Sahuarita 49er's!

The kids have been practicing for 4 weeks straight now and finally have reached game time. Last night we had the city wide opening ceremony at a huge park in Tucson. Every Tucson and surrounding team was there and boy was it crazy, especially trying to park and then leave! The actual ceremony didn't last very long but it was fun seeing all the teams Ryan will play against and it kinda gave us the idea of what this football thing is all about, since this is our first year doing this! Also Haley and her team along with all the other flag cheer teams got to do a cheer in front of everybody! It was so cute! Haley and her best friend Reese show'n me some of their cheers! Ryan giving me his tough football face. haa, haa...Today Ryan had his first scrimmage, and he counted that he pulled 4 flags! We were so proud, and it's so much fun to watch him. I love all the competition football brings!My pretty little Cheerleader.
This was taken right after the game today.

(From left to right)
Reese, Wyatt, Devin, Christian, Ryan, & Haley... They all are cousins and on the same flag football team, and then Haley and Reese are cheering for their team as well.

Here they all are again, except this one is with Marcus, Cedric, and Ryan Bell (older cousins)

We all are so close and I think it's so special they all play football together...it's going to be a fun season! More pic's to come! :)

San Fransiciso, wine tasting, and the small town of Willits, CA...

San Francisco, CA Lucas was so nice and brave to take on our three kids by himself for a few days so I could take a quick trip to visit my best friend Melissa in California. Her, her husband Alex, and her two kids, Emma and Jacob, lived in Arizona, but just recently moved to be closer to her family in Northern California. So, of course I have been dying to go visit her...and it just worked out for me to go. I flew into Oakland which is just about 20 minutes away from San Francisco so we decided what a better time to tour the big city and have a girls night out on the town!

There is an overwhelming amount of things to see and do in San Francisco, and we only had one day, so we had to choose carefully on what to do...our first stop was Pier 39, better known as Fisherman's Wharf. We ate at this really cool bar and grill and caught up over yummy sandwiches and Mai Tai's! After lunch we walked around the Pier and window shopped. It was so fun and relaxing!

It's so funny looking at these two pictures of Melissa and I, because we noticed that we were wearing practically the same outfit!! We looked like twins and didn't even notice it all day! Another thing that we didn't know was that it was freezing there, (about 60 degrees, that's freezing to me) and I packed mostly summer clothes... good thing Melissa brought two white sweaters! :) Alcatraz Island.
The two of us on the Pier with Alcatraz Island in the background.

Our next stop was China Town! We were so excited to go explore that, but when we got there, we were some what disappointed. We blamed some of it on the fact that we had no idea where we were going and we could have been on a bad street, but it was very dirty, very smelly and very not what we expected! There's wasn't much there except for alot of produce, raw fish, and weird knic knac stores! Where was the "knock off" Coach bag's? :)
Here I am being silly in a knic knac store! :)
Here we are in our hotel room which was very modern and contemporary. We loved it, in fact we took more pictures of the hotel than we did San Francisco! :) That night we ended up in "Little Italy" for dinner... and I say "ended up" because you should of seen us, we were two lost girl's in a great big city..taking taxi's, that when we arrived the driver was hoping we converted over to the Islam religion and buses that had more stops and names we could keep track of and cable cars that scared us with a weird smelly bum and a flashy gay guy...we just were hoping we would end up in the right place and safe!!! But our restaurant that we went to that night was amazing and so good. It was a fun and interesting night!

This is in the hotel lobby...



Leaving San Francisco, you get to drive over the famous Golden Gate Bridge. What a cool thing to do and something I'll always remember.

We had about a 3 hour drive to Melissa's house from San Francisco...and what a beautiful drive. You pass through Napa Valley, and there's wineries one after another just about the whole way. Just beautiful! I couldn't stop taking pictures!
We couldn't help ourselves and had to pull into one for a tasting. Wine Sale!? Who could resist, right? :)
This was taken out in front of the Asti Winery (Seller 8 wine)

It was our first wine tasting experience, and what a fun thing to do! We felt like true adults...after all we are 30, so I guess we were due for a wine tasting!! :) We plan to do it again sometime with a bunch of our friends, how fun would that be!?

Tasting a fresh grape right off the vine...mmmm! So good!
They were so juicy and sweet. The best grape I have ever tasted! They were so pretty, they almost looked fake! After the winery, we came across a strawberry stand too, so we stopped and bought a container of fresh picked strawberries. Yum! Yum! Some good wine, and fresh strawberries, how could we go wrong!

