Trip Home & Kimber's Visit

One of the best ideas we had all summer was to invite Madix home to Kansas with us after our trip to Phoenix. For two days of driving and one blissful week, Hanna wasn't the only girl in the family! Plus, Mads had to get home somehow, and she's too young to fly alone, so that gave Kimber a good reason to come to Pratt. Double score! I got to show off my best friend to all my Pratt friends, and even though we don't have much, we made sure to show Kimber what we do have before she left. So we hit Lemon Park in the evening and waited for the fireflies to come out. We worked out at the gym and swam at the public pool. We also crashed the County Fair. The best parts though were chilling in our old traditions, like YCL Circus and Strictly Ballroom. All of it made me realize how much I've missed her! I don't know what I did to deserve a Kimber, but I'll never give her up!

Visiting Friends

We did not waste our two weeks in Phoenix idling away our time. Every spare minute was spent tracking down our dear ones and rekindling old friendships - that includes siblings who weren't able to attend the family reunion (namely Mark and Laura who were busy having a cute little baby named Connor). Not pictured here is my sushi excursion with Kimber and Darah, as well as our afternoon of swimming, pizza and cousins at Andy and Andrea's new house in Mesa. What I do have pictures of is our church friends in Buckeye, Kevin and DeDe for lunch at Fuddruckers, Mel and her kids at the trampoline place, and the Monjes in Verrado (almost every one of us has a best buddy in that family!). It made my heart so happy to spend precious time with the people we love.

Liam's 5th Birthday

I have to start by telling a story from a couple months ago when the kids were reminiscing (bragging) about all the fun themed birthday parties they've had (Barney, Blue's Clues, Hulk, Pirate, Princess, Fairy, Rainbow, etc.), and Liam asked me "Mom, what birthday parties have I had?" And I realized each summer for the last few years (around the time of Liam's birthday) we've been busy planning a move and making major life changes, and no, I had never thrown Liam a birthday party. And here we were about to take a vacation on his birthday, which would probably get glossed over once again. So I made a firm determination to keep that from happening. I asked Liam what theme he wanted (he said Lego Movie), and despite being away from home and my own kitchen and my usual resources, we pulled out all the stops. I even brought him up to Grandma Gordon's house in Camp Verde to make it extra special. We made a lego cake and did a lego craft and played a lego game and after Liam opened all his presents, he had legos coming out his ears! All the Gordon aunts, uncles and cousins came over the next day to eat pizza and play in the water and pretty much seal the deal. Birthday mission accomplished! I love my Liam...oh, how I love him :)