"What did you do all Summer"? :-)

As the summer begins to wind down :-(....boo....I am sure that I will be soon addressed with the question "what did you do all summer"? It will be somewhat of a simple answer :-)...went to a lot of baseball games!! It has been so fun having our favorite Dback and family staying in town!! He had an amazing 1st half of the season which was a lot of fun to watch!! Hopefully the 2nd half of his season begins this next week!! Def could do baseball games every night instead of going back to work :-/

Carli*Codi*Kaelyn*Lauren

Both my girls love it as much as me...every night...Codi watches our game and then quickly checks in on how the Giants did for the night! She is obsessed and I love it :-)

With their favorite Dback!

Hate to see the summer of baseball, yummy food, skinny girl margs, and Addison screaming the entire way home come to an end :=(. xo

The Beach!!!

We spent the last few days over in San Diego to spend some time on the beach with the Dallmanns :-). 2 days of simply relaxing on the beach!! It was a quick trip but lots of fun and many laughs when this group gets together!!

Codi was the only one willing to put sunscreen on Larry's back :-)

Abby * Kayla * Carli

All of the girls :-)

My babies!

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Doh :-)

The kids were either playing paddle ball, vball, or in the water :-)

This one is going through growth spurt :-)

Kayla and Carli buried Abby...at least they gave her boobs :-)

On our way to dinner...Craig and Larry are a little out numbered!!

:-)

The girls with their root 'beers'

Ranch weekend!!

We spent the 4th of July weekend up at the Viterbo Ranch. Our whole family loves to go up there! It is so gorgeous...there is so much to do yet it is so relaxing at the same time!

This is how it went...(just for you D :-)

We drove up there Friday afternoon...everyone quickly gets on a ranger and heads towards some type of fun :0

Carli and Hayley heading toward the Creek!

Vic and Craig relaxing while DeEtte took some pics of baby skunks we found...can you see that precious little face in the back seat? :-) I miss her already!!

The adults headed out on a ride...which turned into a quest to shoot a coyote...Craig is deciding if the Ranger will make it over the tracks...um...no!

Craig got a couple of shots off at those scavengers but they are just too elusive!!

I know my apple friends will appreciate this!...This old MAC was imbedded in the wash of a river bed....weeds growing up threw the backside...absolutely crazy!!

I'd say apple has come a long way :-)

This was taken from one of our first ranch trips several years ago...cute, goofy, sassy little girls!!

Now look at them!! Still cute...definitely still sassy!!...We headed into Prescott Saturday night for some yummy Mexican food and to check out the house they have re-done in downtown....it is so cute...and in a great location!! :=)

We are so lucky to have such great friendships for so long...We were the kids' ages and even younger when we met Vic and DeEtte....I hope our kids are paying attention to how important friends are :-)

Last Club Tournament!!

The last 4 days have been spent at the Phoenix Convention Center downtown for the Festival Volleyball Tournament. This was the first time for me to just be mom/spectator and not coaching--definitely missed coaching but it was also nice for us parents to run over to Marjele's between matches for 'slam dunk shrimp' and a cold beverage!! :-) Their team came into the tournament ranked 16th out of 96 teams....After 3 days of pool play, they made it to the top 16 championship bracket as #16 which meant they had to play the #1 team the first round! Out-sized in every position, our team fought with scrappy defense and ended up winning in 2 very close games. It was so much fun to watch and see the looks on the girls faces when it was over!! The rest of the day had it's ups and downs but the girls worked very hard to stay in the top 8!! By Monday morning, they ended up playing the same team for the 5th our 6th place finish....we didn't win that last match but it certainly didn't take away from what a great weekend they had!!

My 'happy' passer :-)

Playing defense :0--Carli had an amazing defensive weekend...VERY proud of her!

Great Season Epic!!

4th year playing club together :-) ...which means we have special friends in the Dallmann parents too :-)

The 'loyal' siblings :-) When you are a player yourself, it isn't easy to just sit and watch!!

Love that they are just as passionate about vball as I am :-)

Father's Day 2011

We celebrated Father's Day on Sunday pretty much in the same fashion we do most of our holiday gatherings....we all gather...have lots of food...and watch some sporting events on TV :-) About 4/5 years ago I made the mistake of buying Craig a garbage can for father's day (it was a really cool one that he had eyeballed at Costco)...so the joke has been for me to hopefully get him something nicer than a garbage each year! Of course Craig admits that just hanging on to his two angels is a gift enough!! :)

The kids played lots of 2 on 2 vball and cooled of in the pool

playing their 'toothpick' game...it gets violent!

Happy Father's Day Allen..great dad and even better father in law!

Dad decked out in his dback attire :0

He had to borrow Marci's glasses to read his cards :-)

Girls' Trip :-)

Last Friday, we finally arranged for all of us at Centennial to use our 'wine trip groupon'! :-) There are wineries in both Northern and Southern Arizona that people say are worth visiting. Our groupon included a bus ride up to and from the 3 wineries in the Cottonwood area...technically--'Cornville' :-) There were 12 of us from CeHS..such a fun group and a great way to send Konnie officially off into retirement! (who by the way was dancing in the isles on the way home to Robin's fun music playlist!) We had a great time both on the bus and at the wineries!!

Just getting off of our 'limo bus' :-)

Carly and I at the 1st winery

2nd Winery...I didn't get any pictures of the 3rd one...shocker!

Disneyland :-)

For a few years now, Carli and Codi have wanted to go to Disneyland with the Putz twins~~ On Sunday we followed them over to CA for a couple of days. Monday morning, the girls and I got up early and went to the park...we got a few rides in before the Kollen crew showed up at 11:00. We had an absolute blast with them all...Carli and Codi were so excited to ride all of the rides with the younger kids...She took them on Indiana Jones (her favorite) for the their first time...Carli said people were looking at her like she was nuts with 4 younger ones in tow. We rode pretty much everything that you could...many of them twice!

Entering the Park...so glad the girls still love coming!!

Codi*Kaelyn*Kate*Carli

:-)

Codi's Face makes me laugh still!!

Codi with the little ones :0

So much fun...such great memories!!!