This is the entrance to Melissa and Alex's little town, Willits. It's such a cute little town, filled with small boutiques, cute restaurants, and beautiful tall pine and redwood tree's.
This is the front of Melissa and Alex's beautiful mountain home. The whole house is surrounded by thick forest. I got up there and could not stop taking pictures of everything! We even saw two different families of deer with brand new babies on the side of the road. They are really friendly, they just stop and look at you, they don't run away like the ones up here on the Ranch do. Before I came to visit, they had a nosey bear that kept getting into their garbage every night, but we never did see it... darn! Maybe that's a good thing?

Standing on their wrap around deck...look at the tree's behind us! It couldn't get more beautiful! It was like staying in a log cabin in the beautiful mountains...it was so nice! Next time Lucas and the kids have to come!!


Alex made this awesome swing for the kids in their front yard. It's so cool because when you swing out on it, it looks like you going off a cliff into the big tree's. So fun!!

The last day I was there we celebrated Melissa's daughter, Emma's and Melissa's sister, Kaitlyn's birthday, who have the same birthday! It was so nice to get together with her parents, and brother Brandon. They all are like family to me.

This trip was so special, and makes me do nothing but smile and laugh...we have some great memories!

Colin's First Haircut!

Time for a haircut!!(Before Photo)

Look at that RED HAIR!!!

Putting the gown on like a big boy...

We brought him to Luke's barber William, at the Green Valley Barbers.

This is him trying to take off the gown...Where's my hands??

Oh, William be patient with us! Lol :)

What a little wiggle worm he was!!

We even tried a tootsie roll to keep him still, which did help a little bit! :)

He was, this way and that, and did not like having to sit still one bit!!

But...

(After photo)

...We got through it and look how cute he is!!!!

" I love my new haircut!!"

First Day of School!

Summer Break is over, and school is back in session!!

Haley waving to me, just before we drove to school on the first day of first grade.

Ryan is in third grade this year!

The school's dress code is polo shirts, jean or kachi pants/shorts.

Look'n good guys! :)

This is Haley's teacher, Mrs. Summerhill. She's really nice and I have a feeling she's going to be a great teacher for Haley this year.

Ryan waiting in line to go into his classroom.

Ryan said he loves his teacher, Mr. Shoemaker, because he gives the class candy and makes them laugh. He said his teacher told them that he's always in the "Big T" (big trouble) with the principle because he gives out candy to his students! Utt-OH! Is that a red flag?? :)

Ryan's 8th Birthday... and SURPRISE!

One good thing about having your birthday in the summer is that you can always include WATER! So, this year Ryan chose to have his birthday party at Breaker's Water Park!

Not only do the waves "break" there, but that place almost "breaks" your wallet for having a party there as well! :) haa... So, we told Ryan that his gift from us was his party at Breakers, and he could invite 6 friends. (...anybody that knows Ryan at all knows how BAD he has been wanted a quad, plus all his friends that he plays with up on the Ranch all have quads, so we thought it was time for him to have his own...he had no idea what was to come!)

Here they all are...after taking a pizza lunch break.

Ryan and his friend Nevin, in the big Wave Pool!

Here's Ryan shoving his cake down as fast as he could so he could get back to the "waves"!! And if you look close, yes, he's eating his cake with a knife! ...even though there's whole stack of forks right by him, he just grabbed anything to get it down... he's such a goof! :)

The next day, we threw him a "family" party at our house. Grandma Sue, Uncle Aaron, Grandpa John, Jean, Grandma Kathy-bell, Grandpa Terry, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Kelly, and Brenna were all there! It was soooo fun! He received so many great gifts like board games, a dart board, a PlayStation game, clothes, money...

and even movie tickets for the whole family to go to!!! :)
How fun!

We had him open our card to him very last...and at the very bottom of the card it read:

"GO LOOK OUTSIDE"

...and this was his face when he saw his very own new 110 quad sitting in the driveway, that he had NO idea he was getting!!!!

He even started to cry a little...(gosh, that got me) He kept saying "I can't believe it", with his hands on his face... ahhh...What a sweet boy.

Getting on it for the first time...check'n it out...

Dad going threw the ropes with him...how to start it, shift it....and all the RULES! Oh boy... And here I was glad he hasn't had a broken bone yet...knock on wood! :)

He was so excited, the first thing he did was drive over to his best friends house and show it off!

We we're so mad at Haley before all this because she spilled the secret to Ryan not once but TWICE before the big reveal, and we kept having to smooth it over and make up stories to cover up for her! Good thing he bought it! Ugh! You can't tell a 6 year old anything! :)

Colin had to try it out too!

Geez, this picture makes me nervous because it just makes me think before too long, Colin will be out riding one of these too!! Now that is scary! Ahgh!

What a little stud.

After us giving it to him, he rode around a little bit in the yard, then he pulled up to all of us who were standing out watching him, and he said very seriously, "do you guys want to take some pictures?" Haa, he cracks me up! :)

I don't think he will ever forget his 8th birthday. It sure was a special one!