Southwest by Southwest: Photo Dump Take 2

Asher and Julia took swimming lessons for four weeks from a neighbor in her backyard pool. People do that around here.

This is our pediatric dentist office. My kids kinda beg to go there because they like the iPads so much. They've also not had a cavity yet, so they don't have that association...

Eating a donut at Krispy Kreme.

For father's day/his birthday, we made Enoch a candy gram.

On Father's Day--the dad and his kids.

Julia hanging out during Asher's swim lesson.

I've been making lemon sugar cookie bars every so often--especially now that the lemons have been ripe on our tree. These things are so good!

At Julia's birthday on June 30th, her aunt Megan gave her a Rapunzel costume which she loves.

Decorating cupcakes for her birthday with cousins Charlotte and Elaine.

We went to Hyder for the 4th of July, and Aunt Sherry had made these shirts.

Grandma and her grandchildren out at her place for the 4th.

The grandchildren all in a row.

Summer means going to the splash pad.

Mesa has a really cool new park up by the new Chicago Cubs spring training facility. We went to check out all the fun equipment and the splash pad.

We had Asher's first ever friend birthday party for his 5th birthday. It was Angry Bird themed. We had several games, and a catapult set up. The hard part was how hot it was. We couldn't play outside as much as we had hoped. But he had a great time.

Jul

Asher's first day at the Montessori.

Julia wanted to be in the photo too.

Then in August we also had a morning when we met up with Ali Quintana in the Phoenix Airport as she was flying home to Yuma on her way back from her mission to Chile. The mission was a wonderful thing for Ali. She loved learning the language and culture and working with the people. And her dad got baptized into the LDS church just a few days after she came home. She was ecstatic about this!

Julia's first day of our little neighborhood joy school preschool with 6 of her friends.

The seven joy schoolers: Jace, Logan, Payton, Julia, Skylinn, Kinslee, and Vienna.

Enoch purchased about 25 lbs. of Legos off Craigslist. That's a lot of Legos!

Julia is also taking a little dance class once a week this year with her friends Hannah and Megan. She loves it!

We had this crazy huge rainstorm in Phoenix in early September. It rained over 3 inches in one day, and there was water everywhere. I now really know why drainage parks exist. This is Enoch with the kids in our kayak in the drainage park down the street from our house. It was completely full for a several days.

An artsy view of the full drainage park.

We took the kids to the Sea Life Aquarium in Tempe on the Pogo Passes I won in a contest. It is just a little place but kind of cool.

At the aquarium.

I joined in with my friends Raquel and Jennifer for a Pampered Chef freezer meal workshop. It was fun, and I came home with 14 freezer meals!

For fall break in October, we rented a cabin at Mormon Lake, AZ, and spent several days exploring there and in Flagstaff. Here the kids are at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. This place is most famous for the discovery of Pluto.