Fun at Water World!

While in Colorado, we went to one of the biggest & best water parks in the country, or so I was told! But if you ask the boys, their answer would definitely be a BIG, FAT YES!!! We got there as soon as they opened and spent most of the day there with the rest of the fam! I didn't get too many pics as we were having way too much fun and I wanted to keep my camera safe!

Here is the racing slide, which I think became one of the favorites! They had lots of fun racing down 8 at a time. Poor Colin, he got all the way to the top and decided it just wasn't for him, so down the steps he came! Brendan on the other hand, had no problem doing this race!
This is where we parked ourselves for the day...the Fun House! It was a blast and nice for us adults to, as we were able to sit and watch while all of the kids ran around swimming and squirting & playing and laughing all afternoon! They had kid sized slides, kid sized lazy river, lots of squirt guns and dumpers and so much more.

Brendan and Colin were sad to go, and since it was my night to make dinner for us all, we left a few minutes before any of the others!

Until next time....

Where's Mom?! 20/52 Photos Of Me!

Are YOU a mom? Are YOU missing from the pictures? Most moms I know are, but here is a fun meme that brings us moms out from behind the camera and puts us into the spotlight! Carin over at Forever In Blue Jeans is the hostess for this year long picture project! It is lots of fun, and just think after 52 weeks there will be at least 52 pictures of YOU in them! It can be scary, but com'on, give it a try! It's easy, all you have to do is hand over the camera and smile (or not, it's completely up to you!). And the best part is, you can jump in whenever; for me this will be my 20th week!
Facebook can be a wonderful thing! I have touched base with lots of friends from high school whom I have not seen since graduation, some 18 years ago! One of those friends that I reconnected with was Nicole! We met in 6th grade and continued our friendship until graduation and then we went our way, as most kids do! Well, we found each other via FB this summer and when I saw that she lived in CO, I was so excited, cuz as you know, we just vacationed there!!!

While there, I was able to slip away for a few hours, and lunch, to spend some time with Nicole, whom I haven't seen since the summer after our senior year in HS! We spent the time catching up with each other about our old friends, our lives, & past, present and future dreams!

Here we are posing with her adorable kids! I had so much fun catching up!

Hope to see you next summer!

Now it's your turn to join the fun! It's easy, hand the camera over, smile and say cheese!

Lazy Days of Summer....in Colorado!

Most of our days were spent at the pool! The kids, all 12 of them, had tons of fun! They played tag, Marco Polo, ate, played at the playground and just swam!Brendan deciding if he is gonna go in!

Colin and Cousin J

Sun bathing

On your mark, get set....

...JUMP!

Hanging out in the pool

rides...so much fun!

Ryan and his cousin getting the food ready for the afternoon cook out

enjoying the grub

time for a little play after the food

back into the pool

And the money isn't just for the kids ya'know!! Some of us moms won a $2 bill for finding all of the words in the family word scramble.

After dinner entertainment....Cousin D taught the group a song about Jesus and here they are preforming it!

And once the kids were busy playing or sleeping, the parents enjoyed a fun game of Hearts!

Baskets for Bucks

After the long 14 hour drive from AZ to CO....we finally made it safely! We ended up leaving Sunday night about 7:30 pm. Ryan decided that he would drive through the night so that we would be able to get there about lunch time on Monday. In preparation of our night drive, Ryan slept most of Sunday. The boys did really well; they watched movies, played video games, and slept. I dozed on and off as well, but spent most of my time reading. Once we arrived at Aunt L & Uncle B's house, we hung out and ate lunch. We thank God for a very uneventful and safe trip; there and back!Most nights after dinner, the basketball net came out of the garage for some baskets for bucks! What's that you may ask?!...Well, Uncle B would watch as each cousin would shoot, AND if you made the basket, then you got a buck!

BUT, if you missed then...

...you did push ups!! 5 push ups to be exact (for every basket missed!)


All of the cousins had so much fun cheering each other on, whether it was for baskets or push ups!

Colin trying for his buck!

Cousin D who is only a sophomore in HS!

Nice vertical, wouldn't ya say?!

Colin doing his 5

Brendan shoots and scores!

The youngest of the cousins, A, gets help from her dad!

Brendan says 'Show me the money'!!!

