Best Years Of My Life!!

I can honestly say that the best years of my life have been spent with the man of my dreams!!!  I am so blessed to be with a man who loves me unconditionally, a man who sticks by me through thick and thin, a man who would do anything for me, a man who is concerned about my happiness and comfort at all times.....a man I call my husband. 

We are celebrating our wedding anniversary today.  21 years of joys and sorrows, of learning and growing, of laughter and tears.  I wouldn't trade a day of it!

Happy Anniversary to my Sweetheart!

I'll like you forever
I'll love you for always
Forever and ever my Sweetheart you'll be!

AMAZING!!!!!!

On Friday night we went and saw a movie for date night.  I had been looking forward to seeing it as I had watched the trailer and also heard from lots of people that it was a great movie......what I didn't realize was that it would change my life!!

If you haven't had the chance yet, go see the movie, Courageous!!!  It can change your life! 

Wanted: One Sister!

Well, I guess it's fitting that this post is about adoption since it just happens to be National Adoption Month.  I'm almost positive that I have the only children in the world that beg me to adopt 'just one more child'!

Vanessa has been on a kick lately (for about 3 years) and to be honest, she has a good point!  She wants a sister.  A sister that is 8-10 years old.  A girl her age that she can play with, share her room with, hang out with, sing with, be silly with, dance with and whatever else sisters do!  Her sisters are either much older or much younger.   She has brothers very close to her age but....they are 'brothers'.

So there ya have it, we need a sister for Vanessa.  Anyone know of a sweet little girl that needs a family?  She begged me tonight before she went to bed to 'please post that we need a sister and maybe someone will know of one for us!"

 If life was really only that simple......

Yee-Haw!!!!

Last night I went to get my hair trimmed.  As I was sitting there, a kid came in to get his hair cut.  He was about 19 or 20.  After his hair was cut, the stylist asked if he wanted it washed.  He said "No, but can I get my eyebrows waxed?"  He actually just needed his unibrow waxed, he said.  As he sat down in the chair, they stylist kept telling him to relax.  "You need to relax your whole face", she said, "Or it's not going to work!"  As she yanked off the wax strip, he yelled "Ouch!!"

My stylist and I giggled a few times because it was so funny to have this kid be so stressed about getting waxed.

As it turns out, he was a bull rider.  After he left, his stylist said that he usually comes in all beat up.  Double black eyes, missing half his eye brow, road rash covering his face, bruises all over the place and yet when it was time to wax his eyebrows, he could hardly sit still in the chair!!

Had to giggle about that!

Sunday Dinner!!

One of the best things about having grandparents living with us is the opportunity to have Sunday dinners together!  We love having them join us for dinner.  There is always lively conversation and lots of laughs....not that we don't always have that at our dinner table but when you add a different generation, it just makes it even more fun!

Just another reason why we feel so blessed to have them here with us. 

Now there are 6 kiddos downstairs in Papa and Grandma's house watching a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel.  Ahhhh, life doesn't get any better than that!

Yippee!!!!!!

They say we could get snow tomorrow!!!!  Can you believe it???  Wouldn't have seen that in Arizona!  We are totally excited!  It will be so different than the snow we knew in Oregon......dry snow is a concept our kiddos haven't experienced.

The kids got really excited when they heard.  "No school!!", they cheered!  I had to burst their little bubbles and explain that they don't cancel school here.  They couldn't believe it.  Haha...it's all good.  They decided that dry snow is going to be so much more fun than our Oregon wet snow.  I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures on here this winter!  Stay tuned!

Getting Our Money's Worth!

There are times when having a big family pays off!  When we got in to town, I looked into Preschool classes that were offered at the local rec center.  We have always done that in whatever town we lived in and been pleased with what they had to offer.  I went in and took a look around and found that in this town, they had soooo much more to offer!!!

The rec center here is huge!  I mean, huge!!  They offer all the same types of classes that we're used to but the actual facility is amazing!  There are a couple of huge swimming pools, including a small one for the little ones, an incredible rock climbing area, several basketball courts, racquetball, bikes, treadmills, weights and my favorite: an indoor wood floor, track!  It's up on the 2nd floor and basically goes around the perimeter of the building!  But being indoors means we can use it any time of the day, in any weather and it's still comfortable!!!

We actually signed up for a one year family membership!  My parents signed up as well!  Even Scott's mom signed up so we all have access to this amazing building!  My parents get up and go running at 5 in the morning!  Sometimes Levi and Tanner go with them!  They shoot hoops, or play racquetball.  Tanner also enjoys running with Grandma and Papa!  Nana enjoys walking on the track and is excited to try out their pool!  She loves swimming! 

Last night Sabrina and I decided to hit the track!  It's been way too long since we were able to get out and go running and we have missed it!  It felt good to run!

The crazy thing is we only pay like $50 bucks a month for our whole family to have access to all these great activities!  The kids that are 12 and older can get dropped off and spend a couple of hours there without having a parent with them!  Tanner and Levi took advantage of that for the first time last night!  They swam, played hoops and wore themselves out for a couple of hours!!!  Now that's what I'm talking about!!!!!

On a different topic, it was 18 out this morning when we woke up!!!  I'm guessing it's still shorts weather in Arizona.  But that's ok because the blue skies and Fall leaves on the ground totally make up for the cold here!