Sunday Family Funday

"There are friends, there is family,

And then there are the friends that become family."

I could not have even fathomed 2 years ago the amount of friendship, love, and family that was going to be added to our lives.   My sweet friend Rebekah introduced us to Ashley and Taylor Hill, and in the time that we have known them we have become Godparents and been brought into an amazing extended family. Life is beautiful.

Its no secret that Ashley is a warrior.  Walking with her as she lives with cancer has been humbling, heart wrenching, inspiring, and a divine appointment.  She wouldn't say so, but she is a special woman.

Amidst the trials that she deals with she is always working to build and foster relationships.  Whether it is a dinner at home, an overnight with kids, or just a coffee date, her friends and family are undeniably precious to her. 

We had a wonderful opportunity last week to get this big and new family all together for a picnic at our local Riparian Preserve.  It was a gorgeous day for it and we filled up the play area with kids and relationship.  

We ate lunch and spent time being together while our kids had a blast running all over the place.  No pressure, or pretense, just a big family celebrating a day of living.

Bob was naturally the hit of the party with the kids and either played baseball, chased them around, or quite literally let them pull him all over.  

We all took a lovely little walk through the desert together which gave many of us a chance to catch up and get to know each other better.  

I am grateful to know and be considered family to all of these amazing people.  Life is so worth living and fighting for!

#Sixieselfie

There is just no excuse.  It has taken me far too long to get this blog out into the world.  Every time we come off of a holiday season there is always so much to talk about and yet so much I have to get caught up on.  We take our vacations seriously around here, but there is always a list of to dos when reality comes around again.

Our new year started off bright with a visit from our favorite Coloradans!  Sarah, Caleb, and Elijah came out to see us and to say we were excited is a true understatement.  After Christmas, January 3rd could not get here fast enough!

Ever since moving, Sarah and I have stayed committed to fostering and building the friendship between our kids.  These four kiddos quite literally grew up together in the jogger while Sarah and I solidified our friendship from High School over miles, and miles, and miles of running, conversation, and a few breast feeding stops.  Life has pulled us apart, but once you share a side of the road breast feeding experience at mile 8 of a 12 mile run while your two big kids run all over kingdom come you kind of have one of those impenetrable bonds.  This woman is special and such a joy to me.

Two years ago we all met up in Colorado to experience the Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs.  The kids absolutely loved it and it has fast become a tradition for all of us.  This year was really fun because they were able to come our to AZ and experience our brand new Great Wolf  Lodge in Scottsdale!  

They hopped off their flight and within 5 minutes everyone was BFFS.  We stopped for Chic-fil-a and then went to the Lodge.  Our kids couldn't contain themselves.

We spend our first evening at the water park riding all of the slides and allowing our kids to go and do their own thing together.  Lily and Caleb have a sweet friendship, and Evie and Elijah are buds.  It is so much fun to watch them literally just pick up wherever they left off last year.  

Sarah and I enjoyed catching up and letting our kids have some independence and pizza before settling in our hotel room.  To be sure, our night was an interesting one considering all of the kids consumed a mountain of Ice Breaker mints (all those sugar alcohols) that managed to give all of them the farts.  I won't lie we all giggled a lot as our room got more fragrant by the second.  Too funny and a memory none of us will ever forget.

Our next morning we spent doing all the things including the two level ropes course (Sarah conquered her fear!), putt putt golf, rock climbing, and the Magiquest treasure hunt.  There were a few cups of coffee thrown in there and some shopping too.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the waterpark.  I chased Evie and Elijah around the lazy river for a solid hour, and rode slides with the kids until we were all ready to head home.

Our next day and a half was wonderful and chill with nothing to do but spend time with each other.

Bob took the kids to the park to attempt a rocket launch.  We had engine failure several times and it never made it off the ground, but the kids didn't let it spoil the fun and played like crazy at the park.

Sarah and I talked, and walked, and hiked, and drank wine.  We went to yoga, and sat in the sunshine, and made dinner together.  Her friendship is a true gift and I relish any time I get to spend with her.

Their visit came to a quick close, but not without a trip to the trampoline park, and all the play time we could muster.  I love our annual SixieSelfie and cannot wait to continue the tradition.

May the Force Be With You

I did not grow up being immeresed in the STAR WARS universe, but I do remember being introduced to Luke and Leia by my best friends.  Bob, however, grew up loving the original trilogy and upon attaching myself to him, I was fully introduced to all of the Star Wars world.  When we had our girls I wasn't sure if Bob was going to have avid fans, but man I should not have worrried.  Our girls LOVE Star Wars.

Its been a really fun few years seeing the new heroine of the franchise have her day.  Rey will most definitely be one of those role models for my girls.  The deep reality of good vs evil has been such a great parenting tool as well, and I cannot tell you how many times when the girls are fighting that we tell them, "be a Jedi.....not a Sith!"

The Star Wars series as we know it is coming to a close and the most recent movie was the final installment of 40 years of darkness vs the light.  We debated taking our girls to see it without our prior viewing, but after a tip from a friend, we snatched the girls up from school and took them to see it on opening weekend.  It was more special to Bob than I think I knew.

