start of summer

We love the start of summer.  Sure summer in AZ can get pretty darn hot, but we love that it means swimming and no school!  We love all being together as a family (that is when Dad gets a little bit of time off of work) and going on fun adventures.  Once we break out our kiddie pool it really feel like summer has started...

Jimmy had a fun last day of school with some buddies...

The kids also love when we get our flood irrigation and our yard becomes a lake. 

We made tin foil boats to float around in Lake Weisse and Nora loved splashing around in her galoshes. 

We make a big Summer To-Do List at the beginning of the summer of all our plans and fun activities to look forward to.  One of our early summer favorites is Free Donut Day.  We usually head to Krispy Kreme where the donuts really are free.

Nora fell asleep for that one, but was happy to have her donut at home. 

Then when the boys went off to Vacation Bible School, I took Nora to meet Elsa and Anna at Desert Ridge.  She was super shy with them, but talked about it for days.

We had a fun pool day at the Phoenician...

Zach and I became Godparents for our friends the Gunn's, little boy Jayber...

We had a donut and library outing with the Burches...

Zach and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.   Zach had always said we would go to Rome for that one and I would laugh and remind him how we would have lots of kids and no money.  Well, I wasn't exactly happy to prove him wrong because Rome would have been amazing, but we had a great anniversary anyway.  We got a special package deal at the AZ Biltmore and had some good meals and pool time sans kiddos.  

It is always good to get time away, but we always miss our kids, too.  We managed to take our semi-annual anniversary picture in front of St. Thomas.  I think the last time we did it was right after Nora was born.  We love going to mass where we got married and remembering that wonderful day. 

Mr. Burch was kind enough to gift us some tickets to Newsies and we got to go on Father's Day..

Mom might have been the most excited, but the boys all loved it as well.

We had a fun year of Aunt Nat living in Phoenix, but it was time for her to move on.  

We were all sad to see her go...

We love games in our house.  Dad got Pandemic for Father's Day and the boys were so excited the first time they actually won and saved the world!

Mom looked up about a million fun summer activities on Pinterest and actually did ONE of them!  We made bubble snakes which were super easy--A water bottle, a sock, and a rubber band.  Dip it in soapy water and blow (in, not out, as Nora learned) to make a long snake of bubbles.  And of course, we also love a good toy set-up...

And what would we do without our slip'n'slide to get us through the summer...

And this was only the first month of fun!