HAPPY SWEET "16" KIMBERLY!!!

Kim wanted to celebrate her 16th Birthday at Castles & Coasters. The girls had a GREAT time!!! 16 fun things Kim did for her birthday...

1. Had big spaghetti/lasagna dinner w/cake & ice cream
2. Received a cool foot soaker/pedicure set (Thanks Aunt Linda)
3. Tiffany fixed her hair for her big day
4. Gathered up the 'gang' for the day...Kim, Tiffany, Heather, Mom, Marlee, Morgan, Dana, Brittney, and Andreana

5. Ate pizza and ice cream
6. Drove the bumper cars

7. Rode the 'magic carpet'

8. Rode roller coasters...went upside down!

9. Drove Indy cars

10. Rode the Dragon Boat...Kim's favorite as you can tell from the pictures!


11. Rode the Sky Diver

12. Got wet on the log ride

13. Got face and arm painted with friends


14. Received bath set (Thanks Marlee & Morgan)
15. Stopped on the way home to eat at Taco Bell
16. Relaxed, watching a movie while soaking feet

Where has the year gone...already!

OK, I knew it had been a while since my last post but when I went to see where I left off I had no idea it had been THREE MONTHS!!!!! If any of you out there have been watching our blog and waiting for an update, please let us know you are interested so we can do a better job of keeping you up to date! For now, let's see if we can get caught up. Hopefully you won't fall asleep while reading this LONG post.

Heather finished up the basketball season and was very sad to see it end. She had a great time and really enjoyed getting to know all of the girls on the team. She had her high-scoring game toward the end of the season with three 3 point shots and a total of 10 points against Shepherd. They didn't end with a great record but she learned a lot and had a lot of fun. She's looking forward to playing again next year. She received the Coach's Award at the end of season awards night as well.




Heather is now playing on the school softball team (more on that in the next post).

Tiffany is still cheering. Toward the end of the basketball season, she was asked to move up to Varsity and compete with them. She had a couple of games at the end of the season in which she cheered for both JV and Varsity. Their first cheer competition is coming up this weekend (more on that in the next post).



Brandon has been playing church basketball and loving every minute of it. He plays with a great group of men and is really enjoying having the time off from football to play some fun basketball. He's got a full schedule this semester and has been working out and throwing quite a bit in preparation for the next football season. He was excited to receive a hand-written letter from the coaches at UCLA this week. Hopefully he'll be getting some good Division 1 offers throughout this next season.

Cathy had a great time last weekend at her semi-annual scrapbooking retreat, joined by 5 friends. She missed plenty of sleep but was able to complete 40 pages, what a shock!

Kim has joined drama and is back in chorus this semester. She is turning 16 in a couple weeks. Hard to believe, isn't it!...more to come in the next post.

Chris has been busy with school, work, and bowling with the MCC bowling team. As of the time of this post he is bowling in Buffalo, NY. He was able to visit Niagara Falls and Canada (maybe we can get some pictures for the next post and have more info on how he did in the tournament).

Our little Dean turned 9!!! For his birthday party he had some friends over and they played some fun games, had a scavenger hunt, ate cupcakes and played at the park. He had a fun time and enjoyed seeing some friends he hasn't seen for a while. He now also gets to advance to the Bears in Cub Scoutswhich he is very excited about.


Dean just finished up his first season, ever, of soccer. He was able to be on a team with a friend from church who lives across the street and whose dad was a coach. He did really well for his first time playing and really enjoyed it. We may have found 'his sport'! He scored a total of about 10 goals during the season, 4 of which were in 1 game. He had a great time and is looking forward to playing more soccer in the near future.



He also was able to attend SRP's Take Your Kid to Work Day with mom this year. He had a great time checking out all of the tools, equipment and other displays they had.

Player of the Game, Happy Birthday, & Merry Christmas!

We've been super busy with school and basketball finishing up before Christmas break; getting ready for Christmas...decorating, cards, letters, baking, shopping, etc. Haven't had much time to update the blog and unfortunately, pictures are on the camera card that is currently with some friends, but here goes...

Heather earned 'Player of the Game' in their game against Stapley for shooting 2 three-point shots (in a row)! She did awesome! Unfortunately, they still lost the game but she had fun. Mom gave Brandon a hard time because, although he was at the game to support here, he was very 'involved' with a brickbreaker game on his phone during both of her three-pointers.

