Hall of Flame

My mom had bought tickets off Groupon 9 months ago for the Hall of Flame in Phoenix. They expire next month so we decided to go yesterday. It is right behind the phoenix zoo. It had a lot of old firefighting memorabilia. It was kind of cool to see but the man running it was very grumpy. He kept yelling at kids not to touch the chains. Sorry I still haven't figured out how to turn pictures through blogger. So forgive me for the sideways ones.

This is the only firetruck we were allowed to touch and play on.

Here is all of us posing in our firefighting gear for the picture.

The "big kids" testing it out

We dressed up the babies for pictures but then realized the hats were on backwards.




The kids area



And of course my kid

Newest member of our family

This is Mera. She used to be Brandon and Katie's but they could not give her the attention she needed with twins around, so we offered to take her. She is very smart and playful and a very good dog. We are happy to have her as part of our family.

Our new house

I am on a roll! Here are some pictures of the outside of our new house. We love it and are happy to be in a place of our own.

Update - Part 2

So 2 weeks after getting home from Baltimore, our family had a small reunion at the ranch. It was supposed to be my Dad's family but none of them could go so it ended up being just my immediate family. We had a blast! Here is a good picture of it.



I think the best part for most of us was spending time with the babies. They are just so loveable, and fun, and happy.



Of course we had to do some sightseeing and swim in the freezing cold ponds.


It's a tradition for the boys to sink the boat in the pond then pull it out and do it again. I don't know why it is so fun but it is.

Here's the ice cave

and some big lava tube


And here is my Great-Grandparents


And Great-Great-Grandparents

The last night there Mattie and Katie got really sick and over the next couple days it got passed to everybody else. I got it on the drive home and Ryan the next day. Unfortunately on the day we got home we were signing papers on our house. Ryan called and told them I was sick but we still wanted to sign, we just wanted to hurry it up. They all said that was the fastest signing they had ever been to. I managed to hold out the whole time we were there, but then lost it the whole ride home. Poor Ryan was going so fast trying to get me home. But we have a house! I can't believe I don't have a picture of it so I can put on here, I'll have to get one soon. We are doing some work on it slowly as we get the money, so I'll start posting some before and after pictures also.

Ryan's birthday was on July 30th. He got laminate flooring for his birthday. We put aside a Saturday and put it down in our living room and down the hallway. My Dad, Brandon, and Ryan's brother-in-law Blaine helped him lay it down. Some parts were pretty complicated, we're lucky my Dad was able to help.

This is pulling up the carpet with help from Colten. Sorry my camera is dirty.


And this is laying the wood.

Update again - Part 1

So I'm going to try to sum up everything that has happened over the last few months. It's been a great time for us so many good things!
-So first of all Zack and I flew back to Baltimore to drive home to Arizona with Brandon and Katie. It was a five day trip but we were all ready to be home after the first day. Here's the twins one of the times when I rode between them to keep them happy.

The first day we stopped in Marietta OH where my uncle Clyde and his family lives. We stayed for 2 nights so we got to do some sightseeing.

This is mound cemetery. That is just a huge mound of dirt in the middle built by some ancient Indian tribe. Katie had watched a scary movie about a mound a couple nights before so she was kind of freaked out about it, but we hiked to the top just to be brave.

This was a huge Catholic church in the middle of town. Katie and I took Noah and went to get some pictures for her mom. Inside it echoed and we couldn't keep Noah quiet once he figured it out. He thought he was pretty funny.

The town was built back in the civil war days and a lot of the houses are that old. All of the newer houses are made to match the older ones. These are some of the gorgeous houses.
Notice the curved wall on the left, even the windows are curved.

We spent the next night in St. Louis, here is the arch. We didn't do much there besides buy fireworks.

The next night was spent in Ponca City (?) OK with Alex and Emmee Avans and their family. We had a lot of fun catching up, playing Wii, and lighting off fireworks. Sorry I don't have any pictures of our stay there. Miss you guys!!

Our last stop was some little town in New Mexico. We didn't even really leave the Motel room.
The next day we were home! The babies did better than we thought, they slept most of the way. So all went pretty well except for the fact that we had at least 2 diaper blowouts every day so about half way through the day the babies always rode in just a diaper. We got home on July 4th and went to a party at our Grandma's where we got to show off our cool illegal fireworks. It was a long drive but I'm glad that Zack and I were able to help out because I don't know how they would have done it without us.