Laura Jane

A couple (ha ha ha.... :)) years ago when I was a freshman at UMF I got paired up with Miss Laura Jane Connolly as my roommate in the dorms. We were both special ed majors and became great friends. We were roommates for 3 years, until I left on my mission. After we graduated we went to Europe together for 3 weeks with only our backpacks. It was an amazing trip. Laura is still a teacher and uses her summers to travel. She has visited us in CA twice, Maple Shade, NJ and Hackensack NJ and now AZ. She is one of my closest friends and tons of fun! Laura was already planning a visit to AZ this summer to see another UMF friend, Heidi, and added us to her itinerary. Heidi lives in Buckeye, AZ, about 1 and 1/2 hours away and came to get her today. We had fun catching up. Her son Ethan and Eliana had fun running all over the house :) Thanks for coming to visit Laura! It was tons of fun! Heidi, it was so good to see you again! We are going to crash your pool when we get back from CA. Here are a couple of pics.... :)

Addie (and Julia) and Laura
Heidi and Laura

Family Swim Night at the Pool

The city pool where Eliana has swim lessons has Friday night family swim night. It's pretty fun and only $3 for the whole family. Laura, my old college roomate, was here visiting from Maine and we all went to the pool. It was lots of fun! We love to swim.

Julia hanging out with Daddy on the side of the pool.

Eliana found another best friend. She LOVES Laura and wanted her to play ponies with her 24 hours a day! Here are some fun pics of them in the water.

Swimming Lessons

Eliana just finished her second session of swim lessons. She can now swim well and float on her back with the life jacket. She can almost swim without the jacket. The last 2 weeks of July she has one more session of lessons. She loves it. Her very favorite part is jumping off the diving board. She begged her teacher EVERY day to do it!

Jumping off the Diving Board

How to Beat the Heat!

Yesterday it was 111 degrees! That is the official recorded temp here in Casa Grande from weather.com, not from my car... my car said 115!!! So what did we do? Slip-N-Slide! It was my first time ever and I think Eliana's new favorite thing! When she woke up this morning she said, let's go do the slip-n-slide before church... obviously we didn't, but I think she's going to ask everyday now! So she kinda struggled with actually sliding on her belly... the following pictures are her version of how to do it. You'd think it would hurt her knees but she just kept doing it this way despite Christian and my demonstrations.

This picture is actually after Christian helped her along by super-womaning her.

Yes, even Christian and I slipped and slid!

Sunday Thoughts...

Today we spoke in church. We were assigned the topics of enduring to the end and eternal marriage/family. The Bishop also asked me to tell a little about our family as well. It was a great experience preparing to speak. I chose to talk about enduring and shared some of the trials we've been through in the past year and how it has increased our faith. As I was writing my talk I realized just how much we've been through .... and also how much we have been blessed. I realized how often the Lord showed us His tender mercies. Even though things were really hard, everything turned out for the best. Although it was the hardest part of our lives as a family and for me physically dealing with health issues, it was a period of great growth for me in particular. I really learned to trust in God. He loves us so much, He answers our prayers and He really does know what is best for us. I have learned to let go and give him control... which was really hard for me. I just needed to record my feelings of gratitude for the our Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ! I am so blessed to have a knowledge of the gospel and of our Heavenly Father's plan for us! Even though life can be really, really hard the joy that we receive from our families and living the gospel make it all worth it!

This Week's Forecast

Forecast for Casa Grande, AZ for this week from weather.com

Tue Jun 17
Sunny
111°
Wed Jun 18
Sunny
111°
Thu Jun 19
Sunny
111°
Fri Jun 20
Sunny
109°

How do you like this forecast for the rest of the week?

I went out to do errands around 2:30 this afternoon... I had on flip-flops and the heat radiating up from the pavement felt like it was going to burn my legs and feet! It was so stinking hot! My car said it was 113 degrees , a sign at a bank said 117 degrees but weather.com said it was 109... whatever the real temperature was, it was hot!!! And it's only JUNE! What in the world did we get ourselves into? All I can say is thank goodness for A/C !!!!!!!

