through the park. They hit the safari as well but I had to go round up kiddos from the bus stop. They reported an interesting encounter with an emu!! That night we ate authentic Florida food at the Catfish Place!

Saturday we went to the beach!! It was pretty busy and we ended up at Tables Beach (where I had never been before) but it was a great little spot and the weather was beautiful! Water was fun, the kids built an entire fortress, buried each other and boogie boarded. We love the beach. It was such a fun time. We hit up Epic Burrito on the way home and went to bed exhausted!

Sunday we spent hanging at our house and BBQed yummy steaks for dinner. We ended the night with an entertaining talent show... loved see the kids perform all their tricks! They hit up the Magic Kingdom the next day and flew out Tuesday morning. It was a great little trip but we really needed just 1 more day. They didn't even swim in our pool!! We'll remember that for next time... 6 nights... not 5. Can't wait to have them back!

Benny's (Missing) Teeth

Well, after we lost the first top front tooth, the other one didn't take long to bite the dust as well! This adorable toothless kid has my heart!! These pictures are from the night it happened, April 3rd (actually it was the night before Easter because we had the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny visit us in the same night!), and then I couldn't resist snapping a picture of his cute face at the bus stop one morning. It's amazing how quickly the new teeth have moved right in because as I type this (May 6th) just a month later, his permanent teeth are already half way grown in. You can even see the jagged little bottoms of his new teeth coming in in that picture. So he wasn't toothless for long!

Easter Sunday 2021

Easter fell over General Conference this year. We had a wonderful, lazy morning of Easter baskets, breakfast and egg dying before we were able to lounge around and watch conference. We met at Heather and Ryan's between sessions for a family potluck and enjoyed time with family. Here are my coolest kids with their baskets and eggs. (I guess it's not cool to smile when you're in middle school.)