Memorial day fun at the aquatic park

You can't beat $2.50 for a day of fun in the pool, couple of water slides and a lazy river.

Boy Scout Hike down to Fossil Springs

Last Saturday Ethan and I went with his Boy Scout troop on a really fun, but long...long hike. Normally this hike is taken as an overnight trip. But the troop was checking out the condition of the camping areas because the damn and power station were recently decommissioned. The trail was about 2 miles down, it was rocky and steep at some points. Then about another mile in to the swimming holes. The boys swam and creek walked until about 3pm. By then it was hot and the sun was really baking us on the exposed trail. I have not been on long hike in a while and I knew this trip was going to be tough on me. Ethan and I were the last ones up the trail. By the end, my knees hurt so bad I could barely bend them. I was still sore from the trip until Wednesday. Overall it was a fun trip. I took a whole bunch of pictures of the swimming holes and a few videos below.

Ethan got baptized!!!

I might as well start with one of the best moments this year. Ethan decided that he wanted to be baptized. It was pretty cool too that his cousin Jenny up in Oregon also got baptized on the same day!

Here is a slide show of the pictures.

Where has Dan been?

Well, to a everyone who has asked "what happened to your blog", as you can imagine I have been busy. With church, kids, work, the house, scouts...it's been crazy. I want to start posting again and have tons of pictures from the last eight months to load up.

Ethan's treat after last 5th grade band performance

Wow! what a difference 5 months makes. Ethan had his final 5th grade band concert tonight. There were 98 kids from the five Maricopa elementary schools. In December was their first concert...and lets just say there was lots of room for improvement! Well, tonight was much better, I could actually recognize the songs. Ethan did a great job!

Cheap seats @ Dbacks game

You get what you pay for when get free tickets to a ball game from your kids fieldtrip to the ball field. Third level, row 26 is very high up! They don't call them nose bleads for nothing.

Got Samantha's camera back

Grandma found Samantha's camera and sent it down. So now I can go back and post the pictures from the trip. I posted some pictures from the San Francisco stop tonight. I will get to Redwood forest another day.

Long drive from Portland...but finally made it home

What a great trip! Normally being gone for nine days and driving for most of it is not fun, but I had a great time. Oregon for the 4th of July was awesome. Spent a lot of time with family, did lots of sight seeing and drove around a bunch. Some pictures will come later, maybe more if we find the camera!

Made it back to Phoenix

It sure is strange to get gas and be happy about paying $4.09 a gallon.

We drove through San Francisco to kill some time

We drove around looking for the famous Golden Gate Park playground. When we finally found it, we were surprised to see that the park was completely redone. The kids had a well needed break from driving.

Cement slide


New rope tower


Ethan climbed to the top


We stopped after we crossed over the Golden Gate bridge, Samantha was freezing.


On to the next stop!