San Diego

Brandon and I had the opportunity to go to San Diego this past weekend for a little vacation. I don't think anything could have gone any better than it did! It was perfect...perfect weather, no big crowds, and so much fun! After driving out there on Friday, we headed to Sea World. I had not been there since 8th grade and Brandon had never been there, so it was fun wandering through the park and seeing a bunch of new things. And the shows there are amazing!


You have to see Shamu when you are at Sea World! And the Shamu show now is amazing!


If you don't know this about me already, I love animals. I just had to throw this picture in...this bear was so entertaining! He was super curious about everything, and was giving the crowd of people quite a show. So here is one of the many animal pictures that I took over the weekend...I thought it was a pretty cool picture.

The next day we headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo. What a cool place to wander around for a day!




We even got to feed the giraffes, one of the many animals that I fed throughout the weekend.

We also went to Coronado Island and rode bikes on the beach, caught a Padres baseball game (even better cuz they were playing the Diamondbacks!), and went to the Wild Animal Park. It really was the perfect vacation!

The Lazy Days of Summer...

We spent another day at Lake Roosevelt this weekend, this time with my parents and the McKenzie's (my aunt and uncle). The day had absolutely perfect weather and the lake had very few people on it. We had a great time skiing, wakeboarding and tubing...they even got my 2 year old cousin, Tatum, on a tube! My cousins from Minnesota came and joined us later in the day to partake in a beautiful Arizona lake. We are so grateful to Brandon's Dad for giving us the opportunity to use a boat this summer...we are getting super excited to go to Powell!


My uncle Bill's boat


My parents with the sleeping Tatum, and of course, Wrigley

Brandon driving with the cool suspension bridge in the background

Yes, I actually can wakeboard!

Brandon wakeboarding with his loyal pal looking on.

Memorial Weekend at the Lake

On Friday, Brandon's Dad and brother Blake drove out from California. This time, they brought a very large toy to leave here in Arizona...a boat! That's right, we will have a boat for the summer! So on Saturday, we woke up early and headed out to Roosevelt Lake...and it rained on us the whole time driving up there and for about the first hour after we got there. But we were patient and waited it out, and it turned out to be an awesome day! It was also Wrigley's first time on a boat, and while preparing for this outing, I realized that our dog loves to swim and there was no way we were going to be able to lift her out of the water and back into the boat...until I found the doggie life jacket! I know, kind of pathetic that I bought my dog a life vest, until I saw a ton of dogs at the lake with them on. And I am super glad we had it, cuz she absolutely loved the water and that handy dandy handle on the top of the jacket was very useful in getting her out of the water!


Our family lake picture


Every time Brandon would jump in the water, Wrigley would get super concerned and have to jump in after him.


There is a really cool suspension bridge at Roosevelt.

I thought this was really pretty and you don't see cactus bloom like this all the time. This one was half submerged.

This is where Wrigley would end up whenever we were just cruising...I don't think she really enjoyed the wind in her face or the noise of the boat, so she would just crawl into the closest person's lap until the boat stopped and she could go swimming.

We are excited for many more trips out to the lakes this summer! Thanks to Brandon's Dad for letting us use it all summer!

All in the Family...

We are definitely a boxer family! My parents own Wrigley's mom (Dakota) and sister (Cherokee) and they are nice enough to let Wrigley stay at their house during the day when I am at work. I just thought these pictures of them were pretty cute!

After a long day of hiking.

Showing off their "staying skills".

They will all hold the cheese on their noses until you say "Get it". None of them can quite flip it up and catch it yet, but we are working on it!

Mother's Day Hike

It has become a tradition to go on a hike for Mother's Day. My Mom loves to get out of Phoenix and find a cool place to spend the day. Normally we go up on the Rim, but this year we picked Flagstaff so that my brother, Jeff, could drive down and meet us from Page. We found a really cool hike in Walnut Canyon, which is right outside of Flagstaff. Jeff and Brandon found a cave that they spent time climbing through (I am not a huge fan of small, dark places so I stayed where I could stand upright!) and Brandon even convinced Wrigley to crawl through it with him. I told him that was total trust, because she could not see a thing! After the hike, we found a Mexican food place in Flagstaff and had dinner. My dad was out of town, but my mom said other than that, it was a perfect Mother's Day.


I think Wrigley was kind of over the pictures at this point.


I love this picture of the 2 of them.


My mom, brother Jeff and myself

Taking a little break out of the sun

Our family :)

Wrigley's New Friend

Wrigley and Cherokee (my mom's dog and Wrigley's sister) have a new friend! My Grandma got a little beagle puppy named Millie and let me tell you, she can certainly hold her own with the big dogs!

It's only fun when someone is tugging back!


She looks so innocent here...yah, not so much!

Florida and a Business Trip?

So I went on my first "business" trip last weekend with Ashley (my co-worker and also my cousin). We went to Worlds (like the Olympics of Cheerleading...sounds lame, but for us cheer coaches, actually really cool), and then attended a coaches conference for two days. The best part of this whole thing was that it was at Disney World! The competition was at the Wide World of Sports complex and the conference was at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort. We saw some amazing stuff at the competition and the conference was better than either of us expected. We also saw a crocodile (or alligator, don't really know how to tell the difference) in the lake that the resort is on, which was a totally new experience for me. Not sure I would ever want to live in Florida (don't think I could handle the humidity), but definitely want to go back soon and actually go to Disney World!

Disney's Wide World of Sports

The choreographer that I use is from California All-Stars. Here they are winning their division at Worlds.

The croc (yeah, we were really close to him!)

Disney's Coronado Springs Resort

Ashley and I at the resort