May happenings

May was filled with end of the school year events. I was lucky enough to be able to go on field trips with both girls. Kindly graduated from Kindergarten and my brother, Jon and his family moved here! Well just for  three months but we are so thrilled to have them here even for a short time! Jon is starting his first rotation of optometry externships and signed up for one close by us. Lucky for us he got the rotation so they are here through August. We LOVE having family here and have been taking advantage of every moment together. One of the best parts is that they have a pool in their apartment complex so we swimming over there at least 4 times a week. It has been so much fun and is making our hot, hot summer much more enjoyable.

Field trips!
Kindly and I went on a field trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum. We had a lot of fun running around and hanging out with her friends.

I also got the privilege of going on Passion's field trip to the Phoenix Science Museum. It was massive and we barely made it through half of it before it was time to go.

This was a really cool exhibit in the technology room. Wherever the kids stood these colorful bead things dropped from the top of the screen and piled on the kids' shadows. I was impressed.

Part of the water exhibit

Our Garden
So we started growing a garden in February (so weird). The pictures below show our little garden in April. By mid-May we were getting lots of zucchini and more tomatoes than we knew what to do with.

That is our zucchini plant, it actually ended up getting twice this size until we had to cut it back to keep it off of the other plants.

These are our cucumber, cantelope and watermelon plants. Unfortunately our melons haven't produced but they have gotten huge and now cover all the rock around them. Our cucumbers have been so fresh and delicious!

End of the Year Events
The kindergartners held a ton of events during the last few weeks of school. This is me in my Mother's Day hat (that Kindly made for me) at the Mother's day make-over and tea party.

Here I'm getting my make-up done. Let's just say I was a pretty good sport! Notice all the glitter floating in the air! It was crazy!

This is Kindly (I almost missed her) in the Young Author's Parade. Her class was dressed as starfish from a book they read but her hat broke halfway through the parade. :(

Passion wore a tiger mask for the parade. You can't see it though because she's getting hugs from Wisdom and Olivia.

The Kindergartners earned a Kindy 500 parade by each class reading 500+ books. Each child got to create their own car. Kindly wanted purple with flowers . . .

These are the hallways of the school . . . all outside. Pretty weird and HOT!

The Pool is up!
We put up the pool early in May. It was getting a lot use until we started hanging out at Jon & Bre's pool all the time. We still swim in it every once in a while.

Jon and Bre are here!
We have absolutely LOVED having family close by again. Hardly a day goes by that we don't go swimming or have dinner together. We are taking full advantage of their company. I think they'll be pretty sick of us when it's time for them to head to Utah in August. It will be a sad day for us, for sure!

We went up to the Phoenix temple with Jon & Bre and my mom the first week they were here. They had just recently put the Angel Moroni on. It is such a beautiful temple . . . I only wish it was opening before next year.

Uncle Jon went on a train ride with all the kids. He's such a fun Uncle!

Jon and Breanne have helped us venture out a little more. I have to say it's way more fun to try new things when we have someone else to do it with. We went to Scottsdale to a railroad park. There are rides and lots of things to do and look at. Below is the train ride which is a smaller replica of the first steam engine.

This is in the train museum. There was an entire museum full of model trains running all around us. It was pretty impressive.

This is the carousel that the kids loved and went on twice! We also took a tour of the Roald Amundsen Pullman Car which was essentially the air force one of trains before there was an air force one. It was pretty cool to walk through a passenger car where 4 different presidents rode in and slept.

Kindergarten Graduation
Kindly graduated from Kindergarten on May 24th! She is officially a 1st grader . . . crazy!!! Here she is with her good friend Kohlton.

Kindly with her friend Madeline.

And Kindly with her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Ocenas. It was really a great year for Kindly. I hope next year will be fun too!