1 Vacation Down...1 Vacation to Go!!

This is a picture taken from the car window as we drove by Pikes Peak; there is usually snow on the summit year round!

Oh My Gosh...I don't even know where to begin! Let's see....WE HAD SO MUCH FUN VISITING FAMILY IN COLORADO!!! Ryan has been there before, but this was the first trip for the boys and me! I had only met this side of Ryan's family once before, 9 years ago, but we fell right into place with everyone and had a blast. In total, there were 24 of us, with 12 of them being kids from 20-6 years old. It seemed as the boys had known these cousins their whole lives! We had such a busy week and I have 526 pictures to prove it! I will be posting most of this week about last week just to catch up! After leaving CO at 7am (AZ time) we finally pulled into our driveway at 10:30 pm (AZ time) last night.

We will be home today, tomorrow and Wednesday to leave again at the butt crack of dawn on Thursday! Our flight leaves for Michigan about 9am, but with security we need to be at the airport about 7am which means we need to leave our house no later than 6 am with traffic!!

We will be visiting more family and the fam behind He & Me + 3!!

We are so excited! More to come later on CO!!

Happy 4th of July!

Wishing everyone a safe, fun and Happy 4th of July!

We Went, We Saw, We Bought!

Last Sunday, before heading to Colorado for our vaca, we headed to Cabela's. Man this place is HUGE! We went looking for a blow up mattress. We decided to try here, since all of the other air mattress' that we have had in the past and bought at Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart....have not lasted long enough. This was our first trip to this land of the outdoors! If we were the outdoorsy type, I can imagine loving this place! We didn't stay long, but long enough for me to snap a few pics and for the boys to fall in love with the place!

This is just a small portion of the store. They have a museum, shooting range, real and electronic, general store with fun chocolates, and an eatery along with all the fun things to buy, well if you're into that kinda stuff!
In the middle of the store, there is a huge, fake, mountain with tons of fake animals! It was complete with a real waterfall, pond and fish! The boys had a blast exploring it all!

We could have spent all day exploring, eating and having fun, but since we were short on time, we went, we saw and we bought!

Where's Mom?! 19/52 Photos of Me!

Are YOU a mom? Are YOU missing from the pictures? Most moms I know are, but here is a fun meme that brings us moms out from behind the camera and puts us into the spotlight! Carin over at Forever In Blue Jeans is the hostess for this year long picture project! It is lots of fun, and just think after 52 weeks there will be at least 52 pictures of YOU in them! It can be scary, but com'on, give it a try! It's easy, all you have to do is hand over the camera and smile (or not, it's completely up to you!). And the best part is, you can jump in whenever; for me this will be my 19th week!

We are huge hockey fans! We love the Red Wings, even though they didn't win the Stanley Cup this past month and we live 2100 miles away and we love the Coyotes even though they are not as good as the Red Wings and we live just a tad closer!! Since moving here, we have been fortunate enough to be able to attend several Coyotes hockey games, and were even to see a few Red Wings games too! This past spring some sad news came to light...that our beloved Coyotes were filing bankruptcy and possibly moving to Canada! Needless to say we were not so happy! Until last week that is when they announced that they were staying...the Coyotes were staying in the desert!! Last Thursday an open house was held at Jobing.Com Arena, where they play, for all of the fans, so we went! We dressed in our jerseys and headed to the arena! Once there we had lots of fun! Here are the boys posing with Howler, the Coyotes mascot!

Standing on the arena floor in front of the Zamboni!

After being on the floor for awhile we were roaming around the arena to see what we could see! There were lots and lots of fans all over the place. On the arena floor there were bounce houses, slap stick challenges, players who were autographing just about anything and tours of the locker rooms! And since I have absolutely NO patience, I said NO to waiting in any lines, so we saw it all from afar!! I know, mean mommy!! Here is a picture of Colin and a friend from his baseball team that he saw there!

I also saw my friend Crystal and her husband. She teaches kindergarten right next door to me! We have become very good friends!

And here is a family shot of us, overlooking the arena floor!

We are so excited that our Coyotes are staying in the desert!

LET'S GO COYOTES!!


Now it's your turn to join the fun! It's easy, hand the camera over, smile and say cheese!

Colin's Mahawk...Going...Going...Gone!