Crazy-Funfilled Week

Our weekend/week in a nutshell:
-got devestating news that a friend and member of our old ward in Mesa was murdered by her daughter's ex-boyfriend...so so sad and our hearts and prayers are with the Strebe family. I had both of the Strebe girls in Young Women's and can't imagine what they are dealing with right now. I am thankful for my family and will strive to not take them and our time together for granted
-my good friend, Meegan, had a birthday on Aug. 17th, which we will be celebrating in a couple of months with some musical tickets I bought us...can't wait
-my brother, Justin, turned 24 on Aug. 18th and came home from his summer in D.C. before he heads back for his last semester at BYU. He graduates from their Public Health Masters program in Dec.
-On Friday, Justin and my mom came to Payson for some dental work and then we all drove back to Mesa for the weekend. Brett spent the weekend with my dad and Chance bow hunting near Flagstaff...hunting season has begun...oh boy here we go:)
-Saw the movie "The Help" Friday night...so good and pretty close to the book too
-On Saturday I had my bestie and fantastic hairstylist chop off all my hair (her recommendation)...love it and wish I had done it earlier this summer
-Met up with my good friend, Kimi, and her mom who was down from Utah visiting. Had a delish lunch at Sauce in Scottsdale

-Saturday night hung out with my brother to celebrate his birthday...always a good time and never a moment without our loud laughing going on
-Went to my old ward on Sunday and got to see lots of friends and familiar faces
-Came home Sunday night
-Went back down to Mesa on Tuesday and had dinner with Brett, the kids and Justin at Cheesecake Factory...yummy yummy for my tummy
-Wednesday afternoon I had lunch with my fabulous friends Meegan, Chelsee, Rachel, Sherri and my brother at Charlestons...I was definitely squeezing in all my favorite and very missed restaurants this week.
-Had dinner with the kids and Justin at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant and then made the trip back to Payson Wednesday night
-Wheew...I am exhausted, well-fed and so bummed I didn't take pics of my fun time. Now I have to go pack for another trip down to Mesa tonight and off to Palm Springs with my friend, Camille, for a much anticipated and very needed girl's get-away...I will definitely get pics of that trip.

A Nice Surprise in the Mail

I got this fun flyer in the mail today...the kids think dad is a superstar because his picture is in a "magazine". We sure are lucky to have him!!!

Tonto Fish Hatchery and Creek

Yesterday afternoon we decided to go check out the Tonto Fish Hatchery. It was such a fun place for our kids. They loved seeing all the fish and picking berries off the nearby raspberry/blackberry bushes. We then ended up hiking a little ways to Tonto Creek where the kids could swim and play. Bradock was having fun sliding down the water and "cliff jumping" off the rocks. Raylee girl just enjoyed sitting in the water...she is definitely not a daredevil, which is ok by me.

Work, School and a Little Outdoor Fun

Well, Brett has really been enjoying being a dentist and bringing home a paycheck...we enjoy it too:) He has been working 3 days a week here in Payson and two days a week in Mesa. It probably won't be much longer until he is here in the Payson office full-time, but until then he has actually had fun working on some familiar faces down in Mesa. Just the other day he got to do some fillings and a "Princess" crown as she calls it for our friend's daughter, Carsyn. She did such a great job for being a 4 year old at the dentist. I'm glad her mom took a pic of Carsyn and Brett.

Brett is seriously in love with this little Payson town. Most mornings he goes out glassing (which I recently learned is scoping out deer/elk with binoculars). I'm not sure what the thrill is or why you would get up super early to do it, but hey everyone has that thing they love and would do anytime of the day...mine would be working out. The other morning he almost stepped on a snake, but luckily it didn't have a rattler...thank goodness. I decided he needs to start leaving me a note of when and where he is headed off to just in case I need to send a search and rescue team after him.

Bradock and Raylee just finsished up their first two weeks of preschool. They both are loving it! They have made some fun new friends and worked on some cool projects at school. I am really enjoying my couple of hours of alone time. I might actually start subbing at the gyms here or find something else to fill my time, but for now it's awesome.