Time has a funny way of marching on and starting the series as kids but finishing the as parents feels special.  It was a great day.

A Very Merry Holiday

While I am very excited to usher in 2020 and all of the new possibilities a new year brings, I cannot leave 2019 without saying how much I adore Christmas and all of the holiday joy it brings.  Our holiday season has been very merry and I am leaving 2019 very happy.

I ended the year of healing from my foot with another season of recovering from Mono, and yet what a gift rest brings.  It wasn't my plan, but I have been able to embrace it and truly have had one of the most lovely holiday seasons.  Do you know how wonderful it is to wake up and sit on the couch for hours just reading?  Its a gift......and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I have fallen in love with Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books and find myself in the middle of a her 3rd installment.  A 900 page behemoth it gave me all the excuses I needed to just sit and read. 

We spent our week up in the Vernon forest with Memaw and Papa.  One of the things Mom and I wanted to do this year was something for others.  Mom organized a caroling adventure to 2 different assisted living homes.  While we were originally supposed to have a whole community crew it ended up just being our family and it was such a lovely experience.  It is so important to spend time with the elderly and we sang songs and brought them candy cane reindeer.  I hope it can be a tradition for us and look forward to continuing the experience.

On Christmas Eve we went Skiing!  Oh how we all love to ski, and the girls were up bright and early to get packed and headed to Sunrise!

It snowed all day up at Sunrise and it was truly a winder wonderland.  It took Evie a bit to get her legs under her again, but Lily was a pro in short order.  

Papa held the lodge down and the 5 of us had a blast cruising around the mountain.  Because of the storm there were very few people there and the slopes were wide open!

One of the most incredible experiences happened when Bob, Memaw, and I went to the backside of the mountain and skiied where literally NO ONE else was.  I mean we quite literally had the entire mountain to ourselves, carving fresh powder, and having a once in a lifetime experience.  It was amazing and we stayed until closing time.  What a great day for all of us!

I honestly took 1 photo all of Christmas day because being in the moment is one of the best things you can be.  I have fallen more and more in love with yoga and this professional mat has been on my wish list for a long time.  I cannot wait to tackle my handstands for 2020!  My other favorite moment was when I successfully got Bob back for his "Listen to Bob" shirt on my birthday.  Marriage is fun.

Santa came in full force up in the mountains and we had a lovely time opening all of our presents and spending time together.  We watched The Star, and spent all day reading, playing, and watching movies.  Well all of that and eating turtles!

The day after Christmas was beautiful, and snow was in the forecast, so we decided to get out and ride horses! 

When we got done riding the ponies, Evie and I sat in the barn to try to catch a kitty.  These 3 little kitties are skittish and shy so it has taken a while for me to capture them on my camera, but I did it, and Simba, Nala, and Sirabi are just so cute!

Bob, Papa, and I also moved over 170 bales of hay!  I turned it into a game to see how many bales I could safely tetris in the truck.  Our numbers improved from 16 to 30 by the end of the job!  I won't lie, I felt pretty accomplished.  The three of us had a lot of fun and laughed a lot.  

The last couple of days we had SNOW, and the girls just LOVED it!

We attempted to make a big snow man, but ended up finishing a BB-8. Its a Star Wars Thing.

We even managed to find an awesome sledding hill up in the national forest and spent the better part of an hour having a ball on the slope!

Evie and daddy had a BLAST trying to go as high as possible without running into logs or rocks.

Ellie, of course, was in heaven for the week running absolutely free and without restraint.  She is a Husky through and through.  Snow is her playground and she can stay out in it all day long.

Between my Mono and foot injury, I find myself less than excited about going pell mell down a hill on a sled, but I found my way down the mountain a couple times.  It was a blast!

What  great time we all had.  We finished our time up in the mountains by going to see the New Jumanji: The Next Level movie.  

On the Saturday following Christmas it was time for us to journey home.  With snow in the forecast we left in the morning and managed to get ourselves to Forest Lakes before the weather and road conditions turned terrible.

FUNNY STORY:  We had very little gas in our super efficient vehicle when we left Memaw's and the plan was to stop in Show Low.  Well, Show Low came and went and Bob made the call not to stop.  Under normal conditions the range of our current gas was more than enough to make it to Payson.  Well.....then we hit terrible weather and road conditions which absolutely trounced our efficiency and all of the sudden we were actually considering what was going to happen if we ran out of gas.  Best thing about our marriage is that we were seriously giggling at the circumstances and playing the game of distance left vs. current fuel economy.  At one point in time the gas station was 24 miles away and we had 25 miles of range.  Bob went into hyper efficiency mode and we decided to keep going.....get out of the heavy snow and if worst came to worse......we both can run.....a long way.  So all good.  

I am happy to announce that we made it with 5 miles of range left in the tank.  Bob and I high fived each other and filed it away as a great adventure.  Too funny.

We got to Payson and as we reentered the desert we looked off and saw the most gorgeous of landscapes.  Arizona is truly a spectacular state.  I mean seriously where else can you, within 2 hours, go from 3 feet of blizzard conditions to slow-less desert?  AND then see where the switch is?  Gorgeous.

Our holidays were truly very merry, and such a special time of rest, refuel, and re connection.