Happy Birthday!

 Another fast year around the sun and Max has turned 12. What a fast year. I guess time goes by way too fast when you are having fun.

We started celebrating the night before with a crab boil dinner at Angry Crab. Max just loves this place. 

That night we had ice cream treat for the birthday cake and candles.

Followed by presents!

We did all that the night before because Max celebrated his actual birthday with his two best friends at Great Wolf Lodge. What a fun and crazy place. These boys had a great time all day at the water park.

Then we ordered pizza in before the boys hit up the arcade. 

Followed by ice cream.

The rest of the night was in the suite where the boys played video games, hung out and stayed up really late. That's why we got a two bedroom/two bathroom suite so the boys could have the living room, bedroom and bathroom to themselves while Andy and I had our own space.

It was a fun birthday this year and Max had a great time with "the boys."

Camp WI: Round 1

 Max wanted to spend some of his Summer break in WI and since Andy's on a five-week sabbatical from work, they went together. 

The first 24 hours were with Grandpa J and Grandma V where they went fishing and bowling. It was also exciting that Max's cousin Kyle joined them on this day.

Everyone caught fish this day, but Max caught the first fish of the day and he caught a total of two fish. He was very happy about this, but he refused to bait his hook and hold the fish. He had so much fun fishing that he wants to do it again when he's there in July.

Bowling was also fun. Max did not win at bowling, but he had fun eating cheese curds.

They ended with dinner at Rocky's and more pics. 

Max headed to the westside in the morning to spend 24 hours with Grandpa T and Grandma S. They started with some baking.

Then they went to the pool with cousins Beau and Quinn. We forgot to pack swim trunks but shorts worked nicely.

They watched the Minions movie and had a BBQ dinner.

The last 24 hours was spent with Grandma L picking strawberries. This is something they did together last Summer and Max was looking forward to repeating it again this Summer.

Mad had a short trip to WI this time, but it's only round one. He will be back in July for round two of Camp WI and he's really looking forward to it.

Happy Father's Day!

 We started Father's Day off with a breakfast celebration. Max and Andy picked their favorite restaurant to have breakfast at. 

We then opened presents, which is always Max's favorite. He gets excited to see Andy open his gifts.

It was a short Father's Day celebration on my end with Andy because the two headed to the airport for a short trip to WI. 

Max enjoyed his time in the lounge at the airport. He loves to go and have snacks.

Then a first-class flight with Dad to WI where he filled up on unlimited apple juice and had steak dinner.

These two had a nice time in WI while I worked back in Arizona. I will share Max's Camp WI story next.

That's a Wrap!

 Well, fifth grade is over and this year definitely flew by. I seriously can't believe we have a sixth grader on our hands. Max had a great year. They started switching classrooms/teachers halfway through the day to start preparing the kids for junior high. Max didn't particularly like switching but he eventually got used to it. This year was filled with a lot of fun since all of his best friends were in his class. This made for a very positive school year. I was proud of him for getting honor roll every quarter and the PACK award since his closest friends were in his class. He was still able to focus each day. 

He grew a lot this year, and not just physically, but also emotionally. He also learned about puberty at the end of fifth grade. This subject embarrasses him, but I did my best to let him know this is normal and natural.

We ended fifth grade with a pool and waterslide party for him and his friends. The boys had a great time. I sat outside to monitor the crazy boys with one of the other moms who has become a good friend of mine over the past few years.

It's been a successful year in 5th grade and now we are onto a fun filled summer 

May Update

 Our house backs up to a park and at the end of April, I spotted this coyote from my office just chilling by the pond. Good thing we don't have small dogs.

Our good friend Quinn was in town for work so he came to Max's golf lesson where we shared some appetizers at the bar before we headed out to dinner. It's always fun getting together with Quinn when he's in town because all the memories from our crazy young days come back to life. I have known Quinn since he was 18, so it's crazy to think how long ago that was when we first became friends. 

In early May, I volunteered at Max's last field trip for the year. We went to the children's theater in downtown Phoenix. The kids are older since the last time I did the field trip to the theater so this was easy peasy. The play we saw was called Eddie and Vinnie and I thought it was cute. 

Max had his last band performance as a fifth grader, and probably ever. He did not enjoy band and is not planning on taking band next year. He said he's going to take general music. 

Max received two awards for the fourth quarter for making honor roll and the Pride in the Pack award. The Pride award is for good behavior. He made honor roll every quarter this year and Andy and I are very proud of him. We saw him work hard to achieve this so it meant something special to attend the awards each quarter and watch his face beam with pride when his name got called to join the other kids on stage. 

Max also started to go to the chiropractor this month because his back is all jacked up from being hunched over using various electronics. The chiropractor says he sees this all the time now and when Max is all corrected he will be almost a whole inch taller. Max absolutely loves to go and looks forward to it each week since it makes him feel so much better.

Happy Easter!

 We started the Easter weekend off with coloring eggs. We always have a good time doing this and Max looks forward to it because then I use the eggs to make his favorite, deviled eggs.

The Easter bunny came and was very good to Max. He was excited to see his basket but he seemed to be the most excited to see Dubai chocolate in it. He has been talking about this chocolate for quite some time and how badly he wanted to try it. He tried it and wasn't impressed with it like he was hoping to be.

We had the annual egg hunt in the back yard. Max chose to do the egg hunt in his robe and underwear. 

Grandpa T, Grandma S and the Cottons came over to have Easter lunch/dinner with us. Grandpa T and Max did their job of popping the bottle of champaign. This has been a holiday tradition now for many years.

We hope everyone had a Happy Easter! We had a nice day with our family and friends and the beautiful AZ weather.

Birthday, Swimming and Pickleball

 We celebrated Andy's birthday like we typically do. It was during the week so it's challenging with work and school in the way, but we gave Andy his presents, had dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants and celebrated with a Blizzard.

Max had his first swim for 2025. It was too cold for me, so I just watched. I think the water was only 82 degrees at the top on this day, but it didn't stop Max from jumping in. 

We've had a pickleball set for a year now but just haven't used it. We finally set it up in the driveway and had a family pickleball game. We all had a lot of fun and it was nice to be outside enjoying the beautiful AZ weather.