Its Our Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to us!! Yep! Today was that magical day that we celebrate once a year, reminding everyone that we still love each other! This year it's 13 years! Whoa.

Day 1 - Winco

WINCO!! I never thought I would be so excited for an Oregon related thing! I forgot how much I loved (and missed) this grocery store until I heard they were building one in Mesa! My parents, Chad and I went to check it out on its second day in business (holy moly it was crazy!) but it was awesome!!!! I bought a bunch of produce & bulk foods for $30! Can't beat that!

Bulk HONEY, OILS & VINEGARS!

Seriously! I stocked up! (okay, I only bought 4...)

Bulk Snickers! Okay... that could be an issue.

Tillamook Ice Cream! YAY!!

Tillamook Yogurt is the BEST brand ever! Pretty much all Tillamook dairy is amazing!

All the Bulk Candy! yum!!

It's BEGUN!!

YAY!!! Baseball season is back! After a LOOOONNNGGGGG 2 month break club baseball is back!

This year the Raptor's are playing as a 12U team (which means they get to wear metal spikes). The club decided to start the season in a pony-style league rather than jumping right into tournaments. The irony is we are playing teams that we play in the tournaments. The management felt like this would be a good option for us to work out the kinks before we hit the tournament circut and try to avoid what happened last year. (We CRUSHED everyone at the beginning of the season, causing us to move up to the AAA bracket then when the other teams that had been doing other leagues started playing we were getting a good-ol-fashion beat down, very demoralizing...)

Spencer up to bat

Spencer catching a fly ball in right field

 This season the Raptor's have decided to go back to one team, and they have made it a strict 12U team so Ethan is no longer playing with them. We have been half-hearted-ly looking for a team for Ethan but nothing has been the right fit, yet. In all honesty, as much as he wants to play baseball, he has his hands full with Football. (Once football ends we will look more diligently). I can tell that Spencer has been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, so the end of the Football season will probably be a glorious day for him. Football has, however,  given him a whole new love and appreciation for the sport of Baseball.

 The best part is being back with the family again! (meaning our baseball family) It was like a family reunion on the first day of practice. We totally lucked out in the team family department! We added 1 new player this season, and we look forward to getting to know them too!

nine-eleven

Just like every year... we took the kids to the Healing Fields. I don't need to really talk much about this because I have already explained it in the past years but even still, year after year, it takes my breath away.

We Will Never Forget

Olivia's 1st day

I was not in any hurry for Olivia to go off to school. She's the last kid in our household and I want her to be as teenie-tiny as possible for as long as possible. As she gets older that just means that the other kids are getting older too { ...and I guess that means that I am getting older too...}I just want all these moments to last for.ev.er.

Anyways, so I was in NO HURRY for her to go to school...

....that is until the other kids went to school.

With the other three gone all day she was SO BORED - she would  ask me to watch Netflix on the iPad at least 10 times a day. I was doing my best to keep her occupied but I can't devote 100% of my attention on her (much to her disappointment) all the time.  So I started looking into preschools and I found one that was budget friendly...

So today was Olivia's first day of school and she could not be more thrilled!

Walking into the school building





Sitting at her desk





Phoenix College Baseball

 We love Baseball! (Did you know that?) I have been watching my baby brother Chad play baseball for the past 14 years and this year will be no exception. It has been so fun to watch him progress in the sport over the years.

Right now it is "fall ball" so Dan and I took the kids out to watch a game on one of our rare days off (okay, it wasn't really a day off but our activities got cancelled because of rain)

Love you little bro!

We play football

Ethan #44 Spencer #40

This season we branched out. We put the boys in tackle football. It worked out perfectly because we were able to put them on the same team (next year we won't be so lucky) and we were able to get them on the same team with Garrett!

Last week was our first game - man it was FUN! I didn't sit down the whole time. Two hours just flew by!!! These are pictures from that game. We won 20-0!

Garrett #88

Spencer was a team Captain for this game.