Happy birthday Andrea!!

Yesterday was a very special day at our house.....Andrea turned 8! We have been so excited for this day to come. Bizzy and Alex carefully shopped for her gifts and THEY couldn't wait for her to open them! As soon as her eyes were open, Andrea wanted to open the present from Bizzy. She (like most other girls her age) is obsessed with the Twilight series. She is all about Jacob so Bizzy got her a Jacob bracelet.

Then our good friends Gary and LaRecia came by to take her out for a special birthday breakfast.

After breakfast, we continued to celebrate with Aunt Debbie and Andrea opened more gifts.

After Aunt Deb's, we headed out to get a special birthday ice cream.

Then we headed to the movies to see Beazus and Ramona. Alex was a great sport and joined us for the movie:)

Then we joined back up with our friends for some fun on the trampoline, a yummy Stromboli dinner,

Opened more presents,

And had some cake!

After the cake, we headed over to the park to watch the fireworks and then came home and went to bed. Andrea said it was her best birthday ever!

Cache Valley Cup 2010

Alex competed this weekend in the Cache Valley Cup. His team competed against teams from all over the state. He loves soccer and it was so fun to watch him play. When he played rec soccer, the season ran from May to June and we were lucky if we saw sun for the games. This weekend he played in 100 degree weather so it was a little different for him.

He has worked really hard the last couple months to develop his ball handling skills and it was neat to see those skills on the field.

He has a great coach who doesn't believe in "joystick" coaching from the sidelines. He lets the boys make their own decisions on the field and Alex did GREAT under pressure!

I really enjoy watching Alex develop as an athlete and a person. Many of the lessons he learns on the field are going to be things that will help him in the future.....dedication, commitment, being part of a team, taking instruction and dealing with calls that don't always seem fair.

Fourth of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays....friends, family, bbq's, fireworks and just being outside. This year was not so fun though for a couple of reasons. First, I had a horrible toothache so I was DOWN AND OUT! The second reason was that it was spread out. Our city firework show was on July 2nd, the cruise in was on the 3rd and then the fourth was on Sunday. We did manage to enjoy some of the festivities though:) Here are my two cute girlies in their fourth of July dresses(bizzy did not want to wear hers until the actual 4th of July though which is why she was grumpy)

Alex and Gary had a great time blowing things up. I was always taught to be REALLY careful with fireworks. As a matter of fact, my dad was the only one that would light them so this year it was tough for me to let Alex light things but I did and he loved every minute of it!

We did go to watch the fireworks with our good friends. Here is a shot of the die hards....the mosquito's came out so Bizzy, LaRecia and I headed to the van.

Alex took pictures of the fireworks and did a pretty good job:) Hope everyone else had a safe and happy 4th of July!!

Summer stuff

To the untrained eye, these are just rocks....

However to these "treasure hunters", they are the finest rocks in the stream!

The girls and I found this fun little wading stream to play in while Alex had soccer practice.

This is what Alex has done this summer. He tried out for a state-level competitive soccer team and made the cut! He spends 3-4 days a week at soccer practice or in clinics. He LOVES soccer with all his heart and is excited about all the new skills he is learning.

He will compete in his first tournament next weekend and we are all excited to watch him and his team play!