Splash Park

We've been living in Albuquerque for 3 1/2 years and it still amazes me when I find new things to do with the kids. A friend of mine told me about this fun splash park and so we checked it out. Although splash parks in other places (i.e Vegas, Denver, Salt Lake) are free, ours are not. But it was only $1 for each of us, so an activity that only cost $4 was very worth it! The kids had a blast and couldn't stop running around. The cool thing to do apparently is bring a plastic cup, fill it up and throw it at people. The kids thought that was so great. Even Lexie got in on the action! We'll definitely be going here more, I just wish we had found it sooner in the summer! 

Our boy turns 6

Since Blake's birthday landed on a Sunday, we celebrated all weekend long. On Saturday we let him choose what we did. We started the day off with Lowe's Build and Grow, later went to Blake's favorite pool, ate dinner at Red Robin and went and got shakes from Chick fil a. It was a great day! Sunday he woke up and opened presents and then we had Joe's brother's family over for dinner and cake. It was a great weekend celebrating Blake! 

 The majority of his presents were legos. This didn't just make Blake happy, but Joe as well!

 He was so excited about his chocolate cake.

Lexie loved it too!

Joe and I were reminiscing about Blake and his birth. It's hard to believe that there was once a time when he wasn't party of mine (or our) lives. And as hard as Blake was as a toddler, he's grown into a very nice, loving boy. We sure do love our little boy and can't wait to see what amazing things he does in his life.

Monsoon Season

For a couple weeks in the summer, we are lucky enough to get drenched by the monsoon storms. Each year is different and we really never know what to expect. This year has been no exception. Nearly every night we've had a downpour. Now in years past this downpour would only last for a few minutes but maybe up to 30 minutes. Not so this year, our storms are lasting at least an hour up to all night. These storms aren't just sprinkles but torrential down pouring of rain. The funny thing about them is that during the whole day you'd never know one was coming, blue sunny skies are out, but about half an hour before it starts the clouds come on fast and the thunder and lightening follows. Our plants and grass are going crazy with all the extra water and humidity.
The only complaint that Joe and I are having about these storms is that it has messed up our nightly run pretty much every single night. We get our hopes up to go out and the storm comes through and dashes it. On Monday, we decided to run between storms and got drenched from all the humidity! We're not complaining, our land needs this water very badly.

Celebrating the 4th

We usually celebrate the 4th with a big barbecue at our house since our house backs right up to where they set the fireworks off. This year, I decided to go low key and just do it as a family. It started raining pretty hard once it got dark so we weren't sure if the fireworks would be able to go off. Joe and Blake had fun with the sparklers while I played around with the setting of my camera. 

 Joe had a great time with this feature on the camera. We got a ton of these cool pictures!

 The kids and I watching our own little fireworks before the big show.

 We love that we have the best view in town to watch the fireworks from the comfort of our backyard, it's awesome!

 This is how Joe and the kids watched the firework show. It was raining pretty good when they started but luckily it stopped raining midway through.

Love the fireworks!