First Sleep Over

Yesterday Gavin's friends came over for our first meeting of the "Magic Tree House" book club. They discussed the book "Thanksgiving on Thursday" and did some fun activities about how it might have been to sail on the Mayflower and everyone planted their own corn. After book club Liz and Scotty stayed for a sleep over. Gavin had so much fun. They decided they wanted to put their feet in the hot tub and then thought it would be more fun just to get on in wearing their clothes. They turned out all of the lights and scared each other by playing "Ghost Hunter" and had a party on the blow up mattress watching "Shark Boy and Lava Girl". They stayed up until 1:30am (Liz kept turning on the light and reading them knock knock jokes) and then got up before 7:00am. Some pretty tired kids today!
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 Partying at midnight...

and paying for it the next day.

Halloween and First Lost Tooth

Had such a fun Halloween. The weather was perfect, nothing like a Utah Halloween. We went to a party at Triston and Tanner's house on Saturday and the kids had a great time. They played games and broke a pinata. Gavin took the first swing and cracked it right open! On Sunday all of the kids got together again to go trick-or-treating. People sit out in their driveways with their bowls of candy. No parkas over your costumes here! Everyone loved Gavin's Indiana Jones costume. The most exciting part of the holiday was Gavin losing his first tooth. It fell out just as we arrived for trick-or treating. The tooth fairy brought $5.00. Lots of fun!
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 Tanner and Gavin

Toothless!

Many Days Later With New Son

Wow, it has been a busy week! It's like summer camp around here. We have been shopping at lots of fun little stores including Quinn's favorite, Red Hot Robot. We also found a cool candy store and spent some time at a comic book store. Quinn had to return his bear shirt for a different size we drove out to Paradise Valley where the artist, Sebastien Millon, lives and visited with him for a bit. Quinn showed him his plush Moe he designed. Sebastien thought it was great and encouraged Quinn to take art classes. We have also done lots of swimming. Sunday the boys spent three hours at Kids That Rip during their free skate. They had the whole place to themselves. They did a lot of skating as well as playing in the foam pit.

In the foam pit.

We all drove back to Salt Lake together. Quinn and Gavin were great during the very long drive. Watched lots of movie and listened to music. We stopped at the Sunset Station in Las Vegas for a buffet dinner. We had a great time and are going to miss our new son. 

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Day One With New Son

Quinn arrived today! Gavin has been so excited and is thrilled to finally have him here. We set up Gavin's room with two beds so now it's "the boys" room.

We had lunch at the apartment and then Quinn wanted to check out Brilliant Sky. They both bought "Thinking Putty".

Next it was doughnut and frozen yogurt time followed by a trip to the pool!

Then we went to First Friday. We started at the Phoenix Art Museum and took a trolley to the downtown area where all of the art vendors are. We bought some fun art pieces then headed back and looked through the museum. "The Embrace" a sculpture by Docent Carole James was a favorite piece.

Sno-cones at First Friday

"The Embrace"

Finally, dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Phoenix. What a fun day!!

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I flew on an airplane for the first time all by myself. Then some people that told me they were my new family, kidnapped me and took me to their apartment. But then when they made me a potato I realized everything was going to be OK. Then we went to the toy store and I got some magnetic putty. Then we went swimming and I held Gavin, threw a torpedo and sat in the hot tub even though it was hot outside. Then we went to First Friday and I got a shirt with a polar bear who's head is on fire. The shirt says, "My head is on fire and I kind of like it". Then we went to the art museum and saw lots of funky sculptures and the star room that had many lights dangling from everywhere. I love Arizona. and my new family is not too bad either.

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I am really excited for Quinn to be here. I am having fun with Quinn and I ate spaghetti last night. 

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Skateboard Camp

Gavin spent the last four days in skateboard camp. He went from 9am to 2pm each day. It was a lot of hard work but he said it was lots of fun. I was amazed at how much he had improved by the last day. Today they gave awards to the campers. They announced on the first day of camp they would be giving one special award to the camper that had the best attitude. That meant always being nice everyone, being polite, listening to the teachers, always participating and doing their best. Whoever got this award would receive a new skateboard deck. And guess who was given "Best Attitude"...GAVIN! It was very cool. He was super excited.

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Gavin holding his new deck.

Gavin with his teachers, Matt and Nicole. 

I LOVED skateboard camp. I didn't even think I was going to get an award. But, I got the best award and it was a skateboard!

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More Arizona Fun

Today we had family fun at the park. We rented a paddle boat and rode around the lake. Then we had push up pops and did a little urban fishing. Didn't catch anything but the park was beautiful. Lovely day.
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It was fun and fun and mostly funnest. I felt like I got burnt when we rode in the boats. When we were paddling it was hard without my dad helping because the pedals got stuck. After that we went fishing and it was really, really fun.
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It was a great day, a beautiful environment, and fun with family.  I think that next time we need to do it at a better time of year.  It was the last day before they closed it because of the heat.  We need to do it again when it cools down and we can relax a bit more.
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Arizona Fun

We are loving Arizona. The weather is great and there are so many fun things to do. This morning we drove to Mesa and walked around the downtown area. We saw some of the sculptures including the 25 foot high "God Bless America" modeled after the painting "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. It is on loan until July and then will continue to travel around the country.

We also checked out an art gallery called the Sundust Gallery. It showcases local artists. I bought a beautiful necklace crafted by a local artist.

We also took some pictures with the sculptures outside of the Natural History Museum. Then we found Kyle's grandmother's old home. Kyle really enjoyed seeing where he spent a good part of his childhood again. After that we had lunch at YC's Mongolian Barbecue and played at the park.

It was a very fun family day!!
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