Happy Father's Day!

A Tribute to the Best Dad I Know! (and the best looking too!)

I just wanted to take a minute to express my gratitude to the most wonderful, amazing, incredible husband and father ever, the love of my life, Christian! He works so hard for our family and loves our two girls SO much! He treats them (and me) like princesses and always does everything he can to let them know how much he loves them. Eliana absolutely adores her Daddy and has been really enjoying being able to spend more time with him since he started his job with Frito-Lay. He's been doing swimming lessons with her and playing with her as much as he can. Even before Frito, right after I had Julia, he took Eliana to work with him a few times so that I could get some much needed sleep. He is always positive and hopeful no matter how difficult things get. He does everything and anything he can to provide for all of our needs and we all love him very much! Thank You Christian for being more than I could ever have wished for! You are amazing!

Julia

Julia started laughing yesterday and it is the cutest thing ever! She also loves to suck on her hands. She is growing so fast. She is such a sweet baby, we are so blessed!

Gutza....

Eliana is constantly talking about her husband. She talks about what they do together, that he goes to work each day, that he likes this or that... she says his name is Gutza... pronounced Gootza. Where did she get the name? I have NO idea! It's pretty interesting and quite funny to hear her talk about him! She definitely has a great imagination!

Catching Up

I am using my Blog as a family journal and didn't want to miss out on some important memories so I did a bunch of posts to get caught up!!

Swimming Lessons!

Eliana started swimming lessons yesterday (Monday June 2). She is doing the parent-child class first with Christian. She has been SO excited to start. She has been asking us everyday for the last few days if today was swimming lessons. She had a lot of fun and is excited to continue. She will go M-Th for a half hour each day for 3, 2 week sessions. We really hope she is an independent swimmer when she's done!

Julia's Clothes on Eliana.....

Eliana decided to try on some of Julia's clothes... the shorts she has on in the following picture are actually pants that fit Julia right now! I couldn't believe it! She needed my help to take them off because they were so tight! The top she has on is a one piece outfit for 3-6 months! Crazy !!!!

In this picture, Eliana is looking at herself in the mirror, I heard her talking to herself, this is what she said, "Oh, you look beautiful!" (speaking to herself of course! )
The following pictures are of Julia just hanging out yesterday morning.

Dressed and Ready for Church

I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of these two cuties before church on Sunday. Eliana loves to hold her baby sister and it is a special privilege that only happens when I am right beside them.

Memorial Day Weekend

Christian's parents and sister, Katie, came down to visit Memorial Day weekend. Katie lives in Holbrook about 3 hours north of us and we are so excited to be able to see her more often. She is such a good aunt and Eliana and Julia love her so much! Christian's dad helped with all kinds of "manly" jobs around the house. He and Christian mounted the TV and did yard work. Thanks so much for all of your help!! Eliana had fun with Grandpa on our walk to the park. We appreciate all of the support and love Christian's family shows to us!

Julia in Daddy's hands at the park.
Eliana loves her Grandpa!!

Julia with Christian.
Walking home from the park! Eliana took baby Elmo.

The Gissel Girls!

My friend Jenn came to stay with us our first week in Arizona when Christian had to go back to Utah. She brought her two beautiful girls, Carissa and Addison. Carissa and Eliana have been friends since Eliana was 2 months old... well as much as 2 month olds have friends that is. We moved from CA when Eliana was 16 months old and Carissa was almost 2. They get to see each other every time we go to CA and Jenn and the kids came to Utah this past year. They are great friends and play really well together. Jenn helped me so much! She helped me to unpack, to take care of the girls and to help me keep my sanity. It was so good to spend time with her. We haven't gotten to see each other for any extended period of time in a long time! Someday we will be neighbors... right Jenn? Thank you again! You are the VERY BEST!


Playing in the backyard!

Playing at the park

Making cookies... very yummy cookies!


They did a great job making the fork marks!

The day Jenn left it was raining... Eliana went outside and danced in the rain, it was so cute, I had to grab my camera and get a few pictures.