Easter weekend

Happy Easter!

We had a blast at the Easter egg hunt at the Smith's in their orchard. It was a True HUNT!!

Tractor rides!

Yesterday we headed to Scottsdale and as we were walking through Sephora they asked if they could give he girls bunny make up! So cute!!

Then we headed to Scottsdale and the kids got to play in the stream

And we had lunch here:    Amazing!!

We went to Chandlers aquatic center on Friday. Such a great pool!

Gymnastics is wrapping up and the girls are growing SO much! Reese is working on her cartwheel and Kylie is getting her back handspring! So proud!!

He has been sleeping during gymnastics the past 2 weeks  and it is so super duper precious.

Things to do in Phoenix Part 3

16. The Women's Expo in downtown Phoenix. I went on Saturday to cheer on Kaylee who was calling the Dillard's fashion show. Coolest job ever right? Well, she rocked it. The expo had over 500 booths and some inspirational speakers. So it was well worth the drive!

 

 17. Park dates. Our friends and us get together quite often and going to the park is one of our favorite things to do. Saturday we got together and played 2 games of kickball, 2 games of volleyball, 1 game of ultimate Frisbee, 3 games of bocce ball and a game of buck buck (which Conrad and I played in college and it actually dates back to the 1500's:) Its like the best game in the world and you can read about it here.

 18. Gilbert Splash pad. For being such a cool city the spray parks here are pretty darn lame. But its fun to get out and about with the babes.

19. Freestone park. This park is crazy huge and has everything including a train that you can ride, batting cages, tennis, baseball, etc. I didn't get a picture of anyone batting and had to steal this pic from Kaylee so thanks K!!

20. Region 7 Arabian Horse Show. I talked about the National Horse show a while back and that is a much bigger and fancier show. This was still fun to go to and let the girls experience it on a much smaller scale. It was free the whole week and I think on Saturday they had a horse sculpture that kids could paint and they even let them ride a horse. So we will go back again next year. Thanks Karen for the invite!

 The horse they are petting is a National Champion.  (Mossimo)

                                                       Sure do love this city.

Exploring Phoenix continued...

 

11.Vertuccio Farms. In the fall this is a great place to visit. They have this huge bubble that you can bounce on, milk fake cows, ride a cowgirl train, corn maze, petting zoo and pumpkins. We loved this and will go again come fall, y'all!

 

12. Gilbert Parades. I love everything about this picture. I love how American it is. I love small towns and I love this AMAZING country we live in.

13. Midwestern Parties! Midwestern is ALWAYS throwing parties. When we lived on campus we were known to crash a few:) When we smelled the hamburgers cookin' and the bands playin' it was off with the dinner plans and run to the bouncy house! 

14.Riparian Reserve. The reserve has like 7 ponds that they fill up and down and the main pond you can do some urban fishing without a licence (I think you have to be under 12? Not totally sure). We go here and feed the ducks maybe 3 times a month. There is also a small stream that runs into the pond that the kids like to play in when it gets hot. I love this because it brings a little "county" to this big city!

15. Phoenix Zoo. We just got a pass so we are looking for Zoo buddies! This Zoo is amazing for cold, hot or perfect weather. It has a few super fun splash pads and playgrounds that the girls love. I seriously love the monkey area. I could hang out there all day. :)

 

I love this great state of Arizona!



 

Things to do in the Phoenix area

So, we moved here to the East Valley of Phoenix like 10 months ago and have been combing through this place for fun things for us and our family and friends to do. We have managed to find some pretty awesome things to do here in the valley. This is kind of why I would love to live here FOR.EV.ER. Not to mention the peeps are pretty cool too. Seriously. I could write a whole post on the Arizonans and how I want my kids to turn out like them. But I digress...

Sooooo we are in med school at the moment, which means the moola is tight ,so most of these things are free. Score!
1. Scottsdale Trolley. Hands down, boy howdy one of our most favorite things to do. Click HERE for their schedule. We always catch the trolley at the Fashion Square mall in front of Starbucks and we ride it over the waterfront, through the art district and get off in Old town. We like to meander through the streets and grad a bite at The Sugar Bowl. The girls love this restaurants because its all pink!

After lunch we take a short walk towards the civic center and park and always stop at the school house museum. Its a free museum that has an old class room set up, and lots of neat old toys and a kitchen. But my favorite part is getting to the LOVE park where the girls climb and play of all the sculptures while I sit in the grass with Nixon.

After that we just take the short walk back to the nearest trolley pick up and the trolley back to the mall. Usually we call it a day and head back home.

2. Scottsdale Train park. I'm sure you know about this because its like everyones favorite thing to do but I LIKE it but my girls LOVE it. So if you have kids go there. It has a train that takes the kids about the huge park, a carousel and a fun fort plus a great park area. It also has President Roosevelt's Presidential train that you can walk through for a small fee. The park is pretty bomb but I don't love to drive that far for a bomb park. But we will do it on special occasions.

3.ValVista Lakes. Ok so if you were to move here or like I were to move again I would move to this community. But you have to have friends that live here, and like you. Then they will invite you to come to their 7 tennis courts (with one center court), 2 swimming pools (not to mention one of them being a HUGE BEACH pool) right on the lake, wallyball courts and hot tub. This is what we do most Friday nights is play walleyball. And my heart jumps for joy just thinking about how much fun it is.



4.Strollerblade/skateboard/bike on Tempe town lakes. We just get off Rio Salado and park at the library and go across the pedestrian bridge, climb up the stairs with 5 kids 2 strollers wearing Rollerblades to get on the car bridge (where there is a WIDE sidewalk) and go across on Mill ave and around back to the park. Its seriously fun. Like sooo fun.

 

5.Tempe town lake boat rentals. This is on our things to do list. But when we do it I'll go HERE for our info. Hydro bikes, paddle boards I cant think of anything more fun. Right now. Its late though.

6. Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. Last year there was a day that you could go for free after 3 pm. We loved being around the horses and enjoying our friends!

7. Hike Sedona. I suppose Sedona will end up allot on this list because its amazing. It is totally worth the drive and there is SO much to do. So this is just one hike of MANY amazing things to go do. But we went with our Friends Jenny and Skyler to hike Cathedral rock. You pretty much need to be a mountain goat to hike it but it is super rewarding with the views at the top. Although I loved the hike the whole time. We parked out aways from the actual cathedral rock hike so we were able to walk along the river and switch back through the mountain side before we started straight up the actual Cathedral rock mountain.

 

8. Ford Raptor Round up. Conrad is obsessed with this truck and so it was only fitting that we spend a Saturday test driving this bad mamma jamma out. The course was super fun, jumps and all! And I love that they let the kids go! I opted out with Reese so Ky and Conrad tore it up. I love looking for things like this to do!

 

9.Exploring our city: Gilbert. There will be plenty more on Gilbert because its such an amazing city but for now we had to go check out the best breakfast in Gilbert: The Farmhouse. It was bomb and just walking around (boy howdy did we do that because the wait was over an hour!! For breakfast!!) SO it was fun to snap some shots and I would love to take family pictures there because I like the Urban feel.

 

10. Suns game. And go with fun friends that let you sit on the 4th row with them:)



 

This has been fun listing all the fun things to do here and I have SO many more. So here are the first 10 and I'll keep adding to the list!