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!

Ladies night

Summer fest was last week and my good friends and I all got rid of our kids and hit the town:) I didn't do a very good job taking pictures of our adventures but we had a really good time laughing and being silly! We started at the new pizza place in town to try it out and it was pretty good. Then we headed over the the summer fest in search of the infamous fried twinkie. We found it but I didn't think it was that great.

We spent the evening looking at the booths then bought some kettle corn to take home to the kids.

Here is a shot of my silly friends gracefully making their way through the park:)

It sure is fun to have great people to hang out with!

Sasha

We would just like to introduce Sasha, the newest member of our family. We got her from a box in front of Wal-Mart Thursday afternoon. She is about 10 weeks old and the kids LOVE having her. I don't think that she has walked on her own since we brought her home. She "mostly" belongs to Bizzy because Bizzy used her birthday money to help buy supplies since the cat was free:)

Logan Canyon

The sunshine has finally arrived and we are so excited about it! We really do enjoy every season change and look forward to all the new fun things we get to do but I think summer is our favorite. WE LOVE CAMPING! Last weekend we headed up the canyon with our good friends the Walkers for the day and had a great time. In this first picture I am not sure what was so funny to LaRecia and I, but it just shows how much fun we have!

We roasted steak over the fire and it was YUMMY! This was our first time trying it but we will definitely be doing that again.

"Playing" in the fire pit is one of the girls favorite things to do. They burn a stick, put it out, then write with it like a pencil.

We love exploring the area and found this tree that the kids thought was cool.

We have our first big camping trip planned and can't wait to go!

My Ladybugs!

This spring my friend Nici and I coached Andrea and Bizzy's soccer team. We had a lot of fun with the girls. They worked and played really hard. Our team chose the name Ladybugs. We played 10 games and were undefeated! Good job ladybugs!! We also had amazing parent support. Nici and I look forward to coaching again next year:)

We had an end of season pizza party for the team and gave them all trophies. I am usually ready for the season to end but not this time.

After they ate, the girls played one last game of soccer as the Ladybug team.

7 years ago today

Seven years ago today Alizabeth Rose Arevalo was born. I can't imagine our family without her. She is funny and LOVES life. She likes to draw, dance, play ponies, push the tire swing, she is kind to people and she is a good friend. Those are some of the things her classmates said about her when I went to her room to celebrate her today. She is all of that and more to her family too! The day started with her opening a special gift from me to her. Her favorite animal is a frog and she LOVES to store and carry "treasures" in little boxes and bags so I made her this frog box.

Today was also the schools fun run. Our whole school runs the mile. Last year I was able to run it with Andrea but as a PTA board member, I helped sponsor the run so this year my friend Gary came and ran it with the kids. Here are Gary and Andrea before they ran. Andrea ROCKED it and ran her mile in 11 minutes! It is really fun to watch the kids work hard and finish the run.

Bizzy did GREAT. A mile is a long run for a 7 year old but she did it in a little over 10 minutes. I was so proud of both of my little girls.

After the day at school was over, Bizzy had some friends over to help her celebrate her special day. We went to the park, had and ice cream cake and opened presents.




I am so glad that my little firecracker Bizzy was sent to me and I look forward to all the amazing things that she is going to do in her life!

California Vacation

When I started school four years ago, the kids and I talked about going to Disneyland when I graduated to celebrate. Well, a couple of my aunts helped make our plans a reality. My Aunt Deb and Aunt Roberta gave me and the kids our passes and hotel to Disneyland for my graduation gift. We were able to take a one week trip to California the first part of May. We had the most amazing time. The kids were old enough to go on whatever ride they wanted to AND they could last the whole day without getting too tired:)

Here we are waiting to get on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. This was one of our most favorite rides we went on!

Meeting Minnie Mouse. The girls were so excited to get her autograph!

These bears were sooo funny! I think these were the kids most favorite characters to meet. Notice the shirt that Andrea is wearing.....it says "I survived Hollywood's Tower of Terror" She was so proud of herself for riding that ride she bought herself the T-shirt:)

California Screamin' was another one of our favorites. The faster the ride, the better! We had the best time and can't wait to go back for another visit!

Mountain man biathlon

Alex competed in the Mount Logan Middle School biathlon yesterday. They had 6 different heats to split-up all the kids.

Alex and his good buddy Hunter signed-up together so they got to compete together. They were really excited and have been training for a couple weeks.

Here is Alex finishing up his 1 1/2 mile run.

His transition to the swimming

and his first lap in the pool.


I didn't get to stay to watch him finish because the PTA was helping with the grade school district mile run so I had to go help with that but Hunters mom was there as they crossed the finish line. Alex finished in 20 minutes and 32 seconds! It was fun to see his hard work pay-off:)