Temple Lights

Make a Smilebox free scrapbook design

Brenna's Visit

Make a Smilebox free digital scrapbooking design

Brenna and her family came to Phoenix for Thanksgiving to celebrate her Grandma and Grandpa Johnson leaving to serve a mission. It was great to spend a couple of days with her and glad her family was willing to share her while they were here for a short time! ;) Sunday morning before church, we made a quick stop at the entrance of the neighborhood for some pictures. It was a bit chilly, and the grass was soggy, but we survived. :)

Breast Cancer Walk, Tempe AZ 2009

Make a Smilebox free scrapbook

November 9th ... a beautifyl day for a walk! in October 2007, Our Mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. It's so wonderful that a couple of years later, we can call her a Survivor! Unfortunaly, Mom had recently broken her shoulder and wasn't able to walk with us this year, but she was still with us via cell. Before the walk, I was looking for pink shirts the boys could wear, but had a hard time finding them (no big surprise) I did however, find pink knit caps for a buck at Target. Perfect. Not sure how thrilled Jon was, but it was great! :) Thanks to our friends High School Karen and Carmen who joined Meredith and me this year. Next year, we'll walk again and hope you'll join us too!

Little Visitor

One morning we found this little guy in Ziggy's outside water dish. The miracle here is that I actually grabbed the camera, sucked it up, and picked up this little bugger and let the boys check him out. Of course, someone dropped him and he ran in the house, the good news is that he ran into a tube of butcher paper, so it was easy to remove him. Ugh. I still get chills just thinking about it. LOL

Woody & Buzz take Halloween, 2009

Make a Smilebox digital slideshow

Halloween was fun for all this year. Truly, the first year the boys could really get into things. Both were so excited about their costumes, which was great. last year, we spent Halloween at Seaworld, so we got away with t-shirts for the occasion. Their friend Gabby was going to be Jesse from Toy Story 2 which prompted the boys to want to be Woody and Buzz. I confess I tried to deter them, wondering how i was going to put them together. I got Buzz on sale at the Disney Store and am CRAZY glad I picked it up when I did. I'd never have gotten a good Buzz costume made at home. Woody was way more do-able. I busted out the sewing machine and made the vest and chaps. Helps when you find good fabric. We ended up with two great costumes and really milked them with any and all events we could find. I'd spent too much time and money for these to be worn for 2 hours on one night. LOL The pictures here don't' include Halloween night. (can't seem to find them) It's too bad, because you miss the crazy cool Jesse costume Gabby had and the authentic Woody shirt that my cousin Luann sent that she'd made for her boys a few years back. I'll have to dig a little deeper for them to add soon.

Halloween night was a blast - we had some friends and family over for dinner and then got the kids ready to hit the neighborhood. A great time, although we discovered that not everyone knows the "lights off if you're not home" rule. :) ha..ha...

Copper State Fly-In, Casa Grande

Make a Smilebox free digital scrapbook

More fall fun .... sure the Arizona summers are crazy hot, but fall is the best! Another great day in October, and the boys and I decided to go out ot the Copper State Fly-In over in Casa Grande. Papa & Grandma A drove down to meet us and we spent a fun afternoon checking out various airplanes and helicopters!

Balloon Fiesta, Albuquerqe, NM

October 2009, was fun for the Russell's. We started our adventure heading to New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta. We started on the road headed towards Globe, where we saw an "Estate Sale" sign. If you know us, you know we are Yard Sale Suckas .... but, all I need to do is remind you that we got our complete Wii Rockband set for $15 bucks and you'll recall that when you take time to dig, you find cool stuff. ha..ha... Unfortunately, this particular "estate sale" wasn't quite as fab. We decided to turn back to check it out. Why not, we had plenty of time and we were on vacation. So, wander we did ... as we got further into the area, following signs, we joked that the "estate sale" sign may have been a bit misleading. ha..ha... We finally arrived at the destination. Found a family who was clearing out their recently deceased mother's mobile home and I mean EVERYTHING. (including some things they brought from their own estate). If you were looking for anything vintage (and I use the term loosely) it was there. I was, however, fascinated by the old school ice trays .... the kind you have to crack loose with the handle across the top. :) We left with one thing. A faux animal print wrap/cape. It cost a quarter and I thought hey, Halloween is coming, and this is just funky enough that someone might want to use it. Alas, Halloween came and went. So did the cape.

Off went went, headed towards Eager, AZ. Made a quick pit-stop at the Hon-Da casino and then back on the road. We made it to Eager around lunch time.... and noticed the streets seemed to be blocked off. We opted for the drive-thru somewhere and discovered it was the Homecoming Parade. We jumped back on the road and had to get clever trying to outrun the police who were blocking off all the small streets to the main road... foiled a few times, we finally just made it. While small town Homecoming Parades are great, we just didn't want to lose the hours on the road. We probably had another 4-5 hrs to go.

Smooth sailing the rest of the way ... with a great stop at some picturesque place where people enjoy hiking, etc. Jon can tell you where it was, but he's not here and I've got no earthy idea, so when you get to the photos, the early ones are of this particular unnamed location. LOL. A few more hours on the road another couple of quick stops and eventually, we made out way into Albuquerque and finally to the beautiful Rio Rancho home of friends, the Savages. They were so awesome to offer to have us stay and truly, it made the trip. We'd not seen them since out days in Philly and it was fun to see them and catch up after a couple of years.

Saturday morning we were up early and got the boys dressed in layers ... PJ's, and then long sleeve shirts and pants .... and sweatshirts and coats. It was like 6 degrees .... too cold for the AZ folks. ha.ha.... We got to the park-n-ride place and realized that Campbell didn't have shoes. we debated for a moment on needs (hey, he was wearing socks.) but, Jon quickly drove back to the house to retrieve them while the boys and I got in line for the buses. The lines quickly disappeared and he were waiting .... only to discover that we were now waiting and the bus in front of us was the last. hmmmmm..... Thankfully, they gave us 5 min and luckily, Jon appeared in the nick of time.

Finally, we were on our way. Ian has been talking about the balloons constantly, and the fact that we were taking a school bus to the venue only increased his excitement by a thousand percent. We arrived and were amazed at just how many balloons we saw. Many in the air and many more still on the ground being prepared for lift-off. hundreds. I want to say 500 -700 More than I could have imagined seeing. The event takes a mid-day break and re-opens for the evening lift-off. Unfortunately, the winds were too strong for the evening launch, but the fireworks show didn't disappoint. It was a great day! You can imagine the hundreds of photos that were taken that weekend .... luckily, you only have to suffer through a small portion of them, if you choose. :)

A big thank you to our friends, the Savage's. They were truly on of the very best parts of our adventure. if you've ever wanted to attend the Fiesta, start planning! It's an amazing great time, we will go again, for sure! The 2010 event will be held October 2nd -10th so mark your calendars!!

Make a Smilebox free picture slideshow