Cooling off at the river

This Friday my mom and I took the kids to the river to cool off. It is such an awesome sight. To get to the river you take a short walk through the biggest redwood tree's you can imagine. The water was just perfect. In some of the pictures you can see how smoky it still is from the fires. We had a couple clear days and just recently the smoke has returned.
Anyways we had a great time and hopefully we be going back alot this summer.

I just have to say how incredibly amazed I am by my brother Brandon. As most of you know he had to have his foot amputated recently because of a birth defect. Well let me tell you it doesn't stop him from doing anything...as you can tell by the pictures. He climbed the rocks and jumped off just as well as the other boys. I am so proud of him, he is a true inspiration.

Guess What ?!?!?!?

Today I meant up with my mom and she had just come from looking at some Shih tzu puppies. She kept telling me how cute they were and that I needed to see them. As most of you know I have been researching and thinking about getting a puppy for about a year. ( I am an indecisive freak ) So I said I would go peek at them while she watched the kids at McDonalds. As soon as I walked in I was in love, they were the cutest furballs I had ever seen. I talked to the lady forever and left thinking they are cute but we will never get a shih tzu. Alex called on the way home from work and I mentioned the puppies and how cute they were, he was going to drive right past the salon where they were so I told him to stop by...thinking he would say no. Well he did and to my very BIG surprise he brought the little girl home. I couldn't believe it, he said it is my B-day present. So to make a very long story short, we have a new addition to our family and her name is Daisy Mai. She is so sweet and so far seems to be very good mannered. Here are a few pictures...

Arizona Vacation

We just got back from spending ten days in Arizona. We had a great time with family and friends. Of course we wish we would have had more time to see people, but we did what we could. The kids enjoyed spending alot of quality time with Nana and Papa. We made alot of special memories.

We went to Tucson to spend a couple nights with Stef and Lucas. On the second day all the girls and kids went to get our annual pictures taken...that was quite the experience. There is now eight kids, so getting all the kids to look at the camera at the same time is almost impossible.



That night Stef through a little party for everyone to get together. We had so much fun just catching up with each other.



We stayed with Nana and Papa for the rest of the time. We spent alot of time in Aunt Gina's pool and just hanging out with the family. Thanks for letting us move in for awhile :) We can't wait to come back.

Dan and Megan are expecting their first baby (boy) in December.