We have also been enjoying our weekly family adventures. So, the other day we decided to find a new place called Ellison Waterfalls with our friends, the Youngs. We all squished in my car and headed out on quite the little adventure. Brett decided to take a new road (bumpy dirt road is more like it) to a place where we could get out and hike in. Well, we ended up at a no-trespassing personal property area and Brett and Tyler thought it would be fine to hop the barbwire fence and hike on in. Mind you there are 9 of us, 5 of them ranging from the ages 10 weeks old to 5 years old. The guys and the kids went on ahead of Cami, the baby and I to see if they could locate the spot. As Cami and I are walking down this hill area we hear Brett and Tyler yelling for us to hide. We had no idea what was going on, but we started booking it up the side of this mountain into the coverage of some trees. We huddled ourselves down and soon our kids and hubbies were hiding with us. That's when we heard the four-wheeler. Apparently, the owners of the property chose that moment to come and show-off their property to someone. We stayed huddled until we heard the four-wheeler take off and knew it was a good distance away. I seriously felt like a teenager again...trying to hide so I wouldn't get in trouble...so silly, but really funny at the same time. We hiked back to our car and went home.

Since, we weren't able to locate the waterfall Brett and I decided to try and locate the area again the next evening with our kids and our dog, Maggie. No worries though, we took a different route that was completely legal to hike. We found the awesome waterfall and the kids had so much fun hiking and climbing the big rocks. Who knew this outdoors stuff could be so fun! I'm still not into camping overnight, but I am loving our hikes and adventures.

This last weekend we headed down to Mesa for my cousin, Jake's wedding. Rachel and I did some much needed retail therapy that day...I sure missed my Scottsdale Fashion Square mall! Brett, the kids and I headed to the wedding reception that night. The next day was my mom's side of the family's reunion in Show Low, so her and my dad took my kids from us at the reception, so they could go to the reuntion with them. Brett and I headed back home after the reception and spent Saturday garage selling, hiking and having a fun night out. We ended up seeing the movie "Stupid, Crazy, Love" Saturday night and enjoyed a nice quiet time at church on Sunday. My mom and dad brought the kids home Sunday afternoon. They had so much fun with Grandma and Papa. My mom said they just played and played at the reunion and were utterly exhausting by the end of the day. Maybe next year we will have to join them, but it was kind of nice to have a little time apart.

Our Payson House

I have been meaning to post pics of our house here in Payson, but just keep finding new home projects that keep me wanting to delay until I have pics of them all done. Well, I figure a house is never ever done because you can always add or change things about it. Anyways, we are loving this new house of ours. The only complaints I have is the white carpet (and it's everyhwere) and the small closet space. I have really had to up my organization skills to get all our stuff to fit just perfect, but I like what we have done. Other than that, the house is awesome. It's 3 bedrooms with an office, two full bathrooms (I love my master bathroom...it's perfect!) and has a full size basement. It's fun to see how all our old home decor looks new again just by putting it in a new house and changing it up. A few weeks back my sis and I had found this cute (well potential to be really cute) table that I needed for down in the basement. With all her talent and craftiness skills she convinced me we could easily turn this $7 blah pine table into something fun! She even convinced me that it would be super easy. That's all the encouragement I needed. So with a bottle of primer, a can of spray paint, some glaze and a new handle we went to work. My new little end table turned out so cute. I am so glad I have such an imaginitive sister who knew it would turn out great.

Since then I decided to try a project of my own. I have been on the lookout for a cute little bench to go by our front door to take your shoes (or boots in a couple of months)off or just set things on. The cheapest I could find something online was close to $100, so back to the thrift stores and garage sales I went. I found this cute wood bench at a garage sale for $10. I followed the tricks my sister and I used for the last project and well I definitely still need some practice in the glazing dept, but all in all it turned out really good...better than I was expecting! I can't believe me, the most non-crafty person in the world refurnished something...amazing. Maybe this little small town is good for me after all.

My Two Preschoolers

This week Bradock and Raylee started preschool. Payson school district is on a modified year-round school schedule...which I love...so all the schools started last Wednesday. One of the other reasons I felt good about moving to Payson was that they also had the special needs preschool program just like Gilbert and Mesa. So, Bradock has officially started his second year in the program with his new teacher Mrs. St John at Julia Randall Elementary School. He was so excited to go back to school and asked me everyday for the last week "how many more naps til I can go to preschool?" He loves riding the bus to and from school and eating breakfast there. His preschool is four days a week 8-10:30am with Wednesdays off.

Raylee girl was tested for the same program, but was just too smart, so we enrolled her with the Safe Haven Child Development Center at the Church of the Nazarene. It is a Bible-based/God centered Christian school, so she not only learns regular educational curriculum, but has gospel learning as well. I figure every child could use a little more bible learning and I felt really good about the teachers and their program. She goes Mon, Tues and Thurs from 8:30-Noon.

I seriously can't believe they are both in school now and I have a couple of hours to myself to get things done. I can't wait to see how the school year goes and all the fun things they will learn and projects they bring home.