Blue Ribbon Boy...

If you know Jordy then you know that he loves to draw, color, paint, create etc. He is our little artist for sure. At school he gets to attend Art twice a week and they are his favorite days. A few weeks ago Jordan came home and told us that his favorite Art Teacher Mr. Kilgore was submitting his picture in an art contest. We were excited to find out it was for the Arizona State Fair. It had been years since the last time we went, and we couldn't miss seeing his art on display so we took the boys the first day the fair was open.

Imagine our surprise when among the 1st grade submissions we found this:

Our Jordan won 1st Place in the colored pencil division! He was so excited! I don't think he understood that there were prizes to be won!

A closer look at the "fat alligator"

We spent the rest of our unseasonably warm (or so it seemed to me) day looking for all sorts of fun. Our little Dill Pickles found this wonderful thing:

Yeah! A life size pickle to pose with! :)

A favorite ride for both boys was the bumper boats. We had much better luck than the car version!

Who can resist fair food? I personally find it to be the reason to go. My deep fried cheesecake only strengthened that truth. The boys enjoyed super sized snow cones and their very first candy apple. It was deemed better than a caramel one!

An Adventure...

There's nothing like vacation... especially when your kids are getting along.

We spent our second day of vacation at California Adventure. We tried to continue our "tour of firsts" but couldn't miss our favorites... like Toy Story Mania. This time though, the boys rode in the own car alone.

Our next first was riding the California Screamer... Jordan was FINALLY tall enough!

Not really suprising... the boy LOVED it! He is such a daredevil with rides (and a wuss the other 98% of the time).

We ran into the Phineas & Ferb street show that had just started. My boys love all things P&F and were excited to join in on the fun!

We also become Senior Wilderness Explorers! I love the movie UP!

After riding the rest of our favorite rides and eating at our favorite restaurants we settled in to watch World of Color. It is amazing!

Diz-knee-land...

My little midgets have the best darn Daddy in the whole wide world. He took us back to Disneyland to celebrate our last weekend before school starts. We spent two wonderful days in Disneyland (our 2nd home) bliss.

This trip was all about doing the unusual. We have gotten in a habit of doing the same routine on each of our Disney trips. First ride is Jungle Cruise, skip the treehouse etc. We made a point of trying new things.

Jordan says first stop is...

The new Star Tours! No Rebel Spies were in our family this time around. But we did have a few...

Jedi Knights!

One fought Darth Vader:

And the other Darth Maul:

In our bazillion trips over the last 2 years we had never taken the raft ride over to Tom Sawyer's Island. It was a big hit with the boys. They loves the treehouse, the caves and especially the pirate treasure!

We actually let the boys venture into Toontown (too hot and boring for me...) and stood in the long line to visit the big guy himself...

In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki... Tiki room we shared a Dole Whip and a Dole Whip Float (Tiki Juice, as the boys say) and woke up that silly bird Jose!

My fabulous fellows are usually on best behaviour at Disneyland but this trip was all about being different. This little man got mad about something un-memorable and put himself into the corner while in the Splash Mountain ride. (like Mother like Son)

My boys spun their poor Mommy around and around (or maybe it was the other way around) on our favorite yellow teacup.

The Tiki Juice kicked in during the Jungle Cruise and my little guy got a little loopy:

Around 6:00 p.m. it finally dawned on me that we had never stayed at the one park all day long. It was kind of nice. We finished our night off with dinner, a show and fireworks. But before we camped out at our perfect watching spot we rode the happiest boat ride on earth:

Oh yeah, and Dillon decided to take Daddy up on his offer from Splash Mountain earlier that day and do this for a churro:

Too bad it was on the shuttle bus on our way back to the hotel. :)

We're alive... I swear!

I feel like a total slacker in regards to my blog lately. Lately as in the last year! Sheesh!

I am going to try to start blogging again on a more regular basis. It seems to have gone out of style but I really love having a record of our lives to look back on!

A very brief recap of things I have missed:

1. We moved to a new house in March. We are still in Buckeye but in a better neighborhood and much larger home. (with a much smaller payment)

This picture has nothing to do with it, but it was taken here and it is funny.

2. We finished up the Muckdogs season. It was fun to have the boys play together. Jordan suprised us by being a much better athlete than we gave him credit for.

 Dillon was babysat by a very patient coach every game.

Both boys enjoyed it so we are going to try again next year!

3. Jordan lost his first tooth. Not to be confused with the 5 pulled back when he was just a little thing.

4. Blair and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary. We took the family on an epic SoCal vacation and even spent a few days on Catalina Island where we honeymooned.

5. Our EPIC Socal vacation included:

• Touring The Midway

• The San Diego Zoo

• Catalina Island

• Disneyland of which I have no pictures because we are lame and I was tired of carrying a camera around.

6. The boys and I spent a week at Grandma Hun't with Betsy and the cousins. Our week ended with a family 4th of July celebration. Gramps put on a fireworks show and Blair started the yard on fire with a sparkler bomb. (No pics of the bomb.)

7. We celebrating my niece Zoey's 1st birthday at our house. She is a Dora fanatic and loved her Dora cake.

8. School starts in 2 1/2 weeks and I return on Monday to prepare. Hopefully I will stay motivated and updated :)

Picnic at the Zoo

We took the midgets to the zoo for a picnic on Saturday. When I was going through my pictures I was just laughing at all of these. So rather than write a lengthy post about a short afternoon at the zoo I will just present the following...

I call it "Grumps at the Zoo"...

The End.

Our Family...

We had family pictures taken the other night. After the shoot we spent a while visiting with Grandma Karafa. Somehow a story about Dillon came up and Grandma mentioned I needed to write it down. It gave me the push I needed to start blogging again. It really is about keeping track of the magical moments we spend together (whether they occur at Disneyland or not) :)

It's not only the stories I have been missing, but the pictures too.

I treasure pictures of my favorite people!

So here's to regularly posting again. And to telling My little Pickles awesomely hilarious story!

July in review...

I sort of took the month of July off from blogging... and I didn't even mean too. Life has a way of running off on me like that.

We celebrating our Nations Birthday with a swim & BBQ at G&G Hunt's house. I also spent my monthly grocery budget on school clothes with my Mom and Sister. Happy 4th of July indeed! These little beauties were bought there as well...

< insert cat calls> The kids all loved them. I thought they were quite a fashion statement.

Towards the middle of the month we got a new niece Zoey. She showed up 6 weeks early... impatient little thing! This meant Grandma K. was gone for a few weeks... and that meant the boys coming to work with Mom (one day only, and that was more than plenty.)

It also meant that my very sweet sister Gillian has been babysitting for a few weeks. She's very brave and very wonderful. Blair and I can't thank her enough.

We spent the 24th of July up in Snowflake enjoying the cool weather and Pioneer Day activities. The midgets LOVE Snowflake. They have so much fun up there!

We are back in Buckeye with Daddy (and Aunt Gill) and we have had a laid back weekend before school starts... that's right my baby starts school in 3 days.

And that was July 2010.