July 2015=Big News

July was filled with great fun! We celebrated the 4th of July at home in small-town fashion. We attended the Benson 4th of July parade, Then spent some time with our friends. Then had a family BBQ at home. Then went to the park to watch the fireworks, which were awesome! Holland was scared of the fireworks this year, so she sat with her head on my shoulder and her eyes closed, but the boys loved it.

Here are Porter and Noah, and Holland too with a few friends (Wilford, Theo, Amos, and Sariah) eating watermelon and candy and waiting for the fireworks to start.

After the 4th of July, the kids and I drove up to Chandler to visit more of our family, to swim, and to eat ice cream (as seen below). It was so nice to see so many of our aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. With all of the swimming we were able to do, the kids are all becoming a lot more confident in the water. It's really exciting to see Noah advancing and to see Porter and Holland trying more and more to swim without floatees.

Once we were home, we got to spend time outdoors, thanks to the monsoon rains cooling things down a bit. While Noah had a little sleepover with his Grandma Pat, Porter, Holland, and I met some friends and played at the park.

This is Porter with his best friend, Anisa. She just started Kindergarten this year.

Our friends Adam and Nui invited us over to celebrate Anisa's 5th birthday. We had a lot of fun and ate some yummy Thai food. The kids really liked playing in the Jeep ride-on toys.

At the end of July, just before school started for Noah. We took a family trip to Texas to surprise Nate's eldest brother for his 50th birthday. Grandma Pat drove with us and two of Nate's sisters flew in as well. Jan's (Nate's brother) wife and children and grandchildren were all there too of course. It was really special to be there for Jan's birthday and it was a lot of fun spending time with everyone as much as we could.

Brothers!

Mom/Grandma Pat, Jan, Lisa, Lori, and Nate

Yep, there are 50 candles on that cake!

On our last day visiting, we went out to eat.

The kids enjoyed playing on this wood train outside of the restaurant while waiting for their food and after dinner.

Noah lost another tooth, you can see his cute jack-o-lantern grin here.

After dinner, we went and fed the ducks... and fish... and turtles.

Each of our kids has friend-cousins their own age in Texas. Noah has Cannon, Porter has Tejan, and Holland has Brighton. It makes visiting our Texas family that much more special. Here are Holland and Brighton saying "See you later, alligator." What little sweeties.

We drove back home from Texas on Holland's birthday. After arriving home and unpacking the car, we had a low-key celebration of Holland, who turned 2.
She loved getting to open presents and eat cake.

She looks so grown up in this head band from Grandpa B

Holland was so happy to get a kitty cat toy. She sleeps with it every night and takes it everywhere now.

She got some new outfits from Grandma Pat, and this Hello Kitty from our neighbors, Ed and Bernice, she sleeps with this toy each night too.

A few days after we returned home and celebrated Holland's birthday, Noah started back to school. We start early here! Noah is now in 2nd grade. He was a little nervous about moving up to the 2nd grade, but after meet the teacher night and seeing his classroom, and visiting his 1st grade and Kindergarten teachers, he was ready for a new school year. Here he is on his first day.

Noah and Mrs. Miles. She looks sweet, doesn't she? Noah is confident he has the best 2nd grade teacher ever.

Now for our big news:
Nate's work announced at the end of July that they will be relocating the business. The move will allow for further growth for the company. Artie (Nate's boss), along with Nate, has been carefully considering locations and they finally decided where to move. We love Nate's job and we are planning to relocate with the company. So, we're leaving our home in Benson-

This is a picture Nate took from our backyard. We're going to miss this view.

Of course our new home may have some nice views as well-

This is a picture Artie took when he visited our soon-to-be new home and got a feel for the area.

(photo from http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/230732)

We will be relocating to the Salt Lake City, Utah area. We don't know where in that area just yet, but we are moving by the end of this year. Nate will be leaving the first of December to begin setting up their new shop/location, while the rest of the employees begin transitioning and moving things from Benson. The kids and I will be waiting to leave Benson until after the end of the semester at school for Noah, then we will celebrate Christmas here in Arizona (Nate will fly in), then head to our new home after Christmas. We are very excited for this big change. It's going to be quite the adventure.