Brandon celebrated his 19th birthday the week before Christmas. He got (an early present) a ticket (and cash) to go the ASU vs UofA football game in Tucson and then we took him and his friends Dan & Jessica out to dinner at Olive Garden.

We had a great Christmas (aside from a slight plumbing problem that started the day before Christmas Eve and therefore wasn't able to be fixed for about a week). The kids got everything they wanted and more (well, maybe not everything but they faired well). They got mom & dad out of bed at 5:30 in the morning to open presents. The popular items this year were clothes, shoes, jackets and gift cards for the older kids and of course, toys for Dean...Bakugan, chapter books, Ben 10, etc. Derek's family (well, part of them)and some friends came over Christmas morning for breakfast (biscuits & gravy, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, and Grandpa Tommy's 'concoction' (egg, potato, ham & cheese casserole). It was a nice day!

Chris & Tyler playing with Dean's toys

Kim excited about one of her new DVDs

Tiffany sporting some of her new clothes

Dean showing off his new Pumas! He's been wanting these shoes for months but mom could never find them.

Heather is, for some reason, obsessed with office supplies...she got an OfficeMax gift card!

Happy Belated Birthday, Tyler!

OK, so it's been way too long since my last post and I just realized that I still had my Halloween background up and it is now November 9th. I also missed posting a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" to Tyler (sorry T)...Tyler turned 20 on November 1st. It's hard to believe! Also, a belated Happy Birthday to Sharon!!! We took Tyler & Sharon out to Red Lobster for their birthdays and then had them over for dinner on Sunday for tacos and taco soup (their favorites). Here's the new blazer he bought for his birthday...


Here's a few pictures from Halloween. Unfortunately, I missed Kim in her costume. She left early and went trick-or-treating with the neighbors.
Here's Dean (Batman) and his friend Willy


Heather and her friend Marlee (dressed as Brandon)


And Molly getting her 'treat'...she's just a little spoiled, don't you think???

There are aliens among us...

So, Brandon's game last Saturday was at New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico, home of the famous 1947 Roswell UFO incident/crash. So, we went on an alien adventure and although we didn't see any 'real' aliens or even any live 'alien impersonators' (hmmm....not sure that word really works in that sense) we had a great time. It was a very long drive, they lost, and an even longer drive home (although we did decide to stop on the way and sleep.

I would like to give a special thanks to all who helped us out so we could make this trip...Beaudoins, Mom & Paul, Whitfields, Ericksons and L'Heureux's!!!!!!!

It was rather interesting to see the entire town with its 'alien theme'. Most all of the storefronts were painted with some type of 'alien' scene. We stopped at the local Wal-Mart only to find this on the front of the building...


...and Heather and her friend Marlee found this inside...
"UFO H2O" who would have thought?

We drove by the local McDonald's, which is designed like a space ship (pretty cool)


We tried to visit the UFO Museum Research Center but they were closed when we got there. We did take a few fun pictures nearby. Unfortunately most of these displays were inside the front windows of the little shops nearby and there was a bad glare from the sun but it's the best we could get since we couldn't get in to the museum.

Here's the museum sign with a view of one of the street lights that line this main downtown area.


Brandon and cousin, Carl



The Coke machine we walked by on the street corner


One of the storefronts


Heather and Marlee in one of the shops we visited, pictured with the alien displaying the local newspaper from the 1947 incident.


The gang...


I got some great photos of Brandon playing this week and we made a few other stops on the way home. All-in-all it was a nice relaxing, fun weekend. We had Heather and Marlee on the way there and added Brandon and Carl on the way home. We spent the night in a hotel Friday and Saturday evenings and even got to spend a little time with our friend Brent, who was able to make the short drive up from his new/temporary home to attend the game and join us for dinner. It was great to see him. Here are some other random photos from our weekend trip.

Brandon's SCC Spotlight

Brandon had mentioned a couple weeks ago that he was interviewed at school but he wasn't sure what they were going to do with it. Well, I've been doing some research to find out where they might be posting it. They televised one of his games last week but it wasn't part of that. Anyway, this morning I found it posted on the Maricopa Community College website at www.maricopa.edu/mctv in their Inside Maricopa Sports segment. It's a great spotlight if you want to check it out...

Molly