Long Over Due

So I know I always say I haven't posted forever, but I think this has been the longest stretch.  Things have been a little crazy this summer. We moved into a different house here in Surprise in June.  It's a long story, but it starts by finding out that the house we were living in was a meth lab and it ends with us finding a PERFECT house for us that we are renting from a LDS family who is in Utah getting their Master's from BYU.  We are loving it!  It has a huge backyard with a swing set. I will post pictures.. one day.
After getting settled into the house somewhat, we went to a family reunion with Darren's brothers and their families to Palm Springs, CA.  That was a fun filled vacation that included lots of pool time, golfing for the boys, glow in the dark parties for the kids, and a trip to Knott's Berry Farm.

Then we celebrated Beckham's 4th birthday in June.  What a great kid he is.  He loves everything Batman and Spiderman.  I love that kid..

A couple of weeks after CA the kids and I took a trip to Utah for a couple of events.  My mom's parents had their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. It was so fun to see family that I haven't seen in ages and my grandparents friends that I knew as a kid. From Utah, I followed my parents to Boise, ID for my dad's parents 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  That was also so fun. This one just included family. But there were cousins of mine there that I hadn't seen in years and it was so fun to catch up.  

After the week in UT and a weekend in ID, I came back home to Darren, who was super lonely while we were gone.  It was nice to be back.  It has been 2 weeks since then and today our next adventure began when we sent Brinley off to her first day of kindergarten.  She was ecstatic to go!  We are so happy for her and so proud of her.  She is getting so big.  It was hard to be sad when I dropped her off because she was just so excited.  But then I came home and it was really hard not having her around all day.  She is missed by me and her siblings.  

Well that is the condensed version of our summer.  It has been a crazy one, with lots of stressful things going on in our lives, but those are definitely outweighed by our happy memories that we have been able to make and the joy we have in our lives! 

Here are just a couple of pictures....

All the little cousins getting on one last ride

 Happy Birthday Beckham

 Family pictures in Idaho

Brinley's 1st day of school